Two flashbacks and the present

Today was good despite it being terrible. Good because I was able to accomplish things despite some situations being totally stacked against me.

I had my regular therapy this morning. It was interesting because of the parallels that I’m drawing to the twins Rahel and Estha in the book ”The God of Small Things” by Arundhati Roy. In a nutshell, that book has somehow captured a bunch of experiences (including traumatic ones) in my childhood, and by reading it, I have kinda relived them and also gained perspective on how things are like for kids in Kerala.

I also realized that the twins are kinda my friends now. Imaginary or not, they are likely to understand and feel the stuff that I went through. Roy’s writing has also inspired me to get back to trying to write my own stories. You know, that thing I keep on trying to make happen, but it hasn’t yet. More on that later.

Sometime later in the morning, I decided that I’m going to take it easy with my physical therapy exercise schedule. Like taking the leg day off, and in my case it is literally taking both the leg days off.

Must have been the beers last night. Oh yeah, I did walk (cough, cough) over to a watering hole last night. Met up with friends from a team that I’m no longer working in, but sure I’m working with.

Why the italics and coughing, you ask? Because I limp/hobble instead of walk.

Okay. But why? Rather, how? And what physical therapy? What’s going on?

Well, well, well. I guess it is time to lay it all out here.

Nine weeks ago

Did I tell you that I’m very much into motorcycling? If I hadn’t, I really should write about it. It’s been going on for a couple of years. Serious stuff. Bought a Honda CB350 two years ago. Bought all the safety gear. Started riding long and regular. More like a mental feat than a physical one. Meditative and awe-inspiring. More on that later.

One bike is not enough for two riders with distinctly different everything, including riding style, temperament, and preferences. The second rider is J, of course. Yeah, he’s also into motorcycling. Pretty much has always been, but has finally turned a corner in terms of doing motorcycling seriously.

This meant borrowing someone else’s bike. Thankfully, my friend and band mate is a sweetheart, and he has been lending his bike for the last two years. But this was tiring, primarily because I had to pick up the bike from his place, which is about 1.5 hours from my place (in Mumbai traffic) and that added about 4 hours of extra ride time on an otherwise 10- to 12-hour riding days.

The solution was simple. Get another bike. So we did. But it was a bit of a rush, and the monetary transactions didn’t go through on the night of the first long ride with J riding with all the newly-bought safety gear.

So the night before, I did my 3-h schlepp to get my friend’s bike. And so we did what we have been doing for a few months.

But this time it was J’s ride. And my friend’s bike isn’t as fast (or safe) as mine. And I ride slower and safer than J. And J rides my bike. I can’t fuck up J’s first big ride. So I ended up making a risky decision with my friend’s bike jamming its brakes on me.

But wait, I was wearing protective gear, right? So no scratches on me. The bike’s got a few, but minor. But then what happened?

So I buckled my knee in an effort to quickly get back on the bike. The incident did happen on a very poor part of the road to Mahabaleshwar (it’s a gorgeous hill station on the Western Graters, approximately 200 km southeast of Mumbai), and there were trucks around, with one kinda heading toward me. So I must have panicked.

Long story short (not really, right) I had multiple-ligament tear of my left knee. This was about two months ago, and I underwent arthroscopic repair two weeks after the incident. Done by my junior from my alma mater, but not at the alma mater, but at a private hospital. Because it would be easier for J to take care of me.

It was painful. Especially the first two days and then in the first two weeks, and so on. J took care of me. Even during the difficult times. I was difficult to be with, and it was difficult for me to be with others, but it worked out.

I was on crutches or hopping in the first 6 postoperative weeks. A week ago, I started using a walking stick. You know, one of those modern ones.

In the 7 days since, I have tried to find excuses to step out of the apartment and walk. The newly unveiled Metro 2A did give me motivation, and so did the walk to the bar to meet my friends and have a couple of beers.

Cut to present

So yeah, I took it easy. My excuse was that I had other problems to solve. Like my relatively expensive MacBook Pro throttling every time I do anything related to video capturing or rendering. I have been in touch with both Apple Support and Logitech Support (cuz the camera’s from Logitech), and despite them both being helpful (or trying to be so), my problem remained.

So I had to figure shit out myself. And I reckoned it was a good enough reason to take it easy.

Also, I had a bunch of walking/hobbling to do. I had an off on Republic Day and my surgeon (my friend) was free to meet, and I wanted to see if he thought I could expedite my recovery.

So instead of doing physical therapy, I watched art lessons on YouTube. Got inspired.

Wait, what? Art? Since when?

Six weeks ago

I was in pain and I couldn’t do the stuff that I used to. So I decided to revisit sketching and painting (watercolors). Revisiting because I used to sketch my lecturers at Medical College, apart from sketching cats.

I (re)started small, but since then, I have gone on to purchase some basic/serious sketching/painting material. I even have a fanny back with art supplies. You know, to pain rocks and stuff on the go.

So far, my primary subject is Blu. In fact, just before I started writing this, I was sketching yet another bust shot of her.

Just like the 1.7 billion people around the world right now, I’m learning almost exclusively by watching YouTube. It’s pretty cool, I’ll say. The video medium does help especially in this case as I watch time lapses of the experts doing art.

Cut to present

So on my way switching between three lines of trains (two Metro lines and a suburban/local), I sketched. On the way back too.

I felt good. Sort of taking pride in listening to art instructors say stuff like, “sketch every day”, “fill up your sketchbook”, “take a sketchbook with you wherever you go” and all that jazz.

But that’s not the only thing. My surgeon/friend concluded that I can indeed start going a bit more aggressive with my transition to full weight-bearing, i.e., without assistance. That’s just great.

In between all of this, I did manage to grab dinner at the Mallu restaurant where I used to grab lunches/dinner when I was at my alma mater, mentoring my surgeon/friend. That felt nice.

And then I come back home and go through a complicate list of steps to try and un-throttle the MacBook Pro. Didn’t/hasn’t worked out. So my only way out seems to be a factory reset. And if that doesn’t work, oh lord, I don’t even want to think that I might need to buy yet another machine!

So in between all of this, I thought I should listen to my instructors’ advice, but on something that I haven’t been spending time on—writing.

And that’s why I’m writing—and presumably you are reading—this.

Frustrated Inc.

It is so easy to let frustration build up. You never really know where and how it started. In fact, I don’t even realize that it has started until it sets in.

I get frustrated when I hear sounds that I don’t want to hear or when I heard things that I don’t expect to hear. These can range from mobile phone buzzes and notifications to Blu meowing to attract attention. It can be the next-door neighbor’s kid screaming or it could be the fight between two women from the slum behind my building. It could be the sound of the air-conditioner malfunctioning or the drip from a faucet that is not closed properly.

One of my wishes is to be in an environment where sounds are absolutely under my control. Almost like have a mute or a kill-switch button for everything that could possibly create sound. Something like a sound-proofed studio for a living environment. I guess I am still okay with ambient sounds, even those that are characteristic of a city like Mumbai. But they have to be nondescript. Something that can be figuratively swept under the carpet of my fucked up mind so that I don’t feel accountable righting the things that are wrong.

As a musician, feeling frustrated with technology seems like a given. I am also starting to feel like I’m getting old enough to feel like an older man who finds any new things in the environment frustrating. When I’m working on a song on my digital audio workstation, I get frustrated when I’m unable to achieve what I want quickly. Because I haven’t had formal training in audio engineering, it is easy to get lost in the maze of parameters and controls and lose sight of the art that I’m trying to create.

I get frustrated when I make typos. I’m increasingly making typos in whatever I do. I fee like my dexterity on the keyboard (for typing) and my ability to pick errors that I have made are waning. It is such an embarrassing situation when someone who has had over 20 years of touch-typing experience and over a decade of experience in academic proofreading and copyediting make mistakes after mistakes after mistakes.

These are some of the sources of frustrations that I have. Right at this very moment, at least the noise and typo frustrations have set in. Blu is begging for food after being fed and J is on the phone in the same room, getting some work done. He has moved out into the other rooms a couple of times, but he still starts conversations in my auditory range.

Maybe I should work on this pervasive frustration issue with my therapist more than anything else.

So much to say

There is a lot of that I feel like saying. I don't know if I will be able to say them all. But I feel like I should give it a shot.

Over the last several months (during the COVID-19 lockdown), life has changed for me. Some for the better, some for the worse. I'll start with the better before moving on to the worse.

I have learned so much more in music production. Finished a course and I'm just starting my last in the series. Wrote some songs, produced several others.

I upgraded my home studio setup. I got myself a powerful laptop, monitors speakers, a good electric guitar, and a cheap MIDI controller (that's not working too well).

My home studio setup

 

My new guitar

I have at least two active projects, both of which might end up releasing songs to the world soon. I have been working on songs for close to two decades, but haven't ever released something substantial in a trusted platform. I had a couple shots at it -- one solo and another with a band -- but both didn't quite materialize the way it did.

Now, with about 50+ full songs in the bag, about 300 more rudiments that could be fleshed out into full songs, and the ones that I could write moving forward, I think I could start the process of releasing them consistently over the next several years.
 

One of the projects is with a band, the members of which are part of another band that I love dearly. Over the last several months, we have been working on these songs remotely and some of these are starting to come to life.
 

The journey forward is challenging for me because I think I will be exposing myself to social situations where I'll need to spend a lot of time working on this music as a producer and engineer for this band, which I think is not my strength. Plus, I'm decidedly an introvert at the core, and spending long periods with people (even if they are my friends) will be extremely taxing.

So overall, this seems ambitious but I think it is doable. All I need to make sure is that I should not burn myself out, which I have a tendency of doing.

I have watched a lot of quality content, both movies and TV series. These are the things that generally inspire me to be creative, and I have conceded to the fact that they are not merely entertainment for me. These things make me think in ways that other forms of communication and media don't.

Among these, I must mention my dive back into the wondrous world of Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, and the charm of good-quality Malayalam cinema. I still remember the time that I started watching Stargate with my friends and work back in 2014 or something, and they ended up finishing the series (the whole pantheon) in a year or so, where I languished in SG-1 for several years until I picked things up earlier this year.

I have rediscovered my love for gaming. I have started off with explore Xbox Game Pass on my Windows PC, but I think I am headed the way of purchasing an Xbox console when I can.

But I haven't been able to read too much. That's something I want to fix. I'm still stuck in Judas Unchained by Peter Hamilton. I have managed to read a few hundred pages in the last few weeks.

Amazingly, I started this book on New Year's day in 2018. I haven't read much other than a few non-fiction books and comics then. I want to finish this off before I start something new, something that will inspire me.

At work, I have gone from the manager of a team to someone who is primarily involved in creating, ideating, and troubleshooting. I'm currently in the last phase of creating an online training course for copyeditor trainees who join my company. This involved a lot of creative processes (with a lot of opportunity for seeding, farming, and harvesting self-doubt, which has more or less brought be back to a phase of full-fledged depression and anxiety.

To add to the mix is the work pressure and stress. I love working but I seem to have a problem with taking care of myself. This sort of thing has been happening at work for over 3 years now, and I have contemplated quitting or seeking other opportunities (less stressful). With my music revenues drying up during COVID-19 lockdown, with very little hope of things getting back to how things were before, I need to have this job to sustain myself and to work on my music.

Working from home might be easy in the sense that I don't have to travel or meet people. But it is difficult to plug yourself off the grid. Plus, after a 10 to 11 hour day of tiring work, I have to spend time to do the household chores. Then there is the music work. This leaves me with not enough time of rest, relaxation, sleep. I am trying my best to achieve that balance by trying to take short breaks to do some chores in between my work tasks.

The one aspect of work that is challenging but sufficiently rewarding to balance the negative effects of stress is the talks that I give to students from various universities about the academic publishing industry and related topics. These tend to be the highlights of my otherwise productive, but stressful and self-doubting, weeks.

I have had a relatively steady state of therapy sessions over lockdown, and I have decided to step up the fortnightly frequency before to a weekly one, considering that I almost fell apart in the last few weeks.

During the lockdown, I spent a LOT of time holed up in my apartment with my partner J. Before lockdown, I never thought I could comfortably spend more than two days with anyone, especially J. We had a stretch of about 4 months together. We were with each other night and day without any breaks!

We were both surprised to find out that we could hold out for this long. Of course, we had fights and arguments, but we also had wonderful shared moments, with lots of wonderful food and shared TV/movie experiences. We regularly had our evening tea on the balcony, with the backdrop of mountains and clouds (on good days) and the cacophony of avian noises at dusk.

For this duration, however, I lost my sense of personal space more and more, and that also has contributed to my triggering of stress, anxiety, and depression. My apartment is tiny by world standards and average by Mumbai standards, and I need the space for my music and to feel free that I can do things I want to do when I want to do. When I am with people, I give away all my space to them. They become the primary beings of the shared space. This is probably why I could never be with people for over a few days.

During the lockdown, I gave up my bedroom and desk to J for most of the day, which limited my access to my recording setup. He might do the cooking, but the cleaning responsibilities were harder and took longer. There was less quiet overall, and J was more or less in charge of the auditory environment.

When I'm alone, I usually have a variety of states where I'll play loud music or have absolute quiet, and I listen to podcasts and talk radio when I am not concentrating on text-based work. This world is shattered when another person shares the space with me. I don't feel like I should destroy their peace by auditorily invading the shared space, which is something that I don't usually get reciprocated for. This builds the tension and anxiety of losing control of the space. I don't know how to get out of this or have the feeling of a truly shared space.

I have finally started finding YouTube useful, especially to learn more about technology, music production, and my niche interests. I often dive into the YouTube maze and come out with learnings and best practices. This also happens with podcasts. In fact, the fact that I'm writing this post is because of the simple strategy that a songwriter espoused on a podcast.

They recommended starting the day and working on something creative. Maybe listening to music or writing. Writing songs or prose.

Because of the work-from-home situation, and because I want to try and finish my work as soon as possible, I end up starting work as soon as possible, which leaves with less creative energy at the end of the day. Today, I wrote some lyrics for a song that I'm working on, recorded a scratch version of it (both for the course), and I felt like writing this blog post.

Some of the lessons that I learned from the things that I read or seek out is how to do music production better. But the problem with knowing more is to find it difficult to get more done with less time. You tend to get lost in what you think you should do instead of what you should do. I used to wrap up demos in hours. Now, that has gone to days, if not weeks. That's not good and I need to figure out a way to make things manageable in terms of time. The latest course that I'm doing has an exercise that mandates that you set timelines for finishing a project. I will try to implement that moving forward.

My therapist tells me that I should try and stare out at nothing (or something pleasant) for short periods during the day. During our sessions, I found out that this activity made me feel like a heavy weight has been lifted off my body. My eyes started feeling relaxed and I felt like drifting off to sleep. This morning, I did that by staring at the mountains for a bit. I need to make it a point to do this more often than I have been doing.

I have been finding it difficult to fall asleep at night, especially when I am with J. I don't know why it is that. I tend to feel sleepy if I'm reading something or watching something, but the act of needing to switch off the TV or put away the book and switch of lights wakes me up.

One of the reasons could be the anxiety/stress overall, but I think the frustration of not feeling like I have done anything meaningful in the day is a constant contributor. Thanks to my wonderful upbringing, I have a tendency to feel I'm not good enough for anything or that I haven't done enough to merit existing.

This is both for things at work as well as my music. I know that I'm doing good work, but I always feel like I am not doing enough or that I could have done way better. At work, there is hardly a system where such anxieties are considered and taken care of. Many have left the company because of the unaddressed issues, with more leaving soon. I feel for them, as much as I should be feeling for myself. But as I said above, I need this job at this time.

Over the last year or so, I have more or less pulled out of most social media. The only thing I check occasionally is Twitter. I have also stopped sharing photos. In fact, the joy of photography has somehow been sucked up from inside me. I guess I should treat this as a phase too. Or maybe it is because I don't get to get out of my house anymore.

I am planning to switch of 8-year-old Nexus 5 to something more modern. Something with a decent camera and photography software. I'm not sure if I should go for Pixel 4A or something more expensive and flagship (like the OnePlus 8T or some version of the iPhone).

During the lockdown, I have rediscovered my interest in writing (physical, literal writing) with fountain pens. I have refurbished the ones that I have and I have purchased a couple of good ones. Now, I can even write lyrics paper with real pens!

My not-so-good handwriting

One of the unsettling aspects of lockdown has been finding out that I relate and empathize with the heinous characters in some movies. These characters show psychopathic characteristics. They are murderers, cannibals, and sadists. I don't think that I have any of these characteristics, but I have the sociopathy. What they say about human beings, their sufferings, and how things should end resonates with me.
I'm talking about Dr. Hannibal Lecter (played by Sir Anthony Hopkins) and Jame Gumb (Buffalo Bill, played by Ted Levine) from Silence of the Lambs, Tavis Bickle (played by Robert DeNiro) from Taxi Driver, and the young woman (played by Jesse Buckley) in i'm thinking of ending things.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter

Jame Gumb

Robert Bickle

The girl in i feel like ending things

I haven't talked much about Blumenthal. She is as pretty as ever. As I write this, she has gotten under the covers after having had her mail meal for the day.

Blumenthal in all her glory

So that's where I will end this for the moment. This was fun. This was refreshing. Maybe I'll follow my own advice and do this more often.

I wrote about photography earlier. Since drafting the post, I added some photos to it. These are the ones that I feel I should share or I should have shared.