tasks – untitled atm

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

094a – blogging is cool

Finally got to rest and recharge today. Got a few chores done post dinner, caught up with a couple friends also, feeling good.

Maintenance, I’m realising is definitely a thing. When buying things, or setting things up, we need to be mindful of how much maintenance they may require. For example, if I add more instruments to my space, I need to consider how much regular cleaning they may require etc. Another thing I’ve been thinking of doing is practicing driving and really getting serious about it. But then car maintenance is an additional thing to consider which I’d never paid attention to until now.

Feeling pretty sleepy but I want to write so I will.

I think I’m in a good space now. Looking forward to this week, finally planned the week a bit too. Planning is something I often struggle with so it’s nice to have structures and people around me who help me with this.

I’ve been watching Schitt’s Creek again and it’s been quite enjoyable. I’d forgotten how much nice, easy shows can improve a day (of course, within their limits).

Thinking I might be able to make some time for domestic travels once again, actually. It’s funny how this works. Get the right people to ask you to visit and then making time and bandwidth doesn’t seem so tough actually. I know this conflicts a little bit with what I wrote here about wanting more time to myself but only a little bit. I’m optimistic that March will give me the time I need and then April will be a bit open again.

Chores and tasks are only a problem for as long as you’re not doing them, funnily enough. We know this, I know this, and yet, it’s only when I actually get them done that I realise this again and again. Doing a little more cooking lately too and I’m quite happy about that. Feels pretty grounding and therapeutic.

I used to often wonder what the point of blogging was if you’re not coming to terms with “insightful things” on a daily/regular basis, but now I think even the pure act of documentation can be quite worthwhile. For one, it helps you remember how you feel about various events happening in your life. Even the pure act of noting that down can help you make better decisions, I think. It helps to know what you’re liking, what you’re not liking, which of course helps you do more of what you do like and less of what you don’t (assuming that is possible). The other thing (this I learnt from the Artist’s Way recently) is that there is only so much “complaining” you can do about a thing until you eventually get tired of it and are “forced” (by choice, funnily enough) to solve it.

Yep, I think that’s it from me tonight. Cheers xx

093b – march updates

Haven’t word-vomited properly for around a week. Feeling pretty restless this week. Also very exhausted. Sister’s leaving tonight so I know I’ll get to recharge once she does though of course I’m sad to see her leave as well. It’s also been really chilly here this week which has got me feeling quite irate.

Finally opened my notion board this week, which I’d been avoiding because I was feeling a bit stressed and crumbly under the weight of tasks etc but feeling okay now.

I have some international travel coming up this summer and finally got done with 1/2 of the Visa processes. Quite relieving actually.

Looking forward to a relatively quieter month, if that’s possible for me. I’m feeling quite away from all my creative pursuits and I’m not very happy about that. Would also like to narrow focus a bit, since I feel extremely scattered.

Feel like this word-vomit reflects my mental state a bit as well, though part of me knows that it’s mostly just judgement creeping in and the need to defend myself over it. What is the judgement? That I don’t really have anything to write or talk about. Which also feels weird because I thought I had a lot of things “weighing” on me or whatever. Ugh, the inherent insecurity of expressing yourself is just quite annoying.

I have enough things to do but perhaps not a strong enough motivation to do any of them. Perhaps the tricks is just to do the things anyway. I’m going to treat tomorrow as a workday so I can get some of these tasks done.

I also feel a bit worried about potential health issues and in general my lack of enough healthy habits or the abundance of enough unhealthy habits, which is something I do find quite tough to tackle. Sleep “schedule” has been mostly decent though, so I guess I’m grateful for that.

I’d like to wrap up 100K words by the end of this month, though I know for sure that I’m going to keep this blog going still. It’s just my most preferred way of processing things. Still, it’ll be nice to “complete” something also.

Still curious about non-monogamy, hoping to go on a couple dates with different people this month so I can gather some more information about how I feel and what I might potentially want in this aspect. I’m hoping it’s just a brain itch because that will make things easier, but let’s see.

We have general elections this year over here and I would finally like to participate— I mean I’ve always wanted to but have just been quite procrastinatey about documents and the admin processes. Feel like it’s time to tackle it this time. I’m aware I’m using the word tackle quite a bit today but maybe that’s how everything does feel.

Alright, writing today was quite tough. Hoping it’s just a practice (or the lack thereof) thing. Hope I can be a bit regular in March again.

Cheers xx

092a – promises, caution and chatter

I don’t like making promises I can’t keep. But in the moment when you’re really enjoying time with someone I tend to say “let’s do this again” instead of “I’m having such a good time”. I guess I’d like to change this.

Which is why long distance friendships are sometimes so much easier to maintain. You meet someone for a weekend once a year and you get to tell them how much you enjoy time with them, you both know there isn’t much point in making plans for another few months. Even when you do talk about taking trips, it’s not as high stakes because you know it’s okay if you don’t execute these plans. And you can somehow trust that the other person knows it too. Then, if you do execute them— it’s a bonus.

But maybe the fear of disappointing others also comes from the very childlike “disappointed” part of me. Broken promises, maybe I still carry the hurt from them.

Now, I can trust that other people are adults too. Of course, I do want to be careful with my word. But things do change sometimes, we do say things a little impulsively. We can’t always stop ourselves. I am a little impulsive and I am a little moody but that doesn’t mean that I don’t mean the things I say. But sure, I can still afford to be a little more careful, overall.

Anyway, that’s a bit of thoughts and rambles and now I must make space for some chatter. Pretty occupied with social and family time till the first week of March and then there’s a music open mic coming up in the last week of March— would like to prepare seriously for that. By the end of March, I would also like to wrap up a a teaching project I had taken on a few months ago. I’ve been off and on with that and I’d like to see it through.

I completed 6-7 months in Delhi recently and I think I really like being here. Apart from the weather, most things are pretty good. I feel like there’s mostly a good amount of fun things going on (friends, family, hobbies etc) which is the primary reason I don’t feel like I need to think about geography too much. I’d like to be here at least throughout 2024 and then I can always recheck or reevaluate.

My most important task on a daily or weekly basis though is making enough time for myself and creative work. If I don’t do this, I end up discontent. As long as I keep writing and/or engaging with music or photography “enough”, I feel like things don’t get too bad.

Success for me is more good days than bad days and enough time for art and creativity and people I love and by that definition I’d say I’m pretty happy. Sleep has also been much better over the last couple weeks and I’m pretty grateful for that.

Alright I think that’ll be it from me today. Hope y’all have a good end to February! xx

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

082a – happy and jittery

“Everything is real” is my new cope to life instead of the earlier cope that was “everything is fake”. Well, it’s more like when you find the things you actually like and resonate with it’s easier to say that everything is real. Or maybe it comes back to the connected detachment theory that is “everything should be honoured but nothing matters”. So this would be somewhat equivalent to “everything is real but also everything is fake”.

I’m really happy these days and I know that happiness comes with a lot of vulnerability (such is the nature of happiness) but something I’ve learned is that nothing lasts forever so now I really make it a point to enjoy the happiness while it lasts, and be grateful for it for as long as I can be.

The universe and life will of course continue to ebb and flow but we gotta really enjoy the good stuff, it’ll be hard to cope with the bad stuff otherwise.

I want to take some time out to find and join dance classes soon because I really feel called to it and I’ve been delaying (procrastinating) for a while now.

I also discovered a superb spirituality treasure trove which I’m excited to explore more, especially as it also has a bunch of stuff on relating art and spirituality, which is something I’ve been thinking about anyway.

Admin tasks are still very tedious to do but I don’t know if there is a way to get around to doing them, since we do live in a society after all. Maybe the trick is to do them as soon as possible, so they don’t linger on my head and creative negative feelings. I’d like to work on this a bit so I can reduce the tediousness.

Being consistent with a meditation practice is still something that I need to incorporate because I can keep thinking and talking about spirituality but it’s only when I engage (or not engage) with the thoughts am I truly attempting to practice it. I cannot keep talking about the thing if I truly want to access any of it. (Related)

My mind is still active though, and I need to go back to cutting caffeine a little bit because I definitely find myself getting affecting by that a bunch.

The main thing on my mind right now is still “how do you do tasks that do not feed your soul”? Like really, how do you do them? I sometimes feel such visceral resistance to them that it becomes almost impossible to do them. Maybe I need to sit with the resistance. Or maybe I just haven’t accepted that some of them are really, actually important.

I made a list though, at least that’s some progress.

Okay, that’s all for now. I’ll be back soon! xx

041b – pretty much a journal entry

Lots of feelings. Lots and lots. Unable to communicate well with people lately.

One common pattern I’m seeing with “close-ish” friends (but not the ones closest) is that I’m unable to tell them when I’m “bored” of listening to some of their stories, some that I never asked them about in the first place. And these people are obviously unable to guess (or read) that I’m done listening as well. Maybe there is an opportunity to be more clear here. I’m afraid of hurting their feelings though. Okay, I wrote down a phrasing that conveys both parts of the feeling and isn’t as hurtful.

Of course, the stress of the moving etc might have a role to play here as well. I know it does.

Okay but, lots of things to look forward to over the remaining month here in Amsterdam. The days are getting sunnier so I hope I can be a little more active.

Have a therapy session tomorrow so hopefully that’ll be a bit helpful. Another thing I’m kind of annoyed about is how nobody else thinks of therapy as something they could be considering as well. I feel like I put in so much work and it does help many of my relationships, but people around me could be putting in some work as well. And granted, most of the work that I put in is mostly for myself, but considering it helps the relationships too, it’d be so much better if other people were working on themselves (and expressing themselves) as well. Often I feel there’s so much friction because the people I’m talking to aren’t very much in touch with their feelings (or willing to accept them, or willing to accept that there’s something a little more there). And that then requires a little more effort to most conversations.

Anyway, I’ll continue this tomorrow — I just realised I want to unwind a bit and then try going to sleep early-ish.

—

My therapy sesh got canceled which is not the best. Since I still have a lot of stuff on my mind. Woke up pretty late today and not too happy about that, since I need to wake up on time tomorrow, ugh. Couldn’t get much work done though I got some moving-related chores done, so that’s good.

The social responsibilities wrt moving are weighing on me a little bit. ie the whole process of reaching out to the few people I want to meet once before leaving. Although I know it doesn’t make a huge difference if I don’t do this, I still want to. 😦 I feel like half of my conflict on a day-to-day basis is just about how much effort-muscle I have in me vs the kind of goals/wants I have.

There’s a lot of physical energy required by most of my chores/tasks and I’m realising I don’t have enough. So that’s that. I mean of course mental energy too, but that I’m still a little more used to summoning when really needed. Or just knowing how to pace myself so I don’t end up super-exhausted. Ah well.

Anyway, that’s all from me today. Hope to have some interesting stuff to talk about soon!

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?

013 – it’s okay to value your time

I made a mistake. I was actually feeling really good about getting done with the day around 11:15 pm but then I dawdled. I dawdled and I checked my phone and then I started reading stuff on twitter. And now it’s 11:45. This isn’t a great feeling. I wanted to explore a bit when I’m at peace. I don’t want to fall into the trap of revenge bedtime procrastination. The only way I would be able to sleep on time is when I find enough time in the day to be able to feel “satisfied”. And that’ll come from being able to do a little bit of things that make me happy and give me personal satisfaction.

It’s good that I know this and I see this. It’s good that I recognize this feeling that arises whenever I dawdle and scroll for too long. At least I think it’s good.

I want to get a little better at valuing my time. Earlier I was pushing back against this a bit. Because I thought I don’t want to be overly attached to my goals and desires. But now I feel like there can be a compromise. I’m sure it’s possible to have goals and desires and yet be non-attached to them? I know this is a pretty ideal state to be in, so I’m not taking it lightly.

I was also questioning where the need to value my time was coming from. I know now that it’s coming from a recognition of unfulfilled wants and desires. One of the reasons I was fighting so hard against my day job was that I felt like it was leaving me with no time for all my other pursuits. Of course, the anxiety and stress was real too, but maybe it doesn’t have to be a wild change. I see what’s happening, I’m trying to find a compromise. I’m trying to see if valuing my time (and eventually managing it better) will help me be more satisfied.

Whenever I think about creative pursuits, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs comes to mind. I keep thinking about how I’m often sad and/or dissatisfied because I keep trying to fulfill the (self-actualization, esteem) needs even without fully fulfilling my (physiological, safety and belongingness) needs. Why are the bottom three rungs so boring to look at or think about? Maybe because I haven’t solved them. Maybe because they’re supposedly easy and I keep failing at them. We keep trying to hack at happiness.

But then I also remember seeing a few posts about how Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is flawed. I also dislike research so I don’t think I’m going to look this up, though I do feel like it would be interesting to. (Well, note to self.)

I’m very glad that I’m not consuming mindlessly a lot these days. It’s nice. I think I’m not as addicted to scrolling and content anymore.

How do you set boundaries with your parents? I really love them and I genuinely like spending time with them, but I can’t figure a good way to seek and take their support without also inviting “parenting” in. I don’t want to be parented anymore, I just want some support. It’s a fine line. I’ve already had a couple of really tense arguments with my mother, and she’s barely been here two whole days. I remember it’d been the same way with my sister when she’d come to stay with me for a month around a year ago. But I remember making a shared document of working styles and communicating styles which had actually worked pretty well for us. Maybe I can do something similar this time too.

It’s already 12:30 am and I really wanna be in bed by 12:50 am. Can I try writing 400 more words in 20 minutes? I mean if I really just want to ramble on I probably could. What stops me generally is wanting to write something of relevance, something of value, something that ties in well with whatever I’ve written so far. Even though I’ve (way too) often told myself I don’t need to be worrying about all of that. I suppose there’s a part of me that thinks unabashed writing is lazy writing. And honestly, it probably is. But it’s probably better than no writing. Doing this day in and day out. This is the primary reason I really like my music teacher. She keeps asking me to sing and keeps reminding me how singing wrong notes is better than singing no notes. She gets it, she gets me, and she really “attacks” the biggest and the most primary fear in me. The fear of being bad.

I’m happy to have some of these structures in place. I think I do need to take some time out to set up a few more of these. I probably need monthly check-ins for admin tasks, large cleanup tasks, decluttering tasks. I know that getting these things done feels really good and yet I don’t do them enough. I think there’s something about batch processing not done right that just ends up being worse than the unideal alternative of stream processing.

I think at some point, somehow, I had just accepted batch processing to be the superior option for most tasks. This is especially true for chores. I would often skip daily chores and let them be a “weekend problem”. But when the weekend would come around I would often not feel like getting them done, sometimes just whimsically, and sometimes because it would feel more mammoth. So then I unconsciously shifted to stream processing for “all tasks”. Which then ended up crowding my daily life way too much. So now I gotta do an intentional evaluation of the treatment different kinds of tasks deserve.

Well, I’m kinda done. So it turns out I’ve started valuing my time again. I think it’s a good direction to be headed in. This doesn’t mean I would want to be crazy about saving time all the time and not be okay with wasting it once in a while, but in general, I would probably want to be at least a little aware of it. I still have 4 minutes to 1:00 am so I’d say not too bad. *pats self*