Is all advice scam?

November 30, 2021

What do you do when you’re in a fix? When you’re stuck in a mess or in an unproductivity limbo or going through a gush of emotions or frustrated by your situation or struggling to arrive at a decision? Do you meditate over your problems till you find enlightenment? More often than not, after a certain level of self-introspection and continued dilemma, we turn to some outside perspective for an objective picture and hopefully the best suited solution. We might approach the people around us who we trust, or just seek refuge on the internet, in hope of the best solution from an expert advisor or from someone who has overcome similar challenges. Well, let me burst the bubble right at the outset, most of the advice that you’ll get in your life is nonsense.

Generic gibberish

The first source of external advice that we turn to are our friends, family or anyone we trust, and believe they have our best interest in mind. Some trusted elder like parents, who might have a more experienced take on your situation. Or your sibling who you trust and can be vulnerable with about your predicament. Or some office friend who possibly faced similar challenges in the past. Who you approach can be divided in two categories of people based on your assumptions – (i) they know you well and won’t judge you and your muddled situation (ii) they know better than you about the situation and hence will be a better judge of the right way. The first category being the more emotionally driven and the second being more logical, it is understandable of us to approach people who we are comfortable with, even if they don’t completely understand the technical details of our problem. The second option however is very much based on our assumption that the other person is somehow more qualified than us to make a better decision for a problem particular to us.

The advice that you receive can vary greatly depending on which category of the two you approach. Furthermore, the advice that the other provides you is going to be coloured by two assumptions – (i) how the person sees you and your situation (ii) their own life experiences. Two different peers at work would give you different advice depending on their view of these two assumption categories. A senior might have more experience and ideas, but their solution can’t be a guaranteed success for you just because it worked for them. This essentially brings it down to the fact that each ‘advisor’ will give you advice from their personal version of reality. And since the experiences informing one’s realities are unique to each person, one set of advice which worked at a point in time in one person’s life might not work for you at this point in time at all. Different people hold different perspectives about the same thing — a thing acceptable to them as a solution might not fit within your value system. Out of desperation you might try out the suggested path, only to find yourself deeper in the mud, or living by something you can’t imagine being sustainable in the long term. We often fall in the trap of ‘the more the merrier’ and believe that the more varied perspectives we have, the more informed we would be, making us better equipped to make the best decision. Contrary to this, we in fact run into a ‘paradox of choice’ where the more options we are presented with, the more difficult it gets for our brains to zero down on one alternative — like how you have countless movies at your disposal on Netflix and somehow you still take half an hour to decide which one to watch. A psychological study was conducted in a food mart where one set of people on day 1 was provided with 24 varieties of jam and another set on day 2 with only 6 varieties. One would think 24 varieties of jam would have helped customers decide the perfect flavor. The results of the study however showed that people who had more choice were one-tenth as likely to buy the jam as people with less choice.

The idea of approaching someone else for advice or helping us make a decision is also rooted somewhat in our belief that the other person knows better. Honestly, my experiences suggest that people generally don’t know much stuff. No one knows anything. Everyone is winging it along too, based on their own previous experiences, learning on the way, and taking advice from some different set of people. For example, as kids we think our parents know everything, but as you become an adult yourself you realize raising kids was a new experience for them too. They probably didn’t know better and tried to do the best they could. Everyone is just trying to do their best and make the most out of a situation. So, seeking solutions for your unique problem in some general advice might not be the best idea. No two people and their realities are alike, so we can’t expect generic advice from a bunch of people to act as a panacea to our problems. As Carl Jung said, every individual is an exception to the rule.

Conversation > Advice

Well, standard advice is nonsense. But that doesn’t mean we should stop asking for help and suppress our worries. It is in fact healthy to seek help for viewing your issues objectively. In contrast to seeking advice from people who in your head are a level above you, the perspective from having a levelled discussion about your conundrum with another person can be way more insightful and valuable. If you’re the one seeking solutions, you could have a conversation about your situation with either category – the trusted or the experienced. Conversation with ‘the trusted’ can be easier than that with ‘the experienced’; in the latter, both parties need to make sure they get rid of their internalized and assumed roles of the ‘great expert advisor’ and the ‘poor directionless soul’. A healthy back and forth about the problem will act as your ‘thinking out loud’ process where you can bounce ideas off of each other and comprehend the picture a little better, beginning to see the way to a solution. If you are the one giving advice, always keep in mind that people that come to you ‘seeking advice’ aren’t necessarily reaching out to know your final verdict. You might feel the need to act as savior and provide a solution in return of the trust the other has shown by approaching you. This ‘pressure’ can lead you to make the situation all about yourself while you give opinions based on your personal experiences. As an effective ‘advisor’, try providing a space to the other person where they can drive a conversation and over the course of discussion reach a better position to decide what they want for themselves. Counselors or Therapists, who one might think are the epitome of this category of work, don’t really give out advice — they listen and guide the other to their own solution. As Amit Varma also says, listening is the most important part of a conversation.

There are tonnes of ‘productivity gurus’ and ‘life coaches’ on the internet who will tell you hacks and provide advice to you for every imaginable problem. Not to say that everything they suggest is baloney. There are some scientifically backed tricks and techniques that you could use as tools to make your life better. And you can always learn from others’ experiences. But we also need to remember that their advice, like all advice, comes from the perspective of the person giving the prescription. Like merely imitating the routine of another successful person won’t make you successful, copy pasting someone else’s advice to your own life won’t make much of a difference. But taking the suggestions from a discussion you had with a friend or the perspective you gained by even professional help where you aren’t just emulating but acknowledging the uniqueness of your problem and its solution could be way more useful. This short podcast episode discusses how you can effectively “advise” people who trust and approach you.

Advice is usually scam, but it need not be.

Well, what do I know. That’s just my opinion. *wink wink*

Do you remember that September

October 16, 2021

The dense fog is keeping me devoid of any view from my window since morning. 2 hours since I woke up and the fog has only intensified. Such weather triggers something inside of me. Slows me down but makes my thoughts race.

I have been pondering over getting older and death quite a lot lately. Since my birthday precisely, which was a month ago. Not because I am scared of death or anything. Death is naturally a fascinating topic but let’s preserve that discussion for some other day. My string of thoughts started with — am I living the life I had expected myself to live when I envisioned it, say, 10 years ago? Of course I am not, anyone rarely does, and that isn’t even the point of contention. But as I looked back to analyze the expectations of my past self from my future, I realized I can gather only faint memories as flashbacks. As intense as my life felt to me when I was in high school, I don’t even remember the day-to-day details of that part of my life accurately. I have some reference of how my daily life was like from my journals from that era, but I don’t remember exactly all the time that I spent in school, all the conversations, the birthday parties I went to, all the memories we made that seemed so important in that moment but I probably don’t remember even half of them.

What is the earliest memory of your life that you recall well today? My earliest memory probably is the time I was looking out from the window while my grandparents sat on the bed in their blankets as I looked at the sarus cranes flying from one buffalo to another. And I stood on my bed, looking at the grazing buffalos with the cranes sitting on top of them. I must have been 3 or 4, I am not exactly sure. I could in fact be younger. A study suggests that people’s early memories might be misdated. People tend to think they were older than they actually were in their earliest memories. The same study also points out that the earliest memories that people are able to recall is from when they were 2.5 years old. I am not even sure what I was up to when I was 2.5 years old. But there is a high chance that this buffalo-crane memory of mine might be from that time of my life without me realizing it.

Source: https://smallscience.hbcse.tifr.res.in/the-cattle-egret/

What is even more fascinating is that this memory might not be even 100% true. In my case I probably saw the said buffalos and cranes because I asked my parents if such a thing could have happened and they confirmed that it did indeed happen. The local peasants were invited to bring their cattle to graze off the grass growing near our houses. But the picture that I have in my mind’s eye — me standing on pillows, looking outside the window while my grandparents called me out to come back or else I might fall from the pile of pillows – see I might have created this image RIGHT NOW while typing it out. Every time you recall or describe a memory, you mind distorts it a bit. As we revisit any memory, there is some level of added noise to it. When we recall/describe a memory for the first time, our brain takes some time to solidify that information. But each time we revisit that memory, it undergoes new process of solidification every time, and during that time your new experiences and latest information in your brain can distort this old memory of yours. For all you know, the dearest memory you have, or the memory that traumatizes you, might not be even real.

The days that I am living now, the world we live in, the social changes that are happening around us, the evolution I am experiencing in the understanding of my own reality, it holds great importance for me right now of course, because I am living and growing through it. But it is unsettling for me to think that 10 years down the line, I might not even remember these days. As if some part of me will be lost without me knowing that it’s happening. Me cooking a nice meal for me and eating it in the kitchen while looking out from the window, conversations with such different and new people, the tastes I got to experience from my first ‘international food festival’, the big sister lectures I gave to my brother, the zeitgeist of the world living through a pandemic with a dozen other parallel issues intensifying the struggle – I don’t want to forget all these things. Sure, we are more likely to remember the big, significant things, good or bad, which become the solid memories that stay with us for long. But who’s to say my mind won’t paint a distorted picture of what really happened? I want to remember these days exactly the way they happened.

This also brings me to another side of this coin. The times when we are struggling, when we feel lazy and unproductive, when we feel universe’s forces are against us – chances are you won’t even remember this “important struggling” part of your life. These boulders that are impeding your way and making your life seemingly miserable won’t even matter in the long run, and one day you would probably be telling a distorted version of this memory as a 5-minute anecdote to your friends over dinner.

“Eventually terrible memories turn into great ones“

Good or bad, some memories ARE worth remembering. As we inch closer to death each year (what a killjoy amirite), how do we make sure that we preserve these days of our lives that are shaping us to become the people that we will be in the next years, in case we want to look back at this time? Easiest trick in the book is, start journaling! Journaling is a double-benefit. You probably choose to write about something because you feel it is worth capturing. But while writing it out, you will be able to dive into the details properly and get a better understanding of what to make out of the experience. While penning down your thoughts it is likely that you not only write about the incident but also will record how you felt while experiencing it, and years later you get to relive that time of your life in the precise way you did the first time. Or if you don’t remember it at all, you still have an insight into the mind of your younger self, which is a new and cooler experience! You could even do photographic journaling – just clicking photos from your daily life, the places worth remembering, the people you loved talking to. Digital photos today sometimes lose meaning as we tend to constantly click pictures of anything and everything and it is unlikely that you would enjoy going through each and every of the 30 selfies you took of that one outfit. To make it more selective, a better option could then be forming a physical photo album as a journal. Another way could be just making videos, where you also get to see yourself live in action living that moment. You could do video journaling too (something like vlogging if I may say so) where instead of writing you could talk about an experience to your future self while living it or even afterwards as a gist. How about writing letters to your future self, once every month? Remember to save it on a common cloud; losing bunch of your memories to a dead computer will be shattering to say the least. Or hey, you’ll now have a new and rather unforgettable memory of the time you lost all your memories to a computer.

Let me tell you one memory that I will undoubtedly remember always — struggling with the conclusion each time I wrote an article.

Not the end but a new beginning

October 4, 2021

The promise of a new day. The excitement of a new apartment. The nervousness of meeting a new person. Learning a new language. The first day of an activity you took up as a challenge. First day at work. The master thesis waiting to be initiated for half a year. The sight of a blank sheet waiting to be written on. Waiting for the sun to rise when you work up early. Beginnings are thrilling. And intimidating.

“You already showed up and are on your mat, so the hardest part is over…”

Adriene Mishler often utters such lines while getting ready to begin the guided Yoga at home video on her highly popular YouTube channel ‘Yoga with Adriene’. In the early days of my attempt to make Yoga a regular practice I wondered why she said this so frequently. I felt if she said it even one more time, she would kick reverse psychology in motion only to dwindle her own audience numbers. Till I struck the day I did find it hard to motivate myself to get on the mat. At first, I was furious at Adriene to sow this seed of impending demotivation in me only to slowly realize it was impending anyway and she on the contrary was attempting to motivate her audience instead of driving them away. Some say endings are the hardest part of the journey. I would say the trickiest part is the beginning.

As exciting as new things are in thought, in practice they can get equally intimidating. Because you are in an unfamiliar territory, your confidence is out of the window. You have never done this new thing before so you have no close precedents to guide you through. The initial stage involves a lot of effort of just trying to stay afloat and not get drowned in all the new information. Then there is the insecurity triggered if there are other people in the same boat (many unintended sailing metaphors) who are also technically out of their comfort zone but somehow seem to perform better than you? How are they immediately good at this? Why am I taking so much time? What if I never reach the end line? Where did my motivation go? Was this a bad idea? I should have stuck to my forte, what am I doing here?

The initial excitement quickly fades out to turn into a discomfort of being helpless which might convert into either frustration or escapism. You find yourself struggling to attend to this new project about which only weeks ago you were supremely thrilled but are now agitated seeing the end goal so far away with insufficient pace of progress. Frustration will lead you into convincing yourself that it was probably a bad idea or maybe it is not as fun or useful as you thought it would be. Your uncertain brain starts running cost-benefit analyses so as to judge if continuing with this activity will have any significant change in your life. Frustration might also deteriorate your performance because of lack of commitment, which will drive the abandonment cycle even faster. The other option of escapism is even worse. You avoid confronting the situation and end up procrastinating it to a stage where you might reach levels of damage through which recovery and timely completion might be almost impossible. Starting with new things is easy and fun, keeping at it is hard and demands commitment. I once read somewhere that majority of new podcasts never even make it to their second episode.

In cases where you don’t really have a choice and need to finish it anyhow, both these conditions are constantly and simultaneously at play making it even more stressful as most probably there also is a clock ticking on you. Peers and professors used to passingly say how tricky writing a master thesis is. And I always used to wonder why everyone was hyping it so much, I mean how hard could researching and writing about a topic of your passion be? Once you finalize the topic and the expected outcome you just need to follow the steps and voila! Six months in and I am eager for that dreamy day when I successfully defend my thesis. Narrowing a topic in itself is months long process. Finding your research objective, sub-objectives, figuring out the framework, deciding the methodology, preparing a proposal, getting it approved; these are just the preliminary stages of starting real work. And by the time you reach the stage of initiating the work, you are fairly familiar with what you want to achieve but don’t know where to start from or how to overcome spontaneous obstacles or how to keep yourself motivated to continue the research with vigour. When you initiate any new project, you are somewhat committed to the process and don’t want to give up easily despite the enthusiasm wearing off, so you try looking for help and begin seeking shortcuts and solutions outside the process. This search of course doesn’t lead to any resolution and you end up even more demotivated than before, because for your brain this shortcut-seeking outcome-less effort still counted as ‘effort’. You would also probably be going through the Dunning Kruger Effect which will of course add to misjudgment of the whole situation.

One can only grow in life by trying out new things. But new projects can be unnerving. Writing a seemingly simplistic blogpost as this one is also a test of dedication. Staring at the blank screen while your brain is teeming with ideas but somehow still unable to translate those thoughts into words is irksome at first. But as soon as you cross that one-page barrier, your typing gets continuous with your ideas flowing smoother with each line.

Only recently did I finally acknowledge that I was desperately looking for solutions to problems unique to me and only I can solve my issues by putting in the work required. Others can provide suggestions and feedback, but no one else can do what I am supposed to do for my own growth. We need to go through the journey sincerely to reach the destination. The excitement, nervousness, dissonance, self-doubt — all will come and go because they are part of the process, but you need to keep moving forward despite these impedances. What you’re seeking in the world is already within you, trust the process; clichés right? Well, stereotypes are called so because they are true. All you need to forge ahead is to show up consistently and keep at it till the process becomes a habit and you ultimately reach enough confidence to begin getting a sight of the finish line which keeps you motivated to push through.

If there is something you always think of doing but can’t get past the initial hesitation and doubts, just jump into it and you’ll get there. Don’t get flustered if you don’t succeed at it instantly (because most probably you won’t); acknowledge it as a part of your journey. If you are in the initial stages of something new and feel out of place – before you decide to quit, just show up everyday and give yourself time to fully absorb the new surroundings, you’ll get there. If you’re on the threshold of starting a big project (like my master thesis!) stop procrastinating on the pretext of looking for expert opinions or shortcuts because only you can put in the necessary effort for a project unique to you. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ask for any help, or once you start with something you are bound to finish it at all costs. At some stage if you decide that the process isn’t worth your time anymore or isn’t as rewarding as you wanted it to be, you can sign it away. But it is only fair to give yourself ample chance and make this analysis in an objective state of mind only after you are out of the self-doubt and despair phase. Most importantly, never ever waste your time worrying over others judging your underconfident self, because in all likelihood they would be experiencing similar struggles in some or the other walks of their life.

In a world of random iterations, one of the few ways to create order out of chaos is to do consistent work. It will be challenging, but what would achievement mean without any obstacles to conquer?

You’ll get there.

Best job interviews are existential

July 22, 2021

A job interview can be called a success when either you are selected, or it left you rethinking your life.

What are the first words that come to your mind when I say ‘job interviews’? To me, they are ‘uncertainty personified’.

You need to convince the other person(s) – who has been designated to decide the validity of all your past decisions that led you here as well as your future life path – why they would regret not hiring you, that too without having any appreciable idea about how you’re being perceived as a person in the process, minimizing the scope of any real-time modifications. You’re essentially selling the brand called you. Talk about uncertainty! It’s quite an existential concept really, if you think about it. I recently gave an interview for an internship position to the CEO of a start-up I had applied to. Being a start-up, the interview as I had expected seemed to be quite an informal chat about me, my life events, projects and some case examples, in order to judge if I as a person was a fit for their company and its culture. I increasingly became comfortable talking and everything seemed quite pleasant, until the interviewer asked the question- “So, what do you do when you’re not studying?”

Are you ready?

A job interview, no matter how casual the tone and the chat, remains an intimidating process. You don’t know for sure which direction the interview would actually go in. Having said that, preparation still helps. One can look up generally expected questions and prepare answers accordingly; if nothing else it just boosts your confidence of handling related questions on the D-Day. I also kind of prepared for the interview – trying to develop questions from the company’s perspective and imagining what I as a CEO would be interested in knowing if I wanted to hire someone, especially when it is a venture that I built on my own and am trying to establish. I looked at a couple of blogs and YouTube videos for some tips and tricks. I also watched some start-up CEO interviews to get into the start-up state of mind. As I myself experienced during the actual interview, even though you’re not going to get all the same questions you studied about, there are some typical questions that you are highly likely to encounter, like “Tell me a bit about yourself”, and as trite as it sounds “Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?”, and if you fumble answering these, it doesn’t leave a very good impression considering that such set of questions has been leaked by the recruiters themselves decades ago. A little bit of prep goes a long way. Luckily, I too had composed my thoughts around these main topics so I was able to formulate my answers unflustered, until that one question struck me like lightning.

Tick Tock

Here’s the thing. There are so many topics that you are continuously talking about during the process as you jump from one question to the other, setting the right context for each new question is pretty much guess work. And even if it might seem logically correct to put the onus of setting that context on the interviewer, that’s not how things pan out in real life. You either ask the interviewer if you understood the question correctly and try to lay a common ground for the answer expectations, or just join the dots from your previous discussions and try to set the context yourself. Now that I think of it, I probably believed subconsciously that continuously asking for clarity for each question might be counter-productive in the bigger picture, so I relied on the latter method. Now, I’m not sure which one was more counter-productive after all.

When I lay out the question as it is, it doesn’t look like that much of a big deal, but the seemingly amiable question of what else I do when I’m not performing the obvious task of studying triggered something unexpected inside me. As the question hit my ears, I paused for 3 seconds and then started enunciating my answer. I have already started saying stuff, but after the question hit my ear drum and travelled to my brain to get processed, I can now feel the question slowly piercing into my conscious. And mind you this all is happening while I am already blabbering my answer. Parallelly I start questioning if I started my answer too soon. I mean, 3 seconds of pause already seemed a lot so I had to blurt out some words, but because of that I wasn’t able to fully set the context. I can’t ask for context now after 10 seconds of my answer, that will be sheer stupidity, so now I’ve got to assume the context on the fly. Okay now I’m thinking about the previous questions which were about my work and other projects, so I think it is safe to assume that he wants to know about what other ‘productive’ and ‘relevant to the position’ activities I’m engaged in, right? But that’s not ALL I do when I’m not studying! Does he want to know in general what other stuff I’m interested in? If that’s the case, which out of those activities are relevant to the situation? I subsequently decided to stick to the conventionally productive stuff, and leave the ‘hobbies’ for the end.

Words are still flowing out of my mouth but now the question has traversed to my soul – what DO I do in my life? What am I actually doing with my life? At this point I feel I’m running out of stuff to say, so I just ended the paragraph with one sentence of mentioning that there are other hobbies as well that I pursue, but I was still unsure if that was of any interest to him, so I just stopped. He replied with a ‘Cool, that’s great’ and moved on to the next question, but the question had already travelled too deep inside of me for me to move on so easily. We continued hopping from question to question, but I couldn’t completely recover from the scar that the piercing had left. However, I tried maintaining my composure as best as I could and the rest of the interview went quite smooth as well. I kept pondering over the question for the next couple of days, and here I am rambling another 1500 words about it.

Gauging an interview’s success

As we’ve already established, with an interview you just never know what to make of it, let alone scrutinize the process. It is hard to make out if the interview was good, but to narrow it down to tangible and quantifiable outcomes we can have two types of positive outcome pathways – result-based and experience-based. You know an interview was good when either i) you got selected for the job (kind of obvious) or ii) the conversation left you rethinking your life. Hear me out.

My personal sample size of job interviews is not even large enough for me to pass generalized statements, but I am also taking assistance from the information available from others’ experiences via offline as well as online forums. I would like to believe that a job interview is not designed to belittle you personally or professionally, bore you in the process that you start questioning your decision of applying to the place, make you constantly anxious by asking widely random and seemingly irrelevant questions (whatever is the sophisticated psychological reason behind interviewers asking the candidates to perform a song is indiscernible to me) or be intimidating or condescending. It’s in both parties’ benefit to assume that both sides are intelligent beings interested in bringing their best to the table for playing a positive-sum game of growth for the individuals and of course the company. Assuming that you are fortunate enough to not have experienced any of the said misadventures, and your interview was generally a pleasant experience, in spite of the high level of uncertainty of outcome, it is nevertheless worthwhile taking a moment to revisit the process.

Coming back to my own recent meeting, in reference to the first result-based evaluation method, of course I can’t predict the outcome with certainty. Not only do I have no clue about how the interviewer perceived me, I have incomplete information to even make a guess – I have no idea about the other candidates and their qualifications, time needed by recruiters to make the decision, the company’s internal constraints and biases. This kind of evaluation is not in our scope and hence doesn’t leave room for any significant ‘rethinking’ apart from the anxiety in anticipation of the verdict. The higher value lies in the second experience-based evaluation, which very much lies in our scope. That is why when I said I continued thinking for days about the process, especially that one question of what I did apart from studying, it meant that I was forced to revaluate the way I was spending my time. How much time do I have in the day for what kind of activities? Was I utilizing my time judiciously? Am I making sure that I engage in activities that I value or that create additional value – even if they are seemingly “trivial” tasks like watching anime or talking to my friends? Am I content with the activities I’m involved in currently or do I aspire to do more? Or is there too much on plate and I’m not able to assimilate much?  

A process, that gets as uncertain as anything can really get, provides an opportunity to become more certain of yourself as a person? I see this as an absolute win.    

I still haven’t heard back from the company, but honestly, I’m just glad that I gave the interview. I’m glad that it made me question myself, because that is what all interviews should do – make you confident about your achievements as well as encourage you to revaluate yourself. Two (or more) qualified unknown individuals conversing about topics they are both interested in should form an excitingly consequential conversation. Time will tell if the result-based evaluation will rule in my favour, but as far as experience-based evaluation goes, the interview was hella existential, and that’s what already makes it a success.    

Don’t watch Bukowski interviews

July 6, 2021

You some times start believing that you’ve made it. But then you read a book and it sends you into a spiral. You think you have a philosophy for your life and you live by it. That is what you tell your little siblings and other people who look up to you, if there are any that is. Then you listen to an interview. Or that random influencer on Instagram who just rambled about her day and her plans for the upcoming days. You thank god for better things in your life. You’re glad you don’t get your life’s juice from decorating your house and partying with random people. At this moral high ground, you wonder how people find meaning in such things. Then you declare, good for them. Didn’t you resonate with similar thoughts at some point in your life? Were these not your dreams as well? They are not anymore. What are your dreams now, then? Well, it’s hard to dream of stuff when you are convinced that life is meaningless and whatever you do is of no consequence. But the people who you are hearing this from — the guy in the book you’re reading or the man in the interview who lead you into that spiral — who built his entire career around developing the idea that life doesn’t have any inherent meaning and nothing is of consequence — were they themselves not people of consequence? Of significance? They might be just living their life and propagating what they believed in or thought about, but weren’t their lives of consequence for other people, like me? I find these people contradicting themselves so many times. Some other famous guy at some other point in time had written in some book of his, that there is a difference between what these hoity-toity philosopher guys talk about and what they actually live by in their own lives. Isn’t that a convenience. For them. Inconvenience for others, I would say, when they find out such things. That’s what a being a liberal means, I guess. Who am I to question them – you do you. Why am I following this influencer in the first place when I don’t agree with any of her life choices, I wonder? Aah, time to unfollow. Things just form significance depending on who is saying it. And to whom. It’s all relative. It’s all absurd. Am I going into a spiral again? Time to get back to the book.

A page from the 2020 spring diary

June 24, 2021

Scrolling through my laptop on a grey gloomy afternoon that today is, I found this random writeup in my folder that I had jotted on a morning in May 2020. After a stretch of lockdown months that started in February 2020, I finally started going out in the spring as things got better. It felt really warm reading the description of one such random day out and I thought it formed an interesting read, so enjoy!

“I finally came outside, after a long time. It feels calm. Peaceful and serene. The Rhine is in front of me. Sparkling. There is a huge boat floating on carrying a huge dumpster of trash. I have never seen floating trash before. You see new things here every day. There are plenty of cyclists around me too. There are some people jogging. Some couples, new and old, are sitting at a distance, enjoying the sun and the breeze. I am sitting in the shade. Primarily because I wanted to sit on the bench. Also because it might get hot soon. It is 19 deg now, it might get 23 later. But now I am rethinking my choice of place as I am beginning to feel a little chilly. I am enjoying it nevertheless. I could get used to this.

I understand why Germans take the spring time so seriously. After the sad winter days, spring comes like a new dawn, rejuvenating minds, bodies and the soul. Everything around me seems brimming with life. I have been happy since the past few days. Even though ‘managing my finances for my visa reapplication’ part of my life is not particularly pleasant right now, I still feel positive overall.

I wanted to go out since morning. Instead of feeling bad about how I am wasting my limited precious European summer, I decided to do something about it. Although I was planning on coming here in the afternoon, around 3 pm, but reading Walden pushed me to venture outside right away. Thoreau argued in a recent chapter how we are not really appreciating the day if we don’t start with the day early. Appreciate the dawn, utilize the morning golden hours. I wake up early these days anyway. My body clock has been set at around 7-7:30 am. The sun rises at 5:00 these days and sometimes I end up synchronizing my day with it because of the bright beautiful golden light coming through my big window.

Oh wait, digressing — just now a woman approached me asking me if I speak German. I said Nein, ein bisschen (no, only a little). She said okay. I said Entschuldigung (Sorry). She said Kein Problem (No problem) and left, smiling. She was wearing an orange-coloured long skirt and had overwhelming amount of kohl her eyes. She seemed kind. I would have liked to help her. Only if I knew the language. I want to learn the language so bad. But it is just too much effort. Not that I don’t want to put any effort; I do; but this language is quite difficult and tricky, especially the grammar rules, so my progress has been slow.

Anyway, coming back, where was I? I feel chilly. But it’s the same amount of chilly as before. If I get chillier only then I will move, otherwise I see no other reason. There is a group of 4 youngsters sitting at a distance who are creating quite some ruckus. But I still like it. It feels nice to listen to human voices and noises. I sometimes feel bored in my room. I liked how I came here today spontaneously. A group of 3 lovely young ladies passed me by. Very well dressed. Luckily I don’t feel conscious at all about how I look, how I have dressed, what others must think about me. In fact, I am the only person in this promenade who is working on a laptop, everyone is doing whatever activities I mentioned at the outset. Some of them seem to stare at me as well. Maybe it isn’t common to work outside in the sun when the spring sun is meant only to be enjoyed. But I don’t care. That is the most beautiful part of being in Germany. I have stopped caring about small nonsensical out of control trivial things. These things mattered less to me in India as well, coz I lived in Mumbai and I like to believe the kind of freedom that city offers is probably the best in India. Especially for women. But here it is even more different. I haven’t felt this free before. Everyone does their own thing, and nobody feels the need to judge you. And even though I have an education loan hanging on my head now, I don’t feel pressurized by the dire need of a job. Not yet. Of course, some extra euros would have been nice, but where’s an end to that.

Honestly speaking, Walden is a boring book. The writing style is very serious and the way he speaks really feels like listening to a podcast hosted by an old man in 1800s. But the content and gist of it complements my thoughts very well. That is why I keep on reading it. Also partially because I want to maintain my book challenge and want to start The Stranger by Albert Camus as soon as possible, but yeah, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Digressing a little, there are two pigeons at my feet, eating some crumbs. Three pigeons now. I am reminded of Kenny. He had a funny piece about these apparently ‘dumb’ creatures in his Netflix special I saw yesterday. Speaking of dumb, I am reminded of how I was scared of their sound when I was in fifth standard! That was probably the first time I got familiarized with pigeon sounds. Now that I think of it, it is so strange that I hadn’t heard of any pigeon sounds before that 2005 Amritsar trip.

Just now an old lady came near me asking if she could sit on the same bench as mine. Honestly, I wasn’t so willing given the covid situation but I was expecting someone to come anyway. The good part is she asked me the question in German and I understood and replied my short answer in German. That felt nice. I have been dreaming about my grandmother a lot these days. I don’t know why. She used to tell me, always be kind to strangers because you never know which form has God taken to test your character. This ice cream eating kind old lady on my side is reminding me of her. I miss her.

The cyclists don’t seem to stop. The cold breeze has gone a little mild. Probably because the temperature is increasing. The sun is still playing hide and seek intermittently, but all in all, I am in love with Rhine. Funny story, I didn’t intend on coming here. I wanted to go to RheinPark. Turns out the way is very confusing. I spent some time searching for the correct bus stop which would have taken me to RheinPark. I just gave up after some time of searching. I had ventured out to chill, not to undertake an exercise. Since I was near to the Rhine I came here instead. I’m sure that’s a nice park; I saw some pictures on Google and that place seems to have ducks and other birds which this place doesn’t have. It’s okay, next time. I keep having thoughts of venturing out so many times, and now that I am finally here it feels nice finally achieving it. In the past attempts whenever I promised myself to go outside, clouds always teamed up against me to ruin my potential plan. I am not superstitious, but this time I didn’t even tell anyone that I was planning to go outside. Lowkey, I didn’t want to say it out loud and jinx it. And I’m glad it worked. Yesterday’s picnic with Steffi was the first time I went out after a long long time, and it lifted up my spirits a lot. I think I would now like to venture outside more. I like my room and my schedule is usually packed with something or the other, but while doing the financial calculations for the visa I realized how little time I have in this wonderful country. I haven’t even wholly explored the city, let alone the country or Europa. I prefer calling Europe ‘Europa’ like the Germans. Sounds more exotic.  

It is 12 now. The church is ringing the bell. The old lady is still here. She finished her ice cream 5 minutes ago and is reading a book now. People are still cycling, walking, jogging, just taking in the wind and the sun. I realized I have been continuously writing for quite a long time now. It would be nice to take my gaze out of my laptop to the beauty that this city is. Till the next time.”

You’ll never know how smart you actually are

June 3, 2021

Let’s just put it out there, in case someone had any doubts, humans are a pretty smart species. We have come this far based on our intellectual capabilities, and even though we are pretty young in the game, in a sense we have won the evolutionary lottery. The myriad of innovations, explorations, societal constructs and countless other concepts that we ventured on and continue doing so have enabled us to achieve whatever position of power we have, where our species quite often tends to get vain. Setting the egotistical angle aside, we can safely celebrate the power of our intellect. We are a smart species, case closed, applause.

The collective tendencies and behaviours of humans as a species could also be attributed to the individual, because what has manifested on the macro level ultimately has its roots in the micro level. Could we then say that all humans are smart?

We know that’s not the case. Each individual has varied levels of intellect, and the net result has been (mostly) positive in due course of our history. Sure, we mess up a pandemic here and there, but we declared our collective smartness long ago so that ship has sailed. Naturally we must have opinions on our own levels of intellect as well as of those around us. Talking about the more interesting case of rating ourselves (because who knows me better than myself, of course), turns out this opinion largely falls into two brackets – the one where you believe you are smartest of the bunch, and the other where you are overcome with crippling inferiority complex; there is hardly any space for a middle ground. All this evolution but we still aren’t smart enough to judge our own smartness.

Adi you’re so smart

The first category of people comprises of the ones who have concluded that they are the smartest among their circle. This might be observed in the form of a conspicuously extroverted person who isn’t actually all that smart once you go into a detailed conversation with them, but on the top layer exudes almost a compensatory overconfidence. Or there might be someone who is just your average person who aren’t as good at their job as they think they are. So, this category – where people rate themselves to be smarter than they actually are – essentially leads to two paths.

One is that you adjudged yourself to be the smartest one in the room, and that is actually the truth. If you identify as that person, you’re highly recommended to find a new room where you are no longer the star but are surrounded by people smarter than you. Being in a company where you “know the most” (leaving the discussion on meanings of smartness for different people to another day) doesn’t challenge you to think differently and doesn’t serve your growth. You can lead a sufficiently comfortable life, where you can get by with the help of your already acquired intellect without having to experience anything new, ever. You have no competition and you will soon fall in the pit of complacency, and God knows for how long would you be able to hold the smarty pants crown. I know right, how scarily boring does that sound!?

The second case would be that you think you are the smartest person in the room – but that’s actually not true. This category can turn into an awkward arrangement of things where your actions are guided by the false confidence in your intellect. This category has been studied in psychology as the Dunning-Kruger effect which is a cognitive bias where people with lower abilities tend to overrate their intellect. On the face of it, having an inherent confidence might seem helpful for one’s motivation but is actually a disservice to you in the longer run because you end up putting much less effort in your tasks, relying on your pseudo amplified intellect.

The actual conundrum that arises now is, if I identify with this category, how do I know if my judgement is true or false? I am surrounded by my friends, who I love and have been my friends for a long time, but now that I think of it, I feel I am the most intellectually sound – does that mean I need to change my friends? OR I feel I am very good at my job but I’m not getting proper recognition for my efforts, does it mean my theory of office politics was wrong — does it mean I’m actually not as capable as I think I am? The ‘smarter one among my friends’ one is interesting because I have engaged in this topic of discussion twice already recently, and it is important to mention that you don’t need to leave your dear friends if you fall in that category. Friends serve a different purpose in a person’s life which if overlaps with the intellectual interests of oneself is icing on the cake but is not a prerequisite for friendship. You can surely find company of intellectuals without having to dump your friends for your intellectual quest. In the other case of ‘I know I am good at my job’, the next logical step would probably be revaluating your assessment. Looking at your capabilities through a critical lens, clearing out that bias and looking at the situation from another’s point of view presents a fresher perspective on things. However, while introspecting if you slip to the other side of the Dunning-Kruger boundary, you might end up doubting your true intellectual level, and even start getting ideas if you were never smart to begin with and have been making a fool out of yourself all this while. That level of induced self-doubt could potentially do more harm to you than the company of less smart individuals would have caused.

You know nothing, John Snow

The other category of equally interesting set of phenomena is the one where a person lives under the constant dread of feeling that they actually don’t know anything and perhaps are faking their success. I’m sure everyone has experienced this at least once in their lives in some form or the other, where everyone else but you seem to be excelling in their lives, where everyone has an intellectual opinion on things whereas you are barely struggling to understand the subject matter of the debate, where everyone else seems to have luck by their side whereas your ‘low brainpower’ and capabilities seem to repel even your luck. It is this recurring thought of feeling inadequate, feeling that no matter how hard you try success will always be a far-fetched idea. You don’t feel confident about your capabilities so you make half-hearted efforts for your growth. If you think the only cure to get out of this rut is finally landing some success when you can prove your worth to yourself, sorry but I’ve got news for you.

Success doesn’t guarantee an internal sense of accomplishment, and this has been testified by many ‘famous and successful’ people who have spoken about their Imposter Syndrome. Imposter Syndrome is a psychological condition where a person feels that they have reached acclaim based on sheer luck and they themselves are mere imposters and not the person others are raving about. You feel that you aren’t as intelligent as you are perceived to be and don’t actually deserve your success. It is that hollow feeling you get when you look back at your achievements and are unable to figure out or believe how you got there. You are dreading the day when others find out that you are a fraud, faking it all along and got here just because luck favoured you over someone else who was probably more deserving than you anyway. This can turn into a situation with serious repercussions where huge self-doubt can lead you to not trusting your skills anymore and hence being unable to retain your position of success.

Both these phenomena, over estimating or under estimating your capabilities, can be harmful to your intellect and personality in different ways. And my guess is most of us fall in either of these categories, misjudging our capabilities and trying to navigate life in the best way possible, co-existing with this mismatch. But this doesn’t seem a very optimum or even fun way of approaching life, does it?!

Just like in the German series Dark (if you know you know), the key, if there is one, has to be in a third category.

Strictly speaking, I’m still on track

Go listen to the fantastic album The Slow Rush by Tame Impala if you haven’t already. If the song “On Track” hits you hard, welcome to the third category. This category operates on the starting point of acknowledging that there is bound to be a mismatch between our understanding and the actual level of our intellectual capabilities. But rather than over-estimating our capabilities (because seriously though, who wants to play that true or false game) we begin with the assumption that we know way less than we ideally should. There are days when you feel incompetent and there are days when you feel invincible; what is essential is to keep moving forward in your pursuit of knowledge.

My brother runs a WhatsApp group by the name of ‘Asymptotic Knowledge’ where he posts a variety of interesting articles for curious minds. The other day I asked him why he had chosen the name for the page and this is what he had to say:

“I was reading a bit about curves, and remembered the concepts of asymptotes. To be asymptotic means to approach a value or curve very closely but never quite reaching it. I think our pursuit of knowledge as likewise. We try to read, write, listen, talk etc. all through our lives in pursuit of knowledge. We get really close sometimes, but because knowledge is infinite – we never quite catch up to it. It’s an eternal pursuit. An asymptotic pursuit.”

This explanation describes the core tenet of people that identify with this category. Now this might seem bleak at first glance; chasing something you’ll never catch up with, constantly seeking knowledge, only to find it everywhere and still not enough. The more you know the more you realize you have so much more to learn. To successfully function in this framework, one also needs to wary of not falling in the Imposter Syndrome black hole, but rather have cognizance of our achievements, acknowledge their importance in our journey so far and continuing to take in the vast ocean of knowledge. This is the true essence of life; the realization that we are not there yet, but we are on this journey which is a collection of diverse experiences, people, lessons, failures, milestones and successes. As cliché as it sounds, it is really about the journey and not the destination.  

Not knowing how smart you actually are is a good thing. One, it isn’t easy to actually measure it, and second, wasting time in trying to measure it is way less fun as compared to starting from the assumption that you don’t know enough and hence are eager to learn more. Appreciate the wonder that is our universe (if at all it exists; what’s up my simulation theory enthusiasts) and consciously grow curious about all the possible experiences you can have in your lifetime. Keeping your intellectual levels under question periodically will ensure your mind doesn’t achieve dormancy and complacency, but always has new things to look forward to. This way you ensure you keep learning your entire life, which is a sure shot way to make you smarter each day. Years of exploring, learning and adapting is what got our species here.

Who knows, one day we might even evolve to develop an intellect rating system.

Tame Impala saved the day once again.   

It’s chilly in May

May 9, 2021

The cottony azure sparkles in the sunlight,

the sun rays turning the buildings bright.

The brume filled past week with gloom

Not today, for the rays have won the fight.

New buds and blades on the trees – they sway

with the wind to and fro. The birds, they play 

and chirp on the branches and sing, begging 

the mist to hold off and the sun to stay.

The cars and bikes vroom and ting

on the roads, but there’s not a soul strolling

For they say there looms the plague in the air, 

These days fear rules and despair is king.

Alongside the highway, a Sunday afternoon,

Boy in the garden, playing, waiting for June

Catch a glimpse of the boy, now sitting on the bench

I try focusing back on my Japanese cartoon.

Gazing at the moon is a girl on my TV,

I’m reminded of the big bright moon of perigee

that I witnessed while at home, where the sun always won

“It’s bleak now”, I’m everyday being told by family.

The wind isn’t enough, the people can’t breathe

The piling cadavers forming a murky wreathe 

over entire kingdom, some overwhelmed with fear 

while some lie in the sun, with despair they seethe. 

I’m chilly – with fear, or is it the weather? 

It’s May already, isn’t it supposed to be summer?

This disease or changing climate – which evil is the lesser?

I look through the window, around I wrap my sweater. 

The boy in the park, now nowhere to be seen

The sky and the wind still painting the leaves green

“Why did I look outside! I need to slip through this net.”

and I offer myself again to be hexed by the screen.

What I learned after watching 128 movies in a year

January 10, 2021

If 2020 wasn’t weird enough already, for no reason at all I started keeping a count of the movies I would watch throughout the year. It wasn’t even a calculated decision to make a list of content I consumed during the lockdown or the forced loneliness that the pandemic hit us with. How I remember it starting is that somehow I ended 2019 with watching some really random and forgettable movies and in the new year my inner movie aficionado woke up to decide not to waste my time on ordinary mindless content. Even if I felt like watching a light hearted rom com or a feel-good movie some day, it had to be among the better ones of the category. Besides, making lists is one of my all-time favourite things to do – yes, I am that person. I am also a nostalgia fan and enjoy reliving past moments through the records I keep, so this decision seemed an absolute win to me. 128 movies later, I decided to revisit the list and check if it really was a win after all.

Firstly, I couldn’t even figure out how to comprehend the number I had ‘achieved’. Making such a list for the first time, I had no clue about the number of movies a person typically watches in a year. While writing this article I even tried googling if there was any study about the number of movies an average person watched in 2020. Among the top results was a 2018 article that said that an average Briton watches 72 movies a year. But that’s too old a result for this ‘special’ year we’ve had, so that wasn’t too helpful. I recognized that I was definitely doing something unusual when I had reached the mark of 90 movies in September and mentioned it to one of my friends, and she gasped in shock. Yesterday I told my brother about this number and I knew this wasn’t quite ordinary by the number of eye-emojis he sent me as a reply. This morning I got surer when while watching a movie review on YouTube the reviewer mentioned that he had watched around 67 movies in 2020. And then I realized that I have already watched 6 movies within the first 10 days of 2021. Either I have turned into some sort of a movie psycho, or I watched way more movies in 2019 without even realizing and have always been like this; either way I felt the situation was worth analysing.

Revisiting my movie list, I could find interesting patterns which reflected how I was feeling during various months of the year based on the movie choices I made, and also how those movies made me feel which charted the path of my future choices. The story began on the night of 01 Jan 2020 with the critically acclaimed ‘Marriage Story’, which I enjoyed immensely and which reaffirmed my decision of watching good quality cinema. My tryst with classics started with ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ where I fell in love with Audrey Hepburn and the movie re-ignited my love for nostalgia. Billie Eilish in the series of her annual Vanity Fair interview ritual always mentions her favourite movie to be ‘Fruitvale Station’ and I finally understood why. Some real diversification in my palette, I am sure like many other people across the globe, came when I watched the Oscar winning Korean movie ‘Parasite’. Talking of diversification, I must also mention that I watched 6 Marathi movies; I like to keep in touch and test my Marathi language skills. I got reminded of the politically charged months of early 2020 when I saw ‘An Insignificant Man’ in the list. Then I remembered being frustrated after watching the seemingly ordinary story of a woman Delhi Police officer in ‘Soni’, and questioning a woman’s existence through the skilful acting by Shabana Azmi in ‘Arth’. ‘Spirited Away’ marked my entrance in the magical world of Ghibli and I can confirm that it undoubtedly provides the best escapism ever. I watched ‘Interstellar’ twice in the year, after having watched it three times already at different stages of my life. Surreal experience, teary eyes – every damn time. Not all movies in the list were fresh encounters, some were revisits of some older hits. I was reminded of my all-time favourite hero SRK as I drowned myself in ‘K3G’ and ‘DDLJ’. ‘Swades’ man, teary eyes – again. I watched 1 Kannada, 1 Malayalam and 2 Tamil movies for the first time in life, and these were probably among the best of my list. I watched some of the best Hindi movies of all time – ‘Pyaasa’, ‘Shahib Biwi aur Ghulam’, ‘Shree 420’ and many others, ‘Pyaasa’ now being one of my all-time favourite movies. I watched my first Iranian movie ‘A Separation’ and was blown away by the artistry. Also fascinating was identifying words that sounded similar to Hindi as many words in Hindi find their origin in Persian. ‘Sita sings the Blues’ was the most unusual, unique and enjoyable animated documentary/film, looking at Ramayana through Sita’s perspective, her feelings expressed through songs by 1930s American Jazz singer Annette Hanshaw. Satyajit Ray’s 48-minute movie ‘Sadgati’ made my soul weep. I laughed out loud revisiting ‘Welcome’. I concluded the list by Tom Hank’s ‘Bridge of Spies’ on New Year’s Eve.

I must mention that not all movies I watched were ‘art’, and I didn’t even enjoy some of them as much as I had hoped, so technically my resolution of watching quality cinema wasn’t completely fulfilled. I took my chances with ‘Motichoor Chaknachoor’ but in my defence I watched it only to watch my man Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Then there was Sonam Kapoor’s ‘Khoobsurat’, which didn’t make me ‘feel-good’ as much as the Netflix description had declared. I had started with ‘I hate love stories’ which I within first 15 minutes realized was neither in line with my resolution nor with my interests, so I stopped in time. And some like ‘Downsizing’ left me confused as to what they wanted to convey. And of course, there was ‘Chennai Express’, which I saw in my SRK phase of the year and pinned high hopes on him as to overestimate my capabilities of watching a Rohit Shetty film. First ever movie that I could only finish watching with the assistance of some really intense forwarding. But overall, thankfully I can count such movies of my list on my tips.

So now comes the time for figuring out the lessons I learnt by watching this huge pile of largely great cinematic pieces, because of course there needs to be a reason behind whatever activity we undertake, especially the ones carried out with such deliberate thought. And even if there isn’t much meaning, our pattern loving and meaning seeking brains will assign some meaning to the process anyway.

The first and probably the most important realization I developed is about the unknown ocean of artistry that we all miss just because of language or regional barriers. I was able to watch and fully enjoy the masterpiece Marathi movie ‘Court’ because I understand Marathi considerably well and Gujarati to some extent which was also in some dialogues, but it was dispiriting to think how a large chunk of even the Indian audience has kept themselves deprived of such excellent piece of work because they don’t know the language. The amount of good quality content that I have missed purely because I don’t understand Malayalam or Bengali or Tamil and don’t make the effort to reach out and find good movies irrespective of the language needs to be changed. I came to know about the reputation of Iran as being the high-quality cinema producers, and I was disappointed in me for knowing about it so late in life even after claiming to be a cinema lover for the longest time. I believe and hope that ‘Parasite’ would have changed that for many people already. Even after watching only a handful of diverse content this year, I feel like a more aware and evolved cinephile than I was a year ago.

Another thing, which I won’t say that I realised for the first time, but surely was reminded of, was the importance good cinema, or rather any such visual content, plays in shaping our views and outlook. As much as movies are primarily a source of entertainment, we often underestimate their power of influencing the way we feel and think about ourselves and the world. Sure, there are those movies that inspire you and motivate you to do better in your own lives – when you see the protagonist struggling against all odds and finally winning, you start introspecting and pushing yourself to achieve more. (‘Hidden Figures’ really made me feel like a badass woman, well at least for a couple of days). But then there are movies that make you contemplate about things and form opinions about topics that you have held opposing views for, or probably not even paid much attention to before. Movies like ‘Ship of Theseus’, that throw you into that philosophical rabbit hole pondering over the meaning of life, death and one’s identity, or ‘Pyaasa’ which proficiently demonstrates people’s selfish pursuit of a position of power, or about the realities of the quest for justice in ‘Court’ or what family might mean to different people in ‘A Separation’, or the influence of the digital world and social media on young impressionable girls in the French movie ‘Cuties’. Good cinema not only keeps us entertained, but leaves a lasting impression in our regular lives by expanding our perspective. Sure, not all cinema has the responsibility of “bringing social change” or “concluding with a message” always, but good cinema will always compel you to form some kind of opinions on the subject matter.

Another realization that I had — and it might be a personal one; this could probably obvious to someone else — was that how the art of cinema is truly a team work. We usually focus on the faces that we see – the actors and at best extend the scope to the directors. But imagine what could happen if the cinematographer is not able to translate the director’s vision on camera truthfully. Or if a stellar cast enunciates elementary dialogues. We have often seen cases of good films edited badly that end up with a diminished impact. Set design, the colour palette of the movie, the costumes, the score, the dialogues, the lighting, the makeup and prosthetics – each and every seemingly small and rather unseen parts of the cogwheel really keep the project running. ‘Pyaasa’ even after being a black and white oldie with technological constraints has recorded numerous top-class cinematographic moments and I believe the large number of artistic frames add to the movie’s merit which significantly contributes towards its cinematic genius. ‘Moonlight’ wouldn’t have been The ‘Moonlight’ had it not been edited masterfully. The entire team behind a movie needs way better recognition than they are currently given by the audiences.

Also, on a personal level, I realized how much I enjoyed keeping record of these ‘feats’ of 10-11 movies every month. This reminded me of those self-help videos that talk about reaffirming your achievements to yourself and remember how far you have come, which acts as a positive feedback to the process and pushes you to achieve more. So, the great realization has dawned, now the only thing left is to translate it into some productive actions in real life!

But lastly, even if this was just me assigning meaning to a random bunch of movies I saw to fulfil a random list making obsession, I’m glad I did it, because these movies kept me company in a year that was spent largely in isolation and this list would be my pandemic keepsake for the future. It has painted a visual chart of my entire year, the movies acting as time stamps — remembering the day I watched each of them will help me recollect how I was feeling during a particular time of the year. And also, because writing about this pseudo achievement made me forget about dinner and helped me break my writer’s block. Time for some Maggie to the rescue. Movie for tonight is ‘Ponyo’.

Image source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tiVPuLbbHg&ab_channel=T-Series

Ode to poetry

September 22, 2020

Great art emerges from pain, I heard
No quotidian thought, no ordinary word
You either speak of lifeless life,
being a lonely wolf or a flightless bird.

How dare you write of that one time
when you sat on the river, struggling to rhyme?
Are you a poet? Your pain doesn’t flow into words
like every day the 12 o’clock church bells chime.

Do you write about flowers, mountains and bees,
singing cuckoos and swaying trees?
Perhaps about the music that waves played
for you on the beach at 28 degrees?

Should you write about your broken heart
Or how the miles drove your best friend apart
Who gets to decide if your words are worth,
If bliss is a craft, if pain is art?

All of them feed their opinions in me,
Words, thoughts, ideas, for free.
Write — for the days you sink, or you soar
are your own, not only for the world to see.