My Journey

Faith in God is by far one of the most useful things for a majority of people in today's world. Religions have gotten countless many out of some really dark times. Clearly, having survived for millenniums, it provides some utility to enough of us. I've felt the liberating experience myself. When I was young, I felt nothing really mattered. With the lack of any real system of values, I was exposed to the popular culture of the 2000s which revolved around atheism & liberty.  My parents were born Hindu but chose to distance themselves from the temples that disillusioned them. Instead, they found peace in Nichiren Daishonen's Buddhism. They would chant & send me to a meeting here & there, but it never really stuck & they chose not to further impose it on me. I started to lean toward Dale Carnegie, Stephen Covey & the like. Americans greatly influenced me as I grew up watching all their media, from Smosh & Ryan Higa on YouTube to Jim Carrey & Tom Crui...

There are many days, especially when I try to create for any number of days in a row, where I clearly don't know what I want to talk about. Looking back, anyone can find that on those days, I just end up reminding myself why I started. Like a broken record on repeat, I tell myself about the greats, how they all had personal journals, & that if I keep creating every day, I'll eventually get better at it. So why beat around the bush? This is one of those days, so let's embrace this concept! I really do love having something to do. "An idle mind is the devil's playground." comes to mind. Recently, I've been learning the meaning of inner work. I've been unraveling my thoughts & motivation, bringing my fractured parts closer together. I won't go off on a tangent here about mending & healing, but I have been genuinely questioning my motivations simply for understanding's sake. Sure, there is a crushing sense of terror in my heart of heart...

Something feels different. I've been trying so hard to move this invisible needle that measures some ineffable, yet omnipresent quality of my life. So desperate for change, I ran about in a trance, sometimes like a waterfall crashing into the rocks, sometimes like a headless chicken. I tried A, nothing happened. Then I tried B, to no avail. More of A, less of B, AB, BA, AAB, BBA, BAB, ABA, & so on... I felt like the grind started to erode me to my core, changing the shape of my soul. I started to feel more and more like a stranger to myself with every passing moment.  Looking at myself in the mirror, feeling my own body, hearing my voice, I felt an ick I couldn't wash away, a weight that wouldn't come off my chest no matter how many distorted twists & turns I contorted my body in. Considering this to be my new reality, I worked to accept this as best I could. Then came the numbness, the sleep, the hunger, & greed. After that? Anger. A violent, destructive, terri...

We all want to be seen, get heard, & feel held. But does everyone feel like they have something to say? I know many people making content online, many others want to, while others look up to the ones who do. Looking around, comparing, & seeing how I measure up, I feel insecure & unworthy of joining these chosen ones. What do I have to say that's worth listening to? Why do I deserve to be heard? Intellectually, I know that anyone who takes action always ends up reaping some kind of reward from it. Perhaps this is the modern way of life? We create content as a portfolio of who we are. We express ourselves through it, through our online presence and brand persona. This is how we feel attracted to others. This is what makes us come close. In the age of democratization, where anyone can be a star, could you really respect someone who doesn't go for it? This is the modern social dilemma: wanting to stay authentic while having to creatively express yourself to find connect...

Patience, Persistence, & Perseverance. Practicing these golden values while having faith. Keeping your head down & doing your best the whole time. That's what I believe I have been doing. Facing setback after setback, I've been regularly taking steps to improve every aspect of my life. The world is so loud, though. I stepped out into it, to better myself. I've gotten sick of talking to people about myself. Talking seems so pointless nowadays. Even writing about my hopes, dreams, & mission feels unbearably redundant. I try to remind myself to keep taking steps. Keep showing up and going through the motions. I know that progress will come if I keep moving in the right direction. If I keep going through the motions, I will get better. I need to get better so I can bring my ideas to reality. I want to write about food, art, culture, marketing, & life. I want to express my thoughts, emotions, & inner feelings in a way that makes sense to others. I sincerely b...

Creating on a schedule feels whacky sometimes. Like you're trying to get things flowing, but you're just going through the motions. It feels mechanical, forced, and inorganic. Compare it to those rare glimpses of inspiration where polished, premeditated, and well-thought-out ideas seem to put themselves together effortlessly. That stuff happens once in a few months, though. When you go for a long time without expressing yourself, you know exactly what you want to say. You have time to articulate it and understand the most interesting parts of the idea. Sometimes it feels like all you really need is a good idea, other times, it feels like all anyone has is a bunch of ideas with nothing to show for it. I often thought to myself that becoming a writer, a storyteller, or an artist would be something I have an inherent talent for. I imagined that I would be exceptionally good at it and that my personality fits that kind of work. Life could be so good if I did that, it'll make me...

I feel paralyzed of late. Sure this is the way to go, but also certain that it's all wrong. I don't know what to do. I feel like doing things but also feel like doing the exact opposite. I try to do things regardless of my feelings, but it just never works out. I'm not strong enough to do what I want and I want to fall into despair. I want to let myself feel hopeless and fatalist, but I can't even do that anymore. I'm starting to feel like I can't do anything at all.  I think about what I want to write, and the things I want to convey, but nothing seems to come together. I sit here in front of the screen, trying to put it all together. Why can't I just enjoy the mess as it is? Why do I need to figure things out and do them proper? Isn't this supposed to be a game? I was always the loon, never the topper. Always trying so hard to be something or the other. Always trying to do something. Never really making it, or even just being at peace. I wish I could j...

I live in a primarily collectivist society where the group tends to take priority over the individual. I say primarily because India is a large & diverse country, with a complex interplay of various ecosystems, some vastly different from others. Mine is a particularly backward city where this sense of collectivism runs deep and manifests itself in palpable ways.  One particularly repulsive quality is that of groupism. On a basic level, people always go in groups whenever possible. They find people around them to whom they can latch on, thereby increasing their own social capital, the essential currency for this city's people. Money is still largely important, but relationships are valued even more greatly. For Jaipur's people, it's more about who you know than what you have or what you can do. People cling tightly to their parents and extended family, putting up smiling faces to even the most hated members to gain benefits. To alienate and ostracize is the greatest puni...

The indomitable human spirit. Ever heard of it before? It's what keeps a chubby kid from reaching for another chicken nugget. It's the glitter in the eyes of the gambling addict that keeps hitting the slot machine for just one more try. Look at em go, he's in it to win it fr fr. How inspirational. Even when he lost his home and started drinking moonshine from a junkyard radiator to pass the time in between shifts. Such unwavering conviction! But why do they say human spirit? This is hardly something unique to the hunter-gatherer monkey variety of sentient pounds of flesh.  Just look at the noble birds, for example. Chirping away those mating calls like anyone's business, just hell-bent on getting lucky. What dedication to its craft! Life has always been tenacious like that. From the moment the first living cells emerged from the hot volcanic ducts of the blue ocean, or perhaps even what came before it. From the noble gases like helium to the planet's formation, thin...

If I look at this blog a few months back, I had saved about a dozen different articles with nothing but the title on the page. Putting them aside as drafts, I figured the ideas were worth expanding, plus I would have something to say for days when I couldn't come up with anything. Today is one of those days, and I can't help but feel a bewildering sense of regret as to why I deleted those posts. Some stupid reasons like decreasing my stress or reducing the barrier to entry for starting to post again. It's not that I always have something to say, or that it's even important for me to say anything. It's that if I show up to speak regularly, I'll eventually get better at it enough to be of service. That's what this practice is all about for me. It's self-serving as far as I get to explore my curiosities and wonder. Yet it's my dream to be of use to others. The question is why should anyone care? It's not a question directed at me or anyone in partic...

I sit on top of the world's peak, at the ends of the physical realm, about as far as I could possibly go while I'm still tangled with it. I begin to meditate upon the burning question that weighs me down so heavily. Today, I come here in hopes of unraveling that within myself, which I despise the most in others. Why is it that we're so lost on this Earth? Are the physical noises so loud that nothing of substance can possibly remain within sight? We're all so obsessed with numbers. Slaving away, day by day, just to make those digits climb on that screen. So possessed by the body's needs that we end up running on a hamster wheel, going in circles. Always chasing after that, thing. All these fucking things. That blip in the circuit, a wave of electricity, a cocktail of neurotransmitters, chemicals in a meat bag, creating a kaleidoscope of sensations. By and large, whenever I sit down to investigate anything, the only thing I end up concluding is that everything is perf...