planning – untitled atm

089b – on balancing love and learning

Haven’t word-vomited in a few days. Have many thoughts. Been socially busy, but it’s been nice. But also a bit over-stimulating. Need calmness. I’ve also smoked quite a bit over the last few days and haven’t worked at all and I’m definitely not happy about that. Need to go back to reading Allen Carr.

Giving all of my attentive time to sentient beings feels quite nice, almost a bit addictive, but I’d like to be more careful with it. I noticed a white hair on my head today and although I’m not TOO worried, it definitely is a little uncomfortable. For this and adjacent reasons, I’d like to go back to prioritising health over pleasure.

Lots of people in my universe lately. I’d like to preserve my energy and attention, however. Since sometimes it becomes hard to recover from persistent feelings of being spread too thin.

January is about to end and February first-half is busy with friends but I’d like to plan work-goals for the second half of February so I don’t regret spending all my time on social things. I read a quote (can’t find it right now) which talks about how loving and learning are the two most important things in life. Because they are the two experiences you will likely not regret in life, regardless of how they come to you. I think I’m fairly aligned with this, at least for 2024.

So I just need to balance love (social) and learning (work) for the next few months. In the chase for secure love and attention, I do not want to put myself, my needs, my goals, my ambition behind. My relationship with myself still needs to be the most important relationship in my life.

There’s a quote by Rilke which goes: “And you must be indulgent with the answer, which will perhaps often leave you empty-handed; for ultimately, and precisely in the deepest and most important matters, we are unspeakably alone; and many things must happen, many things must go right, a whole constellation of events must be fulfilled, for one human being to successfully advise or help another.”

I quite like this. Something I’m attempting to do a lot more and live by is to “not put all my eggs in one basket” when it comes to people. I think the urge to find all answers and all peace in singular people has been quite harmful for me in the past. Safety, reliability, having your needs met (through and with other people) are very valid pursuits, but they need to be done mindfully.

Ah, I suppose that’s the theme of this whole word-vomit. How to give, take, love without getting too attached. Or how to practice connected detachment, I suppose.

I am a romantic and that’s okay and that’s great but I’d like to continue to be wary of romanticisation. I think it’s good and healthy.

Pillars have to be multi-fold. A single pillar cannot take the load of my depth. And that’s okay too.

087a – updates and planning

Lots going on. Lots of feelings and thoughts. Attended a big-ish poetry open mic which triggered some insecurities, although I did come out with a couple of really nice takeaways. Found some inspiration, found some people to connect with, and was also able to “provide value” (I think) by talking to a few students who were really interested in the processes and the community and how they could get more involved with poetry and slam poetry in general.

I think it’d be nice to be able to attend a workshop on slam poetry sometime soon because shifting from page to slam might require some more intentional work that I’m not able to put in yet.

Something I’m incorporating in dating (ie what I look for in a partner) now is maturity. For the longest time I’ve “known” that this is something I like but I’ve also thought that it’s something that I can get by without (because “I’m plenty mature for the both of us”). But I’m realising lately that that’s not how it works (LOL). But also realising that maturity doesn’t just come from books and movies but also a good amount of life experience. Also maturity on what fronts, really? Not just in terms of life and existing and suffering, but really having interacted with a good amount of people, with a good number and type of people, situations, etc etc. I don’t know yet how I can test for this when dating, but it’s something I’d definitely want.

I wrapped up the 10-songs project for now (reflections here) and something I’m realising is that it’s literally very similar to word-vomiting and journaling. I’m still continuing with music and writing as need based things (ie feeling outlets) and that will likely stay, I think. Production and release will be a separate project, one that I’m not beginning anytime soon. I’m going to be working on the smaller things this January. Small admin tasks, other P1 mini-projects etc. I’ve also got a vocals exam and I’d like to wrap it up soon since it’s stretched on for too long now.

The other thing that’s going on is no-Instagram-January. Today I felt like I want to activate it again because I felt the need for connection. But then if I don’t carry on for at least 2-3 weeks without giving in I wouldn’t really be able to tap into the returns, if any. Because my need for connection actually wasn’t a need for connection, only regulation. And for regulation, I mostly want to rely on myself, or actual, real people, not social media.

Not sure exactly what to focus on this week, work-wise, but I need to decide at least a few things otherwise I might end up doing nothing, really. I think I might need to follow a sprint model for personal tasks as well because that actually works pretty well, in my experience. It’ll allow me to not get “triggered” by my todo list but instead just look at it as opportunities— opportunities that I can explore at the pace that I want to.

Alright that’s it for today! Hope you’re having a good start to the week. Cheers xx

065b – building virtues

I often talk in detail about my vices on here. But the other path to self-improvement is (of course) also building virtues. And that’s understandable, some of my vices were bigger (or more important for me to look at) than these “lacking” virtues. I also felt like reducing certain vices might automatically help me be better at certain things.

And maybe, to an extent, that’s true.

But I really want to list down some of the qualities I really want to keep in my conscious realm so that I can regularly work on them in small or big ways.

Patience (and Curiosity)

This is the more urgent, most important one for me. I think I have improved on this a lot already, but there’s so much more work to be done here.

I find myself getting really antsy whenever I feel misunderstood, or understood but “not fast enough”. I even want to be calmer during discussions that are important for me. I want to use more “I” statements as much as I can. I want to approach conversations from a place of curiosity and understanding, and not just attempt to disagree and talk about what “I” think.

I think some of the other things that I’m doing will also help with this a lot (and will feed into them as well). For example, getting better at instruments, getting better at my “worldly” desires not being met (right away, or at all).

(Heated) group discussions or arguments with people I care about is where this bothers me the most because I just end up feeling bad about both the aspects— 1. That I lost my cool and 2. That I might have hurt or made someone else feel bad.

I know it’s okay to “feel” strongly about certain things, but overall I really want to get better at hanging around in the space between the feeling and the response. That’s where all the magic lies, I think.

Discipline

I’m actually not very sure about this yet. I am certain this is important and can play a big role on my overall productivity, satisfaction and general health (physical and mental).

When I say discipline I primarily mean sleep. Everything else I’m still okay around.

But there is also this very real thing that I really am naturally more productive post noon. Earlier, I used to think this is a circadian rhythm thing but here in India there’s also very real practical factors around it all. There’s definitely a lot more distractions during the day-time (especially noise and domestic workers coming in and out sometimes). I get a good amount of work done from 10pm-2am.

The only way productivity would remain the same if I were to shift my sleep schedule is if I were able to wake up by 8 am latest. This would mean sleeping by midnight latest. Don’t think that’s something I can do at the moment. But I suppose I can still set a limit of 3 am on the “when should I sleep by?” question. This involves getting enough of writing, music and reading done in the day for me to feel satisfied.

Time-Management

Since I’m not yet ready to cut out some of the things I’m wanting to fit into my day, the only other option I have is to get better at “managing” my time. I know that I need at least one (ideally two) focus blocks of 2-3 hours in a day. This means no people, no texts, no social media, etc. I get one block from around 2-5pm on most days and I get another from 10-2am. These two blocks, ideally, can be enough.

Okay, just updated my calendar. I think I need to get stricter with keeping this updated.

Organisation

This I suppose is the sister virtue to time-management. Here’s what’s been working so far:

I’m satisfied with my “noting down” ideas pipeline.

When it’s thoughts I just drop them in my Notes app (mostly on my phone) OR sometimes if I’m not using my phone I’ll use my journal. And I regularly scan my journal for any leftover ideas and transfer them to my Notes app.

When it’s music stuff or if I don’t feel like writing I simply use voice memos. This works fine too.

Also sufficiently satisfied with tracking my expenses.

Only other thing that eats up some time and bandwidth is planning for social outings. I do of course like to spend a good amount of time with friends and family and planning for that sometimes gets to me. But I don’t think I can change this TOO much right now, so maybe it’s fine. Maybe working on time-management might just suffice.

025 – spring cleaning

Well, Friday’s here. I’ve had a good week so far. I’ve been wanting to write a post about photography but I think I want that to be a little more organized than most of my other posts. I want it to be readable and I want to be able to share it with a group of people who I think might want to read it or could get some value out of it. For that, I’ll probably have to put in a little more effort than simply writing on a whim. I have notes and content, so I’m not too worried about that, it’s just the structuring that’ll require some effort.

One thing I’m learning about “good” and “bad” weeks is that good weeks require slowing down and reflection as much as the bad ones do. It’s quite easy to get carried away in the general easiness of things sometimes and I worry about how that might leave me in a worse place than a bad week by itself might have. While anxiety generally makes it hard for me to let things go, I at least end up completing my goals and tasks most of the times. When the anxiety’s not around, I often end up living “too” much in the present. I suppose it’s a constant battle to manage the short-term and the long-term. Or maybe this is just the anxiety talking again.

I’ve got an apartment move coming up ahead, and the decision making over it has completely fried my brain. The budget decisions, the wants, the fitting my wants within my budget, it’s all quite exhausting. Fortunately, work’s been a little light this week so I’ve managed to do a bit of house hunting. It’s terribly windy outside, I wish that weren’t the case. I’d have loved to take a walk right now. I went downstairs and had to come back up within five minutes is how chilly it was.

I finally figured out how to add “top posts” and “tag cloud” widgets to this webpage so that’s kinda cool. I don’t know why I’d been struggling with that earlier. The thing I’m unhappy about though is that I wanted to list out of my top posts based on views, but that only takes into account the views from 48 hours and not all-time views, so I had to list them out by likes instead.

On the work front, my repressed interests in product management have come up to the surface again. I’ve always thought that I care more about the “what and the why”s of a product rather than the “how”s. But the thing I don’t love about product management jobs is that they definitely seem to involve a LOT of multi-tasking, organization and meetings, and I don’t know if that’s something I’d enjoy. Thankfully this isn’t a completely uncommon switch that people make, so I know I can find enough material to help me think about this and figure out if makes sense for me.

In other good things, my heart’s been warmed by how much great queer representation I’ve been seeing in the media these days! I was making my mom watch Atypical, which literally has one of the cutest wlw arcs. Followed by Ginny and Georgia, it completely blew me by surprise, and Sara Weisglass does such a phenomenal job in it. Lastly, from the motherland – Bombay Begums – again, very surprised they handled a queer arc gracefully. Have to say it again, my heart’s so full. I was thinking about how the word “representation” doesn’t fully capture the value it actually holds. Representation doesn’t just mean “seeing” more kinds of people and diverse storylines – it basically implies “resonating” with them. Quality representation of diverse emotions is probably an important goal that the word by itself doesn’t convey.

I think a cool thing about writing one of these is that often at some point halfway through I remember everything that’s bothering me about the “things I haven’t done” or the things I haven’t planned for, and I’m almost forced to step out of this and make that list I’m always putting off. Because if I don’t do that, I’d either end up writing out of my feelings about those tasks in the post, or I’d end up giving up the post at that point. And since I know I don’t want to do either of those things, I end up making that list. Which actually ends up helping a ton.

Well, Sunday’s here now and I had a pretty great weekend. It was productive when it comes to my personal goals, it was relaxing, and it was social – it was everything I could ask for in a weekend. No crises this week and I’m quite happy about that. I don’t have much to write about tonight so I’m going to use the last chunk of this post to note that I’m in a good place with my “hobbies” now. I think I’m at the place where I can all all three of photography, music and writing a regular hobby that I find that I’ve been able to stick do and do somewhat regularly. Regularly enough to not really lose touch with all of them. I think the next thing I need to do is setup some good workflows for my work work, so I can make sure to not get lost or off track on that. I also want to set some financial goals and see if I can become a little smarter about my finances so I don’t have to worry about them too often. The next thing I want to take care of my health, I’ve been doing much better from a month ago but I want to take some time to reflect on it.

Word vomit’s done. What should I call it?

008b – rest and growth

Preamble: Wrote this a couple days ago since I was feeling quite “inspired”. But turns out it was just a passing feeling, hence the easy end.

I’ve been thinking about growth lately. There’s definitely a big part of me that likes to grow. I don’t like worrying about things too much and anxiety almost always feels like a constant problem, but sometimes I enjoy these problems, I guess. Or at least, I like the feeling of making my out of the darkness. Or even when it’s not as dark, even when it’s a “simpler emergence”, I do like chasing some sort of goals. Nothing special, pretty normal, a lot of us do it – it’s just new again for me since for a while I thought I only wanted to rest. I had weeks and weeks of wanting to do nothing, I just wanted to breathe and relax and take life in.

When things get hard, I enjoy dissociating from myself. I subscribe to Buddhist ideas like “I am not my thoughts, I am not my feelings”. And it’s pretty helpful. The less attached I am to the idea of “Me” or “I”, the easier it generally is to accept whatever is happening to me.

But when things are “okay” again, I sometimes find myself getting attached to myself again. I find myself looking at myself like a project again, something to constantly be improving and working on. In the previous post I realized I don’t value my time enough, and I think that’s a product of some of “detachment” (so to say) that I was trying to practice.

But I’m thinking about growth again, and I’m finding that I want to get over my fears “faster”. Where’s that need coming from? I’m finding that I “want” to value my time? Where is this sense of urgency coming from? Do I want to pay attention to it? Do I even want to act on it? Is it even correct? Probably not, I think.

I think many us go through this. Phases of growth, phases of rest. The sinusoidal waves of life.

But I need to be careful between the rest and the growth phase. Even though it’d be nice to keep failing fast, I want to be a little careful, still. Because emotions can be unpredictable. It would probably make sense to keep a decent amount of buffer for them. When I plan for a growth phase, I probably shouldn’t do the planning based on “how I feel during the rest phase”.

I suppose this ends up at the two common strategies we often debate on:

A. Under-plan, and overdo, if that happens?
B. Over-plan and be okay with meeting only a % of it?

I think at this point, strategy A looks like a better option to me, because it leaves enough time for me to have fun on the way.. not super sure why I was even debating this to be honest.