Category: mansSearchForMeaning

Pointless!

Source: Unknown
You see the curve? The irregular sinusoidal curve? My mood is like that. I start the day on a high. I make my bed, make a list of things to do, visualize my short-term and long-term goals and go out with all the positivity. I appreciate small things in life – sunshine, birds, trees and the sky. I observe things rather than making a judgement. I dont yell on people and I try and get all the good karma I can.
I feel like the success kid and I am all determined to take on the world!
Life looks rosy and I have this inkling that great things are going to happen to me. In anticipation I start “living” the life that I crave for (a la The Secret). And I open my arms wide and strong, ready to recieve the goodness that the world would apprantly shower on m. 
I reach wherever I want to (coffee shop, clients office, borrowed desk) and by the time I arrive, I start falling into this mild, for want of better word, depression. I start questioning the very meaning of what I am upto. Things that I am doing – they dont matter no more. Where I start thinking about the reason of doing things. Where I wonder about the whole damn point of being in a world where life is unfair. Someone like me, who thinks he works harder than anyone else that he knows of, is poor and gets a raw deal all the time. Of course there are great things that has happened to him but overall, in grand scheme of things, he’s got the raw deal. There is no sex or cash, no friends, no future and nothing else to look upto. Everything feels like a futile attempt. Its like staring down the abyss.

The worst part of this feeling is that I am not alone. I know so so many people just like me. The ones who keep trying and keep going on without any hope or any possibility.

But then the selfish fuck in me pushes the pathos for others on a back seat. I concentrate on myself. And I realize that I am unhappy and I am discontent.

There are quite a few reasons for the feeling. The first and foremost is the fact that I did not get lucky with the Ovarian Lottery.
Like the poor kid on the left, in the image on the left, I have had to
climb really steep ladders while I see very average people doing better because they had things served to them on a platter.

The other thing is that I have had to work really hard for every rupee that I’ve earned while the word around me seems to get it easy!

And then my money
does not word hard. For every rupee I spend, I do not get its equivalent worth.

First bit (losing out on Ovarian Lottery) is a random luck. The second is something that
I can control and yet I cant because of the value system that I have
been ingrained with. I wish I could unlearn em. Once a middle class, always a middle class!

When this bout of self-pity gets too much, I stagger to YouTube and fire up the latest Kamal R Khan video and world starts looking bright all over again. Side note: Do see his collection on Youtube if you have time. Here is the link.

I wish I could love myself the way KRK does. In a world where self-love could be so, selfless, nothing can touch you!

But then, moment the video is over, I am back to the gloom of diminishing bank balance, lost opportunities and comparison with friends who are dollar millionaires and yet make a stupid show about their poverty – wish they accepted that they are doing well and stopped pulling legs of people like me who barely get by.

At this point, I try to count my blessings – amazing parents that are so selfless that I dont believe them at times (while I continue to cry about Ovarian Lottery), opportunity to have traveled the world, option to work for myself (and make enough to pay my rent and earn my bread, while sending nothing home), ability to choose the kind of work I want to do (not that what I do has changed the world) and so on and do forth. Side note: Did you notice all the disclaimers?

But then I realize that I am not alone. And I havent done it all. I have a fucking Jack of all trades at best and Jacks often end up as JackAsses. See that lame attempt at pun? And I claim to be an author!

I think I’d end this post with this lame attempt at poetry…

@jasuja ख़्वाब तो रईसों वाले है, हैसियत फ़क़ीरों वाली

— सौरभ गर्ग (@saurabh) December 19, 2015

P.S.: In fact, as I finish writing this piece, I am even wondering about the reason of this blog. I dont think anyone reads what I write (apart from people who land on this page via Google). And I definitiely dont go back to read how I was feeling at some point in the past. May be its just a way to vent? But to what end? Pointless. Like life!

Reclaiming life (search for meaning)

Wrote this towards the end of last year. Couldn’t post it back then because the post got extremely person it. But now that I know that I am back to being good, here it is!

This is an edited version.

As the new year dawns closer, I am in my thinking mode that I get in towards the end of every year. I think about what went right, what went wrong and how to change things. And I realize that one thing that I am very sure is that I want to be the master of my time and there is no way I’d let someone else control my time.

This day on, I promise that no one else will control my time.

Why this time-bound thing all of a sudden?

Because when your nose starts bleeding all of a sudden and a trickle of blood starts dripping from somewhere inside your nose and makes a puddle on the white-tiled floor below, you know that your time is limited. It’s like that wake up call that shakes and wakes you up.

If it were a one-time occurrence, you may dismiss it. But when the bleeding happens again and this time soils the bed-sheet you are on, you realize that life is fragile and you dont have control over it. You realize that life is indeed limited and precious and you ought to row your boat, however small it may be; Rather than being a captain of the largest ship they ever made.

The deep red liquid that supports life, when you see it flowing like that, it makes you question the meaning of life. The more evolved ones may have questioned before me. But then I am one of those “if it doesn’t affect me, I am not affected by it” kinds. It sucks to have such a philosophy but that’s how I am made. I want to change but I haven’t been able to. May be someday I would. For the time being, I know that my time is limited and I ought to control it. I can no longer be at the mercy of others. I need to address that meaning of life question now!

I dont know how many more days I have left but I better make the most of em. And unlike a lot of other people who have real talent, the closest thing I have, that I can call talent, is the ability to write. I may not be a good writer but I know that writing gives me pleasure. I know that I love to see words appear magically on the screen in front of me. I know that it’s a vocation that I can better at, if I keep at it, if I keep showing up.

So, while I continue to question the meaning of life, I am going to continue to write. Till I find answers, if there are any.

In terms of meaning of life, is life about making a difference? Is it about immortality? I have no clue.

But whatever it is about, I know that I ought to be healthy and happy. And I ought to master my time.

Next question is, how!

The Eco Mode 2

Sometime in August of last year I made these two posts. Each of them is worth revisit. A Thursday and as a result, Eco Mode. To save time, Id summarize things here. In those two posts I said that I was very fucked up with how things were moving so slow in life and I needed to do something about it. And to do something, I needed money. And for money, since my dad is not rich, I needed to save. And to save, I needed to stop spending on frivolous things, and hence the eco mode.

Fast forward to May/June of 2013. About nine months since I first spoke about Eco Mode. Not much has changed. Delhi is hotter. I have lost more hair. I haven’t stopped splurging and I am poorer than what I was back then, blame it on a few capital expenses. Yesterday I met a friend who just joined a startup and he’s getting paid a tiny atomic bomb for his salary. In terms of numbers, he now makes 4 times compared to me. And he and I are classmates. Nothing wrong with it. He probably deserves it more than me. But he did open my eyes to possibilities that exist for me.

So like last time, I have decided that I would get into Eco Mode starting now. And today was a good start. I had to meet a friend and unlike most days when I take my car for any and every meeting, I took the metro. The journey in the metro sucked but it wasnt very tough. I could live with it. Of course I will not do this everyday but its manageable. Idea is to cut down on unnecessary expenses and save as much as I can.

Coming to money, I have just one savings account and just one credit card. I make all my expenses from the credit card, except tolls, parking and other small out of pocket expenses. This ensures that I have a bill for each transaction and I can verify the spends at the end of the month. And of course I get loyalty points that get me free air tickets.

So I want to take a break by the end of the year for a month or so. During that time I want to travel, probably write a book, take it easy. And I have seven six months to go. In the next six months, here are my measurable goals…

  • Save 40% of my income. From all sources. Right now I have one source of income. I need to increase it. Thats my other goal. 
  • Make money from 3 sources. And predictable income at that. 
  • Get monthly credit card bill to 50% of the average of previous six months’ bills. 

Thats about it. If I can manage these three, I think I would be in a comfortable enough position to take a break.

Of course what I do with life and career is entirely different all together. More on it during one of these days in the 1000WADv2.

Just another Thursday morning

Wrote this on Thursday. Sounded depressing enough and dint publish. That time had decided to wait for a few days, do a review and then publish. 

It’s a Thursday morning. The entire country is celebrating rakhabandhan and I am alone in my office, staring at my screen for at least an hour now. It’s about 11 and I already look like a zombie. Actually there is a higher chance of someone looking like a zombie in the morning than at nights. Took two sleeping pills last night and yet dint get no sleep. Had a hearty breakfast and yet I am hungry. I have had gallons of water since 9 and my tongue and throat is still dry. So dry that I can barely speak. The temperature outside in Delhi is low 40 (Celsius scale) and its humid like Delhi is some equatorial jungle. The ACs in office obviously do not work and yet I have this bad bad cold. The whole respiratory system, starting with the nose, going up to the head, travelling down the throat to the lungs, is choked. I am breathing with my mouth and despite that, I am breathless. The head is throbbing like someone is kicking a football under the skin of my head. Every other muscle, tissue of my body is hurting so much that I can actually count the number of muscles in my body. Reminds me of Vipassana where it took all the effort in the world to gain equanimity and track just one muscle. Here I am, with a tacit awareness about each part, each limb, each muscle, each tissue. And more. My to-do list is miles long and yet I don’t know where to start. There are three exciting ideas that I can work on but I don’t want to. I am chasing greatness and immortality through my work and I have no clue how to go about it. None of my regular methods of distracting my head seems to be working. Poker seems like a game of luck, music sounds repetitive, cant seem to focus while reading, movies are just too long, eating does not give me that contentment any more. I have tried it all and yet I cant seem to get my head sorted. If I was myself, I would have been really excited and would have had a hard time sitting at one place. 

There is also this restlessness in my head and in my thoughts. I am snapping at my parents, friends, coworkers for no reason. Its like 2009 all over again when things really got out of hand. There is some kinda turmoil and I don’t know what is causing it. Everything is going well for me. I mean I make enough money to survive and take care of my responsibilities. My work, despite being bad, is better than what most other people my age are doing. My family is doing good and is thankfully sorted. My friends, though in different cities, are all doing well and I know I can count on them. And yet I am restless and I have no clue why or how. Last time around, in 2009, I left my job, came back to Delhi and then dint bother myself with things for a few weeks. This time, I am in Delhi and there is no place else that I could run to. I dont even have sgMS anymore who always gives me that peace, that contentment that I crave for all the time. 

To add on, its funny that despite all of this bullshit in my head, I am full of hope. Hope that the greatness that I chase is just around the corner. I have started making that extra little effort that is the gap between good and great. I can see the results already. All the lucky coincidences have started happening yet again. I am the new king of rivers (a post on this in a bit) and I have won more games on river in last few days than in my entire life. I somehow know that it’s that time when it’s either now or it is never. The next few months would define how rich would I die. I would obviously either die a pauper or a billionaire. There is no other way. There cant be. Things havent been designed like that. Its in the fucking air. I can feel it. I know its coming. May it is the expectation that is keeping me awake at nights. 

But then, thats not the point of the post on a Thursday. And here is the million dollar question. Is this what clinical depression all about? Frequent mood swings, sleeplessness, tendency to overeat, lack of concentration et al? Do I need to go see a Shrink?