Never Ride A Bike With the Brakes On

Never ride a bike with the brakes on. If something is proving too difficult, give up and do something else. Try to live without resort to perseverance. But writing is all about perseverance. You've got to stick at it. In my 30s I used to go to the gym even though I hated it. The purpose of going to the gym was to postpone the day when I would stop going. That's what writing is to me: a way of ­postponing the day when I won't do it any more, the day when I will sink into a depression so profound it will be indistinguishable from perfect bliss.

~ GEOFF DYER

Big Bang Disaster

We all die. But do we all really live?

Struck By Lightening

It's almost scary when it hits you how much in love you are. It doesn't matter with whom. It matters how much. You realise it in that sudden flash of lightening that you are capable of loving so much.

It can happen anywhere. For me it happened when I heard this song:

You Belong To Me - English Patient, Katherine & Almasy

Past, Present, Past

What is it about the past that makes us its slave? Good or bad, we keep going back to it, play it again and again in our heads, smile or cry, and refuse to move on. Sure, some of us are naive enough to claim otherwise, but everyone holds on to past for its mere presence. We all might not be bunch of great futurists, but we all are intelligent past observers. Naive, intelligent, and very very human.

Rushing Past

Why do we need milestones in life?

First kiss. Turning 16. Turning 18. First drink. First lover. College. Driving license. Graduation. Turning 21. First job. First salary. First marriage. Turning 30. Turning 40. First grey hair. First heartbreak. First fracture. First accident. First failure. First rejection. First divorce. First addiction. First first first.

Milestones are important. Otherwise, you are just lost in the present. Forgetting about the past and unconcerned about the future. A pointless existence.

Milestones are important because otherwise there is just the inevitable destination.

The Devil's Dictionary - Excerpts

Ambrose Bierce: Magician of words.
A few quotes from his book -  The Devil's Dictionary.

“PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one - the knowledge and the dream.”

“OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.”

“DEAD, adj. Done with the work of breathing; done With all the world; the mad race run Though to the end; the golden goal Attained and found to be a hole!" 

"Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic."

"Distance:  The only thing the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep."

"Misfortune:  The kind of fortune that never misses."

"YEAR, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments."

“HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homocide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another - the classification is for advantage of the lawyers.”

“CURIOSITY, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.”

“WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.”

Puppet Me Dumb

 

Ever wondered who's in control? Who's driving your car? Who behind steering wheel? Who's pulling the strings? Who's deciding your fate? Who's rushing your life? Who's finishing those seconds, those minutes, those half days? Who's giving you nightmares? Who's making you hate? Is it you, or me, or science, or change, or nature, or an inevitable urge to succumb to gravity? 

Most probably, it's you and me. Weak. Afraid to take charge. Afraid to breathe. Afraid to move a leaf. Afraid to dare. Afraid to run ahead time. Or simply, afraid to dream.

Fly. Explore. Breathe. Sing. Dance. Write. Create. Learn. Grow. Play. Colour. Click. Paint. Smile. Help.

And dream.

Of Small Things

Small things make you happy. They lift you up, tell you to not be afraid of the big things and they put a smile on that face.

So, think of great things. But have a humble start.

Speaking of small, I came across a Goonj campaign called "Ek Jodi Kapda". Self explanatory. Its small and aims high. Give it a try.

http://www.ekjodikapda.com/

Would you, You should

Love. It's a four lettered disaster.

The word itself is so unimpressive that its hard to imagine the excruciating emotions it evokes. It's a phonetically weak word. Even the lips dont bother to make an effort to pronounce it. They don't move closer or embrace each other just for the sake of it.

But, the eyes dance with it, the cheeks glow in it and the ears ache to hear it. The hands reach out to it, the gut weakens with its arrival and the feet bounce along with it. You can wear it, smell it, listen to it, speak it, and live in it.

Until, you drown in it. Until the eyes remove it in tears, the cheeks spit it out and become hollow and the ears go deaf to tune it out. Until the hands slowly come down and curl up in a fist, until the gut pukes it out and until the feet kneel to the ground, tired. Until it leaves you naked, senseless and until, of course, death.

Love. It's a four lettered disaster.

Rumi

“You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?”

Editing Hours

Wishful thinking: Final Cut Pro my day.

Mark in from the best moment and mark out the minute things slump down. Put effects, make the minutes more interesting and the seconds more slow. Increase the exposure on the laugh out loud moments, reduce the noise level, and tone down the uncomfortable silences. Put the hours on a timeline, take out the ugly chunks and rewind and forward as per my wish.

Wishlist item number 1: Life editing software.