Looking Inwards #7
Unpredictability, optimism, the important, meaning of life, a roller-coaster week, mopeds and rats, Vincent van Gogh, Karnataka hills, human mind, animal world, and art.
(Feature Image Courtesy: Biodiversity Library)
Hi there!
Thank you for joining me.
I hope you are doing fine.
Lately the world has been more unpredictable than ever. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t felt the pull of the pandemic. Along with the global crisis, things in our life seem too much. As if all of it has descended onto us at the same time. Sometimes we feel the tug so much we want to crawl into a hole. But we stay and strive because we are stronger than we think.
I look at this unpredictability as the gravitational force pulling us to the ground.
We’ve gotten so connected to the daily — running back to the house to pick up the mask; working from home while cooking, cleaning, and dealing with everything work, domestic, and interpersonal; budgeting the salary and project cuts into our routine; not being able to pick up the keys and rush to our friends but hoping they will pick up the call; noticing every little sneeze and fretting when we find our temperatures higher than usual; having to show a vaccination certification before entering a shop; remembering to not touch the other person’s arm in the queue; finding a different space to walk rather than the park, downloading a movie instead of booking tickets, and forgetting about crossing the borders into another country; being okay with not having a separate space to journal or focus because suddenly everyone is always around us.
We have to redo so much of what we had already resolved in our lives.
Every day we face something that reminds us we are living in a different — and difficult — time. Things have changed — and as we cannot send something back its course as if it never happened — we can say things have changed forever.
Though I’ve written about coronavirus and pandemic before — you can read the pieces here — I’ve not talked much about the absurdity that has seeped into our daily life. One reason (as I’ve often said) could be that I don’t want to admit anything has changed for the negative. I’m an over optimistic person who looks at the pros over the cons no matter what.
Once you’ve said the day was bad, it becomes bad. So I say, “the day could have been better” or “the day was good.” Now this day is just another experience I can appreciate.
Amidst everything weird and hopeless, good things must emerge from hiding. Like the damp moss that grows on wet rocks but leave us spell-bounded with its velvety glow. Like the fairy inkcaps that swarm over rotting tree stumps but look like little white umbrellas of wonder. Like the one unexpected phone call from friend whom we thought we lost years ago.
What looks like snow and ice is actually scorching hot regions of gas. Deceptive, isn’t it?
Our low times in life could be the most significant tests of our patience and endurance. No matter the circumstance, we can always choose our reaction to it.
Image Courtesy: Chandra Observatory
I think one of the greatest things today is that we have more chances of coming together as human beings. We relate more than ever because everyone is suffering either in similar or disparate ways.
We all have courageously tried to bring a balance into our lives. Initially we all fretted and fought over space, chores, and noises with our housemates and families. But after the initial months, we realized this is how it’s going to be indefinitely so we are making the most of it. Adults have moved in with parents, couples are living in one-room houses, fathers are cooking because mothers are taking calls, old parents are finally spending time with kids and grandkids, sisters living across continents have moved in together in one country, graduates have taken remote jobs to help with home businesses, mother-in-laws are finally seeing how hard their daughter-in-laws work at their job, and we have caught up with friends whom we didn’t know remember us anymore.
We all have paid more attention to our health. We have thought more about volunteering, donating, and helping others (if only to feel significant and better about ourselves). We all put in time to not only get our life going but also to run campaigns, to cut our family’s hair, to prepare sick meals for our workers, to be there for our friends even after midnight, and to grieve together for our recent losses — or perhaps we grieved over past losses we have acknowledged only now.
We have been courageous.
In moments like these we wonder what’s important and what’s not.
I always believe that if I will be known as an average writer, my life won’t mean anything. In this daily living as an explorer, one day I’m dealing with snakes, another day with hosts who cheat but don’t back down, another busy afternoon with a father who never realizes no matter how much he blames he will not win anything, another day with a partner who forgets he is a partner, and another morning with fever and periods and with hosts who don’t believe me when I reiterate that huge rats are sneaking into our cottage at night.
Not only in this pandemic but in this life as an itinerant writer, I feel the difficulties are the universe’s way of telling me my life already means so much. It means what do people around tell others about me. It means if my partner is comfortable locked in the house with me in a pandemic. It means does my mother feel like calling me when she feels lonely. It means if I can lift my head and be proud that I’m not scared one day someone will find out a scam I’m pulling. It means if my friends miss me. It means if my readers trust me.
Even when noone is looking at me I do what one shall do. My life must mean something then. No? And that’s the only hope.
What’s your only hope from life?
Inky bluecaps sprouting out of dead roots and stumps. Courtesy: Ondeane
The last week was another roller-coaster week. The article I wrote reviewing the Pondicherry scam brought some opposite reaction. I can’t say exactly what it was but I was busy doing damage control. I wrote new pieces that I have shared below. I went around Auroville walking, riding, and just sitting. I’m enjoying riding my rented moped on dusty roads unknown. I talked to a lot of new people around: mostly to see what Auroville communities are up to but also to see if I can find a better living space. I watched a movie in the community theatre here with six-seven other people. I also browsed through beautiful books on some of the world’s oldest things and very old and colorful drawings of marine life that has enchanted me. I’ve shared everything below.
Overall it was a fun week. I was low on some days because I had to do so much but something or the other seemed to come in my way. I had what I think is referred by the name “productivity dysmorphia” — no matter how much I do I’m never happy with my performance.
But I have emerged stronger. As I said, I want to take 2022 day by day, with more confidence and with thicker skin. I remind myself every day of these three and I realign my priorities and readjust my goals and the paths I walk upon.
As long as we keep walking progress is bound to happen.
Are you able to find your paths too? Press reply to this email and tell me.
For this week’s letter,
Some of my writing,
quotes I love,
things to read,
things to watch,
and
travel tips.
Articles of the Week
Vincent van Gogh on Delving Deeply, Focusing on One Thing, Courage to Fail, and the Art of Doing
Out of the hundreds of letters the Van Gogh brothers exchanged, the Vincent van Gogh organization has put about hundred online. All those letters are poetic, sincere, and full of intelligent advice on pursuing one’s profession. But more than the rest, one letter dated 15 October 1881 from Vincent to Theo left me no choice but to write this piece on hardships of work and the courage to pursue any skill.
Click to read the complete inspiration or Pocket for later.
Nothing To Do But So Much To Do: On Stuart Hill in Madikeri Coorg
As all of you may already know, I write travel narratives and memoirs instead of the usual travel posts. This narrative written from the Stuart Hill in Madikeri town of Karnataka India is another attempt at sharing a part of a writer’s life, lived slow and in fulfillment, from a green and unfamiliar part of the world.
Read the Stuart Hill memoir here or Pocket for later. Enjoy the read (I still have to add more pictures).
Quotes I Love
“There is so much outside the false cloister of private experience; and when you write, you do the work of connecting that terrible privacy to everything beyond it.” —Leslie Jamison
“People lose their way when they lose their Why.” — Michael Hyatt
“It can be coins or sports or politics or horses or music or faith, the saddest people I’ve ever met in life are the ones who don’t care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there’s nothing to make it last.” —Nicholas Sparks
“Having a bunch of cats around is good. If you’re feeling bad, you just look at the cats, you’ll feel better because they know that everything is just as it is. There’s nothing to get excited about. They just know. They’re saviours.”— Charles Bukowski
“My questions are limited by my knowledge.” — Yours Truly
— Yours Truly
What I’ve Been Reading
I’ve been reading short stories, books, articles, and so much more. I can’t possibly list all what I have read in the past week so I’m putting down the things I found the most relevant and worthwhile.
Of the human mind and body:
The Lost Medieval Habit of Two Sleeps — For millennia, people slept in two shifts – once in the evening, and once in the morning. But why? And how did the habit disappear?
Sleep is the best prevention and cure. Neuroscientists say if we sleep well in our rough times, we can recover from a lot of damage. Read the interesting BBC article to know how sleeping in two parts was once common and what did human beings do in between the sleeping shifts.
Do I Have Productivity Dysmorphia? — Productivity dysmorphia is the inability to see one’s own success, to acknowledge the volume of your own output.
The phenomenon I was talking about above.
We know but here is some more knowledge on why aging doesn’t begin at 60: — People Age Differently
What the hell is long COVID? Read this — Long Covid: 'I have to choose between walking and talking’
More than a million people in the UK are suffering from long Covid, with fears the number could rise due to the Omicron variant. Many patients say they only had a mild initial infection but it went on to ruin their health, social lives and finances.
You Can Only Maintain So Many Close Friendships: An Interview with the Evolutionary Psychologist Robin Dunbar who is known for his Dunbar relationship number.
Have you ever thought why we can’t keep in touch with all our friends or irrespective of how many best friends we think we have we always end up calling the few whenever we need a shoulder to cry on or a pair of eyes to look at us with compassion?
Robin Dunbar has answers to such questions.
The innermost layer of 1.5 is [the most intimate]; clearly that has to do with your romantic relationships. The next layer of five is your shoulders-to-cry-on friendships. They are the ones who will drop everything to support us when our world falls apart. The 15 layer includes the previous five, and your core social partners. They are our main social companions, so they provide the context for having fun times. They also provide the main circle for exchange of child care. We trust them enough to leave our children with them. The next layer up, at 50, is your big-weekend-barbecue people. And the 150 layer is your weddings and funerals group who would come to your once-in-a-lifetime event.
In the Animal World,
This beautiful Biodiversity Library that offers centuries worth of visual biodiversity treasure for free. Right now I’m savoring Louis Renard’s Poissons, ecrevisses et crabes or, Fishes, Crayfishes and Crabs of diverse colors and extraordinary forms. Looking at its hundreds of colorful and embellished drawings of species found around the East Indies is sort of wandering inside an aquatic life museum which houses the most precious paintings ever painted of the sea life. See for yourself.
Dogs Can Distinguish Speech from Gibberish—and Tell Spanish from Hungarian — A new study’s authors say their investigation represents the first time that a nonhuman brain has been shown to detect language
Some of the Meaningful Art,
Art is pretty simple, ain’t it? And it is in everything. Someone rightly said, Do you know that it is very, very necessary for honest people to remain in art? Hardly anyone knows that the secret of beautiful work lies to a great extent in truth and sincere sentiment (can’t recall the source. My sincere apologies.)
Almost realistic paintings of dense green foliage (on Instagram)
Seonnahong: Paintings fusing a real and imaginary realm of the now, the past, and the future
→ Would you like me to suggest more such meaningful and artful Instagram accounts?
Reflecting back,
52 Things I Learned in 2021 by Jason Kottke — An interesting blend of multidimensional things I didn’t know much about.
Such as this one,
By counting excess deaths from Jan 2020 to Sept 2021, the Economist estimates that more than 15 million people have died of Covid-19 worldwide, more than 3 times the official death toll of ~4.6 million.
And here is the article that inspired the above one: 52 things I learned in 2021 by Tom Whitwell
What I’ve Been Watching/Listening
I have stayed pretty offline for the last months as I’ve been mostly listening to the hollering peacocks, the crackling bamboos, and my own self. Today I’m hearing the crickets and the silence of my heart.
I do love this movie called Marriage Story. The film is more like a real-life theatre and not a conventional cinema movie.
And for all my Wanderlusters!
Today only a few pictures from 2021 travels.
The Irumbai Legend of Auroville (better read on a big screen)
a moon I caught over the Himalayas last summer
buffaloes on the mountain tops of Himachal. If there is a mountain, someone will be there at its summit.
spotted in Madhya Pradesh while driving on a highway last summer
Thank you for reading.
I hope you have a great upcoming week. Take good care of yourselves :)
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Yours,
Priyanka
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