Ever feel the deep need to do something yet feel totally inadequate to get up and do it? I kinda feel that way about writing in this blog. I guess it's like most things in life you gotta keep doing something or you get so badly outta practice that you end up in a pile of contradictions and self doubts.
I'm gonna write someday though!
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Saturday, June 02, 2007
A few more excuses
I've had this writer's block for the longest time I can think of, in the last six months I don't think I've written more than a post or two, even then, within hours of posting them, I'd end up refreshing the screen in my internet browser to see if anyone read it and put up a comment. There is only one word that describes that behavior, Pathetic! Obviously after six months of blog inactivity people are going to hardly stick around and wait for the next one. I'm sure there are more interesting things to do like watching a golf tournament or a fishing show on tv.
I've written earlier as well that I write so that I'd be read and if no one is reading then the whole basis of writing is unfounded. While I was mentioning this to a fellow blogger and a dear friend, she said in her own point blank style to 'just write!' (I think she is very much the 90's child having grown up around ads that urged her to'Just Do it!'). So this is my attempt to do 'just that!'.
I think maintaining a good blog is like flying a plane, you need a good run up to take off. After a long period of being grounded, you really can't expect to jump in the air and start flying. That only happens when you're superman (or any man who wears his underwear over his trousers, hey if thats your form of attire, then you're flying in cuckooland all the time right?). Despite knowing this, everytime I've sat down to write a post I've been waiting for that one magic piece that would give this blog the jumpstart that it needs and that has resulted in about a half a dozen aborted posts. Maybe someday I'd find the time and the inclination to finish them.
There is a silver lining to everything, despite all these months of blog inactivity there is only one person that I know of who visits my blog religiously everyday to see if I've written anything, who else but my darling wife. I am amazed at the diligence and the postive spirit my gal has. I really owe her a lot let alone keeping the faith on my writing abilities. So now that I have a capitive audience right at home the need to write has been gnawing on the back of my head for awhile.
I'm a firm believer that different things appear differently when viewed from different angles. If you have the patience, you can view any incident very many ways. For instance, when my boss quit last year, I was a bit shattered since he was some kind of a safety net for me in this new organisation that I had joined. But after awhile I realised that his exit was a blessing in disguise, since I found that I had a larger freedom to cope with situations and this I think eventually resulted in a quick promotion. Something I think wouldn't have been possible had he been around, despite his best intentions. The point that I'm trying to make is that when one has his/her mind open to the surrounding environment, there are so many marvelous things that are happening around. When you are preoccupied or busy the world is as interesting as watching a fresh coat of paint drying on a cold winter's day. So after a point life becomes monotonous, not for the lack of external stimulus but our own preoccupation with our own lives. This also is a reason for my blog inactivity, I think I'm way too involved with work for my own good.
Most of my time while I'm travelling, I'd hang around watching people, looking at life unfold in front of me, nowadays though I end up being on the phone with someone at work, talking, arguing, yelling about some issue or the other. And I thought getting ahead my career meant a better way of living, sigh. I now realise that it just means more responsibilities and more pressure, much more pressure. There are times when I just want to chuck everything and walk away but I think the very fact that we are civilised works against us in such scenarios, try as we may we end up being trapped in our own little cages. Don't get me wrong, it is not that I hate my job or anything, infact I love it, I get a real kick every day because of the fact that the team I picked a year ago and lead is breaking all records and changing the way our company looked at business. I guess thats my little cage.
Being the eternal optimist that I am, I always sign off saying there is more to come. Don't hold your breath in anticipation though.
I've written earlier as well that I write so that I'd be read and if no one is reading then the whole basis of writing is unfounded. While I was mentioning this to a fellow blogger and a dear friend, she said in her own point blank style to 'just write!' (I think she is very much the 90's child having grown up around ads that urged her to'Just Do it!'). So this is my attempt to do 'just that!'.
I think maintaining a good blog is like flying a plane, you need a good run up to take off. After a long period of being grounded, you really can't expect to jump in the air and start flying. That only happens when you're superman (or any man who wears his underwear over his trousers, hey if thats your form of attire, then you're flying in cuckooland all the time right?). Despite knowing this, everytime I've sat down to write a post I've been waiting for that one magic piece that would give this blog the jumpstart that it needs and that has resulted in about a half a dozen aborted posts. Maybe someday I'd find the time and the inclination to finish them.
There is a silver lining to everything, despite all these months of blog inactivity there is only one person that I know of who visits my blog religiously everyday to see if I've written anything, who else but my darling wife. I am amazed at the diligence and the postive spirit my gal has. I really owe her a lot let alone keeping the faith on my writing abilities. So now that I have a capitive audience right at home the need to write has been gnawing on the back of my head for awhile.
I'm a firm believer that different things appear differently when viewed from different angles. If you have the patience, you can view any incident very many ways. For instance, when my boss quit last year, I was a bit shattered since he was some kind of a safety net for me in this new organisation that I had joined. But after awhile I realised that his exit was a blessing in disguise, since I found that I had a larger freedom to cope with situations and this I think eventually resulted in a quick promotion. Something I think wouldn't have been possible had he been around, despite his best intentions. The point that I'm trying to make is that when one has his/her mind open to the surrounding environment, there are so many marvelous things that are happening around. When you are preoccupied or busy the world is as interesting as watching a fresh coat of paint drying on a cold winter's day. So after a point life becomes monotonous, not for the lack of external stimulus but our own preoccupation with our own lives. This also is a reason for my blog inactivity, I think I'm way too involved with work for my own good.
Most of my time while I'm travelling, I'd hang around watching people, looking at life unfold in front of me, nowadays though I end up being on the phone with someone at work, talking, arguing, yelling about some issue or the other. And I thought getting ahead my career meant a better way of living, sigh. I now realise that it just means more responsibilities and more pressure, much more pressure. There are times when I just want to chuck everything and walk away but I think the very fact that we are civilised works against us in such scenarios, try as we may we end up being trapped in our own little cages. Don't get me wrong, it is not that I hate my job or anything, infact I love it, I get a real kick every day because of the fact that the team I picked a year ago and lead is breaking all records and changing the way our company looked at business. I guess thats my little cage.
Being the eternal optimist that I am, I always sign off saying there is more to come. Don't hold your breath in anticipation though.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
A few excuses for not updating my blog
A few friends have written to me over the past few months asking me why I haven't been blogging for over four months. I've thought long and hard about it, I've realised that I used to blog because I really didn't have a lot of things to do apart from work. Now that I'm married and also have a larger assignment at work, the time that I've had to blog also is fairly limited.
For the longest time, I've been wanting to write and even started a few posts but the fact of the matter is that I seem to have lost my mojo. Most of my posts have been about things that I've seen in life as it happens around me but off late nothing interesting ever happens. Um, well no, that isn't right, all the interesting stuff that happens in my life aren't stuff that I can write about, since I've decided that I would never write about being married etc. I figure that a decision like this would keep potential 'dog house' situations at home to an acceptable level (especially since my wife does read my blog).
Ok, so I'm sure by now you've figured out that I got married sometime between my last post and now. Well, it happened on a beautiful January evening in Bangalore. There are days that go so fast that you can barely hang on to it, well this was a day that went super fast yet it was without a doubt the best day of my life. I woke up that morning like I would any other day and ended it feeling like a million bucks. It was also the day when my right hand almost came out of it's socket after shaking more than to 1500 hands, of the guests at our wedding. That day I even learnt how not to look like a sour puss in front of a camera and developed what is known in the celebrity world as Ohlookthere'sacamera syndrome. Now anytime someone takes out a camera, I kind freeze on a pose with a wide howdeedoo smile plastered on my face.
After the enormity of the wedding and the reception, life slowly meandered into normalcy. I won't bother you folks with what happened in the days since then, except to say, that life makes sense now, it's great to be married! Its a process of falling in love every day and I don't think I'd exchange the last few months for anything else in this world.
Talking about shaking hands and meeting people in your wedding, it was especially tough since 95% of the people there were unknown to me and were friends/relatives of both the families. In the days after the wedding that I would run into someone in Bangalore and they would smile wide and start a conversation, only afterwards realisation would strike that this person had actually come to my wedding and had said something inanely witty that people say to a married couple they actually don't really know well. Now wherever I meet these folks again I end up pretending to know them and so now there are a lot of people in Bangalore who count me among their good friends and I don't even know their name! They wave at me when they pass me by in the roads or stop and joke about how married life is etc. Sigh, I seriously wish people were born with name tags.
Over the last few months I've realised that marriage is a full time activity, one can't really indulge in it the way one would, say, go to a movie or join a french class. There is no on off button or sleep mode for it, you herein forward are in a perpetual state of marriage. Its a nice state when you know that after a hard day's work you go home to a smiling face, when you get to share your dreams of a future, when in a way you feel that a piece of you that you never realised was missing is now filled. So while it is the best feeling to have, you realise that your life changes in more ways than one and there is very little time for things that you would have done in the past.
As a bachelor one of my key activities outside work used to be gyming, and for the past seven months, this has taken a backseat. Getting back into the gym is one of the toughest things that anybody can do. Everyone of the trainers who recognise you look at you and your body with a pity. You look at all the equipment in the gym and think, Ok, I can get back to my full training regime in no time and start off with a vigor only to find out that while your mind is at jet speed your body has slowed down to a gentle stroll. Before long, you overdo it and then wish the ground just opened up and swallowed you and relieved you off your suffering.
A year or so ago, I could run about 5-6 Km every day on the treadmill before my other workouts started, yesterday I ran for 2.21 kms before I knew that my body could have no more, my knees went wobbly, my back hurt and my lungs suddenly started feeling like there was no oxygen in the atmosphere anymore. I spent the rest of the evening pretty much feeling miserable and cursing myself for pushing myself so soon. In a way hangovers and the first day back at the gym are pretty much alike. All the food and drink you've had swims in front of your eyes and you swear to God that if ever you make it out alive, you would never do this again.
Despite all this, I know it's a matter of time before I get back to my once normal routine, though it feels like climbing Mount Everest for the second time with a chubby monkey on my back.
As far as blogging is concerned, it was never my motive to discontinue writing, I've begun to like this a lot and I hope to write a lot more in the months to come.
For the longest time, I've been wanting to write and even started a few posts but the fact of the matter is that I seem to have lost my mojo. Most of my posts have been about things that I've seen in life as it happens around me but off late nothing interesting ever happens. Um, well no, that isn't right, all the interesting stuff that happens in my life aren't stuff that I can write about, since I've decided that I would never write about being married etc. I figure that a decision like this would keep potential 'dog house' situations at home to an acceptable level (especially since my wife does read my blog).
Ok, so I'm sure by now you've figured out that I got married sometime between my last post and now. Well, it happened on a beautiful January evening in Bangalore. There are days that go so fast that you can barely hang on to it, well this was a day that went super fast yet it was without a doubt the best day of my life. I woke up that morning like I would any other day and ended it feeling like a million bucks. It was also the day when my right hand almost came out of it's socket after shaking more than to 1500 hands, of the guests at our wedding. That day I even learnt how not to look like a sour puss in front of a camera and developed what is known in the celebrity world as Ohlookthere'sacamera syndrome. Now anytime someone takes out a camera, I kind freeze on a pose with a wide howdeedoo smile plastered on my face.
After the enormity of the wedding and the reception, life slowly meandered into normalcy. I won't bother you folks with what happened in the days since then, except to say, that life makes sense now, it's great to be married! Its a process of falling in love every day and I don't think I'd exchange the last few months for anything else in this world.
Talking about shaking hands and meeting people in your wedding, it was especially tough since 95% of the people there were unknown to me and were friends/relatives of both the families. In the days after the wedding that I would run into someone in Bangalore and they would smile wide and start a conversation, only afterwards realisation would strike that this person had actually come to my wedding and had said something inanely witty that people say to a married couple they actually don't really know well. Now wherever I meet these folks again I end up pretending to know them and so now there are a lot of people in Bangalore who count me among their good friends and I don't even know their name! They wave at me when they pass me by in the roads or stop and joke about how married life is etc. Sigh, I seriously wish people were born with name tags.
Over the last few months I've realised that marriage is a full time activity, one can't really indulge in it the way one would, say, go to a movie or join a french class. There is no on off button or sleep mode for it, you herein forward are in a perpetual state of marriage. Its a nice state when you know that after a hard day's work you go home to a smiling face, when you get to share your dreams of a future, when in a way you feel that a piece of you that you never realised was missing is now filled. So while it is the best feeling to have, you realise that your life changes in more ways than one and there is very little time for things that you would have done in the past.
As a bachelor one of my key activities outside work used to be gyming, and for the past seven months, this has taken a backseat. Getting back into the gym is one of the toughest things that anybody can do. Everyone of the trainers who recognise you look at you and your body with a pity. You look at all the equipment in the gym and think, Ok, I can get back to my full training regime in no time and start off with a vigor only to find out that while your mind is at jet speed your body has slowed down to a gentle stroll. Before long, you overdo it and then wish the ground just opened up and swallowed you and relieved you off your suffering.
A year or so ago, I could run about 5-6 Km every day on the treadmill before my other workouts started, yesterday I ran for 2.21 kms before I knew that my body could have no more, my knees went wobbly, my back hurt and my lungs suddenly started feeling like there was no oxygen in the atmosphere anymore. I spent the rest of the evening pretty much feeling miserable and cursing myself for pushing myself so soon. In a way hangovers and the first day back at the gym are pretty much alike. All the food and drink you've had swims in front of your eyes and you swear to God that if ever you make it out alive, you would never do this again.
Despite all this, I know it's a matter of time before I get back to my once normal routine, though it feels like climbing Mount Everest for the second time with a chubby monkey on my back.
As far as blogging is concerned, it was never my motive to discontinue writing, I've begun to like this a lot and I hope to write a lot more in the months to come.
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