180721 – Morning Pages

A braindump of a thousand things that’ve been on the top of my head. Little ranty. Read with caution.

8:15. Woke up a few minutes ago. Have a lot on the top of my head. Let’s see how much of that gets translated onto the post. I am speculating that this would have 1200 odd words. Let’s see how many words I need to dump things here. Since most things are unrelated, I will use sections.

A. Health
If you know me, you will know that I’ve always kept my health the last in the list of priorities. To date, the order of priority has been work > family (including SG2, M, Team SG) > money > friends > writing > hedonism. And then if I was left with time, I’d think about health.

Starting tomorrow, I will change this. I will put health even above work. This means that I will not start my day till I have done some sort of workout – walk, run, yoga, push-ups, etc. I know it’s important for me to start the day early. At a Starbucks. With this brain dump. My best ideas come to me early in the morning. But I will let go of those for the next 2 months. I think I can survive that.

I will also have to sleep well. So that means, no late nights. Nothing after 9:30. Again, thoda tough. But let’s see how it goes.

Oh, related.
I’ve been noticing that the last few days the right eye is losing its sight. When I close my left eye, the right one is unable to focus on things in front of me. Plus I need to squint my eyes to look at things. Especially on the phone.

Brings to another related thing…

B. Social Media.
I am torn between growing my audience and reach on various SM platforms (you know, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, blog, etc.) and spending limited time with these distracting things.

Building a following, credibility, and reach takes a lot of effort, energy, thought, and time. Especially if you are like me. You know, with limited talent and a very limited understanding of human nature.

As I try hard to find things that I am interested in and are things that people may resonate with, I end up investing wasting a lot of time on these apps. Like any other sucker for a dopamine hit, I keep scrolling the infinite feed. And before I know it, I have wasted some 2 hours on these apps.

So I don’t know what to do about that.

In the long run, SM is important. Very important to build a personal brand and attract opportunities. Especially for people like me. But then I don’t know how to use it in moderation. On a whim, a couple of days back, I uninstalled Instagram. But then installed it back last night. And I just deleted it again. As I write this.

Lol, hate this love-hate relationship.

Ok. I have an idea. What if I install all these distracting apps on a different phone and use those once in a while?

Wait.

I am trying to reduce things that I have. This will add one more phone and one more charger.

Hmmm.

No, I don’t want to. I will keep things on the primary phone. I will test my self-control and see how long do I take before I install Instagram again and waste time on it. I plan to not use it till October. Let’s see.

Next.

C. Coffee.
I had coffee yesterday. After 17 days. No, I was not craving it. No, I was not sleepy. No, I was not bored. I just had it on a whim. You know, for no reason.

May I liked the aroma of coffee and Hazelnut flavor that Pooja had when I met her.

And no, after I had it, I did not feel any great or moved or energized. Even the tinge of Hazelnut on Americano wasn’t as tasty as I thought it would be!

D. Starbucks
The aforementioned coffee? I had it at a Starbucks. That was open on a Saturday. And will be open on a Sunday as well. Yay! In case you are curious, it’s the one at the arrival area at T2. It’s open from 7 AM till about 10 PM. And they have a private loo. So, for the weekends, I am sorted. Just that there’s no internet. So in case you choose to work from there, please ensure that you carry a charger and have a mobile connection that works. And they only have 2-3 charging points, so you need to go there early enough.

So, life is sort. Weekends are made. I plan to go there again today in a while. In case you want to meet me, you’re welcome 🙂

The best part? It’s at the airport. While I am not transiting anywhere but the feel of an airport is what I crave for!

E. The iPhone troubles
The iPhone charging cable went kaput. And that means I will have to buy another one. I think I would have spent more money on iPhone cables and changing screens than I would’ve spent on the damn phones.

F. The Bombay Bhai
This is what I was waiting to write. Last night, on my way back from the airport, I stopped at a chemist to buy snacks and all. And while I was in there, a gentleman, not more than 30 walked in. Following him was a secretary kind of person. And a beefy bodyguard. The dude was dressed in white and gold. You know, gold bracelets, rings, chains, earrings, etc. Even the chappal he wore had golden straps. The secretary carried two phones. The bodyguard has a gun holstered. Really. No masks though.

And I regret to say this, I was intimidated. The guy was drunk and was making misogynist jokes. To give him credit, he was joking around within the group and not disturbing anyone else. But he was very loud. And very drunk. And very scary. No, I don’t get scared easily. But yesterday was something else.

After I bought my things, as I stepped out, I saw a Mercedes parked in a way that had blocked half the road. Clearly, the guy was used to such pitstops at night. I’d pit him as the son of a local politician. Or a builder. Or he could be a self-made man as well. You know, he could have had a startup that he sold to investors for billions? Or got IPOd?

Anyhow. So I was intimidated at that time. But as I write this, I think I was more jealous than afraid. I mean the guy had everything that I want in life. Money. People that he trusted. A good life. I on the other hand have just this blog and rants. The worse part is that I don’t even know if I ever will make it to be able to afford a good life. I mean I am almost 40. I am way past an age where you are useful. I don’t even have a thing that could potentially become big tomorrow. By the time you are 40, you’ve either made it. Or accepted that you will never make it. I am neither. I am a mere dreamer that can only rant.

In fact, I read this thread last night. I have been thinking about it since. I fucking want to be that elite. Not because I care for signals or trophies. But each duel, each attempt at bettering others can shape me. And allow me to deliver more impact. See this tweet as well. I want to do this at scale!

Ok, deep breath.

Back to the blog. Last thing that I want to write.

G. Rap Music.
I don’t know how but I stumbled onto music from Gully Boy. I heard Ranveer Singh, the actor rap. Is there a thing he can’t do?

I then moved to Divine.
And then to Ikka Singh.
And more.
And I am hooked.

I know these artists may be very commercial and may not be the best or whatever. But I think I am initiated in the rap music scene. I will explore more over the next few days. Let’s see where I end.

Oh, I have to mention that Ikka’s slur around Jamna Paar? It resonated so hard! So so hard! I don’t think it’s as ghettoized as Dharavi is but it was a slur nonetheless and growing up, it did feel strange when people from other parts of Delhi frowned at Jamna Paar.

So that.

Guess this is about it for the day.

Here’s streaks…

  • OMAD – 0
  • #book2 – 0
  • #noCoke – 129
  • #noCoffee – 0. Had an Americano yesterday
  • #aPicADay – 0
  • Killer Boogie – 0
  • 10K steps a day – 0
  • Surya Namaskar – 0
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • Minimaslism Counter – -1
  • Morning Pages / Meditations – 219

Oh, and I had speculated, this would be a 1200 word piece. This is 1460 something. Not bad, Mr. G!