March 2023
How Long Is 21 Days?
A story about here and there
Something significant is about to take place in my life in 21 days, and I am both excited and nervous about it. And I am not in control of those two states. All I know is that when I imagine the future going as per my desires, I get excited and when I don’t see it going as I want, I get nervous.
When I am excited, those 21 days seem long. ‘There’s a lot that can happen in 21 days. Time and life changes quick. I am ready but time is long. I hope something wrong doesn’t happen,’ I say to myself. I then become nervous.
On the other hand, 21 days seem short when I am nervous. ‘Nothing substantial happens in 21 days. Everything takes time. Change is slow. It is here and I am not prepared,’ I tell myself. I then become even more nervous.
From this perspective, time seems to move slow when we want something to happen fast and time seems to move fast when we want something to happen slow.
But there’s another perspective to all this. Something in the line of what Einstein said explaining relativity:
Read the rest of the story here.
How a Raymond Carver Poem Made Me Rethink Technology’s Role in Our Lives
We all have already made a big mistake
Scrolling through Raymond Carver’s poetry collection, I came across a poem titled ‘In the Year 2020.’
As a 21st century man filled with fear and confusion, I got excited at the prospect of having discovered quality perspective on the future from one of the better literary minds of the 20th century.
‘Now I will have a solid and unique perspective on modern technologies and their implications. I can now boast about AI on Medium and shock everyone,’ I said to myself and began reading.
But what I read caught me off guard. The only technology or its implications mentioned in the poem is a faucet — that too as an analogy.
‘How can it be possible? How can someone write about 2020 without any mention of technology?’ I gasped and read again.
No, Nothing about technology!
Instead, his 2020 is about someone from the 20th century getting old by then. Carver talks about old age, friends, friendship, memories, love, legacy — things human! All he talks about is human life and human relationships. That’s all!
HIS POEM IS ABOUT HUMAN LIFE. IT HAS HUMANS AT ITS CENTER!
‘Damn!’ I say to myself.
Carver’s poem reminded me that we (poets or normal people) no longer place ourselves at the center. We have already given control away to technologies. They have become the focal point of our conversations, poems, and stories. All we now do is keep technologies at the center of everything. Phones, apps, maps, followers, shares, chargers, AI, airplanes, roads, buildings, towers, systems — that’s all we talk and think about these days. Everything revolves around them today!
Everything should have revolved around us, our relationships and life. But that’s just a byproduct of technology these days. No wonder we are scared and confused! No wonder we piss our pants about AI!’
‘Now I have a solid and unique perspective on modern technologies and their implications. I can now boast about AI on Medium and shock everyone,’ I say to myself and write this.
Idea Management: How Do You Manage Your Ideas?
When I wrote Mental Discipline Is A Ceaseless Process last August, I promised myself I wouldn’t allow internal chaos to confuse and destroy me. I said I would always remember that the workings of the mind are complicated and I need to be on the constant lookout and endeavor if I am to make my life more tolerable and comfortable.
Yet, countless times over the past six months, I have trembled, feared, got uncomfortable, and have found mind and life to be intolerable — not for once remembering the promise I made to myself!
I forget the thing I invent myself
I forget the lessons I teach myself
No wonder I lost myself!
But this morning, it came back. The idea of Mental Discipline came back! Not through a sudden or miraculous solution, as the mind sometimes produces. It came while I was reading Goethe’s maxims
…False, irrelevant, and futile ideas may arise in ourselves and others, or find their way into us from without. Let us persist in the effort to remove them as far as we can, by plain and honest purpose — Maxim 317.
And then, BAM! The lesson I taught myself last August came back:
false ideas, persistence, effort, removal were the keywords for me when I realized and wrote that Mental Discipline was a ceaseless process.
I use phone wallpapers, I fill my room with book smells, I do a lot of things to ensure I am around where I want to be, if not take my mind wherever I want it to be.
I had once written Mental Discipline and put it as my phone wallpaper, but it was no longer there when I needed it the most.
It has to be said right now that ideas in phone wallpapers evolve, develop and vanish. I may have stopped using the wallpaper with Mental Discipline written on it, or may have removed the text when I must have thought the idea was permanent in me. I will come back to this whole thing in a while.
For now, I want to know why the ideas I need are elusive.
- Is it because there are too many ideas that I think are important and I get confused? OR,
- Because all ideas have their appropriate time and place. And the time and place of the mental discipline idea hadn’t come until this morning?
If it is the first case, I need to do something with my ideas. I need to be clear about the value and importance of each of my ideas and find a way to manage them. Like by using phone wallpapers better. I will also need to know which ideas are of general importance and which of particular. I need to master my ideas. This makes me a conscious agency with a strong will.
Read the rest here.
The Differences Between Useless Thoughts and Thinking
The only thing I know now is that I know nothing.
While it may seem like a style-statement of a 21st century wannabe thinker who has come to write here right after reading Socrates’ quotes, it isn’t!
And I am going to give you some evidence:
- I was sure the bus would fall off the cliff. It didn’t.
- I was sure the airplane would crash that day. It didn’t!
- I was sure someone at home had died that day. No one did!
- I was sure I had killed someone with my car that day. I hadn’t(?)
- I was sure I would get rejected on that application. I didn’t!
- I was sure I would get that fellowship. I didn’t!
- I was sure that girl liked me. She didn’t!
- I was sure the other girl didn’t care about me. She did!
Although I have written ‘I was sure’ up there, I was actually CONVINCED about all those things. C-O-N-V-I-N-C-E-D.
I was convinced the bus would crash, and I took my ID out from my bag and almost threw it out of the bus window that day — until something else intervened! (I will come to that something else in a while.)
All those ‘sure’ up there are based on my knowledge of myself or the world at some time and place. Those knowledge came to me through my thoughts. I even called them ‘gut-feelings’. But all of them turned out to be false. That’s why I say:
- The only thing I know now is that I know nothing and
- SOME THOUGHTS ARE USELESS. Garbage.
The examples given above had immediate outcomes, that’s why it was easy for me to validate their truth. I fall off my chair wondering how many of those knowledge and thoughts I have been breeding inside me whose outcomes take time to come.
Here I have to undertake a difficult task:
While I say some thoughts are useless, I will try to understand thoughts through thoughts.
Read the rest of the story here.
Why Do I Drink When There’s Always Guilt The Next Day?
Am I in love with guilt?
Another family wedding reception party. Another night of heavy drinking and conversations with people I wouldn’t even look into the eye for more than a second on a normal day. Another morning filled with enormous guilt and physical weakness!
I am making weird sounds every time my mind gets flashes from last night, which my wife says is me cringing on myself.
Why, Adesh, why?
Why do I drink, when I know it hurts the next morning?
At first glance, things seem something like this:
I don’t have friends so whichever party I go to is a family one. Which means, it is about obligations.
Obligations mean it is something I do not want to do. I do not want to go to such parties because I do not want to socialize. I do not want to meet my extended family members.
Yet, obligations mean I have to go, despite my lack of interest! Which means I need to find a way to make it tolerable and manageable. (I also need to find a reason to tell myself I am beyond obligations and I am doing it out of my free will.)
And what do I lure myself with?
Alcohol!
It becomes the thing that makes the visit tolerable. It becomes the thing that makes me alright.
I drink even though it hurts the next day because I have to make obligatory family parties tolerable for me. And alcohol makes that happen!
Or so I thought before writing this. Because from a slightly different glance, things seem something like this:
If I go to parties for obligations only, why the hell don’t I stay for half-an-hour and leave. I mean, that would be perfect, wouldn’t it? Obligations done ✔ ️Alcohol none❌
But I don’t do that, do I?
In fact, the thought of such an act makes me feel I am missing out on something big. It’s like everyone’s playing outside and I am forced to sleep in my bed with a fever.
And then I discover another reason I go to such parties. A reason that is in contrast to the reason I thought I drank alcohol at such parties:
Read the full story here.
Who Are The Priests Of Today?
Who Is Leading Us All?
As I read H.G. Wells’ A Short History Of The World this morning, a particular section grabbed my attention and made me draw correlations with our modern times.
In the 12th chapter Primitive Thought, he speculates how power and religion must have sprung in primitive times:
What Wells has tried to say in this is that the primitive men were unable to form sound judgment on the important things that were happening around them. Those things spanned from the availability of their foods to illness and death. Although they tried to make guesses, they weren’t able to discover the proper cause-effect. This made them prone to fear and panic.
It was then that the older and steadier minds among them took lead and began advising, teaching and eventually commanding the multitudes. Those leaders were priests, which then gave birth to religion.
The Correlation
I am the proof that our modern time with computers, internet and now Artificial Intelligence, Space-Travels, Medical science, etc. is taking us into the great unknown which is making us fearful and anxious.
If the information overload — which has given us more confusion than wisdom — was not enough, the thought of machines taking our jobs, megalomaniacs stepping into moons, diseases taking our lives, have guaranteed almost nothing as we are unable to form sound judgment on what will happen tomorrow, let alone in five years time. We are confused about our livelihood and health — important things — just like the primitive men. The only thing that has changed is the tools. For example, anxiety about the availability of foods has been replaced by anxiety about the quality of foods. And in some places, quantity of it.
Although we try to make guesses, we aren’t being able to discover the proper cause-effect of all this. A quick scroll on Medium will prove this. This has made us fearful.
Once again, as per Wells’ narrative, this problem in primitive days led to older and steadier minds among them to take lead in advising, teaching and eventually commanding the multitudes. Those leaders then became priests, which then gave birth to religion.
Although the tools and mediums have changed today, we have seen an uprising of religious and spiritual pursuits on a global scale. We saw that in the mid 20th century due to bombs and we see that today due to computers, AIs, medicine, as mentioned above. The 20th century crisis had limited sources of threat from what we have today.
But a big part of us isn’t satisfied with the religious and spiritual doctrines that have its roots in spears and stones. We are today dealing with machines that threaten to be more intelligent than us. The ones that threaten to even eradicate us! We do have the option of deeming them ‘devil’ and ‘monsters’, otherwise those teachings don’t touch us in the regions we want to be touched.
If history does indeed repeat itself, what that leaves us with is to identify the older and steadier minds among us that are taking lead. Who are advising, teaching and commanding the multitudes.
In the ancient times, those leaders were called priests who gave birth to religion as we know today. Who is doing that today and what new religion is being formed from all this? Should we not be skeptical of what forms from all this?
Once again, if history repeats, they are here. They have to be here by now. So, Who are they? Is it me? Is it you? Is it us? Or is it a billionaire?
Is There Natural Justice After All?
A story about bullies.
I just saw a school bully of mine in my dream. He was a powerful person waving a flag at a big event of which I was a mere spectator. Although the crowd booed him, he seemed to care not. He was as confident and cocky as I remember him to be all those years ago.
I woke up a few minutes earlier feeling bad. I am in my bed. I have recalled the dream and analyzed it. It is midnight. I had just fallen asleep.
At first, I couldn’t stand the thought of him or any other bully of mine being a successful or powerful person in society. And then I asked myself if he or any other bully of mine were successful or powerful yet. The answer was no.
During that questioning, I noticed that I didn’t seem to care if they were successful or powerful in ‘my’ country Nepal. In fact, it felt natural. ‘What else would they be?’
But I couldn’t stand the idea of them being successful or powerful in the world.
‘That would be unjust!’ I thought.
The biggest change in me in the last couple of years has been my disgust towards ‘my’ country Nepal. In fact, I am disgusted by the concept of nation-states itself. But Nepal is the cause, so I hold the darkest and deepest disgust towards it!
I can’t confirm the amount of influence the bullies have had on my eventual disgust towards Nepal — which is made up of Nepalese — but I can sense some.
I then asked myself if any bully of mine was successful or powerful in the world stage. I found none.
I then asked myself if any bully of mine could be successful or powerful in the world stage. ‘NO WAY!’ I laughed.
I then asked myself if any bully of mine could be successful or powerful in the areas of my concern like literature, art, philosophy, science?
‘NO Fucking WAY! They are light-years away from all this,’ I laughed louder.
I felt glad and satisfied.
And then I asked myself if any Nepalese was successful or powerful in the world stage yet. No was the answer.
‘There is justice after all!’ I said to myself and wrote this.
Now I will try to sleep.
But I am startled by the question I have asked myself just now:
Did I subconsciously choose the field I thought would keep me the furthest away from my bullies?
I can’t confirm the amount of influence the bullies have had on my eventual choice of field — writing — but I can sense some.
Painful Doubts Are Actually Wisdom
There’s a famous line which goes something like this:
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
I have no idea how universe functions on these things, but, what I discovered once was:
When I want something, my mind conspires in helping me to *not* achieve it.
Take for example when I woke up early one morning and said to myself that I wanted to live and die as a writer. Full Stop.
It was okay for a couple of hours, but after that…my mind began its functions:
‘Writers are dead.’
‘There’s no point being a writer.’
‘You’re not living in the 20th century! Now, we have videos. Nobody writes.’
‘Only the people who can’t be billionaires become writers.’
These are just a few specimens. Not that I was scared from all this, the intensity was such that I was in fact, traumatized. Still am. I no longer want to be a writer. Which obviously means, my mind keeps showing me the benefits of being one:
‘Writers are alive.’
‘Life is all about being a writer.’
‘You’re not living in the 20th century! This is the best time for writers. Look at the platforms!’
‘Only the people who can’t write become billionaires.’
I Wanna call these things PAINFUL DOUBTS!
Read the rest of the story here.
