Dreams of the truest form of friendships that can exist between human beings.
Dreams of special experiences and even more special moments.
Dreams of making a dent in the life of the people.
Dreams of few moments of genuine connections.
After seeing so many dreams for years there is something special I have learned and I am going to leave you and myself with a note: Don't just see dreams. Live them.
I've been trying to reply to some of the comments that have been left on this blog but I am not being able to because Google just won't let me. I'll respond to them as soon as I am able to, but I wanted to thank everyone for leaving their comments. Thank you. The very reason why I started this blog was because I wanted to connect to other human beings and form connections that would transform me forever. This blog and this online existence has already given me more than most people can ask for by hiding behind the name of a Jedi Master.
I've found a couple of really good friends through this ID. I've found people I can talk to. People I have formed deep connections with. For everyone who has left a comment in this blog because a post here touched them, here is a big fat thank you. For everyone who has allowed me to touch their lives and become a friend through this online existence, here is an even bigger fatter thank you.
I've always seen myself as an artist. In the code I write, in everything I say, in everything I do and in everything I am, I crave art and the deal with art is that art thrives on intricate balance on external validation and intrinsic motivation. There is no dearth of Intrinsic motivation as far as my writing is concerned and every time I am down or low the Artistic Neuron I talked about, decides to peek it's head out of nowhere and starts fucking up with my head. Ahem... so.... anyways.... as I was saying..... I love the fact that the artistic neuron nudges me to write and then every time I move away from this blog and tell myself I will stop writing some stalker from somewhere shows up and drops a comment which pushes me to write even more.
Nothing in life happens as fast or as slow as we want it to happen. When I started this blog I was hoping that I will bump into a hundred REALLY interesting people and become close friends with them. I was hoping that I would overcome all of my fears using this blog as a tool and then I would grow as a human being. I've barely bumped into a couple of people so far but then funny thing about life is that as it unfolds you realize that what it has in store for you, is actually what you were really looking for. A comment here on this blog makes my day, a twitter response from someone I have touched through this blog makes me day, a SMS message from a friend that I bumped into through this blog is a validation that normal, sane, interesting, good human beings still exist on this planet.
Thank you for everything you stalkers! I REALLY LIKE every single one of you. Keep Stalking! Oh and yes, I WILL respond to those comments as soon as Google lets me.
Honestly it was a perfectly normal argument but this person used words like "Yeah, Right" about ten times in the conversation and was constantly passing signals of a strange superiority complex. You know signals like rolling of eyes, tapping of hands on the table and other strange signals which tell you that the person is there but not quite really there. It is a strange form of communication where you cannot point your finger on anything in particular but the person is almost telling you directly that you need to give up and surrender to the attacks of insults.
I've always held a sense of pride in saying that I don't usually go ahead and end friendships. What that means is that I'll go out of my way to make a friendship (or for that matter any other form of relationship) work but life has taught me that there is a difference between going an extra mile to make a friendship or a relationship work and losing your self respect to make it work. While the earlier option almost always works the later one almost never does.
Which is why every time I sense contempt in a relationship (be it friendship or just acquaintanceship) I am very scared. I can deal with difference of opinion. I can deal with arguments. I can even deal with fights but show me a person who has lost the basic sense of respect for you and I'll show you a person you should not be friends with. So let this be the first time when I went ahead and stopped discussions with a person who could have come borderline close to being a friend. Because friendship at the price of self respect isn't usually worth it because then you just keep paying and you just keep hoping that some day things might materialize into a meaningful friendship and it almost never does.
I've been working on making happiness a way of life for sometime now. I'm not going to come out and claim that my life has changed dramatically since I started doing that but what I will tell you is that once you do not allow yourself the permission to bitch and cry and moan and whine about problems pretty much the only thing you are left to doing is getting your butt off the couch and working at the problem.
Actively practicing happiness doesn't have anything to do with meditation or those self help programs where they teach to laugh like an idiot even when you are unhappy. Practicing active happiness is just about not allowing yourself to cry or bitch or moan or whine at the first given opportunity. It is a way of life where you tell yourself that you're going to actively work on fixing problems and not whine about them.
Of course you break away from this practice more and more when you start but then as you continue living up with this mindset you get better and better at it. The key here is not to try to master and learn this up as a self help tool which is going to change your life but adapt it as a gradual lifestyle where you learn happiness over a period of time.
All of us live with "IFs" and "Buts" and that is just fine. If I have a really close friend who would speak to me when I most wanted to talk to someone I would fight every battle and win it and I don't do that right now and I am whining right now because I don't have that friend. Yeah. Right. The key with actively practicing happiness is realizing the stupidity in that thought process. Of course having good friends around in the times of trouble helps but not having them around is not the sole reason for your failure. Your whining is in fact probably the primary reason for your failures. If you need constant support from friends and social circles find them and have the balls to approach them to seek help. Don't cry about not having them around.
This of course is just one example of how easy it is for people to bitch and whine about everything and blame external factors for everything, but scientists who have been studying happiness have been recently coming out with studies which basically says that happiness is a state of mind that is within and may not have as much to do with extrinsic factors as we think it does. So here's a little assignment for you today. Stop crying. Just make an active effort at it. Of course you will forget that you are making this effort once in a while and you will start whining but then when you remember just stop and start over. Do this for a few days and you might start seeing the change in your thought process and in your over all way of looking at things.
Let me know how it goes. I would love to hear from you.
I'm someone who worries about small things and big things. Things which range from offending people to losing my cell phone. The idea of being able to "empty your mind of all thoughts" appeals to me on more than one levels. The idea is to keep quite and feel everything that goes on around you and try to shut up for a change. I've been trying it for a day in my real life and I'm learning a lot of things. Here's a quick list of things you learn on the very first day of your starting to shut up.
#1 The Act of Acceptance Of Your Mistakes.
When you say that you're going to be really calm in the mind and the heart you cannot be angry at folks for hurting you. It's like working out. You cannot say that I'm going to be working out and then continue to eat junk food. When you take the workout lifestyle you take up healthy and wholesome food as a part of the lifestyle. Forgiving is a part of the "empty your mind" life style. When you tell yourself that you're going to be totally calm and happy you cannot be carrying the heavy load of anger against everyone in your head. You cannot also be blowing up everything that happened to you out proportion. You have to take the hit, accept that everything that happened to you was really your problem and move on. Being calm is all about acceptance of your own mistakes and not blaming others for them. It's about shredding weight and freeing your mind and lets face it, the maximum space occupied in your head now a days is that of fear and anger. The act of accepting your own mistakes and making yourself responsible for them is the first step.
#2 The Act Of Forgiveness.
Without sounding too deep, here's the simple deal: The moment you accept that everything that happened was no one's fault you've released others from your brain making your brain much calmer and quieter. Next comes the act of forgiveness and the only person left to forgive now, is yourself, because there is no one else to forgive! Right? This of course is easier said than done because most people (me included) have a habit of beating themselves up and the act of forgiving yourself is probably the hardest in being calm in your heart and mind.
If I'm talking like someone who knows the stuff that he's talking about all I can say is I'm really sorry. I don't mean to remotely suggest that I know what I am talking about here. Come on guys (and gals) lets face it! I'm not the spiritual kind after all. I'm just a random nobody blogging his heart out hoping that some of the crap I poop out of this website ends up being read by someone else and ends up resonating with someone else. But here's the reality of things: It's hardly been one full day when I started shutting up and things are looking good for now.
Here's another funny thing: Nobody has noticed the change except the people who are really close to me. And that's a humbling experience because it tells you how unimportant and insignificant your thoughts and ideas are in this world. It also tells you how fucking insignificant you are. Once you get used to it the idea is not as bad as it sounds. At the very least it's reality so get used to it.
You get heard when you are yelling and screaming at the top of your voice but then the second you stop that metaphorical yelling and look around you realize that there aren't many people around to listen to what you had to say. In fact, there aren't many people around to notice that the metaphorical yelling just stopped; which makes you wonder what you were achieving by yelling in the first place.
I see people around me. Lots of them. People getting their jobs done. People talking to other people and people having conversations. People indulging and embarking on journey's which they truly believe are taking them somewhere. I'm not saying that I am going to renounce life. No way! Dream on stalker! But once in a while, it's OK to step back and look at it as an outsider and marvel at the whole way of life that you have been living all alone. It's so fucking chaotic and stupid at times that you feel like laughing and weeping at the same time.
One thing that I've told myself for the time being is that I am going to try and stop punishing myself for everything. I'm going to take day offs and have fun. I'm going to take it easy. I'm going to try and stop feeling guilty about not churning out a finite set of functionality or code every other day. I'm going to stop running round and round in circles like an angry dog and I am going to take it slow. Of course there is a difference between taking it slow and giving up.
It's not happening. I'm not being able to explain my thoughts really well I guess, but it is an amazing feeling to have. I huge part of yesterday was scary. I was getting this bouts and urges to reach out to someone and start a conversation with every passing opportunity but I decided to shut up and watch. Be a listener for a while, without talking, without imposing myself on other, without offering my ideas when none were asked, without trying too hard, without being desperate, without judging. I'll be lying if I said I am not scared but I also feel really good and light and clear headed.
I don't know where this is going to go and if this is going to be a major change in my personality or if this is just a passing thing and I'll turn into the stupid little funny chatterbox that I otherwise was, but for now I'm shit scared for being quiet for sometime which is why I want to do it so badly. So there. You have it. Yoda is shutting up for a few days. But not online. Not on this blog. Not on my chat ID. Not on twitter. These are morphing into ways of using my fingers to talk to myself and I am starting to find myself returning more and more to this ID. Not when I am depressed but even when I need to think or talk or solve problems or have general conversations with some of my new online friends.
The pleasure of living a life without constantly worrying about what the other person is thinking about you. The pleasure of living a life without constantly and desperately trying to get confirmations for your existence. The pleasure of living a life without constantly punishing yourself for every day you wasted not doing anything. The pleasure of living a life where you are just you and where it's OK to make mistakes and it's OK to be quiet and it's OK to just be and.... not be continuously afraid.
It's terribly lonely in here. And to someone like me the quietness in my head is what freedom is to a convict. It's scary to say the least. That doesn't mean the convict has to keep punishing himself for a mistake he committed years ago. That doesn't mean he should never accept freedom. It just means that he needs to get over his stupid fears. I think I've had enough punishment and I've paid my dues and it's okay to forgive myself now and move on. I think it's OK to be quiet and clam and happy and helping in anyway I can be.
That was a terribly long dose of gibberish wasn't it? Maybe it was too deep for your stalker! Or maybe it was just to shallow. Who the hell knows. Who the hell cares. My fingers had a bad itch and I wrote here on this this blog post. At the end of the day, if you really think about it, it's my blog and I have the right to write here, don't I? Don't I? Eh? If you don't think so, go get your own life or your own blog! STALKER!
I feel the urge to write again and here I am slamming my hands at keyboard all over again. I've been reading a lot lately and I've been seeing a lot of amazing inspirational movies.
One thing that I am starting to realize in particular is that I tend to open my mouth in the all wrong places and in all the wrong times. My desire to have conversations with people and to change them, which is in turn triggered by the part of my brain which wants to eventually wants to change the world, often lands me in deep shit.
I have this fear that if I don't constantly communicate with people I might find myself lonely and alone one fine morning. I wasn't designed to be lonely and alone and that thought is fucking scary. So I tend to reach out to random people in real life and try to start conversations with them which works really well when I am happy and lively but seems totally stupid and vulnerable to me I am angry or frustrated. That's when end up offending people.
I've been reading about some of these things. Trying to learn from how others might have solved this problem and I've been watching a few movies. I've also been making a few online friends slowly and steadily and I am nowhere close to the number of people I said I would get to know but I have a few people online with whom I can at-least have decent normal conversations when I have the urge to talk. Enough to bounce into at-lease one or two people every night and have an intellectual conversation when the rest of the real world is fast asleep.
I am starting to like these online conversations a lot. They allow me to vent out my fears and my frustrations and talk to people who do not know me at all on one level and who know me at slightly more personal level than the people who know me in real life on other levels, particularly when it comes to my fears and vulnerabilities.
When you are talking to people anonymously or blogging anonymously one thing you need to be particularly careful about is that anonymity does not give you a license to be rude or wild or evil or stupid. It just gives you some more room to be yourself without being judged instantly. That is what I have been using anonymity for and I am starting to realize that it is a really powerful tool because it is helping me relax and open up to people.
Yes I go under the handle Yoda which is slightly funny and slightly odd (actually, I would like you to think it's cute or sexy or something like that, but come on! you knows it's not. I knows it's not. We knows it's not.) That does not mean that the people who chat or interact with me online do not know me. On the other hand I would argue that in some aspects of life these people actually know me more than the people I talk to or interact with on a day to day basis.
I talk to them much more openly and I am much more relaxed about my vulnerabilities and my fears as a person because I am not scared of being judged. I am just as careful about maintaining my own common sense and my own integrity when I am talking with this ID as I am when I talk as a real person because I know that sooner or later I might end up disclosing the real person behind this ID at-least to the few people who are helping me rediscover who I am.
I'm trying to think what to write next which is a bad sign because this blog is a place where I just sit there, stare at the monitor and write my heart out. I don't want the internal editor in me controlling what every aspect of what goes here. I want this writing to be a reflection of my mind as I write.
I don't want to worry about the what-if-analysis of every sentence that comes out of my fucking mouth out here. This blog and the people I talk to online allow me to shut up in my real life and not go around without offending real people. What is really interesting is that I am also not offending a lot of people on Yahoo and more often than not when I am done having online conversations I actually feel better. You know, the way you feel after having a long intellectual conversation with someone you know in real life.
I would really like to talk about the people I've been talking to online. Maybe even link to their blogs and stuff but I am not sure if they would appreciate that so I'm just going to leave that part out of this post. I have no idea what I wanted to say through this post or what the structure of this post was but I guess the point I was trying to make was that, I have a very bad vulnerability which is the "need" to talk a lot in my real life. And that my online life, this blog and the people I talk to in yahoo have been helping me overcome that vulnerability.
If you are one of the people I talk to online, I have to Thank You for being there. Thank you for those long conversations. Thank you for your support. Thank you for all those advices that help me contemplate and reach to my own decisions and thoughts about life. Thank you for letting me overcome my vulnerabilities and my fears. Thank you for being there when I just feel like doing some random chatting because if you weren't around I would have done the random chatting with people in my real life and I would have probably ended up hurting them. Thanks for playing a part in helping me make peace with myself.
That, and of course all the stalking that you do. I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY like being stalked. Heeh!Heeh! STALKER!
By now, you are probably used to my depressed shit filled self. So much so that I don't need to moan and bitch like a baby on the blog. I said I would never turn to this blog when I am depressed and yet invariably I tend to turn to this blog ONLY when I am depressed. I don't know if that is such a bad thing. My dilemma today is self loathing and uncertainty. About every single fucking thing in my life. It scares the shit out of me.
When I was tiny, weeping as a just born, little did I know that I was blessed and cursed with a mind that would love weirdness and would see the world differently. Now a days, I seriously don't know if it's a big blessing or a big curse. I have no reason to doubt it. Just like my friends, the artistic neuron in my mind has never betrayed me. I have no reasons to doubt it. But sometimes, when your thoughts, when your efforts and your world of passionate love for your work becomes awfully quite and fucking lonely, these feelings creep in your head and fuck with it.
I was recently asked if I want to talk about it. I said no. I have no idea why the Heck I said that, but I did. Actually, I was trying to find humor in this situation. Which is why I wanted to be quite. I think I figured it out.
I mean think about it. Its pretty darn fucking funny. Seriously, it is funny.
So here is how it works in your profession. You probably work somewhere and get paid for whatever it is that you do. Then you come home, eat, shit and depending on a whole of other factors do a whole lot of weird and down right funny things and then you sleep, only to get up next day and get to work so that you can eat, shit and do a whole lot of weird things the next day. Life is good. Fucking Good.
Except of course, there is this one little neuron in your head that whispers and calls you with a strange voice and just says, "Psst! Are you happy? I mean REALLY happy? REALLY REALLY HAPPY?". And then before you know you are fucked. This neuron is a gorgeous part of your mind. It fucked with people's head and made their life miserable which is why they ended up building stuff like planes and light bulbs and buildings and computers. Its the artist within you. Dying to ship. Dying to build something. Dying to share it with other monkeys around you. Dying to be proved right. Dying for acceptance.
Again, this is all nice and dandy, but the problem with this neuron is that the moment you start listening to it, you have taken the fucking RED pill and now Morpheus is just showing you how deep the rabbit hole is. You are going to spend hours making your mind and body hurt as you work on something that you absolutely love working on. You are going to deliver, only to find out that world does not give a fuck about what you just built. And then you are going to think about quitting. And then this neuron is going to whisper, "Pssst!"
And you know you are not supposed to be listening. But you will. And you will try to tweak what you just built. You are going to read marketing books on how to get this idea through. Books on how to make it tip. How to make it cross the chasm. You are going to be fucked all over again. And if you thought this was the end of it, you are so fucking wrong.
You are going to do this for a few months and then you are going to learn that while you were busy talking to this one little neuron in your head the world was moving around the sun and completing one circle in about 365 days and a rotation in about 24 hours and the other monkeys around you, who were able to "Shhh!" to this weird neuron got on with their lives just fine. These monkeys think you are a jerk. You think, they are jerks. But at the end of it all both of you are just monkeys.
You are going to make it. Or you are going to fucking die trying. Either ways, I've got no sympathy for you. Because you deserve none. In the part of the world where I live cars squat stray dogs on the road every once in a while and I feel really sorry for them, because they know nothing about the mess they are going to land up with. You do. You know absolutely fucking well, what you are getting into when you listen to that artistic neuron in your head. You take a chance. You do it because you want love and acceptance. And you want LOTS of it. Just a little bit does not do it for you. So you go out there and you take a fucking chance.
And then on bad days, you whine and moan and bitch and crib and write posts like this one. But that's not going to change anything. Your artistic neuron is what defines you. It's what got you so fucking far. It's your biggest blessing. Embrace it. And let it fuck with your head. Oh and by the way, stop worrying about the confirmation part as much as you do. We are probably the only creatures on this planet who worry so much about external confirmation, when other creatures are just ok in being there.
So stalker! If you were a little depressed, I may have depressed you even more. But who cares! Your artistic neuron is going to take over soon and it will continue to make your life fucking miserable.
You are blessed with it. Embrace it. Hug it. Love it. And do what it tells you to do.
Enough bitching. Now I am going to continue working.
I'm seriously mad. I was mad on a couple of friends but then after a long conversation with one of the friends I realized this week that the fault had been mine all along. I wasn't mad at them. I was just mad at a few choices I made when I was young. I think I am paying a heavy price for those choices. But then I am also reaping the rewards of those choices. I cannot be blaming anyone else other than myself for those choices. I cannot be crying like a baby when it's time to pay the price for my choices.
The problem with moving too fast is that when you often turn around you realize that you have come too far and that you left a few opportunities of having fun along the way. Not because you did not like having fun. No, you actually fucking loved it. But then you were supposed to move fast. At least that is what you had told yourself. Now the problem with moving really fast is that when you are walking fast you often tell yourself that you are going to come back later and finish a few unfinished items. Unfortunately, it is almost always a one way street. And by the time you realize that, you have come too far to turn back.
When I started writing here I told myself that I was not going to write here when I was angry, sorry, depressed or was going through any other negative feeling. So I did not write here about this feeling of mine till I had the long conversation yesterday where I, to a large extent allowed myself to forgive myself for the choices I made in the past. I didn't have an option. Given the same circumstances and the same options I would have made the same choices again. I tried my fucking best. That is all I could have done. I fucked up in a couple of places, but then heck with it! Who doesn't.
There are way too many dreams that I have been having lately. Most of them I don't even have the balls to talk to about on this blog. The only thing that is keeping me letting me retain any amount of sanity what so ever in this time is the fact that I have a couple of REALLY AWESOME friends who are standing tall and confidently by me in these difficult times. Without them I would have done something stupid. That and knowing deep down in the darkest corners of my heart that I tried my fucking best.
I have no idea about what I am talking any more. I am tired. Feeling a little sick. Tired and my body hurts. So I am just going to shut up and try to sleep.
It's been a long time since I wrote here so I thought I'd come here and burp out just a little something. You know, for the sake of keeping in the habit of writing and for the sake of reflection and good old soul searching. It's been about two months since I started working on this thing. The thing that I said I was going to be working on. And It is alive.
I don't know what having a baby feels like. I've never had a baby. They say that the feeling so so fucking awesome it changes you for ever. I don't know about that. But what I can tell you is that the feeling that I have now a days, every time I see this little application in action. It seems to make me feel happy. Maybe not as happy as having a baby. Maybe not even close. Maybe I shouldn't be comparing having a baby with building an application. After all, its not an apples to apples comparison. But then, the joy of having being a part of something that you see morph itself into existence is so fucking awesome, it changes you.
When I first read Jonathan Livingstone The Seagull (an amazing book by Richard Bach), the part where Jonathan the seagull, wonders how others gulls can be so oblivious to the pleasures of practicing flight, seemed just inspirational. Now I am starting to look at people on the roads, people watching television, people dancing in parties, people wasting time having conversations, people wasting time being afraid and I wonder how they can be so oblivious to the joy of building things. I think I so fucking understand what Jonathan must have felt like. You don't have to be specially talented to have that feeling. Even stupid dolts like me can have that feeling. So, as I was saying, it feels wearied to see people wasting time over things which are just cheap substitutes of true pleasure of escape routes for their fear laden brains.
I know its not fair. Specially given that a couple of months ago, I found watching porn so much more easier than building something I was actually shit scared of doing anything productive with my weekends and free time. I know its not fair to look at the world and expect everyone in it to change just because a part of my life changed, but then watching people wasting time being lost or being scared is weird. I can't help it if that is how I feel. I am realizing that I have no control over some of these feelings and thoughts any more. Neither do I have control over what I do next. However, here is something that might be worth trying.
Long story short, I am not going to try to focus on changing the world. I am not going to focus on helping others. I've done enough of it. The next couple of months are going to be spent on quietly tweaking every little corner and tightening every little screw of this program so that finally when we open it up to the world it ends up liking it.
So, that's about it. I think this post may have turned out to become way too philosophical than what I expected it to be. But heck, I am here to write my heart out. It's supposed to be free style writing for me so I don't think I need to worry about you guys to death. And if you were in fact bored to death, I am sorry. I can't help it. All I can say is, STOP STALKING AND GET A LIFE.
(A wide nasty stupid funny Grin).
