Life Update and more

Hello everyone,

Its been a really long while since I posted last. I actually forgot that I had this blog. Facebook reminded me of it with their "share this memory" reminder. As soon as I read that on facebook I felt a kick in the shins.

Oh well.

So whats been going on? Well I graduated my diploma, got a job, lost a job, started my degree, almost done with my degree, went on many hikes, made new friends, moved. I'm looking forward to completing my degree in a few months. All this sounds boring right? That's because it is.

I took an English course a few months ago and one of the topics we had to write about was how we lose the child-like wonder we have about the world as we grow older. Back then I laughed at the topic. Its a silly thing to talk about. What child-like wonder? Over the years I have realized how true the essence of that topic was. The essay I wrote was pure BS. But if I was asked to write the essay again I would write it differently.

Reading back on my old posts on this blog, I get the sense of a kid that wants to be funny, liked, friendly, smart and also that this kid is someone who still "cares" about society and social thing. Over the years I have lost that part of me. I do not care anymore. I just don't. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine as we were walking down the seawall at Stanley park, about why is it that I don't care about so many things that Canadians care about and I came to a very interesting conclusion.

...

I grew up in India. A country where you will smell garbage before the smell of a flower. A country where every 4th guy is living in poverty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India). A country whose government physically cannot do anything about certain issues like corruption, overpopulation, providing sanitary pooping stalls, the littering, the dust, so on and so forth. Every Indian knows these facts. They would like to believe that someday that would change but it wont. Not unless every one of us does something about it.
So how is it like growing up in this country?

This is a train station.

This is a bus: the major mode of transportation.

 

This is a typical street. 

That is a slice of life view of a typical day for an Indian. If you are an Indian reading this, you might be saying "hey stop bashing India mofo". I am not bashing India. I am making a point. 

As someone who grew up in that environment, you accept that life. That's how you get from place to place. That what you will accept as the normal view of a street in India. Its not good or bad. Its the reality. And we are all happy. If you ever walk down a street in India and see these people, they all have a smile on their face. Why? Because that's life. Thats life for them. Thats life for us. 

Now if you take this person and plop them in a place like Vancouver, there isn't one thing this person is going to complain about. It's such a beautiful city with beautiful people. You can eat at the fanciest places. You can take the cleanest buses. You can drive down the smoothest roads. So what if your friend screwed you over at work, its not a big deal. So what if the bus sometimes smells like weed. I've smelled worse. So what if the butter chicken does not taste as good as what you're used to. Its sure as hell better than what you make. You know how when you were a kid and your mom would say "eat your vegs, you ungrateful shit. There are kids in Africa that don't get any food"? Imagine having a lived a life that's seen those kids. My life experience has taught me that there is always someone worse off than you. I have seen people have their day ruined because they saw a homeless person try to start a conversation with them. I've also seen people change buses because there was a weird smell on the bus. 

Maybe it's me, but I've stopped caring. Life will throw so much at you, you just cant keep complaining about every small thing. I love walking through a thick forest when on a hike because I feel like I'm away from all that noise. Canada is a beautiful country. The landscape, the people, the life is just amazing. But I will always be an Indian at heart. To me there is so much more beauty in the way my life in India was. I have seen kids with torn clothes on their backs but a smile on their face. I've seen a man pull a rickshaw when its 35 degrees Celsius outside while singing a Kishore Kumar song. The beauty in that is similar to the feeling you get when when you look up at the stars. The feeling that your problems are insignificant. You.. are insignificant.

Life and death

********** found in my drafts from 2011*************



People fight
People kill
People sin




I am part of the “people” i curse so much.



I fight
I kill
I sin






People fight to compete with others.
People kill others they dont like.
People sin in the name of god and call it holy.

Whats the use of doing all this if you are not going to heaven. Heaven is an illusion and so is hell.
Life is an illusion. And so is death.



I want you to try this.  I dont know what its called. Ive been doing this ever since I was a little kid. Since the time i didnt even know what it meant to be human -





Close your eyes and think of the first memory you have of your life. The very first memory.
And think about god. Think about where you are right now in life and how u got there. Think about all the times you thought that this was the best life ever. And then it got even better.

Keep your eyes closed and ‘mentally’ feel your body. The 200 pounds of meat and bones hanging from your head. The body that carries you in this world. It has served you very well till now.But how long will it bear the burden of life?  Now open your eyes, and look at your hands. Look at those fingers. Do you remember how they were when you were a kid? How soft they were? How small they were? They have served you really well up till now. But how long will they do your dirty work for you?

Keep your eyes open and think about death. Think about how your hands will decay after you die. Think about how you will not feel anything . Think about how numb you will be when you will be dead. And try to realize the truth. I cant tell you what it is. You should feel it when you do this. You will start feeling like fly on the wall in your own life. 

You should get a sense of being separate from your body.
To me this was a form of meditation.

Whenever I do this. I get a sense of being outside my body. I can actually feel myself. I can actually see my self. Maybe I am crazy. I don't know. Try it.. I mean what do you have to lose?
10 minutes of your life. The main reason I am posting this is because I want to know if anyone else out there can do this.


Lately ive been thinking a lot about death and what it would feel like. The whole universe seems pretty spontaneous. I mean pretty much every natural phenomenon can be predicted. But death is one event that can never be foretold. Unless of course you are a judge and u just sentenced a guy to be hanged till death *breaks the tip of the pen while signing on the orders*.


As some of you may know, I lost a very dear friend a few days back. But i dont want to depress you all with that stuff. But I cant help but notice how fragile the human body is.