Meta-Writing – untitled atm

109a – december blues (contd)

Crazy couple of weeks. I have a nephew now! Feels pretty surreal, I suppose it won’t really sink in until I go meet him. Attended a couple of weddings, met a lot of people. Did realise (or re-realise) that I weddings are a lot for me, mentally and emotionally, and yeah, like I’ve mentioned before, seriously reconsidering how much more of this I can continue to do on a yearly basis.

The next few days are pretty busy, socially, still, and that’s okay. Perhaps I’m even looking forward to continue to meet friends and spend time with them.

I do miss my sister and kind of want to visit her in Jan/Feb, but I really absolutely detest the longass flight, so I suppose we’ll see.

January is really going to be about planning moving. It’s a bit stressful but honestly definitely looking forward to moving out of Delhi. It’s become a lot. Plus a change of scenery would really be nice.

I have an updated opinion on road-trips— I used to think they’re pretty exhausting and stressful, but I’ve realised that opinion was formed primarily because I used to mostly travel with family, and their opinions and energy would affect me a lot. Traveling with friends (or basically people you feel safe with) is quite different and as long my agency is not super-compromised, road-trips can be fun too.

Lots of stuff to process still, but I’m finding myself unable to write freely. I don’t know what it is exactly. Expression seems somewhat pointless these days. I think AI everywhere has got me a bit bummed about everything. I realised that people around me have integrated AI tools heavily into their lives, and I don’t know why that makes me so uneasy. Am I going to become one of those old boomers who’re always on about the perils of technology and get “left behind”? Is there value to my feelings of resistance or is it just change of any sort that I’m fearing? I’m not sure, I also don’t know where to begin introspection on this topic.

So much to do and yet such little motivation to do those things. I’m also not sure what my social values are— I find myself losing some connections and although part of me is okay with it, there is also a part of me which wonders if I’ll regret this later.. not very sure.

December is weird, that’s for sure. Anyway, I should probably just figure dinner and then get on with the day, whatever’s left of it.

Cheers, folks xx

107b – reflections (i am decently happy with my life)

I suppose I’m happy— even content— with life lately. There is something precious about solving life problems in your own way and at your own pace. I’ve been stuck with work stuff over the last couple months and although it was weighing pretty heavily on me, today feels different. Of course, in therapy yesterday, we discovered that I do need more structure and discipline to get on with the things that I want to get on with.

That is, I have a sufficient amount of freedom, but perhaps enjoying it would require me to work towards sustaining it. I’ve been worried, but only today I what it’s been about— I like my life so much that I don’t want it to change too much. I don’t want to go back to a 9-5. I don’t want to go back to coding for a living, not yet.

I’d prefer to continue to grow as a musician and a writer. Yes, that’s what I really want. And of course, I want that to continue, I’ll need to think about the financials of it all. But perhaps the way to do it is not— like I thought— to find part-time work right away, but to complete the things that I think I need to complete— before I can accept that I absolutely need to focus on the financials.

I’ve been struggling with sleep too but the last two days have been better. I’m up before sunrise today, but somewhat rested, and that’s progress too. Sleep has been a major issue for the majority of my life, but this time the “problematic phase” came after a much longer stable phase. I suppose, that’s progress too.

I turned 29 a few months ago and I don’t know if I got much time to reflect on it all. I feel the age, I do. There are aches in my body that persist for much longer than they probably should, without any real cause. But there is also a stability to my nervous system that I haven’t experienced for so long before. Of course, there are probably other factors involved in both of these things, but I think part of it is related to age. I don’t feel old though— I feel younger than I felt at, say, 26.

Anyway, reflections are fun, though my inner critic says it’s probably another way for me to procrastinate on the things I must be doing instead. But to my inner critic, I’ll say: my days generally go better when I begin them with some kind of writing, so that’s what I’m trying to manifest. A decent day.

As I think about ending this, worries start to pop up again. But I don’t want to get on that thought-train. I want to stay here. Here, in this reflective space. I suppose making a task list for the day would help. Yeah, so that’s what I’m going to go and work on, next.

105 – unblocking

If you write (or create any sort of content, for that matter), you are constantly on the lookout for material. Sometimes it’s fun because it happens automatically, but at times it’s quite draining too. Yes, people have talked about this before— how the reflex of “documenting a moment” can really kill the moment itself. Especially with writing, a lot of the advice points to this— document as much as you can, make as many notes as you can, because for sure memory is going to fail you. But I’ve found this to be consistently true in my days lately… I do feel like I’m stealing myself away from the present moment if I’m constantly trying to document it. How does one balance this? I’d like to figure that out.

Anyway, came here to note this thought down (how meta of me), but might just do a word-vomit instead. Y and I have been cat-sitting for a friend (it’s two cats!) which we were very excited about initially but it turned out be quite a.. lot. The mother cat (Mimo) isn’t spayed and in heat which was a lot for her to handle (and for us too). She seemed like she was under a lot of stress— yowling for hours at end, constantly wanting to go out, hissing at her daughter (Bailey) a lot, and wanting a lot of attention from us too. Even though we absolutely loved giving her the attention she needed, we’re two people who get overstimulated very easily so it was all a bit too much for us to handle. We’re transferring ownership to a friend of the owner’s tomorrow, so looking forward to some relief and quiet. The cats are adorable though, I know I’m going to miss them too.

It was a nice distraction from the “tasks” of life, of course.. and I did learn that maybe I can’t have cats in the future like I always thought I would. This is disappointing of course, but this is also not final since of course a spayed (or neutered cat) would be easier to handle, I know that. Definitely don’t think I can do kids though, that’s confirmed.

I was reading this first post that I ever wrote on this blog, because I feel like I’m stuck in a similar situation again. It’s interesting to see just how much I had to write! Like so many thoughts and feelings. I don’t feel that way anymore. Sometimes I sit in front of the laptop or the journal and nothing comes out of me. And I know deep down that it’s not because I don’t have stuff to talk about, it’s just because I’ve become a bit avoidant with some of my feelings. This was never an issue for me, avoidance is a relatively new issue, to be very honest. Which is probably why I haven’t taken it very seriously either. Acknowledging that I’m somewhat avoidant about certain things also means that I have to face that I used to judge other “avoidants” in the past. I know most of it is not in our control, avoidance/anxiety about “problems” are just copes, and different people cope differently. And to be fair, “avoidance” is a bit easier to manage than anxiety is.. I think I just liked not feeling super anxious all the time.

But I know.. I know, to write, or do anything, to move at all, I do have to face whatever it is that’s going on.

One happy thing before I talk about what I think my current open problems are in life: in the post (the first post), I talk about “dreaming about composing music”! I’d never realised I used to dream about it. Like I’d never acknowledged this dream properly enough to myself! But I’ve successfully composed a few songs, so the dream has been realised.. pretty proud of this! There’s a lesson here— we need to fully acknowledge and voice our dreams to ourselves, otherwise when they come true we won’t even know that we have something worth celebrating!

Anyway, now to the question of what are the main areas I want to be working towards over the next.. <undecided time-frame>:

Work stuff, what I want to do for work, job search etc
Geography.. I have no idea how I will tackle this but I do want to
Gender stuff— even though this isn’t as urgent as it was maybe even a few months ago, I know it doesn’t feel fully resolved.. and I know it’s okay for it to take the time it needs, but I don’t want to “not engage” and let the time pass. The “time it needs” will be much longer if I keep running away from the issue.
Health, too

So, yep, that’s it for now.

My key takeaways (mostly for myself but also for you in case they’re relevant)?—

Foster multiple types of cats (and kittens) before adopting and committing for the long haul.
Balancing documentation with presence is important.
Voice your dreams! There’ll be more to celebrate if (/when) they come true.
Compartmentalisation is okay, avoidance is not.

Cheers, folks xx

101b – august + restarting writing here

Starting these again. I haven’t been writing as much as I want to and I know for sure it’s because I stopped doing these. Substack just doesn’t suffice because I feel like I want to post only specific kinds of pieces over there. I do need a space to just word-vomit, really, can’t go around calling it anything else.

Have been feeling a bit unfulfilled and dissatisfied with the work (or the lack thereof) in life lately. I’m not sure what direction to take.. I’ve shortlisted a few volunteering opportunities, maybe will apply for some this week.

I know I don’t want to solve “tech problems”. I’ve always wanted to solve (or contribute to solving) real world problems. (Not to say that “tech problems” aren’t “real”, of course, but I hope it’s clear that I’m referring to more general problems).

Solving said problems “through tech” is what I used to think I was okay with, but at some point that road started to feel closed up as well. I drove back to a point where I kept a marker, knowing I can come back and venture down this road again if I wanted to, but hoping I wouldn’t have to. I’m on another path now, a path that may still intersect with the path I’ve left.. but for now I’m not exactly sure where to go. I hope volunteering and internships do make sense for now, because it’s probably like hitchhiking or relying on other people for direction. Of course, this world FEELS quite different and vast, but I have to think of myself as probably being a second or third year student in college, I’ve to rely a lot on other people, probably. It’s much easier to do all this when you’re a student, you have more of a beginners mindset, it’s easier to admit you’re scared, etc. But I think I need to continue to do this for now, once again. And I imagine you have to keep doing this repeatedly, for different aspects of life, so I suppose the skill is worth building too.

I trust that I have some sort of life experience to help me, I’m not starting from scratch completely, in a way, but I really need to commit to action— regular, incremental action, otherwise I’m afraid all that experience will kind of evaporate into thin air as well.

Also, it’s important for me to remember that when I do even a single fun, fulfilling activity in a day, it becomes easier for me to do a couple more. My “lazy brain” often makes me believe I can’t do much in a day. In the face of the fear of “pushing myself”, I sometimes end up doing nothing at all.

Of course, I need to be more intentional with routines, diet and exercise to attempt to do all these things that I need to, want to do. I have support too, and I want to find ways to use it.

Yeah that’s it I suppose. Feeling better. Hope you’re all having a good August! xx

101a – writing, love and comfort

I’m passionate about writing, I know this. But I haven’t been writing as much lately. I’ve been busy falling in love, there’s just no other way to say this. I don’t know if it’ll last, I really can’t know this, of course. But I feel really good about her, about us. I hope we make it, whatever that means.

I do have strong imposter syndrome when it comes to creative activities, and I know the only way to even move towards addressing it would be to start looking for paid work. But I can’t do that for another three months, so how do I address it for now? By writing, or by “doing the thing” anyway, I suppose.

Falling in love has been great but I know I haven’t been doing much work. I also know it’s okay to not be productive etc etc, but fact is I do live in this society, and I do feel like I don’t want to let life go by. It’s okay if I don’t do anything “great” as such, but I do want to feel the fulfilment and satisfaction that comes with doing some sort of work on a regular basis. (I’m not talking about paid work necessarily, just work.) Just something to show for the time I’m living that’s not purely related to “just” joy.

So I will write today and I’ll make sure to publish this post. I also think not engaging with writing or music keeps me away from doing other things too. I feel less productive in all ways, if I’m not writing. So I’ll write this week and see if it makes a difference. A better difference.

June is halfway complete. In 20 days we’ll be halfway through 2024. I’ll be 2 months away from turning 29. These are all different ways of saying the same thing— that I’m really happy and content, I think.

In some ways I really want June to be over because it’s insanely hot here and I can’t wait for summers to be less intense. But I also don’t want June to be over because I’ll have to be away from home for three weeks this coming July and even though I’m really looking forward to the trip, I’m not looking forward at all to being away from my comfort person for so long. Classic mixed, bittersweet feelings. I guess that’s good information too, information that I can keep in mind the next time I plan long trips.

I saw this movie called “The Hours” the other day and I really liked it. I liked how inspiring it was in terms of writing goals and writing stories, even though I often worry a bit about how artists and writers are “romanticised” in certain ways which can be almost harmful to the mouldable mind.

Anyway, how do I feel? I feel okay. I’m glad I wrote a full post after fifteen days and I’m glad I’m going to hit publish. I’m glad I can say that I’m in love without cringing too much and I’m glad the summer decline is close. I’m looking forward to a lot of things (even with the cost) and I’d like to list them all for myself tomorrow. I feel like it’ll be a good exercise. I’m glad I finally have “tasks” I can look forward to as well. I was missing this feeling for a while.

Happy June folks, cheers xx

100b – this project is complete!

All said and done, things have been pretty decent. I think I am, after all, liking writing a bit more than music right now, even over the last few weeks, maybe a couple months. Maybe it’s just that it’s easier to do, less inertia, but whatever the reasons and the factors, I do end up engaging with this form of outlet/expression more than others.

But the question still remains: what should I write about?

I’ve always told myself I can just write about whatever’s in my head and slowly, steadily, I’ll find things to write about. Like I did, yesterday, wrote a bit about pride. But this “obvious topic formation” only happens once in a few weeks for me. I can write about my thoughts and feelings, which I do, but I imagine this gets boring for the readers. I don’t know. Probably need to keep the judgement out of it.

100K words are done! Feeling super happy about that, no doubt. It only took me 4 years LOL. I kid, I think it’s fine that it took as long as it did. I hadn’t planned to “rush”, anyway.

I’d like to reduce therapy sessions from once a week to once in a couple weeks, I think I’m ready for that. I did some intention setting for June and feeling okay about it. I do feel some sort of a void wrt work and fulfilment, but I don’t think I can address it right now, so not sure what to do about it really.

I just realised that a lot of the stuff I’m talking about, I’ve already talked about in my previous word-vomit too. Oh, well. I guess it just means that it’s not “solved” yet.

I’ve been away from reading for a bit though, maybe I get back to that this month. I imagine that’ll definitely give me some new material to think about and process (consciously and subconsciously).

Overall, I feel content and peaceful, for the most part. I’m about to turn 29 in August but that doesn’t stress me out or worry me either (as it shouldn’t). There’s enough things to be grateful for, and I really am.

Yeah, I think that’s it for now. I’m not really able to get into a reflective zone right now. Will end this post by listing out my intentions for June:

More reading (new reading)
More long-form essays
1 or 2 open-mics
Travel planning finalise
Health (reducing nicotine) (it’s been stable for the last month or so and I think it’s time to cut it out a bit more)
Exploring gender a bit more

Onward! Hope you’re all having a decent summer! Cheers xx

098b – denial, dreams, distractions

Some days are better than others. Today for example I made a commitment to face an unhealthy habit I’ve been running away from for too long. I crossed off more tasks than I added to my very long backlog of tasks, I did vocals practice and funnily enough, also got sufficient sleep (something I hadn’t really been able to over the past week).

I imagine these word-vomits aren’t of much use to anyone else, and I know I’ve mentioned this probably a hundred times here now. However, very recently I got something nice from a word-vomit, ie writing that I actually liked and found more satisfactory in terms of content and quality, and that I was also able to flesh out into a longer post of sorts. Something I’d happily want to share with a broader public too.

Trying to be better at combating denial. Denial keeps me so stuck sometimes, I lose out on days and weeks. Also trying to get more in touch with whether my goals and dreams are important, and if so, how much. I feel like the last month or so has been a bit of “ah, we’ll see, we’ll figure it out” and that’s a fine response to the anxiety of it all but I don’t want it to become an excuse to not do the things that I care about.

I think, if I decide that my goals and dreams ARE important, I will definitely have to narrow focus a bit. Even though last week I did acknowledge that narrowing focus makes me a bit anxious, I do think it might be important. And of course, narrowing focus doesn’t mean I would need to cut down on the other things completely! I can just know what takes higher priority. So, yeah, maybe I do a prioritisation exercise again.

Man, absolutely detest it when I get distracted from a post and pick up my phone in the middle of distraction. I really want these takes to be as one-take as possible because otherwise I feel like I don’t really uncover anything. I feel like scrolling and social media and my smartphone is definitely a very harmful distractor. It really just hits a reset button on the journey that is inner exploration. It’s like you have to start again, start from the top, swim all the way back into the ocean again. You’re just left making small talk and repetitive analogies for a whole paragraph.

Struggling a bit with the whole situation of being interrupted in conversation. I’m finding that I do get affected quite a bit when I’m interrupted, but I’m also finding that I haven’t fully owned how much I don’t like it. Would like to explore this in therapy for sure. There are a couple more things I’m struggling with. Again, not something I can explore by myself but writing it here allows me to remember it.

Apologies, dear readers, hopefully the vagueness can be excused.

Alright, that’s the most focus I can muster up today, I think. Happy last week of April! xx v

097b – movement and work

Tasks and chores are finally in movement, and I’m quite glad. The last couple days have been much better compared to the weekend, perhaps I’m finally feeling more regulated and functional again post the previous Wednesday.

Something I realised about writing recently is that I generally like writing in singular takes only. I just don’t feel called to a thing once some time has passed away from it. Whether it’s chapters or sections of a chapter, there has to be some amount of “completeness” wrt the thing. Stitching parts together feels strange and unfulfilling.

Parents have been a bit in conflict and it’s weighing quite a bit on me despite my best efforts wrt distance (both physical and emotional).

I feel a little bit dissociated from my body sometimes, or maybe just now, but I think I’ve been avoiding sitting with some of my feelings for sure. The major ones are probably grief, frustration, longing, anxiety, and also perhaps the weird angst that comes procrastination on unpleasant tasks. I do cry on an almost a daily basis, I spend time with writing and music and singing and dancing, and yet.. yet I feel like there’s something I’m running away from. Probably because nicotine is still quite prevalent, especially over the last 2-3 weeks.

Excited to have this 100K words project almost wrapped up though. Pretty sure I can get this done by April. Of course, it wasn’t a deadline based thing ever, but I’d like to celebrate getting here anyway. And while it’s true that I’ll probably continue writing/blogging anyway, it’ll still feel nice to complete a specific milestone. Post that I’ll also be free to do my favorite thing ie writing about writing. I can think about goals and processes and meta stuff again, which I always enjoy of course.

Pretty sleepy at the moment so I’d like to wrap this up in the next ten minutes. I also miss friends here, I feel like I haven’t seen people I used to regularly hang with for quite a while. Of course, I can make some plans etc but something’s been blocking me.

Man, these are the toughest 500 words I’ve written in a while. How is it possible that I don’t have enough to talk/write about? I did do a lot of journaling today morning so maybe that’s a factor. Maybe I need to go out and collect some more data and stimulus to have stuff to write.

Production classes are going well even though I do need to improve my setup so I can spend hours more sincerely than I’ve been doing so far. Honestly the dust here is such a pain. Not sure how to deal with that really. Which reminds me, I do have some house-maintenance chores to get done in the next few days as well. Ah well, that’s that.

I feel like my capacity to “work” effectively has reduced a bit. However it’s also possible that I’m just not tracking things well. So I’m going to track my work/focus time a bit more over the next few days to just get a sense of that again.

Alright folks, hope you’re having a pleasant April xx

088a – feeling feelings

They say a sign of emotional intelligence is to hold feelings without letting them drive your decisions. But I hope it’s okay that I “decide to” write (and publish) even when I have big feelings because I (like to) think of myself as somewhat emotionally intelligent and I won’t let them tell me otherwise. Granted, I do spend a good amount of time with my feelings lately but I did want to spend a lot of my time on creative work and the one thing I know for sure is that I create best when it’s driven by feelings. Skill has always been a secondary pursuit to me and reception is also not been something I’ve been able to measure but I know that my happiness and joy in creation is highly dependent on following feelings.

There is a lot I’ve been feeling today and I wrote it all down earlier tonight but I still don’t feel empty.

There are things I want to say to people who may or may not want to hear them but I am fragile and I don’t know how to gauge well what other people want. What do I want? I want to bare my soul (or whatever) without being made to feel like that’s something I’m not supposed to do.

Sure, I can make music and I can write poetry and I can make it all a little more “digestible” but what is it about things being as is that makes it “non digestible” for other people? I won’t know. Maybe I’m not supposed to know.

My mother has become quite a close “friend” of mine over the last few months and I feel so lucky to have her in my life. I lay my head in her lap today and asked her how we as a race (ie humans) can get intimacy so wrong and she looked at me with sympathy which made me feel like she thinks it’s not necessarily a race problem but a me problem. And maybe it really is a me problem and I’m okay to take that feedback because I’ve been doing a lot of the work and I’ve been doing healthy things and maybe it’s okay that there’s still a lot of work to be done and I’m willing to accept that because the other explanation is that I’m severely unlucky and that just does not seem to be true, really, so.. I don’t know.

I feel like the world always wants me to process things faster than I want to process them and despite repeatedly expressing that I don’t like being rushed people keep rushing me. They want me to move on faster, be happy faster, not grieve as much as I do, not be sad as much as I am, not talk about things as much as I do.. and yet, they don’t know how to set their own boundaries, is what jumps out to me, almost. I guess this means I would really respect people who are able to set their own healthy boundaries.

I don’t know. Today’s a bit of a bouba day. Although I’m not displeased. Cheers xx

085 – a break from doomscrolling

Happy with deactivating Instagram to be very honest. I’m realising it’s actually quite a waste to have your thought-process interrupted by social media. Of course, not all thoughts are interesting or useful, and I’ll be mindful of that, but from the chatter often come very interesting things, and that’s part of the skill-building I imagine, to find interesting things from a bunch of the noise. But for that I need to learn to tame and sort through the noise, not just quieten it down every time it starts to build.

I’m also happy with a little bit of the abundance mindset dating I’ve been doing (or trying to do lately). Simply put, dating more than a single person at a time. It’s really the only way I can emulate secure attachment at the moment.

Really want to get better at structured writing, or long-form writing, ie tying multiple related thoughts into a singular thing. I’m pretty meh at that right now. I used to think I have a lot of thoughts running through my brain ALL the time, but lately I feel like half of them are literally useless. I guess this is okay to realise, maybe that’s what growing up feels like. Or maybe that’s what a lot of word-vomiting allows me to get to. That I’m not as interesting as I thought. (And I don’t mean this in a self-deprecating way). Or maybe, that I need to put in more effort or work or focus-time to mould my thoughts into something “interesting”. Of course, that also opens up the question of what interesting is, really? I think I know this in my heart, though putting it out in words feels tedious, so I won’t attempt to do that right now.

Something that I’d been mulling over is the amount of time I want to be giving to maintenance of relationships etc, since I sometimes feel like there’s too many relationships to maintain lately and I don’t know if I can maintain them all. Of course, this doesn’t mean I want to “end” relationships or whatever, but just that sometimes it’s hard to make time for too many people in a single week, or a single month or whatever. There’s also that constant quality/quantity debate. Generally, over the last few years, what has worked okay for me is thinking of friendships and relationships in tier-forms. (I know a lot of people think this way and I think that works for me too). That I have some tier-1 friends (inner circle, etc) and a lot of tier-2 friends and then some tier-3 friends, etc. I’d also seen post by Casey Tanner about types of friendships and that was pretty cool as well because then you don’t have to “rank” friends in a way but you can still (for your self) define how important different people are to you. I can’t find the post right now but it was something along the lines of: close friends, lifelong friends, daily friends, dinner friends, party friends, affinity friends, family friends, etc etc”. I do have a lot of “affinity” friends for example. Queer friends, music friends, writing friends, self-growth friends. And these are important connections, but I wouldn’t necessarily hang out with them every week.

Anyway, I’d been mulling over how much time I can take out for social needs and whether I might just be over-indulging (ie continuing social interactions even after my social needs have been filled) and something I’m realising is that conversation is definitely something that I care about a lot. Conversation, when it goes well, has the power to move me in really unique ways. Conversation also allows me to test thoughts (and ideas) a lot better than anything else does. Sometimes I may have written a very simple word-vomit and even that allows me to be more articulate about my thoughts and feelings in conversation. Even about the simplest things. Basically coming to the conclusion that conversation is a great tool that runs parallel to writing. To that end, I don’t want to cut down my social time too much. I do think it contributes a LOT to creative work and growth, so I think it’s worth putting in the effort into it. And then again of course there’s the whole “you learn a lot of unexpected things from people”. Obviously, time is not infinite, so maybe I can’t just spend all my time with people (and obviously, my introversion will not allow for that either), but three good hangs in a week is something I can definitely strive for. At least for the next few months. I can always reevaluate once (when) I start working.

I’m up at 9:30 am today and feeling great, even though today’s a pretty chilly day as well. Good sleep, good food, good people around me, I suppose it’s all quite nice. Feeling pretty grateful, too.

I have a feeling reducing social media will also help me make more time for all the admin tasks I generally detest so much. Man, I’m feeling quite excited about this break! I might be romanticising it a little bit (lol) but I think that’s okay. If the benefits actually turn out to be that good, it’ll be very worth it. The main thing I’m doubting I think is whether it was even an addiction if it feels so easy to “quit”? I’m not sure, I guess we’ll find out. Will have to go back to the open question of understanding the addiction a lot better.

Alright, that’s it from me right now! Cheers xx