Destructive Distillation

Age, life, birthdays and me

06 November 2009 by Vemana

After 7 months I am back. I dont know why but I just knew today I am writing a post and I knew which one too. This post is about birthday, age, life and other reflections which pop up under what are called 'Similar topics'. The idea of this post has been in my head for over an year now. I thought I would write something on my 22nd birthday and compare it to what I wrote on my 20th here. I shot past the birthday mark and then by the time I could write it my life has changed so what was a post of one idea became two and of course by the way this started you know its going to be a big one. Get your coffee mugs or thinking hats and sit down. Cos I have quite a bit to say.

It is quite remarkable how life changes within some fleeting moments and more remarkable how it remains the same far too painfully long. I can accept the changes as I believe in the theory that we are a sum of all those things we have been exposed to right from our childhood and some small things could be revelations as they uncover and unite a bunch of emotions and thoughts which were subconscious and discrete. But what I cant understand is how many people let their lives remain the same for decades together. When there is no novelty, where is the rush of thought and action? Where is the joy of life when you arent learning anything new today? How can you live in the same zip code all your life?

Sometimes though you are learning a lot, life remains static and enters a pattern and we feel like that stunt biker in a cage in the circus who circles around pretty fast. We too go on doing those sequence of actions pretty well but we forget how to slow down and go to the bottom of cage so that you can leave it. You feel this is exhilirating enough, I dont need new rushes in life. That is Death or atleast its half brother called Coma.

Why I am talking about changes in life is because as you keep living and keep changing you incorporate newer stuff into you and grow into a better and wiser person everyday. It is true what they say, experience is quite a teacher and pretty important too. But look for experience in variety and not in monotony. The reason I am saying all this is because in the last birthday post called 20 and me, I had talked about how significant 20's are and how I was not ready to take up the tag and I was going to skip being 20 and turn up 21 one fine day. I missed that too. I was stuck being 19 till I was almost 23.

Age is just a number they say. They say it is all in the mind. True. But for majority of the people Age is a fairly good approximation of where or what they are. At 16, you pass 10th; at 18, you are joining graduation. At 21 or 22 you either take up a job or do your post graduation. At 25 or 27 you are married and by 30 you are a father and so on. So I wont deride age for being irrelevant. Why said I was stuck at 19 till I was almost 23 was because of what I was doing. At 19 I was in my second year of engineering and had a set of activities and they were the same ones which I had carried on till I finally got a job in June this year. Though I was aging in time and though learning new stuff, I hadnt seen any significant change which made me feel any different from what I felt I was at 19. It was the same loafing around, spending time with friends, watching tons of movies and TV shows etc. When I did get a job the dynamics changed, I knew immediately that I stopped being 19 and suddenly became almost 23. Since then this post has been lingering in my head. I finally turned 23 exactly two weeks ago and about time I wrote this.

This post could have been titled '23 and me' as a sequel to '20 and Me' but there is this genetic testing tool of the same name which was titled 'Invention of the year' in 2008. But I dint want to have a knock off title which dint have an appropriate tip of the hat. Just like I keep to my writings and titles original, I dont want to be a knock off in my life too. I somehow feel 99.9% of us end up being so. We do our graduations and if you are hyderabad and even litttle smart, I bet you with 50:1 odds you are an engineer. Then we either have to take up cushy jobs in an IT giant or go do an MS OR MBA and join a cushier firm. Thats it. In someway we are all knockoffs and in a definitely traceable way our societies just want us to be. Mera pappu bahut intelligent hai, hum use engineer ya doctor banayenge. Not an artist, not a mathematician, an accountant, a lawyer never a teacher and seldom a sportsman. Maybe a cricketer if the school coach thinks he is good and they have already given up on his chances of an IIT by 6th standard. Why do we take this crap? We are made to believe that is really we want. I am pretty sure the odds are some of us really want it but I know most of us 'engineers' dont know what we were doing there though we entered the damn colleges thinking we will conquer the world.

Why cant we ask the question? What would I truly want to do? I did. I got some answers. Those answers have changed twice in 3 years and 4 times in 8 years. People call me confused, fickle minded and lot other things but I see the changes in what I want to do as a form of evolution, shedding things which I thought/was told were right but dint fit and growing wings which I know will take me to great heights or atleast happy heights. Too much fantasy they might say, but I already had made my intentions clear when I said "I dream, therefore I am"

What if you fail? Thats alright. Though it might be painful and exceedingly tough it is worth going through as by taking the first step itself I have done what many couldnt. I dont want to wake up one day when I am 40 and realize I havent done anything worthwhile in my life. I want to write, I want to consume tons of media and maybe control making some of it. I want to travel the world, live in great cities and I want to change skins every few years. I want to atleast try. I dont want to die a thousand deaths of compromise.

Well I have covered age, my life and a whole lot of me and that finally brings us to birthdays. I didnot celebrate my birthday this year. I didnt have the mood to do so. I I have been busy and turning 23 was ominous enough. I wanted to go away somewhere and reflect on it in solitude but that dint happen. So on top of that I did not want 200 people calling, texting, leaving wall posts and scraps reminding me about it. Atleast not this year. I do like the idea of a party. Lavish gifts for myself and huge celebration with everyone I know just because a number flipped but I dont know why I would do that if

I am not happy.
I havent accomplished anything offlate.
I dont have the money to blow.

So no birthday for me this year but hopefully next year I want one. A birthday filled with happiness, accomplishement, joy of living life on my own terms and being rich doing so. So I end this wishing for a happy 24th.

p.s: Another reason I turn of birthday notification is to see how many people actually remember my birthday. I advise you not to do it if you cant stomach the bitter results. Well if you are still studying and have peers around it is a different thing, they all wait for it get a chance to kick you.

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A writer blocked

30 March 2009 by Vemana

2 months and 3 days since I last updated this blog. It has been a busy few weeks but still not an excuse for not having written anything. Barring a few film reviews I haven’t written in a long time. I feel frustrated, angry and bitter in such circumstances because this is one of things I do well and definitely the most gratifying. My love for writing is immeasurable and I keep pining for free undisturbed time with a pen and paper (or a keyboard and computer even). My feeling here would be similar to that of which one would experience when missing a loved one. My relationship with paper is deep and strong and I have talked about it before. Now I am trying to articulate the reason I need that paper.

Any writer knows that his imagination is most fertile and his work more interesting when he has new experiences in life. Excitement caused by various circumstances fuel the fire to burn words onto paper. The last few weeks have been exciting and enriching with new experiences as I got to travel, explore, and face challenges among other things. These experiences create a gold mine ready to be tapped. When I am left to reflect and observe in a new place, under new circumstance; it is almost as if I wear a miner’s hat and start digging around the mine I have been put in. Everything I do, everyone I meet, every interesting train of thought I have is a potential mine.

The plot only gets thicker and deeper and darker. For someone who is so submerged in the desire to write and has got a natural inclination to do so, subconsciously every moment passes through the sieve for writing material. May be it is in the way I think, way I experience and the way I act that the writer in me emerges from. When I always live out of my own skin studying the situation I am in, I feed this writer with more source material giving him different perspectives, narratives and treatments. Or is it the writer in me that has overpowered me to behave in such a manner so that everything I see, I screen and the valuable material I capture and chronicle? Regardless of whichever is true I always find myself thirsty for new sources of inspiration and hungry for new scenarios to live and thereafter write.

If you ask me at any given time the thing I most want to do is write. As I had described before the way I function makes my head an industrial workshop constantly churning out ideas and there are only so many that I can contain and handle in the few cu.cm in the cranium of mine. To address that issue I have an effective note taking system to safely catalogue the ideas I have with key words. There have been so many ideas, thoughts and premises that I have thought of that the 3’x2’ white board hanging on my wall has no space to add anymore. Wherever I go, whatever I do it I keep getting the ideas which I need to pen down in order to save from extinction. I make notes and move on as I find myself to be too busy for writing at that point of time. Several folded white papers used for making notes lie on my desk I sit here staring at them wanting to pick one and just write. But where do I start, what do I say? There are just so many things I want to write on/about that I feel like retiring to an inaccessible place where I am cut off from everything else in the world and no one would be disturb me. There, in that serene heaven comparable to the grey havens on middle earth; I want to pick up each paper, start typing away the blog post, the poem, the short story, the novel or the film script I had planned on a particular idea (or set of ideas).

Each of these ideas is as dear to me as a child. Some get sent to prep school and prepare for a brighter future (the really good ones which are grand), Some die prematurely due to bad health (weak concept), some get old and lose their memory (never being executed and the keywords losing their meaning) and the remaining are fed suitably and sent to work as soon as they learn their trade (the ones which make to my blogs and archives). Times like these I am uneducated and gullible dog (bitch rather) giving birth to children by the scores and not tending to them properly. And I don’t like being a dumb livestock animal. I want to learn to be productive and raise these children well.

In short, I am constantly thinking if I can write this, if I can write that and hence I am unknowingly always looking (and finding) for things to write on. Also I am contemplating upon how I would capture this or that in all its intensity, enigma and emotions it invokes in me and others. Writing is a key component of my existence and fuel for my fire is activity. Activity in the last year has been at precariously low levels and the mind of mine has gone into overdrive in compensation. As a result I have been wanting to churn out a lot of stuff and expect the free time I have now enables me to materialize those thoughts into words. I hope this post sets the ball rolling.

p.s: Long post I know. the ball was just rolling. Here is some comic relief

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Anatomy of Choice

27 January 2009 by Vemana

There are instances in everyone's life where one has to stop and choose between things. Each option leads to a unique path and a different outcome. We bear responsibility for what we choose and have to live with it. However, there are times where we have a choice but we dont get to make it, something or someone else does it for us. We just accept what has been done for us and move on. What do we make out of the choice? How do we react to its eventual outcome? Was it destiny or just sheer lack of trying or as some psychologist would say, insufficient internal locus of control?

Lets take an example. I get a call and have to meet this friend at a certain place. I have several alternatives for making the journey. I can go by bus, auto, bike or a car. However due to a time constraint I prefer a personal mode of transport. So, that would be either the bike or the car. Each has its pros and cons. The car is quite comfortable and I get to hear music though it takes longer to travel and traffic, parking can be issues. The bike is quick and economical but highly stressful and less safe. I would think about the place I have to go to , time of travel , returning time and other factors before I make a decision. That is what one does when he or she has the choice. Later if the person gets stuck in a huge jam or get hit by someone or get injured or is involved some freak occurrence which shall cause loss or damage, it would be something he can accept and move on for it was his decision.

But what we have the choice but are unable to make it for ourselves. We are quite keen on it but dont have the final say. Taking the same example as before, I have decided that I need personal transport and have to choose between the bike and the car. If however the car keys were missing and a few minutes of search dont yield them, the option of the car, though available, isnt really there. So though I may have chosen the car because I dint want to deal with the stress of swerving in and out in a bike, it doesnt matter. I shall have to settle for the bike or else abandon the trip(or the choice of using personal transport atleast).

There is a term for this: Hobson's Choice. Wikipedia describes it as follows: A Hobson's choice is a free choice in which only one option is offered, and one may refuse to take that option. The choice is therefore between taking the option or not taking it, colloquially formulated as "take it or leave it." Here the only one option is the bike.

Now I contemplate about the choice I had to make, not as a result of selection but out of compulsion. There is a consequence for every action, an effect for every cause. We make decisions and pick from options to control those consequences and effects. For only when we get to control what is happening to and around us do we tend to have a better grasp of what is to become of us. However if this control is only an illusion and the choice is that of Hobson's and I was destined to take the bike and fate hid the car keys; what do I do? How do I understand and accept that I am just a pawn in the game or ever worse just a random event in the universal chaos? So here are the two answers for this riddle: chance and destiny.

Either it was a matter of chance, an agent of randomness and chaos, that bike was to be my companion and not the car. In the infinite scenarios occurring in the universe, countless dice roll and corresponding actions happen and the selection of bike was one. Or I am just a piece in the great jigsaw puzzle some greater power is playing and I can do nothing but try fit in the place He wants me to go and do the things I am supposed to do, all with an illusion that I am doing it out of my own accord. He has ordained (or written it down as some say) beforehand that though I shall want to use the car, I shall not find my keys and settle for the bike.

But for me there is a third answer! Me.

I recently took a Locus of Control test and it turns out that I have a high internal locus of control. That is, I believe that I am responsible for the good and bad results in my life and that my destiny is in my control rather than in the hand of others, fate or god. I think it is true, I do hold myself responsible (and a little too much too ) for what happens to me. So I am the cause for all the effects and stimuli for the actions and their consequences. So maybe the keys were right there and I dint find them. It is a matter of probability of finding the car keys or doing anything else, if you choose to. By the Infinite Monkey theorem if i try enough number of time I would get any desired result. So if I had looked at more places, more carefully for the keys, I would have found them and made the trip in the car.

However, I have to admit inspite of all vehemence that not everything is in my control. Actions have consequences which depend on other people's actions. Effects are based upon multiple causes, of nature, other people and even of chance. It is like after enough time spent, I find the car keys but still have to choose bike to make the trip because the oil is leaking or someone has blocked my car and is not to be found. This is something I have to live with and accept, for inspite of all control I would like to wrest over my life, somethings tend to have an undeterminable course.

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Phases of Life

12 December 2008 by Vemana

Nothing lasts forever. Actually some things don’t last long enough. Some last too long. We go through various phases in life. Is it we who desire change or the times that change us? Could be none, could be both. Everything keeps changing from time to time and our whole lifestyle itself every few years. If you look back at your life you will definitely find certain such phases where there was some distinct difference between the You in every such period. Some are common to all of us; some are very personal and can only be defined by the individual.

From my active memory possibly the first of such part in life would be all of it till the end of primary school. There was the bliss of innocence and the gift of nonchalance. Nothing in the world was very important and the world was quite small. As primary ended and the high school began, so did the next phase called discovery. The world is not as small as I imagined and the magnitude of it is too large for any one man to comprehend. But I being the very curious and nosy the days of learning began. The basic things began to have a meaning and as number of things kept growing the blank innocence withered away and another kind grew; the assumption of ideal behaviour from everything. Everything is as I read and everything is as my elders told me. No one lied and the bad people were only in the stories or being constantly fought with, captured and put away.

But I soon realise there is no Santa Claus and I was utterly wrong. The world works imperfectly and it is the best it can. Nothing is ever pure, there is no such thing as free will or true democracy. Our education is like the ideal gas equation, easily put down and easily dispensed with very conveniently shoving the “ideal” assumptions under the carpet. It is what the world says, not does. This phase was all spent in loss of innocence. As school ended I had put away the debilitated cotton coat of ideals and principles and being replaced with the mink one made of goals and achievement.

So there I was at the end of that phase thinking it is ok that the mechanisms of the world may be strange but the true assets of civilization are its people. Love everyone, trust everyone. Fraternity, equality and liberty were the tenets of our society. If not as a whole, each of can be what we are and not pretend, deceive and lie for recognition, power and status. Money is valuable and you better have enough of it. People aren’t that innocent as they seem and everybody has to earn respect or pay for it. You need to swim in the stream or the stream takes you where it desires. As I passed through graduation I had these epiphanies and I learnt that you need to be somebody else to be really you. Or you could be you and not care for anybody else and all that. You really could be whatever and whoever you want. Just not the Mahatma Gandhi’s or the Karl Marx’s of the world. Dont get me wrong here I do not subscribe to either of their views or say any of this out of contempt as most people I know do. I say with belief that this is how it is. Either put up a fight and change it or believe in what you have learned about it.

Graduation has ended and so did another phase. Each time the fundamental priority in one’s life changed it was one of these phase which ended and another began. We had a gang (or rather a set of friends if you please) at school, another in “junior college”, and some other in college. One gang at a workplace and some other at another. Yes we still have friends from each of those times, some close and some others not so much. We meet them from time to time but when you hark back to a particular phase it is those who you were with at school or work who define that period of life.

There is another thing with these phases. Life through them is a breeze as more or less life has a particular routine and the factors remain the same. It is however hard at the beginning of the phase with the new environment and people. And it is hard at the environment with inertia against change and nostalgia kicking in. It’s particularly hard and painful if you are stuck between two phases, one which has ended and another is yet to start. It is like walking from one station to another; very lonely, boring and possibly painful. All those who were with you got down at a station and changed trains or moved on to next.

P.S: Yes some phases also depend upon non fundamental things and could interlap with others, like going to a tuition, or the weekly club you attend etc.

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of thoughts, ideas and emotions.

Destructive Distillation

Age, life, birthdays and me

A writer blocked

Anatomy of Choice

Phases of Life

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