You have to take risks, he said. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen. Every day, God gives us the sun–and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven’t perceived that moment, that it doesn’t exist–that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us. But that moment exists–a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.

— Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Speechless. Life has its odd ways of testing one’s resolve but when the moment of clarity does dawn, sieze it. Intuition always guides in the right path. They say, that it’s being impulsive but we are different. For better or worse, ignorant as often we are to see, follow without regrets, and perform that miracle.

Quiet the times, wafting on a river,
Torrid the waves, unrelenting;
Yet intangible the entropy, seemingly normal
till I found a shade fond.

Fresh the perspective, vibrant
Engaging verbosely, respected.
A reminiscent feeling dug deep
Revives a bond, once beloved.

Transient the touch, still affected
Involuntary a kid chimed and dreamed;
Unlikely snow flake discovered anew,
matured, unique, intricate, my precious cherished.

Somehow short yet impact sustained,
A radiant consciousness shall linger everlasting.
Another time, different setting, alternate universe,
Particles perhaps do converge cardinally.

More often than I care, queried, the reasons endured,
Injury and therapy, without weary, managed, amidst muscles sore.
Two screws, titanium strong, sustain movement, each knees tried,
Unprofessional weakling forlorn, strengths born, in stride.

After conquering tasks, men abhorred,
I remember once again, reasons I run for;
It nourishes movement, a sloth died,
Pumps through my veins, makes me feel pride,
Slowly but surely, winds of change, pure,
A feeling lucidly reassured.

It moves me forward, to a future I see,
Teaches no regret for the expired,
I’ve left behind, retired,
And ahead the beautiful seasons before me.
Hope provided, life we think is sure,
It is yet more brittle and pure.

She wages, provides meaning once more
Subtler than words from a mind obscure.
Blatant the health revived, with sweat,
Sublime still the reasons, yet.
A final thought thus evolves,
Run thyself and realize my resolve.

For my writing, shy and barren,
do injustice to the feeling matured;
For the mind’ eye perceives,
an infinite unique possibilities.
Far more to be said, miles to be conquered,
races to be defeated, running life to be fulfilled.

I’ve recommended taking in the good and bad with equal fervor for very long. That is because without experiencing the extremes, hitting rock-bottom and coming to terms with yourself seems futile. Of course, this is a very distorted way of getting there but it pushes the meta-physical in understanding chaos around you more precisely. Or that is perhaps what this illusioned mind thinks.

But when you can no longer compensate the good with the bad or vice-versa, it is time to give up both. After a recent disastrous incident, my urge to conquer the physical has been quite unsatisfied and involuntarily, I’ve been pushing myself more and more in the opposite direction. It took me time to realize the absurdity of this decision but never too late I hope. I’m realigning my focus on the physical and will push it again beyond a half, a full and even more. Perhaps an ultra ? Time will tell.

Cryptic ? No. Confused ? Yes. We all are …

A year past, sour memories taint
Another fresh life starts.
A decade past, immature, arrogant,
Time mellows and heals, lessons learnt.

Three decades, a half lifetime ?
Or close to full, pysche pushed ?
Extremes attracted, a mind unrest,
Oscillated, annihilated, wishes contracted.

Shall the new cycle bring anew,
Experiences, joy and sorrow alike ?
I pray so, for life feeble and short,
Nothing satisfies than extending limits.

It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one tiny piece of space/time is going to do? So I have often made the hypothesis that ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that in the end the machinery will be revealed, and the laws will turn out to be simple, like the chequer board with all its apparent complexities.

– R. P. Feynman, Character of Physical Law, November 1964 Cornell Lectures, broadcast and published in 1965 by BBC, pp. 57-8.

James Branch Cabell

There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.

I feel sad. Friends are all I’ve had in my life to comfort. And I am going to be disconnected with few more today. It was my last day of physiotherapy, an ailing need after a knee surgery. And my therapists, lovely as they are, are also incredibly beautiful in their persona. Now that I’ve decided to move on, the chance of ever seeing/meeting them again might be a far off chance.

How many people do we meet everyday who change our lives in ways unfathomed. It was not just their act of helping me through my physical disability, even if it was their occupation, but it was much more. The mental support, a conversation that showed you care and a genuine interest in your patient’s life. And that, I can never do. Nor even remotely replicate. I am not selfish by any means but to maintain that kind of attachment to someone you’ve known for a short while makes me humble. Humble because they think that everyone at the clinic is worth it. Without judgement. Without bias.

Like best friends afar, I will miss another session. It is the most depressing times that brings closer the like minds. I will surely spit on anyone who says otherwise.

I do not know the reason and cant even begin to describe the hatred I bear for early mornings. I have however woken up accidentally and decided to push through sometimes or just never slept the previous night and pulled a 40 hour day. But waking up rigorously, relying on an alarm clock or the body clock seems like a joke to me. My arms involuntarily just turn off the alarm or my brain just does not switch on in the morning to even hear the blaring alarm right by my ear.

I have learnt to live with it. But every now and then, I miss something important at work or play due to these inadequacies. And that is frustrating. What I need is an alarm, or better yet, a robot, that can kick me in my face or my balls and say “Get the fuck up”. Now that would be an invention out of pure necessity !

Or maybe I just need to sleep for a month, like hibernation in philosophy, to catch up on all that I’ve missed in the past 15 years.. Ah. Who am I kidding ?!

I once almost lost my cell phone. It was one of those days when I was having a good time when my cell phone probably fell out of my jacket during transit in a taxi. But a gentleman passenger, made sure I got the phone back. Kudos to him. But the horrors that went through my mind before I got a call from him were bad. Why you ask ? I have a lot of information apart from just contacts on my phone. And you could probably access all my mails, my twitter, facebook and what not from that mobile. What makes you stronger also makes you vulnerable. And that I found ironic.

But there was a recent event, that has completely made me depressed and lifeless, which you could compare against the above in terms of the anxiety. I (my house) got robbed over the weekend. They took my laptop, an external drive and some other random things. They left the TV. I would whole-heartedly exchange my TV, my bike, my books, my microwave and a few other things just to get my laptop back. Not for the laptop itself but for what it contains. It was my companion on so many days/nights, it helped me through some tough times at work, and it holds the key to most of what I’ve done in the past two years. It is heart breaking to know that it is all gone and the horrors return.

It would have been a consolation to at least have the external disk around, which contains all the back-ups of my work. But that is gone too. When you can’t even save anything in your own home for safe keeping, what can you depend on ? And being as attached to the work as I am, it only intensifies the pain. I am 3 months away from renewing my position and now I am behind on my schedule to finish 2 more papers. This might not have a happy ending.

At the end of the day, losing a laptop just hurts so much more than losing a phone. And that is relativity for the un-initiated. The beauty of physics is that the most purest of the theories are great philosophies too. And there I shall end this post. Still moping…