Self-Driven Wedges

After waiting a whole week to receive the first assignment in the memoir-editing project, during which I admit to not being successful in containing my guarded optimism on it, I received two chapters for review, accompanied by a brief note.

It was late evening and I had just reached home after a long ride home, following a wonderful weekend at J’s country home. I felt a bit delirious. Maybe the memories of playing frisbee at the beach on consecutive evenings and the three-hour hike up and down a nearby hill, being accompanied by two canine acquaintances we had met on the way up, were contributors.

Maybe it was the first explicit allusion to affection in the note, which seemed to have peeled off the outer coverings of my predefined role in the relationship, which I had little contribution in defining apart from its meek acceptance.

I’d nevertheless felt ambitious enough to promise the return of at lease one story reviewed by bedtime, something I wasn’t able to keep. I had found myself engrossed in a blend of watching a game on the telly and jamming on my newly-sweetly-setup P-bass.

By the time I remembered, I had already committed myself to bed with the ritual of taking my medications for the night. So I sent a brief apology, asking for an extension of the original deadline by a day.

Monday was relatively busier, but by evening I had carved out enough time to have finished reviewing, editing, annotating a few paragraphs of a story that described the naughty misdeeds of a youthful man in boarding school, confined to an adolescent’s body. I did find myself enjoying the process, maybe even more than what I had expected to.

One of the unexpected joys was what I ended up discovering on the previous editor/reviewer, who had left a wonderful note at the top of the document. The existence of a previous reviewer was brought up briefly in the original conversation where the informal agreement for collaboration for the memoir project was agreed upon.

Looking things up is as natural a part of the review process for an an editor as is the lavishing of saliva on the cleanliness of hilt is for a cat. Google showed me wonderful things about the person I was looking up. A well-known literary figure whose first book—a memoir, would you imagine—was met with praise and adulation because it gave a voice to the voiceless for a marginalized people, which I proudly belonged to.

So in my response that went attached with the partially reviewed story, I’d ended up writing, in post- and post-post-scripts, notes of joy and happiness at this discovery.

Tuesday morning was rung in by a fierce note questioning my sanity and audacity—for having cooked up a fantastic story, spotlit by the assignment of the incorrect sexual orientation to the original editor/reviewer! The only logical conclusion to come to is that this person must still be living rent-free in the heart of the unamused storyteller.

By late afternoon, the fire remained un-doused despite a couple of explanation/apologies. The actual purpose of the review seemed to have been discarded, thanks to the ubiquitious inaccessibility of Microsoft Word’s doomed Track Changes feature, in the eyes of the less experienced.

I felt like I had willed into existence a barrier that I had feared will get in the way of the next phase of a fledgling friendship/relationship. I felt like I had proven myself right in wronging in the things I set out to do. I felt weak and vulnerable.

Yet, somehow, on Wednesday, I found myself having the strength to gently guide the email conversation toward its rightful direction. By afternoon, I found myself in a Zoom call, covering the rear of Microsoft—for the ineptitude of its software engineers who stubbornly refuse to bother about the user experience and accessibility of the dreaded feature.

It’s Friday morning as I type this, and I still don’t have a substantive review of my review yet. I’m sitting with my appendages crossed, feeling like I have some strength to remain in the chase.

Correspondences - a new series

Over the past few weeks, I have been writing to my friends on non-social media platforms. I would like to consider this venture a humble attempt to practice the craft of writing. I consider these exchanges little fragments of the manifestations of my cognitve/spiritual existence in the material world.

To find them an independent space to live and breathe, and yet to have be loosely linked to the the online universe of my primary blog, I have decided to document the best excerpts from these on Neverlast, the micro-blog to Engayging Life. I’m calling this series Correspondences,

The links to the first four are below:

1. Correspondences #1: Doug (Part 1)
2. Correspondences #2: Doug (Part 2)
3. Correspondences #3: Steve
4. Correspondences #4: Mike

I hope you, the reader, enjoys them.

Books to Bind Us All

What is it that brings people together, only to impose themselves, their opinion, and their beliefs on the others? The force is gentle at first, but gathers strength with each exchange, fueled by a mix of pride, hurt, and ego. It waxes and wanes, it swells and ebbs, but it chips away at us and our relationships ever so slowly.

It is a cycle without a purpose, at least something that I haven’t discovered yet. It makes me wonder if this cycle happened the same way since we have known ourselves to be the way we are. And by that, I mean humans as bands, a term that I wouldn’t have had readily available to me if had I not read the Yuval Noah Harari bestsellers.

How did we get to pre-history, I wonder. May be because Band of Brothers—a phrase that I have often heard and read without really knowing what it actually refers to—came up as a book title just yesterday in a conversation. The phrase was used with the assumption that everyone in the conversation would know what it meant, which is one of the most fallacious fallacies one would encounter. My mind must have subconsciously guided my fingers to type the word band.

It was just another occasion when I found myself in the middle of an act of trying to rediscover my purpose/role in a relationship—maybe I should use the word acquaintance—a tenuous one at that. We were indulging in an illegal activity, where I was trying to please someone who I have been trying to please. Not in any lewd sense, but because he could—if he’d be willing to, of course—fill a gap in my life that has existed since the time I remember myself as a child. The activity was just a simple exchange of pirated intellectual property in the written form from me to him.

My intentional concealment of the identity of this person must not be misconstrued as a means to diminish them or their presence in my life, but instead is a show of respect to their privacy. Something that I have learnt the hard way on this very blog. I guess it is also a gesture of affection, an effort to shield them for prying minds.

I had met him in rather unflattering circumstances, trying to sneak behind his newspaper-reading self to find means to make myself presentable. My first act of initiating a conversation involved offering a tumbler of whisky at ten in the morning, mind you, in his very own house. It was an evidently unsuccessful attempt at concealing my anxiety of meeting him. We had then settled down into a jarring conversation about goods and bags of beverages to start one’s day.

A few years since that initial encounter, I had finally found this rather unimaginative method to step into his attention range. I had the tech chops that could help find things to occupy his spare time. It was one of the numerable straws to clutch at to strengthen a fledgling, and dare I say, flailing relationship.

I find myself writing this the morning after an unpleasant experience—I’m certain this is from both sides. It was a bizarre conversation about the frequency of possessive pronouns in conversational speech. Just an observation at first, but it went on to become something that defines a character as good or bad, of course from one’s own perspective.

Happenings like these is why we have not yet been able to break in our relationship so that we can get past the constant reminders that we need to continue building it. I’m not really sure if he feels the same way, but I’d be gutted if he isn’t.

One thing leads to another, and this morning we find ourselves talking about books—a book if I were to be precise. It is an anthology of sorts, somewhere in between a memoir and an autobiography. I’m going to call it Memories for R&Z, which is an oversimplified appellation distilled from its intent and purpose. A book that he is writing with stories that he has written—stories based on life experiences, with a healthy coating of humor. If things work out the way they could and should, I would work as an editor—more like a second pair of eyes—for the stories.

Our hope is to eventually get this book published, with a warm reception from an audience that would not solely consist of family. I’m well aware that the way toward the destination could be treacherous. The prior mentioned triumvirate of ego, hurt, and pride will definitely come to play. Of course, I’m anxious if the equilibrium of building and breaking will alter, and that the relationship with drift toward a less desirable state.

All this we shall see.

Disappointment and Dissatisfaction

It’s been another week. Another week of not being able to do what I set out to do. Another week of falling short of expectations that I set for yourself. Another week that tells me that there are more such weeks to come, and the weeks will clump into months, which will then solidify into years.

Yet, if I were to note the things that I was able to do, the skills that I was able to hone, the art that I was able to craft, the plans that was able to make, I would know that I didn’t do that bad. But I didn’t, I don’t, and I won’t. I have masterfully orchestrated the positive feedback loop (strange that this is one of few things that can be described as positive in my life) in which the feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction with myself sets me up for the glorious streak of weeks, months, and years that I’m in.

As I write this, my search for a performance coach, which is in its third week, feels like yet another weak, uncommitted attempt at fixing things that may never be fixed. It is tantamount to transferring responsibilities of taking care of things that you ought to have taken care of yourself in the first place.

“You used to be good at mastering things and bringing them to the finishing line; that’s a skill that you have that we can work with”,

tells the second of four coaches in the obligatory free session. The conversation was quite pleasant and smooth. I felt comfortable sharing what I was seeking. There were no uncomfortable silences. There was a mutual convergence, probably because the coach was a musician and had goals that were similar to mind.

The meeting itself was rather unplanned. The coach had gotten in touch with me over email and text messages, requesting me to suggest a good time to meet. I was out riding all weekend. So when I respond around 3 pm IST on Sunday, I wasn’t expecting a call on my phone by 6.30 pm, which would then be followed by at one-hour conversation starting at 8 pm.

In between, I familiarize myself with his website. In the messaging on the site, I see patterns that indicate potential incompatibilities in the approaches and philosophies employed if we were to work together.

Yet, I prepare my story, keeping in mind the need for not wasting the coach’s time. I’m constantly reminded that they are all professionals and that they use the money these coaching sessions bring to make ends meet. The problem is that most of them charge more than I could ever afford. To admit this fact is painful and insulting. Makes me wonder why I started my search in the first place.

The two that I have met so far have assured me that they won’t let the cost barrier be the reason why I can’t work with them. I’m still not sure what that means in terms of their fees, but it does make me feel like I’m spending money to buy band-aids to cover up my wounds, instead of admitting that I require something else. Something that may not even be real.

When I read this article on The Atlantic, I was expecting to be feeling slightly more at peace with myself for being in the state of dissatisfaction/disappointment. Of course, I haven’t tried what the article suggests one try, but being aware of the possibility of a way out must help, no? It hasn’t.

Maybe it is because I ended up doing something that I said I’d do less of. Maybe it is because I haven’t been able to write for the past few days. Maybe it is because I just heard from my partner that my ex has had some unkind things to say about me. Maybe it is because my partner did not let me know about this until after I sent to my ex a note with an article that I read on The Marginalian about long-distance relationships. And then, in an unpleasant conversation with my partner, I was told that I sound like someone that I don’t want to sound like. Someone who, until recently, I thought I could help to not sound like how they sound like.

I haven’t been in touch with most people who I used to care about for the last two years. This includes my ex. My partner, who tries to be a messenger between me and the ones that I have left behind, tried the same with my ex. When he saw a sliver of light in the dark skies that have been looming over me, he tried to nudge me to get in touch with the ex. Of course I said I don’t want to. Of course I said I feel it would be better not to care about others until I have gotten myself back together. Of course I still think this is the truth.

The real question is this: will I ever get myself back together?

The Art of Self-Promotion

“So what is it that brings you to me?” asked the performance coach after the first of four awkward silences. I mention them because I still have trouble with them, which at the age of forty-two and a half is somewhat embarrassing. We were about three minutes into the first free, thirty-min session.

We had exchanged pleasantries before. I had awkwardly brought up the weather as an ice-breaker after noticing the aurora borealis-laden Zoom virtual background and the sleeveless heavy winter jacket he was wearing.

He said, “I live in the foothills of Himachal Pradesh—it’s freezing here. I wouldn’t mind trading places with you right now.”

I guess he meant “Himalayas.” I realize that my frosty metaphor could have been literal if I had been there, which is something I might need to work toward. I’m not sure if I’m cut out for perennial cold weather, but the invitation of quiet is overbearing.

I eventually respond to the question. A long and winding answer, but I eventually manage to sum it up and wait for a response. That’s when I realize that I hadn’t finished my story.

So I add,

“As an artist, I think I am well-rounded in most aspects of creation and performance. What I find myself falling short of, thanks to my depression and social anxiety, is a sustainable way to get my art out there, exposed to the rest of the world, waiting for acts of judgment and critique from people, who may not even know what they are talking about.”

A couple of moments of silence pass, and I find myself marching on:

“I guess I’m talking about self-promotion and marketing that goes hand in hand with music these days. One can even argue that content and talent is not as important as promotional skills and perseverance. I used to do this for my band back in the day, so I know I can do it. But I somehow don’t seem to have the strength anymore. The act of creation has taken a step back too because of the inevitable motion toward self-promotional stagnation. So my idea of a coach is someone who offers support and who is an enabler and a motivator for me to do what needs to be done. Somewhere between the role of a manager and a coach.”

He returns with the elegance of a backhand chip return:

“I hear you and I can help you. I work with my clients in whatever way that I think would help them achieve their goals. Twenty-four-seven, I think about them. So my clients may even get text messages from me at three in the morning. If there’s something that I think I need to communicate, I will, regardless of time and place.”

It lands gently, but it sounded intrusive and dangerous. I’m worried that the juggernaut of drive and intent might even run me over. Feelings of alienation and anxiety start to gently wash over me. It was the second uncomfortable silence, much longer than the first.

I am grateful that there is no effort to break it from his end. He seems to simply sit there in the cold and watch my grainy 720p video. Is he sizing me up? Maybe my smile isn’t thick enough to veil my vexation.

I respond with some deflective conversation until I eventually find my way back with a question about his writing. After all, he has written and published books. At least one bestseller as far as I can see from his websites. I’d even checked the book out on Amazon. I now know that it is available for free on Kindle Unlimited, which I had recently started subscribing to. I guess I’ll download it and check it out.

“You must have also gone through phases of self-doubt and reticence while you were in the process of writing/publishing your book.”

The answer is a smash.

“No. I did not. In fact, I wrote my book without even reading any. Of course, I’d read books through school and college, but nothing worth mentioning since then. I decided that I wanted to write a book, so I found a book-writing coach—India’s premier one, in fact. I took lessons and simply wrote the book. I had to choose an attractive topic, and the rest was pretty straightforward.”

The audacity! Or was it just self-belief? What would I think of myself if I had done something of this sort? What would others think?

But that’s the whole point, isn’t it?

I remember my friend Dennis telling me on our way back to Medical College in his Maruti 1000. We had just had lunch at the Indian Coffee House after a morning of lectures in microbiology and forensic medicine. We had been discussing Asimov’s writing in the backdrop of The Foundation series. I had borrowed two of the books from the initial trilogy from him, but I had to pick up the rest from the lending library that my parents had bought me and my sister a subscription for.

Somewhere along, I must have expressed my desire to write like Asimov.

“You want to write?! For every book you write, you’d have to read at least ten. Maybe a hundred. Don’t even dream about it until you have read enough!”

He was/is right, of course. Reading a lot makes you a better writer. Listening to a lot of good music, written by talented songwriters and crystallized heart-felt renderings, has given me the information and inspiration to hone my musical craft too.

It has, or they have, brought me here. My as-of-yet insubstantial attempts at writing prose/poetry and producing/recording/performing original compositions stem from it or them. The mountain that is starting at me, or I’m staring at, is the process of getting it all together in a nice little package, getting it out there, planting it in the center of the cauldron of humanity.

This is the third silence, by the way. It gets broken by him this time. He tells me a story, the details of which I fail to recollect. But it did end with this thought.

“I believe in the philosophy of not worrying about what others think. It’s their job to think, criticize, and judge. It’s mine to not care about them or their thoughts. Simply put, I don’t care.”

This was the longest period of silence. I find myself immersed in a pool of awe and disbelief, shimmering with a thin layer of intimidation at the top.

Was it even polite to be this way? What about humility and introspection? I thought it was necessary to be painfully—but I guess not debilitatingly—self-aware, armed with the knowledge of one’s perfectly ignorable position in a world full of artistic pinnacles. Then again, I realize that they are propped up by artistic debacles that are more by orders of magnitude.

The conversation meanders to a close with discussions about fees and frequency of the coaching sessions. We hang up soon afterward, but my guard is up at the prospect of further monetary onslaughts, but I do have someone who can guide me about this. Another coach, in fact. A finance/investment consultant.

Hours later, what stays with me is this:

“He is either someone who I absolutely need or someone who I should stay far away from.”

The latter is already a reality, at least physically, but I think I need to move closer to him—while not being him, of course—and his state, not just physically but also cognitively.

Observations #1

Forty-seven minutes past eight in the morning. I’m late but I’m there, and that’s a relief. I have a few moments—precisely thirteen—until the grey-clad security personnel start wanting me out. I must hurry, but I must also slow down.

I must practice what I preach I will practice.

The heart’s heavy or loud. On second thoughts, maybe it is fast and loud. The cut-out shirt, one size too small, clings on to my skin through an interface of a mixture of salts and water. It’s black and has the outline of three pairs of bipeds etched in grey.

I had picked it up from a table littered with same-sex merchandise. In exchange, I had parted with two currency notes, maybe three. The other stuff was too loud, like my heart is now. The people were loud too, relatively at least. Some would say they were just expressive, they were just free, they were just liberated. But all of this is only within the  walls that surround the table and the people. Once they walk out, they become quiet; they become subdued and suppressed. I too will walk out, but I will not be remarkably quieter.

Once you are at the bottom, you don’t have the drive to dig any further.

Not to forget the cycling shorts that confine my modesty. They are black too but no grey figures adorn them. There is a neatly cut out cushion sown in, to not let the hard seat dig in too far. Funny how when not on a bicycle, someone like me is supposed to look forward to hard things being dug in. Not too far because then won’t fun anymore. Until it gets to be fun again at least for one of the two.

My mind’s racing. The parts of it that have gotten lost somewhere must have made it light and nimble. But my mind is always heavy. Okay, a bit of hyperbole. Not always, but most of the time. That’s why I’m here trying to slow it down. The brisk jog must not have helped, but then the mind is not the heart even though hundreds of poets might have tried to convince us otherwise.

Focus. Look ahead.

I’m surprised to realize that my eyes were open all this while, but I hadn’t been seeing things. Not to imply that I’m blind, which I am not. I can see longer and clearer than I ought to, something I lean on to distance myself from my lineage, many of whom indirectly brought food to the tables of the families of optometrists. The first signs of the eventual submission to the ravages of old age have made their appearance as evidenced by blurring of gigantic signs planted far away. The psychological barricade that seems to install itself between the optic nerves and the temporal cortices seemed to be fueled partially by this optical loss. The cycle might be vicious, but my frontal cortex is up to scratch.

Observe and record.

Five types of palms, the names of which I’m not sure of, are probosces of varying length sticking out of the freshly watered lawn. One is a Chinese fan palm and another is a date palm, thanks to lessons lent by the lover during past lolls. The names of the other trees are even scarcer, but not those of the avians resting atop their branches. A family of flying rats dispersed across five trees, with a solitarian grooming itself, its grey outline sufficiently contrasting with the light blue sky. The nebulous army seem to have declared a ceasefire unlike its counterparts in Myanmar and Russia. Three black crows and a mynah are also in the party that did not require RSVPs.

Good going, but check back on your heart. Nothing in there or so it seems. Not even the loudness in the ears. Did I lose my earphones? Phew! I hadn’t, because I would be even more blind thanks to the noise.

Now let’s look at some mammals.

Unfortunately, not even a single quadruped one available for observation. Among the ones that are, one is learning to not use his two longer limbs for locomotion. He is on a skateboard, wobbly at best, sticking close to the median, propped on either side by his friends. A couple walk slowly past them on the far side of the road skirts the garden, lost in conversation. None of them have masks on, by the way, maybe as a sign of protest to the authorities.

Wait a minute, do I have mine on? No! Mine is on my neck, but then again I was alone and I had just finished a run. My excuse is better, at least until I get the dreaded virus one of these days.

Back to the road.

The most elegant posture. On a pink bicycle about thirty seconds behind the trio with the skateboard. The woman on the saddle seems to be the only one at peace with the world. She is wearing pink too, what a coincidence. A gentle brisk pace, maybe nine kilometers per hour. I know because I ride at thirteen when I’m not trying to race.

Now that she has gone, I need to find something else to look at.

I’m sitting on a wooden garden bench, and across me is another. Too close to each other, placed awkwardly toward the center of the ramada without much thought. Or maybe too much thought for the pair of security guards to nap during the day when no one’s looking. There is even a cast iron bolt that sticks out from the front where it shouldn’t have been left. If someone were to draw blood around where I am sitting today, they would be somethings and have four legs.

I think I have looked enough. Time to close my eyes. Making myself physically blind again, but now without the chorus of the heart in my ears. It’s time to try mindfulness and grounding.