dreams – untitled atm

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

104b – dreams, neurodivergence and the need for rest

People keep talking about dreams all the time. Or so it seems. People tell me how proud of me they are and how inspiring it is that I’m following my dreams. I don’t even know what my dreams are, though. To live a creative life? Yes. To spend more time with my art, with myself, with people I love? Yes, of course. To not be doing too many things that I don’t want to do? Yes, indeed.

Financial privilege and in general— privilege— aside, I don’t feel like I’m living a very good life. My relationship has been hard work, lately, and career stuff weighs heavily on me too. Do I want to be a writer, or a musician, or nothing at all? Am I really just afraid of hard work or am I not able to tune into my gut and figure out what I want? Or hell, even if I don’t know what I Want, am I able to at least know what I want next?

Having freedom and privilege makes me feel like I’m supposed to do something with it. I don’t know if I want to. In certain moments, yes, I do want to do something that could be useful to someone (even if that someone’s just myself), but in other moments— I really just want to rest.

I know I’m definitely some sort of neurodivergent, and vocalising that more loudly and more frequently has come with its own set of challenges. Now that I’m more in touch with how easily I get overstimulated and tired, there is a need to also accept that it makes sense to need the amount of rest and alone time that I tend to need. But society’s voice is stlll way too loud.

It tells me that I’ve had my “year” of rest and now it’s time to get back into work and productivity. A month ago I tried writing a goodbye letter to this “year of rest” but it wasn’t enough. I don’t think I’m ready to get back to work. Not the trad 9-5 kind anyway. I’m talking to some people for part-time work but none of it comes with pay. Sure, I can afford that for now but at some point I won’t be able to. Well, I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Or like six months before we have to, I guess.

I’ve been considering art school or music school more seriously since, well, all of yesterday. Talking to Y made me realise how suppressed this desire has been, in me. Yes, last year I did consider it seriously, but then I did some research which convinced me thoroughly to not go ahead with any of that at this point of time. Even now, I don’t think I want to go to school right away. I just want more motivation to work on the things that I do want to work on. I do want to reduce TV time and gaming time so I can feel more energised. I do want to eat better, exercise more, but I feel like these wants are still outcome oriented. Is that okay? I don’t know. I don’t know if I can just eat better SO that I feel more energised. That kind of thinking is not motivating enough for me. But I do want to find some way of getting over all this, because otherwise I’m just denying my body what it needs.

Anyway, I think that’s it for now. Going to try out a couple things to summon some energy! Happy October, folks xx

103a – enroute san francisco

Haven’t been able to journal at all. I’m not sure what’s happened to me over the last ten days.. I feel quite dissociated and maybe that’s part of the problem.

There is a bigger problem though. Every time I sit down to write I can’t figure out what I want to write about. This is not a new problem, but it’s a problem I haven’t faced too recently. Except for the last 2-3 months— wherein this problem has been very present.

Honestly I’d love to write about how lovely it is that my flight is taking a very scenic route over the Pacific Ocean and how the surface of the water glows under the 3pm sun and how the clouds seem to be merging with the sky and the water and how there are a few islands that I can spot even though we’re probably pretty high up— islands that I think I’m able to spot on the map too— probably the Chanel islands of California.

I’d love to write about how the water is so beautiful that it makes me realise that despite having lived in California for over three years I never really took a proper dip in the water. I know why I didn’t— but I’d like to change that. I don’t know if I can do that this trip, but within the next couple years, I’d definitely like to change that.

I feel guilty for expecting too much from people. Luckily my partner is the same as me, so we keep high expectations from each other, I feel quite grateful for that, but hanging out with other people does make me realise that there are enough people who don’t function this way. People who’re willing to tolerate so many little things, who don’t want to change or accommodate or really who’re just not willing to understand the people around them. Anyway, I know this is all abstracted out for anyone reading this to really understand what’s going on, so my apologies for that.

Y and I want to go away to Goa for a month or so (we recently found that a friend is subleasing her place and it would be perfect for us) BUT I just remember today that I don’t think I have a 2 wheeler license! And one of the main reasons I wanted to go was to be able to practice 2-wheeler driving. What a bummer, eh.

The pacific coast really is just so beautiful. I can see the clouds so low, they’re almost touching the land.

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

064 – How can I become friends with my fantasies?

Preamble: I rarely make two posts in a day, I’ve no idea what the internet guidelines around that are, but well– I’ve written it now, there’s no point waiting to publish.

—

Anyway, this is the question that has been on my mind a lot, lately. Because I know many of my problems come from (or are made worse) because I’m often walking around “in my head”. Fantasising about conversations I might never have, about ideas I may never execute, about dreams that might never become real. And on the flip side, also “fantasising” about problems that don’t yet exist etc— of course, this is better known as anxiety.

I know that part of it is an “addiction” to thinking, and the simplest advice is always to “come back to the present”.

But I want to talk about an important reframe, first:

There are benefits to thinking, keeping some checks in place for big worries (for e.g. financial investments, planning), preparation for important things like job interviews, and various other things. Especially now that I know myself better, the benefits are EVEN more important to remember, because the pre-thinking (or preparation) is an important part of my process, and without it, I may have more regrets, and a lower tolerance for things “going wrong”.

However, the thinking needs to happen in a more embodied way. Which is why journaling, blogging, doodling, notes, etc are GOOD. Thinking that is ONLY happening in your head— BAD.

So there are two sides to the problem of fantasy:

Anxiety (or Worry, or a “need” to plan a bit for the future)

From above: I think this is okay, we have to be mindful of overdoing this, but a bit of embodied preparation and planning is beneficial, and I can continue to do this.

But there’s also the other side, which so far I used to let myself go almost “crazy” with, and have only very recently started looking at in more depth or detail.
Fantasy (Good Fantasies)

Why is this a problem? Well, I think, the more you fantasise about things, the more you’re prone to disappointments and heartbreaks. With dreams, love, whatever it may be, you’ve added to your life an imagined reality which you then have to grieve. While wants and desires are perfectly natural, I do wonder if stitching vivid images of what they should look like is necessary.

Overall, there’s also the thing which we originally started with. Some of us often fantasise to escape our feelings, really, to escape from the present. For example, I’ve noticed that if I feel (romantic) curiosity or longing or an interest towards someone, I start to fantasise about a potential future where I’m dating this person and having all these amazing conversations with them. What am I escaping, here? I’m escaping the feeling of “not actually having someone in my life at the moment” who I can do all those things with. That’s the feeling I’m escaping. Inadequacy, dissatisfaction, sadness, longing, etc.

Heidi Priebe talks about all of this at length in this video, and I find some of her insights incredibly useful.

Anyway, this brings me back to the original question. Is there really a way to still look at my fantasies from a friendly lens?

I suppose the answer would still be the same as what I mentioned earlier. But I suppose writing, journaling, blogging, doodling, notes, etc, these are only just mediums (for embodiment). What we really need to do is keep some of these reframes in mind:

Take a look at the complete fantasy, ie not just the last five steps, but also the next (first) five steps— ie the actions you might have to take in the next 48-72 hours to get closer to this fantasy that you seem to want.
Take a look at the problems and the challenges involving the fantasy— if we’re using the fantasy to escape the present, chances are we’re only looking at the good parts of the fantasy, or romanticising the problems that come along with it. Ask yourself whether the problems that come with this fantasy are really what we want, are those problems better than the problems we have right now? Because there is no life without problems and pain, the main goal is to find problems you like (or at least— like more than your current problems).
Ask yourself whether you can enjoy the journey— of course, resistance may show up now and then, but that might actually be a part of the process as well, it definitely is with creative work, for example– and in such a case enjoying the journey would look like actually enjoying overcoming the different forms of resistance, even.
Come back to the present with more acceptance and kindness. There’s a reason your current present is the way it is, and only through kindness, forgiveness and acceptance can you move towards making it better. Or move towards trading your problems for better problems.

For instance, while writing this post out I did realise that maybe I don’t want too much success, or fame (even though I sometimes do fantasise about those things), because I do like having spare time to myself, and I do having a lot of my life to be private. I want to be more seen, yes, but perhaps not through fame.

I do want a relationship though, because I know I actually like the problems that come with it, I love the idea of doing emotional work with someone who’s as invested as you in building something real and deep. I really enjoy conflict resolution, I really enjoy getting creative with problems like compromise, etc.

I do want to be a better writer and a better musician, because I do enjoy the process and the hard-parts of these things too.

To sum it up, stay embodied, and take a look at the whole picture, from the present to the journey and then lastly, if you have time– at the goals themselves.

049b – desire

But what if everything I want, I already have?

Love, peace, connection, security, health, beauty, worthiness, achievement, success, fame, pleasure, validation, all that jazz. Maybe I already have it all.

Okay, this probably doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know. I’m pretty sober, but this thought came to me yesterday night. And I’d thought to myself that this maybe worth thinking more about. But, I don’t know if it is. Maybe it’s just one of those thoughts you’re supposed to feel and believe, without really diving deep into it. Because diving deep won’t really reveal anything you don’t already know.

These days, I find myself getting swayed by material desire, but I don’t want to give in to that too much.

In general, I want to be able to say no to all sorts of desires and cravings from time to time. Skeptics will say this is asking too much of yourself.

There is a person I miss— but I know talking to them isn’t very healthy for my “progress” in life, so that is a desire I want to be able to say no to. I think I’ve been doing decently well on this, haven’t “given in” since January. I do sometimes wonder if this will ever become a non-issue. I know that if I meet someone new (ie fall in love), this will become a non-issue more easily. But, that could take a while. And I don’t want that to be the only way this becomes a non-issue. Point being, I’m surprised by the amount of time it’s taking to get rid of this person’s trace from my life. I started writing some of it in a “book” of sorts, because I wasn’t ready to let all of it go completely into nothingness, and that’s been “helping” quite a bit, and ideally, I should just be writing over there so I can continue “working” on this letting go process, but I didn’t feel like it today. So— surprise, surprise— here I am, doing the same thing in a different format. Eventually, kind of talking about the same thing I didn’t feel like talking about.

Ah, that was a tiring paragraph. Felt clunky and circular to me.

I’ve been stuck on a book I’ve been reading for over a month now, it’s not super engaging but I really don’t want to leave in the middle, so really need to pick up pace and finish reading it. Because I want to read something philosophical / spiritual after it, I’ve been feeling the need for it. Not sure what, though. Something in the Ekhart Tolle / Alan Watts realm.

The other desire I’m struggling with is the one for social satisfaction. I met some friends earlier in the week but I’m kind of experiencing the need for connection again. Talking to parents doesn’t feel satisfactory enough. And while, yes, I can make plans with specific people and maybe attempt to figure this out, I kind of also want to be okay with the desire just not getting met.

I might have overused the word “desire” in this post. It is what it is, is what it is.

035b – dream cities (read: dreams)

People often ask me what my dream city would be. Mostly when I’m complaining about how geographical movement is hard. But I don’t know if I have a dream city. I just have dreams.. and most cities I’ve lived in are capable of fulfilling them for me.

I don’t think my dreams are too big. I want to sing for small-medium sized groups of people. I want a decent-sized sunlit apartment to spend my indoors time in. I want a guitar and a keyboard at home. I want relatively warm weather for as much time of the year as possible. A couple months of rainy weather would be nice too.

I want a sense of community, belonging: I think I’ve gotten pretty good at being able to build this, again, at least in places I’ve lived so far. I want to be around good friends. And I think I want to spend 20% of my social (and free)-time with close family.

I want a person to share all of this with. I want to be able to do fun things with them. I probably want us to co-parent a cat. And some plants.

And of course, I want to able to earn some amount of money to support all of these things. Ideally, I want a career that can help me earn some money and also help me fulfill some of my yearnings. But with a lot of remote opportunities and general globalization, I think the city I choose wouldn’t affect this in a big way.

I want some greenery I can access within 10-15 minutes of walking or biking, ideally. I want to be able to drive a car. And I want a city with infrastructure decent enough to make it fun to drive around.

Of course, I want to be safe while I do all this. So yes, half of the Indian cities I know get removed from my “cities I can live in” list. But Bangalore, Mumbai and even Delhi (with some caveats) stay on.

I want good food. I definitely want some cute cafes here and there. I want to be able to go dancing once a while.

–

I was writing this between breaks from reading this brilliant read about picking careers. Went back and spent around 2 more hours on it, brainstormed and introspected a bit, and suddenly I find myself feeling very optimistic. Maybe it’s helping that I’m seeing 7 am after many days (my sleep schedule’s been really bad, so I ended up pulling an all-nighter today). But regardless, the optimism is real.

I’m okay with perhaps switching careers at the age of 30, I’m okay with being single for as long as I don’t find the right person (and if that never ends up happening, I feel like I’ll be okay with that too), I’m okay with possibly never having kids (which reduces the time pressure on finding someone). And lastly, I’m perfectly okay with my place in this world – small or big. How liberating to feel this. Hope it lasts a while!

031a – music stuff

Excited about all the music in my life right now. I ordered a second-hand keyboard, looking forward to setting up near my window and eventually playing some jazz on it. I want to remember how it takes time to build the skills, I can’t expect much in the first couple months. But I might do a Take Me to Church cover pretty soon.

I want to find more people to jam with, I want to get more involved in all of this. I’m going to fix my sleep schedule and spend more of my weekends playing and creating more music.

I “created” some bits of music in the last couple of weeks, it was huge for me because for some reason I always thought it was impossible to do. Which is weird, since other parallels never seemed as tough. You get colors, you’re okay throwing them on a blank canvas and seeing what comes up. You get words, you’re able to make sentences and prose and even poetry out of them. But for some reason, even though I always had the notes (i.e the building blocks), I never thought of forming melodies with them.

I think I always stopped at whether “it made sense” or whether “it was good enough” (even just in my head) to even attempt it. I’m amazed at how long at it took me to get here, and all the forces that must have been at play to get me here. But I’m happy I’m finally here.

I also want to learn a little more of music theory. Jacob Collier’s masterclass has been incredibly inspirational. I do think you have to find the romance in everything that you like for it to truly be inviting. I’m allowing myself to dream and daydream (again).

I don’t know how to be organized about all of this, though. Prioritizing and sorting through all of these small half-baked ideas seems like a chore. And the only motivation to do that is to increase executive function. How do you resolve the conflict between discipline and freedom?
I also don’t enjoy “production” as much. I think it requires much more of all of the discipline and the organizational skills. It feels plainer, less creative. You have to really like the pieces you have and you’ve to really believe they matter for you to spend time and effort on putting it all together.

Then there’s the other part to this, lived experiences. What stories do I want to tell, what part of life is interesting enough to share? These blog posts don’t matter, even the most trivial thought-clouds I don’t mind sharing on here. But with music, do I want it to be a little more? I guess it’s like any other thing. Maybe it’s a numbers game. Maybe I need to start from the basics. Just put numbers on the board. Once I make ten melodies, maybe I can think about the quality and the actual content.

Dreams do have their own place, but eventually it’s the execution that’ll move us forward.