I want to remember this day for the rest of my life.
Because, today was supposed to be ours day.
Because, today we were supposed to finally reap the harvest of our small yet important dream.
Because, today was supposed to be an Earnest. Relaxed. Proud day, for the ERP team!
The app, ‘eappointments’, which, we had been working our asses off, which we had been long fighting tooth and nails for, were to eventually go LIVE by todays’ evening.
Alas!
At last, it didn’t come through as expected.
Matter of fact, this was supposed to be a breeze for all of us, after months and months of overtime, and nothing less than pure h.a.r.d work, and genuine dedication and love for responsibilities and love for work.
Apology email to the client's spokesperson
But.
Fuck it! I will for sure carry this beautiful feeling I had as we left tonight’s battlefield, lost by fate, maybe a bit disappointed, but then with an inexplicable taste of victory too.
For, despite unfair odds and circumstances, we did everything we could’ve possibly, possibly done to seal the deadline.
Plus, for me, ERP team once again did stand tall, proud, unmoved and bold despite unjust circumstances and tough, and demanding, and draining test of times!
Our bodies utterly exhausted, battered and yorkered-out. But our brow somehow, seemingly, … feelingly content and cheerful.
Don’t be ashamed of needing help. You have a duty to fulfill just like a soldier on the wall of battle. So what if you are injured and can’t climb up without another soldier’s help?
~ Marcus Aurelius
Prateek Kuhad- Cold Shoulders
Personal housekeeping this week.
Q: How was my week?
Full with irrefutable work burnout moments. Mentally taxing, soul crushing, ….
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
Marcus Aurelius
Jab We Met – Tumse Hi
I wonder.
Will I marry my.best.friend who embodies my beliefs, who shares my values, someone who braces my tantrums, someone who graces my imperfections?
Will this one person who I consider the love of my life, SUPPORT me in every way, all the way …,all the way?
And, mostly, will my in-laws accept me the way I am?
Or, will I have to pretend to being any different than how I have always, always been?
I worry.
Will I find my home away from my own home!
Will I find my family beyond my own family!
Or, will I have to cut short my soaring wings and trade my freedom after the wedding?
Will heartfelt love, mutual understanding, melting care, genuine reciprocity, shared responsibility, the unadulterated respect and heart-full-of kindness –be in the veins of my new found nest?
There is a crack in everything, that’s how lights get in.
Leonard Cohen
Sanam Marvi – Hairaan Hua
Deep. Dark. Fear. Inexplicable panic. Seasonless shiver. Clouds and mountains of self-judgement. Mocking confusions. Expanding pain. Contracting heart.
Out of breathe — couldn’t breathe.
Empty gaze –couldn’t Sleep.
Tasteless — couldn’t eat.
Bickering — couldn’t stop.
Hiding — couldn’t tell, couldn’t speak.
Silent sobs. Helpless tears.
Thinking. Spinning..
Losing. Spilling.
Spoiling. Digging. Digging for more.
Suffocating. Questioning. Expecting!
Explaining. Conforming. Justifying.
Thinking..
Thinking, and
thinking.
This is your head talk. This is your beautiful, vulnerable headspace.
Stress. Anxiety. Depression. Over thinking. Anger. Annoyance. Impatience. Guilt. Frustration.
Whatever you call it. This is not only your problem. It’s not only your story.
You’re not alone in this, my friend.
However, whenever these waves of killing, cruel, and mainly heart pressing thoughts come to your shore — Don’t get into defense. Don’t try fighting. Don’t ignore. Observe observer!
Matter of fact, as simple as it may sound but I’d want you to gracefully accept this foreign, strange and un-invited guest also called ‘the monkey in your brain’. Embrace her. Watch her. Let her dance when it dances but be aware!
Be fully present. And finally, kindly, forgivingly … let go!
As justly said, the devil’s in the detail — so, do not miss Head Talks by Niall Breslin.
But, just last Thursday, I received my firstdownvote at Musicpervs youtube channel.
Not that I put any thought on conformity, acceptance, agreeableness, and social media thermometers when it comes to my creative self-indulgence on the pursuit of learning more .
Or, say more precisely, not that I receive any attention on the platform to feel gravely concerned about, but this event had occurred right after few minutes of publishing the video. My guess. One of my subscriber is not happy!
That loud, fat, echoing, demanding, authentic, pure, voiceless, screaming or perhaps wrongly oscared‘downvote’.
But, again, this is not a post about ‘downvote’ at all.
This is about my reflective, internal inquiries and examination.
Have I hurt feelings of other people?
Sure, yes!
Have I committed mistakes in my life?
Most certainly. No doubt about it!
But, have I done wrongs to anybody, deliberately, intentionally?
Have I ever cheated on anybody?
Have I ever exploited or taken advantage of anybody?
Have I ever betrayed?
Have I punished, penalized, or sold lies to anybody?
If yes. Then perhaps, I should be the one answering it with full accountability and truths — not anybody else; And specially, not their feelings about events, circumstances and things. Because, trust me if feelings were the ultimate answer we’d never have had any wars or crimes or 9/11s in the first place.
Lastly, I’ve always said one thing and one thing only in my defense amid flood of baseless blames and criticisms.
I’m not a bad person.
p.s. “If You Haven’t Done Anything Wrong, Do Not Apologise.” ~ Dr. Jordan Peterson
If you’d only care to search ‘Love‘ keyword here at Musicpervs, you’ll most likely find plenty of poems, essays or personal shits — totally cracking open my unrestrained love affairs with love!
Gist of it all.
True love is a perhaps the answer to life’s awe-stretching journey, the sadness it pelts us with, the happiness it blesses us with.
Truthfully, true love is only as best as a good-enough one.
True love is not without flaws.
True love is a lot of hard work.
True Love is a luxury; Only earned by giving. Giving!
Most important of all, true love is deserved.
p.s. She duly reminded me, it’s been a long time since I had written anything on ‘Love‘.
“Objective judgement, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance – now, at this very moment – of all external events. That’s all you need.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditation
Pardo – Nishu
We all feel we are in need of help.
We all feel there’s a rescue boat coming for us. Our prince charming desperately waiting for us to show up.
We all feel inadequate, incomplete, tiny, meaningless, clueless, fucked!
We all feel full and also empty, stressed, consumed, pinched, broken, bitten, and betrayed.by.fate.
We feel we’re at an unfortunate place, the wrong time!
Haven’t you?
Something, s.o.m.e—thing is always not in its place. Not the way it is supposed to be. Something is always off!
Isn’t it?
These anchors you experience, these caveats of a modern, … normal human life, these proxy urgencies, distractions, all these shit shows occurring, recurring over and over are simply inevitable.
That, it is the way.
And I’m here to tell you that — that’s just fine!
Only remember: the lights could’ve only found its sweetest place with us because there’s a grave darkness that also lives in and around us.
The fact that there’s good also defaults us that there has to be bad as well. And you’d want to be constantly, consistently choosing the right side.
Remember, sometimes the only best way is — through.
And remember that during all those difficult-of-times, a whisper within you MUST say — this too shall pass!
Matter of fact, fear is without-a-doubt, the best life tool!
But wait!
It depends on what sort-of fear is it that keeps you awake.
Fighting. Fucked.
Unresting. Unsatisfied.
Investing. Investigating.
A question lingers.
Who and What you should fear the most?
the virus?
.. for students — perhaps their self-centered teacher?
.. for laborers — maybe their pain-in-the-ass boss?
.. ignorant parents?
.. selfish girlfriend?
.. disloyal boyfriend?
.. of being wrong?
.. of perhaps boredom too?
.. dear addictions?
.. your one-sided love?
.. losing health slash getting cancer?
.. loneliness?
.. emptiness in emptiness?
.. the excruciating, ruminating, painful, stressing, pressing, rumbling thoughts after thoughts?
.. spineless people and their IMHO fucked-up point-of-views?
.. injustice?
.. losing your loved ones?
.. never-ending problems?
.. the world itself?
.. maybe life?
.. death?
Well, today I want to present to you with an antidote to all your fears for all the wrong reasons.
Again, unsolicited.
A genuinely, very very important inquiry apparatus for seeking the truth.
A baby question but so profound.
Just ask:
Is this thing that I’m constantly thinking about, worrying about, fearing about, nagging about, complaining about, pissed-off about, fussing about — in or out of my hands, in or out of my control?
That’s it.
Be deliberately, un-foolishly, un-emotionally objective.
And, talking about good fears.
Fear certainty.
Fear not learning, not growing or more verbosely put — The Stagnancy.
Fear not knowing the difference between objectivity and superficiality.
Fear not asking THE RIGHT QUESTIONS?
Fear stale, stupid days.
Fear lying. Fear not telling the truth.
Fear taking yourself too seriously.
Fear not taking responsibility of your life.
Fear for the right thing.
On a departing note for the week my friend:
This short video by my mentor Tim Ferris will hopefully enlighten some heavy shits out of you.
“If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.
Seneca the Younger
Kyun Main Jaagoon – Patiala House
They say, you only have a present.
They say, excellence is a myth.
I beg to differ.
Rather I argue, we have The Present and A Future at the same time.
That mediocrity is a choice and so is excellence.
Now why I’d say that? Why bother for future, … for something absolutely inconceivable? Why not settle with the circus of this immediate present?
Well, mostly, I say that — because it’s my life’s thesis.
It’s one truth which still cuts me closest to the bones.
It’s why I still get sleepless nights trying to re-adjust myself, self-reflecting, if I’m on the other side of the aisle.
To the path of eternal mediocrity. Invested in the circus of the present without accounting for the future.
Again, why you’d ask?
Although this is far behind me. Today, I’ve a confession to make.
I come from an excellently, financially deprived family. Now, from my simplistic barometer, we were and still are the wealthiest nuclear family in assets that include massive amount of love and compassion with gigantic bungalow of kindness and limitless, exotic, mouthwatering happiness per se [No exaggeration intended]. However, as I was just graduating my 10th standard, my mum perhaps painfully dropped a hint that she, … our family, might not be able to invest in my school of choice. That I were to look for some cheap alternative education or at best — scholarships!
Fact: She loaned her only left jewelries to get me admitted to a science school.
No doubt, this was heartbreaking for merely a 16 year old teen to fathom at that time.
To him. For I — The future was grim. And there was no fucking light at the end of the tunnel.
There were no free throws.
No silver spoon shoved up in my arse.
No life jacket for a drowning sailor!
No free snacks for the hungry dreamer.
No free air for someone with a heavy, collapsing, coronoid lung.
No free reality.
No free, nothing!
Looking back, I can heart-fullysay. This has been the cornerstone of my identity, that, this is perhaps the only reason why I put my heart and my ass together in w.h.a.t.e.v.e.r I do.
That, this is why, I seek meat work, mattered work, pure work, real work in every forms of work.
Now, don’t mistake me for boasting this shit out, or for someone who’s trying to earn your pity or your likability or sorts because of this out-of-my-hands circumstances and how I’ve dealt with the cards I was handed and came out okay. No, not a fridging way!
I’m just saying that if you are not ready to do some hardcore shits; Not prepared to get comfortable with the uncomfortable and grow as you grow and put up your best foot forward in your present for your future to be;
You are a slow cancer to yourself,
and you’re soon to be those painful Hemorrhoids right inside the butt hole,
and for sure, obsolete,
and easily disposable and useless,
and soulless,
and a bag of disappointments and god knows what.
Now, Excellence.
[Metaphorically speaking – No disrespect intended, nor praise]
The difference between well-filled mind and a well-formed mind is ridiculously of a street dog and The Elon Musk.
Again, no disrespect intended, nor praise.
Well-filled mind.
Well, it needs instructions. It’s lazy. Repetitive. It’s easy life. Easy choice. Life is fate, fate is life kind of blokes.
Wild.
Free.
Fucked!
Well-Formed mind.
Well, it needs work, doesn’t it?
Original thinkers.
Midnight fuel.
Innovators.
Curious. Creators.
Examining. Experimenting.
Forming. Un-forming. Reforming.
Seeking.
Becoming.
They are disrupters.
They’re the future.
Whence, if that’s not the scent of excellence, what is?
In short.
In this complicated world.
In this noisy world.
Excellence is a journey.
Excellence is expensive.
Excellence comes at a price. With a price!
Begin with the end in mind!
Present for future, but there has to be one, isn’t it?
