12:01 AM ( Reflections)

For the past few years I’ve stopped making New Year resolutions ( why play a stand-up comic for the Gods? ?? ) . As you grow older, you learn to replace resolutions with reflections, largely because you realize that ceremonial resolutions seldom work. ?Life largely chugs along as it has to, unfairly accelerating year after year. You are eventually an insignificant speck in the larger scheme of things. I’ve also, unlike in my younger days, stopped obsessing over to-do lists, but rather, started documenting my growth through my have-done & have-missed lists. I’ve realized that once a quarter is a good frequency to do this & archive it electronically, available for future references. ?

Things get different as you cross half time. Your heroes change. Your priorities get redone. Your reading content (also reading habits) change. You trash old favorites and discover new preferences in print . Management and self-help books begin to amuse you. Autobiographies don’t . Obituaries suddenly interest you . They keep you grounded, remind you that death is the biggest leveler ,equalizer and forgiver. You become less cynical, cautiously ambitious , more tolerant . You realize that you have made a fool of yourself enough by now & hence you can now safely suffer other fools with a lot more empathy than what you did earlier. You stop making new friends. You forgive old enemies. Your learning slows down, but gets more deliberate. You lose your photographic memory of your 20s and need to write down phone numbers ( sometimes, even names). You are still in love with life as ever, but you also make peace with your mortality. You understand that death is the opposite of birth, not of life itself. These days, more voices surround you than they did earlier, people who walked with you during the later part of their lives and who have now drifted off to their next destinations and yet are conspicuously present somewhere in your self, through that odd chain of conversation that lived on, through that quirky habit you did not forget , or through that lesson of theirs that altered you in some unique way. You outgrow your man-made Gods of yesterday which were thrust on you . You finally stumble upon your own version of God and befriend Him ( or Her) . You begin to understand how (S)He functions and admire Him / Her that in spite of having cracked his code, you still fail to go error free. (S)He jeers at you , catching you slip every now and then, and keeps reminding you that you are just a human, an ordinary human. With limits .With limitations. Having travelled far, wide and enough , you have realized that we are all made out of the same stuff ; the same fears, the same idiosyncrasies, the same trappings and the same dreams. Human nature ceases to surprise you these days. You stop passing judgments. You observe. You smile. You move on. And you scribble in your journal through your year.

Here are 21 of mine, sixty seven days into 2022. The year where I have decided to slow ?myself a bit. So as to find myself better. I notice that many of my thoughts have started repeating themselves. Which only proves that I am getting older. And more consistent. Closer to the finale. And then, some thoughts are in jest. This is the best part of growing older – you stop taking yourself seriously, because you know that no one else does.

• The best way to find out who’s in charge is to step in & take charge yourself. On most occasions, others, just like you, are waiting for someone else to come in & take charge.
• Your family and your close friends are your team in this journey. Make sure you treat them well. Often, trapped in masks that we mistake to be our faces, we complicate things. We try pleasing the wrong set of people at the expense of the right ones.
• Embrace your perspective. Stop believing in absolutes. Stop looking for coherence in this fortuitous, impermanent & random journey.
• Sometimes you need to put up a performance. Sometimes you need to step back and enjoy the show. The trick is to know when.
• Surprise others once a week. Surprise yourself once a day.
• “If 50 million people say something foolish, it is still foolish.” - W. Somerset Maugham
• Corollary ?: A million followers on Twitter doesn’t signify that you are virtuous. It might just mean that you’re entertaining.
• Breaking News ! You can always change your opinion. You can always say No ! That only shows you have a mind that evolves.
• The other way to prosperity is to simplify your needs. Abundance spoils us, makes us soft.
• Corollary : Once in a while, have a date with ‘Less’. Eat less, sleep less, talk less, crave less, condemn less.
• Anxiety is failing before failure. Sometimes even before failure has heard of you, or taken its first step towards you.
• Human beings, by nature, are designed for stability and coexistence. This whole discourse on disruption is overrated and temporary . It will soon pass. And life will go on.
• Breaking News ! A common calamity doesn’t change us , it merely undresses us.
• Don’t take news anchors seriously. And movie stars. And consultants with French beards.
• There is no right war. There is no wrong religion.
• Staying in love is settling your differences. Staying married is settling down in your differences.
• Next time you’re pissed with someone for being rich & shallow, do examine if it’s the ‘shallow’ part of it or the ‘rich’ part that pisses you.
• Corollary ?: When he says she’s dumb, he means she’s hot. When she says he’s witty, she means he’s handsome ( I think this came from Taleb).
• Writing a blog post is giving voice to the you who you pretend to be. Writing a journal is listening to the you who you’re trying to avoid.
• Books in your bookshelf, like people in your life, have vibes. Just like there are people who’re no longer around you except for a pleasant feeling their memories evoke, likewise there are books whose content is forgotten, but the sight of them uplifts you and makes you want to reach out for them. Hold them, smell them & examine their dog-eared pages.
• Most people cannot handle failure after success. Then there are some who cannot handle success after failure.

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12.01 AM?

=========

Suddenly the moon ducks out of sight

And everything grows dark.

So dark, that even the shadows

get wary of each other.

?A thought makes you wonder..

?Will death mean an eternal sleep,

finally ?

Or an unending trek,

into a strange town..

Late at night ,

where it's cold and raining ?

?And where you are alone.

All over again..

?All yesterdays revealed. And,

no tomorrow left to resolve.

?

Damn it !

?Science, Philosophy and Spirituality ,

should have their ears boxed

& made to relax at midnight !

?

Imagine Einstein riding happily

at the end of the third lane.

Bertrand Russell letting out

a yawn after a hot shower.

?And somewhere at a corner,

?God sits on a bar stool.

Waiting for His fourth refill

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(12.01 AM? is a scribble from my 2018 blog archives)

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