You Do You

Well, it's an interesting thing, isn't it? That need for companionship, that social urge. I never had much truck with it. (We can debate later on whether or not that was my own fault.)

But I've noticed that as much as I am afraid of people ... everything I do and everything I love requires, always, the presence of others.
The music that I do with my guitarist.
The quartet arrangements that I slaved over.

Not that it's surprising. Rome wasn't built in a day, much less by just one person.

Then I go and kick myself over and over and over again, dwelling on the past.
The one possibly legitimate 'date' I may have ever had / will ever have in my life is quite the memory. I convinced her to come for the social, I liked her glasses ... and then we got there, and I was so goddamn unsure and awkward that I just basically ditched her and hung out with my other friends who were there. Possibly I said something insulting without realizing it, too.
She probably hates my guts, and will never realize the truth behind it.
It was a fun dance, I guess.

I missed out on a lot of things, dear heavens. I should probably stop thinking about it. It's not like an errant vehicle would need any help killing me.

Scratching The Itch

Dear heavens above. Here goes.

I looked across the water, and saw a promised land
A line to mark the gateway, a blackbird in my hand
Swearing off the thoughts that question me, I wrote them in the sand
And the day passed by without end

The door is open, the table is set
And the music is playing, lest we forget
How the days gone by never end
A thought to mark the day is less than we ought to pay
But there always will be another song to play

...
to be continued.

d eeeF IiimmNns

I need feminism.

It fucking depresses the shit out of me (I almost wish that were literal) because, really, what can I say?

Stuck on a coding problem? Well, boo hoo, you could be a woman writing the world's most incredible game, getting paid half as much.

Break a leg? Well suck it up, you could be a woman forced to deduct from her maternity leave to recover.

Someone irrationally shoved you for bumping into them? Good luck dealing with that as a woman, wondering which of the 17 men ogling her as she walked past on her way home, one of whom regularly follows her, might attempt to fondle her, or worse.

How the fuck can I be either satisfied OR depressed about my lot in life, when HALF OF THE PLANET'S POPULATION is in a trench that many have been conditioned to accept as the norm? How? I ask you! Seriously, when all one has to do to appreciate one's lot in life is think, "well, I could be a woman" ... that's some seriously fucked up shit.

Let's not go into what I could do about it though. I could speak out - and I'll be labeled as some upstart immigrant jerk who's disrespecting local culture. Not least because I don't know any local language. I could ignore it, and let others sort it out somehow, because anyway we're all going to die.
Not to mention, what do I gain? Almost nothing, because even if the world around me changed, I would always believe myself unworthy. I'm too candid. I don't truly know how to shield myself and so I never get close to anyone or anything. Which is itself ironic, considering my stint in the USA made me realize just how underrated simple human contact is, even disregarding intimacy. What do I do?

Ignorance is bliss.

I'm Glad No One

I can't focus. Anymore.
Frankly I haven't been able to focus since third year of college. But, shh, don't tell anyone. It's probably detrimental to my prospects.

I don't see the point of these massive competitions. I mean, yes, I see the point but it doesn't really count for much. As it is, cricket it incredibly boring, as much as baseball, or rugby, or - dare I say it? - football of both the American and global varieties.

Passive-aggressiveness is a deliciously and uniquely human trait, and it is fucking infuriating. Doesn't help that I managed to learn it too as a defense mechanism and it sure as hell won't be going away while I'm still in India. Fucking country of hypocrites.

American media, Indian media has stolen your formula. I hope you're proud of yourself (of course you are).

I should probably see a counselor. But am I going to pay for one? Fuck no. What, am I made of money? While we're at it: I hate money. If I didn't need it to survive I can't even fathom how much happier I'd be.

And you, dear reader, will come to me with your nice words and possibly upbeat attitude, and attempt to cheer me up by pointing how how much worse things could be.
News flash: I have lived a large fraction of my waking life considering how my life could have been different, in both positive and negative ways. Your words do not help, as much as I would love them to.

A Touching Experience

I hit on a girl once.

I'll be quite honest, it was two girls.

Oh, alright - in the interest of full disclosure: I had a rolled up chart on my person for some reason or other, and I randomly bopped them on the head for a little while.

You could say I ... tapped that. (goddammit, where are my dramatic sunglasses?!)

Judging me for that god-awful pun? Well, screw you, deal with it, because that pun is the closest I'll ever get to this particular woman, who has, to put it lightly, matured rather well. By which I mean she's (studying to be) a doctor. (A really hot one.)
Oh, and involved with some lucky European fellow. Fuck you, Scott, because in all fairness, I never had a snowball's chance in hell anyway.


... what else, what else ... ?

Oh, yes. I've taken to adapting popular songs for string quartet. It's not half bad, you can give it a listen - guaranteed to sound orders of magnitudes better with, you know, a real quartet.

Birthday coming up, so soon? Fuck. I hate having to figure out gifts.

I REALLY LIKE CHOCOLATE. I WILL CUT YOU FOR IT.

There were a few studies done on people who subjected themselves to Botox injections. Long story short: botulism toxin injections 'remove' wrinkles by basically paralyzing your facial muscles.

I can't find the specific study I read; the basic point, at any rate, is this:
When subjected to emotional input after a Botox session, people were unable to empathize. The widely accepted psychological theory is that if your face is incapable of making an emotional expression, then your ability to experience said emotion will be diminished. Like a bit of a feedback loop.

If my facial expressions when I daydream (or my daydreams themselves) are any indication, my brain is a clusterfuck of emotion.

Hugs, please? I'll give you head massages. I'm really good. And I swear to you I'm not creepy, just a little* awkward.
____________
* okay, fine: very awkward.

Truly I say unto you, my dear: to this prattle I am indifferent

I don't give a damn.

I don't give a damn about not giving a damn.

Except I can't do that.

I don't want to give a damn. How do I get to not have to give a damn?

I wouldn't mind having someone around (preferably of the opposite sex, for obvious reasons) who understands why I don't give a damn.
Except that, honestly, I wouldn't wish such an understanding on someone else, because then they wouldn't want to give a damn either.
Damn, what do I do?

I don't care, and yet I do.
I care, and yet I don't.

I was in Bangalore for a bit. I met some nice (read: pretty fucking awesome) people. And, as per usual, I people-watched.
I don't get normal human interaction, it almost doesn't make sense. And yet, somehow, it seems I muddled through - apart from the mildly amusing mishap involving my glasses - and I don't think they found me overly weird.
(Heh, who am I kidding, I can be pretty intense and awesome with the right crowd, and this was no exception)

So, why do I put myself through this? Music probably has something to do with it ... but unless things pan out in a better way, that line of thought feels overdone.

Is Trust Worth It?

Who do you trust?

Offhand, I can only think of a few (which is all well and good, since it's inadvisable to be too trusting outside of an ideal world). If we try to be specific to situations, the number varies wildly. Situations of engineering, art, music, science, etc. A matter of different people being able to do different things, making it a requirement that my trust be flexible.

That being said, that's not exactly what Zefrank is talking about, is it? It's not simply trusting people to do what they are good at; it's the ability to allow another to hold a part of you with no fear.
I don't think I've ever truly known that.
I don't know if I'm even capable of giving or receiving that kind of trust.
There goes my hope of ever managing a functional relationship (notwithstanding my issues with actually initiating said relationship).

Oh, look at me crying about my problems, though. Something tells me that I could have it much worse.
And yet ... somehow, that doesn't make me feel much better.

Destiny / Hollow Entitlement

Anyone care to explain why, over the past eight years, my thoughts always return to her?
Because I sure as hell don't know why.

To be fair, I don't see why not, either - but that's not the point. The point is that I don't know why. I don't like not knowing why. It makes me feel out of control (although the idea that I was ever in control, is kind of funny). I guess I should be grateful we don't live in this particular world of soulmates? Or do we?

----------------

It's a hollow relief that I don't have to go through the shit that half of the world population deals with.

Freedom

I remember the first time I heard the name Lady Gaga, around a year into my stint in America, I assumed she was a really popular porn star.
************
I need to get out of India. Free money, anyone? Technically, the whole world is open to me ... but that doesn't make it easier. The difference between having no choices, and so many choices that you freeze up completely.
************
It takes effort to be courteous. A sad truth that most people probably never consciously appreciate because it's a function of culture.
You can't expect people to stop pissing on the streets when there's maybe one publicly available toilet for every 50 people. (this is my conservative estimate, and could possibly be an exaggeration) Even if, somehow, magically, toilets were to appear - I doubt many people (read: men) would use them, just for the sake of being contrary. Indians are fucking stubborn.
You can't expect people to make way and show consideration for others on the roads and sidewalks when there's barely enough place for one person at a time. No one's going to stay comfortably in a queue and board a bus in an orderly fashion, because that would be foolish in the extreme! Everyone else would be first and I wouldn't! Can't have that, boss.
This country depresses me ... but then, so does the rest of the world. I hate politics, have I mentioned that? I feel like I've mentioned that. If not on this blog, then for sure in person.
************
Songwriting is hard - and made harder, in a way, paradoxically, by my musical training (classical training does not a jazz musician make). A poor working memory doesn't help much either.

Tragically Comic

Bet you thought I was gonna talk about Robin Willams, huh?
Guess again.

Nah, I'm mildly (and darkly) amused by the mess that those American police officers got themselves in by shooting Mike Brown. It seems a total breakdown of civil order in that area is pretty much inevitable right now. I bet Mr Williams is happy he's in a better place. Hmm, speaking of a breakdown ...

Oh, also the bullshit going on with ISIS. Yeah.

Oh, and also all that cow dung with Israel / Palestine.

















HA! Thought that was it, didn't you?
Ebola should keep you on your toes.
Okay, I'm done for now. I guess I should be grateful.

Be Free, Genie. Genie, You're Free Now (a.k.a. "When The Comedy Is A Joke")

Hey, bet you can't guess who's the latest victim of Life, that cruel force.
Here's a hint: his first name's not Williams, and his last name isn't Robin.

The internet says it much better than I ever could, especially considering how little of his extensive filmography I've seen - but here goes:
Farewell, Master. Few can hope to even dream of matching your comedic and dramatic prowess.

There's also my little pet hypothesis that every single well-known comedian is probably depressed. Well, I'm willing to extend that to even lesser-known ones.
Heck, there's a lot of people who aren't comedians who're probably depressed. So don't feel left out.
But hey! It's actually not merely a hypothesis, when it's pretty much the norm. We'll come back to this in a sec.

Depression in a person whose career is one of comedy ... is a special beast. It seems counterintuitive - except that, of course, they're also human. In order to see the joy in life, there has to be some perspective on misery, or else all so-called comedy is nothing but genuine trivialization, generalizations, and a joke.
Robin Williams performed for deployed American troops, and had a tickle fight with Koko the sign-language-speaking gorilla. He's done quite a bit of charity work, from what I've been told. He struggled with substance abuse.
Of course, what makes his death any more significant than all the dead children in the Middle East, I wonder? (There is an obvious answer to that, but let's keep this on topic.)

I try to be funny, sometimes. On occasion. Every now and then. Periodically. Intermittently. Every so often. Once in a while. Observational comedy was usually where I got the most laughs.
America changed me (as most international trips during a person's formative years do). I was myself, yet no one knew that. No one knew me, and I re-invented myself, and everyone knew me. Well, having a somewhat unique name and upbringing for the locale kinda sorta probably helped ...
I was sheltered and awkward growing up in Dubai. Partly through the vagaries of circumstance, partly through my own faults. My penchant for observation and the freedom of culture in the USA taught me a lot without overtly changing who I was. The immediate and complete (and fast!) availability of information simply added to what I had long previously learned from Isaac Asimov and World Book Encyclopedia: namely, that 1) everything I see and know is nothing in the long run, and 2) people are dicks to each other in general, and to women and black people in particular.

But what I'm getting at here is, where does humor come from? The truth is, in order to even dream of coming close to what Robin Williams could do, one has to be well-educated. Well-read, smart, observational, and fearless - he talks about it. You can't joke about things you haven't heard of - and you're basically a prick if you run with something that you just read about in the newspaper headlines five minutes ago without any additional backstory.
I could never joke about drugs - I can barely tolerate alcohol, and I've never smoked. I couldn't joke about women or relationships - a grand total of one girlfriend at the fresh age of 21.5, lasting about 5 weeks. Yeah, I'm frickin' Casanova. I made jokes about friends, games, pop culture, the Middle East, India, the USA, religion, science. I had my ethnicity as an advantage, and by God I milked it. You can only do what you know ... and when you know a lot, like Robin Williams or any great person of history - you see all sides of humanity. From the utter pits up to the truly blessed.

I truly believe that the great comedians operate at a higher level even than the most renowned philosophers of any time - past, present, or future. In order to bring so much joy to humanity, they have to connect with the audience on a very fundamental level; and in order to connect effectively, there must be some form of understanding. To see into the nature of a subject and bring out genuine hilarity will always 1) offend someone* and 2) give the comedian a clear view of the dark side. I know it, because I've seen it, I've been there, and so have plenty of others ... and I'm not even that great of a comedian.

You know what, just forget everything I'm saying. The articles I linked above say it so much better than I can. I've forgotten how to speak since I left America.
______________________
*There are distasteful jokes. They exist. But they are largely a matter of context ... you can't have a smartass white comedian going on about how hard it is to be a woman in a country they're never lived in - while a woman from said culture would rake in the dough. And beyond that lies a matter of being able to laugh at oneself - which is not easy. There are jokes about rape and rape culture that, delivered tastefully, do not detract from what a serious problem it is. People joke about the Titanic, recognizing the hyperbole of proclaiming it unsinkable. And the list goes on.
And a truth that very few people want to recognize - there should some part of you that recognizes the realities that make comedy possible. This is the part that dictates whether you laugh or get offended, whether at your own expense or at others'. If that part of you is insensitive, then you have lost your humanity and humour is most certainly not for you.

Fearless

I live in perpetual fear of ...

... the minuscule lapse of attention it would take for me to be struck by a car on Indian roads.
... the infinitesimally small margins by which buses avoid head-on collisions as I commute to/from work.
... a meteorite hitting the planet.
... a meteorite hitting me.
... falling into the gutter, on account of my poor balance, or the rain, or being forced off the road by a vehicle driving close to the edge of the road.
... the one mosquito bite it would take to contract malaria, or worse.
... the one fall, on stairs or concrete, that could leave me with a broken neck.
... my mandolin strings snapping as I play, cutting my skin and giving me tetanus.
... falling off my bed as I sleep.
... wetting my bed like I did as a child.
... slipping in the shower.
... stepping in cow dung.
... missing something important.
... loneliness.
... beautiful women.
... life.
... death.
... going insane from the stress of dwelling on all of the above and more on a daily basis.

And The Comedian Of The Decade Award Goes To ...

It's an interesting exercise attempting to make light of a tragedy. There's a lot of them these days. Quite a lot, depending on one's definition of the word.
For example, it was quite the tragedy when my friend died. She passed in her sleep at the ripe old age of ... all of twenty-two. By all accounts - including my own - she was a rare jewel in an often dark world.
It is also a tragedy when a drunk driver mows down innocent lives, and when he/she doesn't get much more than a slap on the wrist to show for it. I doubt there's much shortage of this particular event anywhere in the world.
Each and every rape in India (and, indeed, around the world) is a tragedy on its own. Taken all together, the sheer number is a tragedy of tragedies.
The downing of MH17 is no less of a tragedy, as much as was the disappearance of its sister flight MH370. At this point I'm basically out of words to express it effectively.
And this was only a couple of electrons grazed off of a chip from a sliver off of a chunk that's close to, but not quite up against, a block that is rather near the tip of the ever-growing iceberg. For a sense of scale, give this little visualization a peek.

Oh, also America's prison system. That's rather tragic in its own right.

The question arises: How do we prioritize resources to solve things when everything is equal in magnitude?

Apparent tangent: There's oodles of research on the fact that human willpower, much like a muscle, can be overtaxed. Even without research, most people with enough presence of mind will intuitively know this. When I, for example, know in my gut that I shouldn't buy that chocolate bar - but I'm stressed at the end of the day and I really need it to unwind.
Reconciling the tangent: It takes willpower to care about things that are not directly related to oneself, regardless of how obvious the tragedy is.

My friend mused:
"What's with all the planes these days?"
She was, of course, referring to, in chronological order, the disappearance of flight MH370, the shooting-down-by-missile of MH17, and the crash of Air Algerie flight AH5017.

My response, which was my first instinct (we'll discuss later the morality of my instincts):
"Gravity decided it needed help getting rid of its detractors."
My alternate response would have been: "The Bermuda Triangle is starting to branch out."

Yes, I am a horrible human being, apparently. I've said it, and I will defend that statement.
But, actually, no, I'm not.

Remember what I said about willpower? Yeah, that thing.
There's only so many crashed airplanes one can stomach at the end of the year.
There's only so many burglaries one can deal with at the end of the month.
There's only so many rape cases one can come to terms with at the end of the week.
At some point, someone, somewhere, is raising their hands to the heavens in frustration and seriously considering demolishing the entire planet.
... Or maybe that last is just me?

I'm fairly certain I've mentioned to several people a simple fact: if I started taking life really seriously, I'd probably go insane. This is one reason why.
I make the jokes I can, because if I don't then I'm just going to devolve into an emotionless hulk. It gives me a reprieve, however temporary, from the reality that is life. It allows me to take a moment to remember that I do care about people after all.
And you know what? I would do the same even if I myself were to be a passenger on an ill-fated airline. Assuming I had the presence of mind to do so in such a situation, of course - because humor, unfortunately, also requires willpower, and I doubt a plummeting fuselage is a place well-known for its mind-strengthening vibe.

------------------------------

I wonder how many people get the joke in the title.

To Go To Where We Come From

The simple truth is that on my own, I will probably never be able to escape how fucked up I am.
Of course, my brother would also never recognize how much of it is his fault. EDIT: More accurately: it's hard to say how much responsibility he would accept for me turning out the way I am.

It has been my observation that siblings born either
1) within a couple of years of each other, or
2) with roughly 7 or more years between them,
tend to have more fruitful relationships.
Before a certain age, a child lacks the self-awareness to want to monopolize affection. As far as the older sibling is concerned, the younger one has basically 'always been there'.
In the latter case, once the child has reached the so-called "age of reason" (this can be before or after 7 years, although that is accepted to be the average age it starts) and develops a conscience and rational thinking, it seems logical to have a positive relationship with the younger sibling. So this is what I have seen.

Neither was the case with my brother and I. He came through 4.5 years before I did, around 2.5 years after my sister. As far as I know, they got along fine until I was there, and from what I recall of my childhood, my sister usually was there to defend me from him. When she left to go to university, he could exercise all the power in our small world.

This is not to say that we didn't have our positive moments. I'm almost certain we did. But the sad fact is that if we did, it's all buried under this vast mountain of unhappy experiences, and I can barely dig myself out. I kept to myself so much that I didn't know what 'spooning' actually meant until I was around 20. And I certainly never experienced it until I was half past 21, which was the first time I initiated a kiss. (I'd received a kiss once - just once - before that. When I was 16. Lovely girl, wonderful friend. I was shell-shocked and basically froze up completely.)
My brother would often hang out with a girl from my year who was in the choir with him. He would give her private piano lessons in the main living room - and I seem to remember he would always get inordinately upset whenever I had to get something from the room while he was in there with her, even if it just took a matter of seconds. I don't think I understood why until just a couple of years ago.

I don't know if I was born an introvert, but I learned from him, early on, that trying something I had never tried before was a bad idea. I learned that there was knowledge I was not meant to have, because it was only for the worthy (and for people older than me). I learned that if I ever competed for anything in any way, ever, I would always lose (with the only stupid exception of dumb luck in my favor).

Maybe I was a brat. In fact I'm pretty sure I was. Most children are born that way - they have to demand attention in order to survive. I remember I would get my parents to shout at him because "his butt was pointing at me". Both of my parents worked full-time, so I doubt they had much willpower to spare on correcting me - it was just easier to shout at my brother to do something as simple as turn his body around.


Not necessarily related: I went to the same school for nine years. This school was boys/girls segregated. Not a horrible thing, and not too surprising for a Catholic school. Genders could mix before or after school, which was fine. I never met a large percentage of the girls in my own year ... until 6 months before we all graduated. This was partly due to the fact that I took public transportation rather than the school buses (which were not actually owned/run by the school). There was a girl (who is quite a stunning woman today) who lived in the next apartment block over from mine, and went to the same school, in the same grade as me, for pretty much the same length of time - and I don't recall that I even knew her name until my final year of school.

There was another girl who I used to have childhood play-dates with. She could be a supermodel, these days. We could have grown up together to be best friends, even, who knows. I recall that there were times we played games which would seem creepy or sexual to an adult mindset - but I fail to see how we could have intended that at the time, seeing as both of us were less than 10 years old. Still, over the years we drifted apart, and occasionally when we'd meet I'd make oblique references to our childhood play-dates. I never thought of it as creepy - I learned later from a mutual friend that (possibly due to her upbringing) she likely took it much more seriously than I'd imagine. I haven't seen her in years now, and, not for the first or the last time, I wonder what could have been if I'd been more mindful, or less ... myself.