Defeat, Pain, and Progress

I am extremely exhausted today, I managed to fall asleep without writing a post, finally waking up just now, at 2:20am, to write this. My brain is still half-asleep and my hands are weirdly typing around, it feels quite stupid to be writing this. But then, that has always been the deal with all my posts on days I was completely exhausted. Part of the experience is the weirdness I feel in doing this, the times when I feel like I cannot feel the tip of my fingers and every word comes out with an error that my laptop’s autocorrect finally corrects for me. Sometimes, I feel extremely demotivated by the comments of others, when they point out the pointlessness of my whole blog. People don’t really understand why this blog matters to me, why I put myself through a lot sometimes, just to write these posts.

I have stayed awake until stupid hours, I have fallen asleep and woken myself up at ungodly hours, prioritised this sometimes at the cost of doing my readings, I have written this blog through times of intense writers’ block that ruined my mental health, I have put myself through a lot to boast now of having done these many posts. But people don’t get it, they tried but they didn’t get it. There had been times when my blog had become somewhat of a joke, something to tease me about. Sometimes, I don’t really get it too, why I am writing this blog, what made me hold on so desperately to it, made me write every day for nearly 8 months. It is inexplicable, it is beautiful, it is painful, but it is still an experience very uniquely mine.

That is actually my definition for my whole life. Life inevitably ends up having heartbreak, having pain, having spellbinding beauty and grace, having inexplicable joy. Despite its many contradicting tendencies, everyone’s life is an experience, unique to their predicament, unique to them. It follows then, that it is useless to compare yourself with someone else, no matter how tempting that can be. This is with respect to everything, but especially with progress, because it is with respect to progress only that most comparisons take place. You perceive yourself as having done the same amount of work as someone else, with half the results, or (quite less frequently) twice the results. It is useless, petty even, this exercise. I want to learn to play an instrument, I am learning the keyboard by myself and I realised today that I had made some insane progress, more than what ‘others’ typically have. While that was extremely flattering for my ego, it was also harmful, to compare. There is a difference between being confident and being arrogantly confident, arrogance makes you someone who cannot accept it when things don’t go your way. And the last thing I want to be is arrogant (even though I am guilty of being arrogant many times).

Arrogance makes it difficult for you to learn anything at all. I want to learn to play the flute and I read that learning to play the flute was difficult, especially flutes like the Carnatic flute. That immediately threw me into doubt, I didn’t know if taking the course this semester was a good idea. The thing is, there is also a singing co-curricular that I am interested in, Carnatic vocals, and that is what is causing my confusion at the moment. On one hand, the opportunity to learn an instrument, one I have always wanted to learn, starting from absolute zero level, an instrument that is said to be difficult to learn to play. On the other hand, I have the opportunity to continue with a course I have already done before, starting from a comfortable level of singing, one I have always wanted to learn but can learn in other ways as of now, that I didn’t really find difficult. In the spirit of university, I am going to go with the Carnatic flute, and I am hoping I won’t regret my decision.

In fact, that is part of my arrogant self speaking, it cannot bear the thought of being horrible at something because it has drawn a comfortable dream in its head, of being at least somewhat good at the instrument. It perceives that it is good at singing, hence it has it as a plan B, if it fails miserably at learning the flute. But I hope I won’t leave the course even if I embarrass myself beyond repair in the first class, because it is important sometimes to accept crushing and humiliating defeat, for it helps you improve and to progress. In fact, that is something I have taken into mind now, especially after a few things that have happened, that are happening. With respect to my blog, despite these horrible timings, I am not ready to accept my defeat yet. In a way, I have accepted defeat by admitting to my flaws in keeping up with this blog, the problems I faced and continue to face. But it is not time to give up yet, I shall fight and push and progress because I have realised that there is no other way I know to live my uniquely defined life. That is adequate, I suppose?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Frustrated Castles in the Air

Sometimes I wonder if I am wasting my life, that I am not doing anything worthwhile at all except to breathe, eat, read, sleep, interact with parents (a little bit), do some menial stuff that doesn’t exactly help anyone but myself. Even for myself, what kind of help does it do except provide some mediocre, low-grade, temporary pleasure? There are people out there doing many things, accomplishing many things, getting recognised, putting themselves out into the world, impacting people. And they are doing it at ages much less than mine, or at the very least, they are the same age as me. They are out there going on trips of a lifetime, representing countries in the international platform, becoming global leaders, leading companies and coming up with ideas of their own, getting published, standing for what they believe is right, protesting and working, and so much more. Is this an unfair comparison? I doubt it.

Why is it that I have not been able to do anything at all, except maybe complain about having not done anything, on a comfortable platform, seated on my well-privileged derriere? Derriere, I have to be ‘decent’ about my word usage, can’t say ass or butt, has to be derriere. Maybe it is to make up for my own glaring incompetencies in ‘areas that matter’. Using quotation marks because I don’t know what I am feeling. I doubt myself too much, I want to hide behind these marks instead of saying “that’s the conventionally accepted meaning, decided by the status quo, that I am a willing slave to, which I will protest against on the outside but I will internalise and propagate it in my own life”. Jaded and disillusioned, maybe that’s true. Things happen, castles in the air don’t hold for much time.

Castles in the air remind me of this Birbal story (I think) about the king Akbar asking for a castle to be built in the air. Birbal, being the clever man he is, ties a kite, fixes a bell on its tail and lets it fly. When the kind comes to supervise the construction, he hears the bell ringing as the kite flies in the air. He asks Birbal where the sound is coming from. Birbal says that it is the sound of the construction workers, calling for more materials. He asks the kind to order men to bring the materials and to climb up the string to deliver them to the workers up there. The king has to accept defeat (and part with some valuables, because apparently, you reward people for handing you your derriere on a silver platter) and everything is alright with the world again. How simply delightful a story is that! So simple–it teaches you about the absolute fruitlessness of wishing for a castle in the air, tells you that you have to be smart to survive in the world, it tells you that there will be people who hand you your derriere on a platter but you have to learn to suck it up and be gracious about it. Life lessons 101, truly.

I really don’t understand what has brought about this absolutely jaded post, but something inside feels very disillusioned and angry. So very angry. Maybe it was the fruitless fight I had with my parents today afternoon because they were making some rude comments about fat people (still manages to hit a nerve with me, maybe its because I see myself as a potential target) and some things like that. I was trying to tell them that those kinds of comments are in bad taste, that to look at things with a patronising attitude (something they do with me many times these days, and something they say I do with them too) reflects badly on them. I was told that college has changed me (maybe it has), I have become arrogant and who am I to correct them, who have lived and navigated society (that I am beginning to despise) for far more years than I have. They are making comments inside their house, to each other, don’t they have that freedom? And here’s where a malicious comment comes, “why are you feeling offended? We weren’t telling anything or commenting about you.” They say they are educated too, that I should not think that only I am and that I know everything (I never have believed that, I only wish I did for it would give me far more confidence). Well, that conversation was destined for failure from the start I would guess. No one likes their mistakes to be pointed out to them, I don’t and maybe I was at wrong here. I need time to think it through, but I am scared of the results because I am afraid my castle in the air will come crashing down. What if it wasn’t even a castle in the first place? Questions, questions, questions.

This post was difficult to get started with because I was holding onto so many frustrations, looking for a place to dump them into. This blog is not exactly a private space, I would want to open this to my friends someday. I need to decide and fix things, choose what to put out there in the world. There are too many frustrations in my everyday life–friendships, families, food, myself, everything has something to add to that pile of garbage. Today is not the day for motivated, unicorn Yashasvi with hope for the future, who sees rainbows coming out of shit-holes. Today is the day for a disappointed, annoyed, frustrated, disillusioned Yashasvi, who sees a pot of garbage at the end of the rainbow, who sees not even a kite in place of the castle in the air. Maybe it is a stone up there. But to think that a stone can fly is to be hopeful. Maybe an empty string works better as an analogy. This is turning out to be frustrating in itself. Please let these frustrations be blown away by the wind, please?

And that’s my memory for the day.