that was 2003. before the advent of social media. 23 years later, we can see the rest of the song playing out, and worse.
what went wrong? what happened, really? it's the enshittification of the world. first, we let tech companies grow unchecked. then they went public at insane valuations just because of hype. they expanded to curating the information we see, and advertising being their hidden side business. they switched from benign policies to actively farming ragebait. smart people realized this could be used to influence public opinion, as opposed to selling stuff. it was first small targeted campaigns, but in an increasingly connected society, they realized the power of these platforms was far greater than anything else before it. powerful enough to push national elections one way or the other... and obviously this benefits extreme views! a sane nuanced view is hard to farm engagement with. to make things worse, AI suddenly started producing results after. decades of trying... made it easier to fake content. it got so good that people cannot tell fiction from reality. and of course, the countries that have not fallen prey to these tools, tendencies and struggles still are dealing with one of the structural problems of democracy - slowness to react to change and old laws working against their ability to deal with new threats.
this, ladies and gentlemen, is my summary of "what's wrong with the world mama"
unfortunately for us, just love isn't going to fix it.
It's been 4 weeks of being barely able to function. Every effort to get back on track didn't seem to produce any significant result. My last week was dedicated to making a proper multi-faceted plan to get back to some semblance of functionality. We always use the Easter holidays for a short break, and despite the last few dysfunctional weeks I thought I should still not abandon that tradition.
Since 2019 (when I got my UK driving licence and my first motor bike here) we have been exploring Ireland in a clockwise direction starting from Belfast. We've gotten as far as the cliffs of Moher so far, so I looked for something in the vicinity. The Aran Islands caught my eye. I remember seeing advertisements for boat rides to see the cliffs from the sea, and also visit the islands for a day trip. Back then, I was in much better shape but it still struck me as a rather hectic proposition. This time seemed perfect. Being so close to the date and on a long weekend, I wasn't sure if things would work out - but it did. Snagged the last room at a BnB... not on the main island (Inis Mor) but the smallest one (Inis Oirr). No problem - there's probably a ferry running between the islands, right?
Turns out the ferry for the Easter weekend is still on its winter schedule - so the last ferry to the island is at 3pm! And on the way back, we could only get a ferry at 8am or 2pm. So we booked the last ferry out and last ferry back.
The only other preparation I did for the trip was fix the second folding cycle so we could take them both along. The ferry rules clearly state that cycles are not allowed for day passengers (probably so that the islands' cycle rentals have a chance at running their businesses!).
We packed light, and left at the crack of dawn - the first time in months I've been up at 6am! It was going to be a tiring journey as we would reach at 12:30pm without breaks if it all went as per Google maps' plan (which it never does!). I noted the entire route as per Google maps and Waze (which differed for certain sections of the route) the previous night, and Shruti navigated based on them, manually. For once, we were not let down by either, although for the last hour I ignored Waze and just followed street signs!
We got to the ferry terminal, but watching the weather (and the prediction for the weekend) we abandoned the plan of taking our cycles to the island. The ferry folks also said that as the weather is predicted to be so bad, there will be no inter-island ferry for the entire Easter weekend.
It looked all set to be 3 days on a tiny island with nothing to do.
30 minutes of very rough seas later, we set foot on Inis Oirr (also spelled Inisheer). Walked 15 minutes to our BnB (Google maps said 7 minutes, but we actually got lost despite following it!), checked in and literally collapsed in bed. I was in agony, my feet were sore, and I was exhausted from the early start and the long drive with very few and short breaks. The view was magnificent though, and I can't believe they saved the best room for the lucky last!
I was so sore, I actually thought I might take all 3 days to recover only to head straight back! Thankfully though, I was much better by 6pm when we set off for one of the two restaurants on the island - the one that just reopened this weekend for Easter!
The folks at Tigh Ruairi welcomed us with a menu on a whiteboard - a sign of proper good food! We were ravenous, having not eaten properly all day and it was a proper 3 courses, with a pint to wash it down! Back to base, I showered and was literally in bed at 10pm - again, the earliest in months, and for good reason!
The next morning, we were up at 8am, and the first to arrive for breakfast - perfect as we got the table with best view 😍
The continental breakfast was par for course but I was still sore from the previous day and needed more rest after we were done. The wind and (literally) horizontal rain weren't encouraging either! At about noon though, Shruti said we should make an attempt to get some form of sightseeing done. She said the shipwreck was just a 25 minute walk away as per Google maps so we decided to give it a go.
Thankfully the rain had slowed down to just a drizzle but it stung all the same with the wind. We took about 45 minutes to reach the wreck, and were almost alone there - just another 3 guys. A few minutes there and we were ready to head back - the wind was so strong we were struggling to stand upright on the rocks for the photo! Once back we had a cup of tea to warm up before we took another nap to recover. I was still sore but I think the movement did me some good - my watch said it was 6km in all, so a pretty long walk!
We decided to try the other restaurant, Inis Oirr Hotel, and it was slightly cheaper, but the food, while not bad by any stretch, was not as good as the other one's.
Just as we were finishing, a man walked in with a guitar and someone at the bar offered him a pint. I put two and two together and came to the only logical (and happy) conclusion: there would be some live music!
Another pint later, the same man asked us to vacate our table as we were sitting at the very spot they were going to use to perform 😂
We took our seats at the bar, and 6 musicians appeared almost out of nowhere... exactly what we hoped for! A little. boy even sat with them playing air guitar on his "hurling" bat ☺️
Back to base, showered and in bed for a good night's sleep. This time a lot less sore!
The next morning, we were up at 8 and rewarded with the sun out and not a cloud in sight! Same continental breakfast, and Shruti insisted we don't waste a minute after. We walked down to the lighthouse, on the southeast of the island. This was an estimated 45 minute walk, much more undulating than the walk to the wreck, but we were rewarded with nice views of the small plots of land bounded by stone walls, typical of the Aran Islands. The lighthouse itself was walled off so we could only get a photo from outside - thankfully a couple of guys arrived on their cycles right as we reached and were happy to click a photo of us.
We had a leisurely walk back, looking for a few of the sights we were supposed to pass by. Some were either badly marked on Google maps, or maybe inaccessible - but we finally got to the two main sights: the watch tower and the castle. The watch tower is the highest point of the island, but the view to one side is obstructed by the water tank (which supplies water to the entire island) and to the other is obstructed by the castle, which is only slightly lower!
We didn't spend much time at either, and were back at the airbnb/pub area at 1pm. All the walking had worked up our appetites and we headed to Tigh Ruairi for pint and a light lunch - the catch of the day!
At this point we had already walked 14km and I couldn't believe I wasn't knackered! We set off for the last spot on our agenda for the island: the beach! I suggested walking across to the other end, where we could sit on the rocks and enjoy our chocolate Easter bunnies. As we clambered the rocks, I heard the drone of twin propellers that changed our plans - it's time for some plane spotting!
We hurried along the perimeter fence to a vantage point and were rewarded with watching a plane spin up, taxi and take off - the radio at the air strip was so loud we could even hear the clearance to visually head to Connemara!
Back on the beach, we enjoyed our chocolate bunnies and reflected on how wonderful the day and trip had been.
And finally... one last photo before we head back to base!
right as we were about to head back through the beach and to the airbnb, I head a now familiar sound: the twin propellers of a plane! it was approaching to land, and that could mean the chance of getting to see it up close, even a take-off! the boundary fence was literally 30-40 feet away (and strangely enough, a fence post had collapsed, so I could have literally walked into the airfield!). now obviously that would have been a crime so I stayed on the outside of the fence, but as this end of the boundary was at a lower level than the runway (the runway actually sloped slightly upwards in the east-west direction it was in use) so I hastily legged it around the fence to a point where I could actually see the terminal building and the plane. the propellers weren't running, but there were no passengers getting on or off, so I assume that had already happened during my scramble to a vantage point. there was someone with a high-vis on the ground, and he made some sort of gesures. The engine started and I quickly got my phone to start recording video.
yep, that was a fitting wrap for my agenda for today, and indeed for the stay on the island!
back to base, I was surprised I could still function. My watch said I had covered about 16km (and I had walked a bit before I started tracking, so it was a little more!). I don't think I've walked that much in a single day since 2018, when I was in the prime of my hiking health! a quick shower, packing, and a short rest (I couldn't sleep!) later, we headed back out to tigh ruari for our last dinner of the trip. we arrived at 7:45 as dinner was to be served till 8pm... and to our utter surprise, the pub and restaurant was absolutely packed! we were lucky to get a table for two - there were 4 people walking in our footsteps that got the last table in the restaurant!
service was really slow, perhaps even unreasonably slow - we waited over an hour for our meal to arrive, although honestly after having had both breakfast and lunch I did welcome the time to build an apetite. the table next to ours (basically the last people at the restaurant) were a little unhappy as 3 of them had finished their food while one of them hadn't even been served. after the waitress received their complaint and walked away, they said aloud that it's ironic that he shouldn't get his food because it's his birthday!
I chimed in and wished him a happy birthday and a pretty long conversation ensued, covering all varieties of topics (mostly Ireland, but also a bit about India, Belfast, etc). also, how one of the ladies at the table (the birthday man's daughter) loved the island so much from childhood despite having no ties to it othern than being her favourite vacation spot that she decided to get married on the island! we spoke for the entire duration of our meal - in fact when we finished, we were having so much fun that we decided to order dessert (despite being stuffed!) so we could hang about for a bit as I didn't feel like having another drink!
we sat around and chatted until we were literally the only patrons at the restaurant and then bid them farewell, hoping to meet again - they said they visit the island every year so there's a chance we'll bump into them again if we visit!
we had the proverbial "irish goodbye", literally talking until they got out through the door and we decided to stay in for a minute just to end the goodbye!
back to our bnb, I was soon in bed - worried about what state i'll be in after the crazy amount of exertion. but I felt fine, and that felt almost surreal!
and that's when I thought: I HAVE TO BLOG THIS!
ps: I only wrote the title and a couple of lines in the draft before I put my phone away and slept off, but Monday was perfect, and I was very relieved it was! I did take it easy though: breakfast at 9:30, finished packing, rested, then writing my blog sitting in the dining room until it was time to leave. the drive back home was tiring, but thankfully due to the much lesser time pressure on this leg of the journey, we were able to take a couple of breaks, including a weird dinner at an Indian restaurant about halfway to Belfast as Shruti was craving vegetarian food. we reached home at 10:45pm or so and I was able to unload the car (including the folding cycles we didn't use!) as well before I showered and crashed for the night.
pps: bonus: feeding a horse for the first time in my life! somewhere after the castle on the path down to the beach area. also, my first ever youtube short (I don't know why I can't upload a vertically shot video as a normal video!)
I was at a comedy show in Belfast - one of the halls of Queen's University. The comedian was Randy Feltface (fun fact: I saw him at Ulster Hall just a few days earlier!). The opening act was another comedian. During the opening act, someone heckled the comedian, and it was something so offensive, she decided to leave the stage.
After a few minutes of chaos Randy stepped onto his stage, masked as usual. The audience assumed the show would get on, but Randy announced that the rest of the show would be cancelled out of solidarity with the comedian and that such behaviour was unacceptable in any situation, comedy show or not.
After a bit of grumbling within the audience people started to leave the auditorium. I wasn't sure what to do as I had taken the afternoon off work for the show and had no other plans. After the auditorium emptied out and I was alone, I decided to walk around and kill some time.
Right outside the auditorium, there was a bunch of people, young people - looked like students... but there was also a load of camera and photography equipment. I was curious about what was going on and watched from a distance. They seemed to be recording some sort of music video and it involved positioning people behind pillars and they had to move out as the singer passed them.
Just then someone from the crew approached me. She asked me if I was free and happy to help out with the video. I said sure, I have nothing else to do today. She explained what I had to do, and reassured me I didn't have to dance or anything and they would edit the shot to figure what would work as they were running behind schedule or something.
I was positioned behind a pillar, heard the "action" call, and at the correct time (they were calling out the names of people as their cue) I put my left hand out, the singer slapped my palm, and I stepped out turned around, and walked behind and to the left of her, as another person opposite me did the same to her right. for the rest of the shot, we had to stick out hands out and slap the palms of everyone down the passage (not sure what they had to do, but we were the only people who had to follow the singer down the passage) and at the end of the video, the singer had to turn around and give me and the other lady who was walking beside me a hug. The song was something about touch, and basically every person behind each pillar had to do something related to what she sang at that line. Only me and the other volunteer walking behind her didn't have to do any specific moves - just skip along in step with the beat. It was only while we were actually recording that I paid attention to the song. The song was about how human contact impacts us and the catch line (or word) was touch. As the shot ended the words of the song hit me and for some reason I got very emotional. When I heard "cut" I felt tears running down my face.
As the singer let go of the hug (the closing shot) I apologised and said I was feeling very emotional because the words of the song really struck a chord. The singer was like awww and gave me another hug and said she's very glad it was so well received and that I was struck by it despite it being such a light hearted and cheerful song.
She said she hoped I was okay and I'm welcome to sit with the crew for a bit to regain my composure and also that I'm welcome to connect with her on her social media profile if I felt like it. She thanked me for helping out with the video and they really needed a guy who was about the same height as her for that part and they were really lucky I happened to be about.
As we walked to the chairs that were kept out for the crew she asked me if there was something about my childhood that caused the song to get me so emotional - some sort of trauma or repressed memories. I told her that actually, no, I don't think there was any such thing I could remember about my childhood - unless those memories were truly repressed!
That's when I woke up, crying, and asked Shruti to give me a hug. I told her I had a weird dream that got me emotional. As she hugged me and I tried to fall back asleep, I thought back about my childhood. Various flashbacks of cycling, making obstacles of all my toy cars and trucks and lego and then making pretend scenes of action movies with my toy G. I. Joe action figures, running around on sunny beaches and jumping down stairs with my friends. Yep, all happy memories!
last monday was a daunting day: I had 3 appointments, a 9:30am one for my foot (my first physiotherapy appointment after my bunion started acting up 2 years ago), another 2:15pm one for my foot again (review with the consultant looking at my foot orthotics) and a 4pm eye checkup. given the 3 appointments were all near office, I was also going to be working from office between them. I was nervous about the day for multiple reasons: this would be the earliest I've had to wake up in a couple of months, I was planning to park the car at the location of my first appointment and cycle between there and office and the other appointments, and it also weighed on me that my therapist (back when I was still on therapy last year) said I shouldn't plan for more than one appointment a day to avoid overwhelming myself - and here I was, doing 3!
anyway, all of this weighed on me, and I tried to minimize the chances of my brain fog getting in the way of me being on time. I packed my bag - laptop, snack box, fruit (no lunch as nothing was cooked!), showered, kept my clothes all in one place including my wallet and keys, put the folding cycle in the car, checked the tyres and brakes, and finally got into bed at around midnight, an hour after I planned to.
I was so tired just from the preparation that when I got into bed I forgot the most important thing: setting my alarms! thankfully I remembered before I slept off, and set two: 8:47 to wake up, and 9am to leave (I was supposed to reach 15 minutes early for my first appointment, and 9am would get me there at 9:10, so 5 minutes to park and to accomodate rush hour traffic).
in hindsight, 8:47 was too late, but thankfully, it wasn't a problem because I woke up before my alarm.
it reminds me of what I used to do some 20+ years ago, when I was experimenting with self-hypnotism: if I would ensure the last conscious thought before going to sleep was what time I wanted to wake up, I'd wake up without an alarm! This was before I had a phone or a personal alarm (I depended on dad waking me up!), and my body clock was accurate to around 5 minutes! also, I could see the wall clock from my bed so it was easy to notice when I opened my eyes.
anyway, back to Monday. the first dream woke me up at 4:30am or so.
the dream was about me going for an exam. it was MCA, presumably, as the professors were from there, although the assignments didn't seem computer related - they seem to be about English or something. weird. also, there was no written exam, I had to hand in my assignments and answer questions about its content - which I don't remember happening during my course!
I don't remember what caused me to wake up from that dream: it was definitely something weird that must have happened but I cannot remember it any more.
anway, back to sleep, I had the weirder dream: I was in a race. it was a motorbike race. the people I was racing against were people I know from Belfast, but I was at my hold apartment in Mumbai. My motorbike (Lisa, the ST1300!) was on the terrace of the apartment. it wasn't a race as much as a time trial: the other participants would time each other and me, and we'd finally decide the winner based on timings.
but this race was weird: the race started when I got out of bedm brushed my teeth, got dressed, wore my riding gear, etc. I was almost ready to get on my motorbike when one of my competitors asked me to get him a glass of water. I told him that's not fair, it'd add to my time. he told me he was thirsty and he had no idea where the glasses were as it was my home. and besides I wasn't ready to race yet.
I was annoyed but got him a glass of water. That's when I realized I wasn't wearing my gloves, and I couldn't start the race without my gloves! I started looking everywhere for my gloves and they were nowhere to be seen - especially where they should have been. finally, I looked outside and saw I had dropped them right beside the bike! and weirdly enough there were 3 gloves - one of them was an odd one from my old pair (identical to the new pair, only more worn out!). I put on my gloves and got ready to start the motorbike. I looked at the distance I had to ride - barely 40 feet! I thought to myself, this is such a ridiculous race - it would take 5 seconds or less to cover the distance, and took 35 or 30 minutes to get ready for it!
and then I woke up, 2 minutes before the alarm: 8:45am.
I thought to myself: what a strangely appropriate dream. I spent more than an hour preparing for my first appointment and the day, and have given myself just 13 minutes for the actual race (getting out of bed and getting ready to leave for my appointment and the rest of my busy day!). I spent all of those 2 bonus minutes thinking about my dream and how it prepared me for the day, which literally seemed like a race rolled into an exam!
strangely enough, after my first appointment, I got into the car and sat for 5 minutes, just to prepare myself to take out the folding cycle and ride oout and face the rest of the day. for some reason, during those 5 minutes, I thought to myself: I'm really not up for this.
I drove back home, parked the car, took an hour's nap, and then took my motorbike to work. and yes, I noticed the gloves were in their place before I was getting ready to leave, and heaved a sigh of relief!
I was in a sea facing apartment in Belfast. based on the position it would be obel, but based on the interior decor it was arc apartments. it was on the 10th floor, or so. it was a strange day: mid afternoon, bright blue skies and completely (or maybe mostly) cloudless... but the sea outside was raging. raging so badly that the waves were 5 floors high! sea spray reached all the way to the 10th floor apartment, splattering the spectacular, and scary view, with the blue sky making the scene even more vivid.
apart from the white foam of the massive waves, the sea was a pale greenish colour... the colour I'd associate more with a calm swimming pool than such rough seas. in the midst of it all, I thought I saw something large moving in the water. it was a whale - in fact, on second glance, it was more than one whale, maybe a school of whales! I peered out through the window of the room I was in, in awe of their magnificence and grace, when I noticed other things in the water: a pod of dolphins, initially below the surface, but then leaping above the waves, as if to show off! besides the dolphins and whales, there were also sharks in the sea. I'm not sure how I could tell them apart, but they definitely gave me shark vibes.
I turned my attention from the sea and everything outside to the task at hand: I was trying to clean the apartment, and also collect whatever little was in it. the apartment was mostly empty, with no furniture and just a few things packed into cardboard boxes. most of the boxes were already in the room I was in and I could see the few left to be moved. before I moved them though, I wanted to mop the floor. and then, all of a sudden, the sound of everything changed. it sounded like I was underwater. from where I was in the room, the outside looked a uniform green - the green of the sea. I went to the window and the apartment was clearly under water. I could see the blue-grey silhouette of sharks swimming above the level of where I was, against the bright green water illuminated by sunlight filtering through.
and then, the room, the apartment, and from the feels of it, the entire building rocked violently like a boat caught in the storm. I was thrown off my feet and onto all fours. water seeped in through the floorboards. I hurriedly crawled out of the bedroom, to the living room, as I wanted to be someplace with fewer boxes and stuff bouncing about.
Shruti and I were in Mumbai, and had to fly back to Belfast. However there was some sort of major airline disruption and the airline was refusing to let us take the flight. We told them we were willing to pay for an upgrade as we really had to fly back urgently, but they said an upgrade won't help as the flight itself was not operating, and neither were other airlines.
I started checking options on reddit, facebook etc, and found someone with a chartered flight (a private jet) looking for 2 passengers to come on their flight. I contacted them and they were happy to take us along. They (of their own accord) said there was plenty of room on the plane for luggage as well so they wouldn't mind an extra bag or two. So at the last minute, I purchased a cheap suitcase (it looked identical to the extra suitcase I purchased in 2017 for Ajith to take my records to the UK for me, BTW!) and filled it up with random stuff that we were not planning to initially take along. Some books and snacks, mostly. The great thing about a chartered flight is that you don't have to worry about baggage handlers tossing your bags and crushing your stuff!
We showed up at Mumbai's airport, met the guys and got to the private jet area - a new experience for us! The rest of the passengers were British, and the person flying was not a commerical pilot - he was flying his own jet, as a private pilot. He looked at our five bags and said (not sure if in jest or seriously) that we took the thing about plenty of luggage space quite seriously! I told him we had 4 suitcases packed for our original flight to begin with and packed another one after he told us. We loaded our stuff into the cargo hold of the private jet - I noticed we were the only people with suitcases. The other passengers were really travelling light, mostly just duffel bags and stuff!
I enjoyed observing preparing the jet, taxiing, and finally taking off! I was seated just behind and to the opposite of the pilot flying (for some reason he was seated on the right, shouldn't he have been on the left? guess there was another pilot seated on the left as well, since it was a long flight!). Once we were up in the clouds, I must have dozed off (no inflight entertainment, but plenty of leg room!).
The next thing I knew, I was startled as we were descending sharply! The pilot (still the guy on the right) told me there was a weird noise coming from the cargo compartment and we were losing pressure, so could I please access it (there was a hatch at the back) and have a check.
I hurried to the back and unlocked the hatch. What I saw seemed like out of a sci-fi movie: there was a weird robot (not humanoid, more like a thing with 4 mechanized "arms") in the cargo hold, armed with some sort of metal cutting tool (like an angle grinder) that was cutting a hole into the bottom of the hold! It had started at the tapered end and not got to where the suitcases and other bags were but it was probably going to get there soon.
I rushed forward and told the pilot this. He was visibly nervous and said we need to make an emergency landing. He said we'll fly low anad slow so that there's a chance we could locate our bags later if they dropped out before we landed. He found a nearby airfield and was preparing to land. I asked him where we were. He said we were in north Africa - which seemend a little out of our route but I didn't ask why at the time. He said we were lucky as our bags had dropped about 5 miles away from the airfield, so there was a good chance we could get them. We were flying low above a forested area close to the sea, and there was no sign of civilization at all.
The next thing I remembered, Shruti and I were walking inland from a beach. It was a little past sunset - not quite dark yet. There were a few more people, all looking like tourists, dressed in swimwear, walking in the same direction - probably heading inland from an evening swim. A man struck up a conversation. He asked us if we had just arrived. I said we'd just landed and were going to call it a night. I told myself I will need plenty of rest as tomorrow is going to be a long day, looking for our baggage and trying to find a way to fly back.
And that's when Shruti woke me up.
I told her I had a very weird dream about being in a plane that had to be landed in an emergency and had to go find our bags as they had fallen out along the way.
As I went back to sleep I wondered how the robot found its way into the plane, and if those duffel bags were the target of the robot - and most importantly, if there was something illegal going on! I had vague thoughts about how such a robot could be built as well. It seemed quite cool and would have been interesting to take apart, although the cutting wheel probably make it quite dangerous!
it was afternoon. I had just come home from cycling... I had my helmet on, and music playing on my Bluetooth earphones. I left my cycle by the front door and got in.
i remembered today was bin day so I might as well bring the bin back in (the bin is usually collected around 9am).
I stepped out and suddenly realized neither of our cars nor my motorbike were in the driveway. weird - my first thought was that they were moved to let the bin collection. but nobody else could move it, and they've never had to be moved before, and besides the bin was always kept at the end of the driveway, so nowhere near where the cars or bike would interfere. still, I thought, I should go get the bin back anyway, and think about the cars and bike later. I stepped out onto the driveway and looked for the bin. there were no bins about - neither ours nor the neighbours. now that I paid attention to the neighbours' houses, I realized something was weird. there was no car in the neighbour's driveway either. in fact the entire layout of the area was wrong, even though the houses looked exactly like they should. I looked at my own house and it was wrong too - it was like a mirror image! the door was next to the left edge of the house when it should have been along the right edge!
the house had a name plate next to the door. it was a similar size to mine, but was a completely different design - the house number was wrong, and the street name was etched into it too - it was something similar, but a little different (I noticed the name and remember it, but am not going to put the name here on my blog 😂).
I decided something was definitely wrong and I had to ask someone. I looked around and nobody was nearby. there was an unfamiliar family at the house 3 houses ahead on one side. on closer observation it seemed like more than one family, so I decided not to disturb what must be a social gathering. opposite that house was another house, and as I was looking around I saw the door open. as I walked towards it an unfamiliar lady stepped out.
I realized my helmet and earphones were still on and my music was still playing, so as I walked towards her I took off my helmet and tapped my earphones to pause the music. strangely enough, the music didn't pause. I had reached the house by then, so I took off the earphones.
to my utter surprise, the music continued despite my earphones being off! I held one of my earphones close to my ear to check if music was indeed coming from it, and I could hear some sounds - but that was different from the music I could hear! and the music I could hear wasn't coming from somewhere else - it was literally music coming from my ears, as if from earphones, even though it wasn't!
I collected my wits and apologised for interrupting the lady, and explained that I seem to be lost, and asked her if she lived here (it didn't strike me at the time that someone leaving their house alone probably lived in it!) but before she could answer another lady stepped out as well, with a couple of kids I didn't pay attention to. she was joined by the other lady as she replied that yes she did live there.
I explained that I'm confused as I'm trying to get to x (my address) and this street looks very similar but is different. both the ladies were confused, as my address sounded very similar but was obviously different, and they didn't recognize me either. I told her my house was in a corner at the very end of the street and overlooked a playground. I pointed to the space on this street where my house would have been, and that's when I noticed what was wrong: the house I had just left from was adjacent to where my house would have been if it was my street. I noticed that the space that should have been my house was instead a covered parking space for two minibuses! one of them was a schoolbus, in fact. and then I noticed that the space beyond the two buses was a rock wall - and when I looked up along the rock wall, it was the side of a very high hill! so high, and so steeply cut, that the houses next to the hill seemed to be at risk of landslides/boulders, etc - very unsafe!
meanwhe the ladies were discussing which street overlooks a playground nearby, and concluded that while they weren't very sure, it was probably just a couple of streets away - but they pointed in the direction of the hill and confirmed it was on the other side of the hill.
this worried me. I only had my cycle, and the hill was massive - would I be able to cycle all the way to my home? the ladies reassured me it's not as steep as it seems from where we were looking, and it's literally around the corner - walking distance! I considered leaving my cycle there and walking, but then I'd have to get back and take it later, and I wasn't even sure if the ladies were right about my street being nearby. best to retrace my steps and try to find my way, I thought.
I thanked the ladies and was about to walk back towards the house where I had left my cycle, when I thought I heard the doorbell ring. that's weird, why would the doorbell ring when I'm outside? but the music was still playing too.
the doorbell rang again.
this time, I opened my eyes.
I was in bed.
my bedside dock was playing the music I could hear all this while.
someone was at the door, ringing the doorbell.
I ran down so quickly I almost tripped down the stairs.
Shruti was at the door. I opened it for her.
the first thing Shruti said to me was "where's our bin"?
I was so shocked that I had to check outside and make sure our cars and my motorbike were still in our driveway 😳
yes, this was the title of the previous blog post, but as I started typing it I realized it went a complete different direction! these observations are much more significant and long term, so I feel like I must blog them anyway
chronic fatigue has made me more sensitive to things that were easier to ignore otherwise
the dopamine feedback loop of technology is almost all-pervasive and is literally dragging me down
mornings (waking up on time) absolutely set the tone for the rest of the day. the difference between waking up at 7am and 10am is the difference between feeling on top of the world (relatively speaking - it's still a struggle, but more bearably so!) and dragging myself through the day. if I'm still in bed after 10am I can pretty much give up on the day (with some exceptions - hopefully today is one of them!).
nights set the tone for the next morning. I absolutely NEED to be asleep by midnight, and that means winding down physically by 11pm, and mentally by 11:30pm. if I want to feel fresh the next morning, midnight is too late, and I should aim to be alseep by 11 - something I haven't managed to do in months, which explains my worsening fatigue. I need to wind down, not get things done. I need to resist the urge to tackle things as I see them, especially as bedtime approaches.
productive non-work time needs to be used productively. it seems like my productive time hits me when I'm in the mood for entertainment, and that's where the tech dopamine feedback loop takes over.
I tend to prioritize short term rewards over long term rewards even though it seems perfectly possible to do the latter. before chronic fatigue hit, I was easily able to do both by just pushing myself to tackle the long term stuff when I was in the mood for it (which usually happened after 10pm, frequently after midnight!)
timeboxing is my weak spot. I lose track of time when I'm being productive. I have all the tools, I just don't use them, and that's what turns positive activities into problematic knock-on effects.
physical activity is a feedback loop. once I cut down on it, it just gets worse until it feels like I cannot get out of the loop. it literally took me all of last week to bring myself to the point where I could get out and go for a walk. I have literally dressed up and then given up.
the small thigns add up. I do not factor in the effort I need to take to be ready to get something done, some I frequently have to give up before I've even started. the small thigns add up even more when it comes to my moments of weakness - mornings and nights.
chronic fatigue has unmasked the problematic areas of my life that I have literally struggled with since I was a kid - just that the ability to ignore them and carry on has been taken away.
wait, 10 is a repeat of 1! I think that'as a hint I should stop here. Time to get some long term things done, and make sure the negative cycle ends today!
Sitting on my couch at 1pm on Sunday afternoon, still groggy and not feeling fully awke, my "morning" (made half an hour ago) coffee half-drunk and cold, but sipping it anyway as it's too much trouble to reheat it... and the inevitable thought hits: how did I get here? Not in the metaphysical sense, but in the more short term sense. What did I do wrong yesterday? And this morning? Does the problem go further back?
I got into bed at like 1am. But I was unable to fall asleep. after 20 minutes (the amount of time I was told I should allow myself to go to sleep - and if that doesn't work, I need to get out of bed and do something that calms my mind down to prepare itself for sleep - lying in bed for extended periods is counterproductive). during those 20 minutes I had put on my favourite playlist (DJ Tiesto) on the ipod bedside dock.
What did I do wrong? Get into bed too late, without enough "calming my mind" first. Also played something that I like but wasn't calming enough.
I got out of bed and decided to do a bit of tidying up. I moved some of the stuff that needs to go into the atticc up to the landing, moved other stuff that had to be dusted and put away from the 2nd floor landing to the 1st floor "office room". Stuck my watch on charge as it was less than half-charged. Entered the bathroom and was about to put away the electric razor head which I had washed on Friday night after shaving my head... when I noticed it wasn't as clean as I thought it was. I spent some time (no watch so no idea!) just washing it again, btu more carefully, with warm soapy water, which cleaned up about half the stuff stuck between the blades, but obviously that wasn't great. One thing led to another and after a year (or maybe two - I don't remember) I finally realized the right way to clean the razor head (and why it wasn't working as well as it should have) was to pop out this plastic retaining structure, so that the individual blades pop out. The blades were absolutely caked up with hair! And this was a really quick and easy way to clean the blades. So this was waht I was missing all these years! RTFM should have done it but the manual (as always) had been packed away as soon as I unboxed the razor without even a glance!
What did I do wrong? Getting sidetracked into doing something simulating instead of calming, not keeping my watch on meant I couldn't timebox it.
After these razor shenanigans, I started feeling hungry! And it wasn't a mild hunger but the cloying hunger that I knew wouldn't let me sleep. So I headed downstairs, looked for something quick and not too bad to eat at that hour. I thought half an avocado should do it... but it didn't. A bit of iberican jamon followed - but that didn't help either. I decided to give it a few minutes to see if that helped, so while I was waiting, I unscrewed the jamon from its stand and tried to move it to a position that seemed more similar to what was on the box... but it didn't work. By the time it was mounted back firmly it was back in its original position, but with a bit of mess created in the process. So I had to clean up the jamon crumbs cos it probably wasn't a good idea to leave them on the chopping board overnight. I wasn't feeling any sleepier and still hungry, so I downed a single serving bag of crisps. At that point I decided I had to go to bed no matter what, so I took my watch (now almost fully charged), turned off the music (which had just been left playing all this while) and went to bed. Don't remember the time but probably soemwhere between 2:30 and 3am.
What did I do wrong? Doing things standing up, physically intense (mounting the jamon on its stand took quite a bit of effort). Eating junk. Taking way too long away from bed at bedtime.
I went out for dinner with a couple of friends yesterday. The dinner was extremely hearty (I think I overate! but it was so good I couldn't help myself - I did leave a bit on the plate though, very uncharacteristic of myself but at that point I knew I was going to get myself into trouble! I got back home by 9pm, extremely tired, but I felt like I shouldn't go to bed so soon after eating. I turned on some youtube, and watched some absolutely pointless videos (the war on ukraine, why replacing generic windows drivers for SSDs with manufacturer-supplied ones won't help performance when the SSDs are part of a software RAID array, why Irish wool is barely turning a profit for all the businesses involved). During the first couple of videos I would pause them when I was getting out of earshot and resume them once I was back. Basically I refilled the bird feeders, took the recycling out, tied the recycling bin to its usual spot, took out the food waste, stuff that was mostly outdoors and involved heading in and out.
What did I do wrong? Increase my mental load by mixing outdoor activity with youtube on the TV, when I should have just stuck it on my headphones or listened to music instead.
That done, I settled on the couch with more pointless videos playing. I was absolutely exhausted at that point and quicly moved from sitting to lying on the couch, and I was zoning out of the videos. At one point I definitely dozed off because when I woke up the video had finished. I ignored the sign though and re-watched the video, now fully awake. Once the video was done I turned everything off and went upstairs for a shower. Before heading up I put away my shoes which I had left outside the shoe cabinet to air out. I noticed a pair of shoes I had stopped using after my feet expanded was still in the shoe cabinet, and decided to wash it during my shower so it could be put away later. Washed shoes first, then showered, but both with the window closed cos it was too cold outside. Once done I left the bathroom window wide open to let the moisture out and told myself I'll get back in 20 minutes to shut it before going to bed. I headed downstairs to find something to do for 20 minutes. I found my tabled charged and decided to play some games on it.
What did I do wrong? Ignore the obvious sign that I was exhausted and ready for bed, do more than the absolute minimum required before going to bed. Playing games on the tablet is the opposite of relaxing/winding down before bed.
I got out of bed at 9:15am yesterday. That's after setting an alarm for 8:45 (and another for 9, cos I was sure the first one wouldn't get me out of bed). That's the earliest I've got out of bed in over a month (if you ignore non-negotiables like catching flights etc). Earlier, I had figured that my energy levels are a lot better if I get out of bed when I first open my eyes - ignoring the urge for "a few minutes more" or "it's too early" - but back when I arrived at that conclusion and started practicing it, my eyes would open at between 7am and 7:30am. These days, without an alarm, my eyes first open at 11 on some days! Thankfully though I didn't feel the slight dizziness/rush of blood to the face (a hot flash!) I ususally get when I try to get out of bed, so I guess my body was OK with the reduced sleep/early wake up. The problem was I had only slept at 3am the previous night - I had friends over till midnight (I invited them over for dinner and we lost track of time) and after they left I had a shower and shave, and then tried to clean the razor. And finally, I took the tablet to bed and played games before falling alseep - only stopping when the tablet ran low on charge.
What did I do wrong? Do more than the absolute minimum required before going to bed, knowing I had an early start the next morning. Play games when I was already ready to sleep. Play absolutely way more games than I should have!
In short, my biggest problems seem to be: sleeping late, not winding down before bedtime, doing more than I should when I am tired, ignoring the knock-on effects of having less sleep one night, on the next day and especially the next night! The other thing I have noticed is playing games is how I blow off excess mental energy, but I shouldn't be doing it when I'm already low on physical energy. I don't recognize in the moment when I'm not doing what I should be. I don't timebox activities that I am doing for a specific purpose.
On the other hand I think some things are being done right - I am not feeling isolated or down, I am doing an appropriate amount of physical activity. I am not ignoring my basics/baseline activity (it had actually gotten to a point where I had stopped showering before bed daily because I wasn't feeling "up to it"!). I am getting things done.
well, I actually missed the date. it was 3rd Feb. The email from goDaddy said I purchased it for 5 years, at what now sounds like a steal - INR 2635, so absolute peanuts. In fact I remember being presented the option of purchasing 10 years at the same rate, but going for 5 because I had no idea how useful it'd be - at that time I was still hoping to get my hands on kristopher.com, as the dude who owns it had a single notepad-written unformatted html page of some random text and a photo of a deer.
anyway, kristopher.com has now been revamped (so the odds of him selling/giving it up to me are slim to none), I renewed krist0ph3r.com at full price in 2020 (USD 114.84!) and I have embraced the domain as my identity (basically about a dozen initially burner emails are now in permanent use!) and I'm not going to discard 11 years of SEO just like that... so it's going to be krist0ph3r.com for as long as I'm of sound mental and economic status.
what's funny though is how little has changed since maybe the first month after I set it up - it's basically run like clockwork. the only things that changed were the subdomains (well, only one, added in 2016, and has stopped working now - I don't see the need to fix it 😁) and a bit of DNS shenanigans when I migrated from goDaddy to NameCheap in 2020.
Interestingly, this time of year marks the anniversary of many signups of things I still have active accounts for: I signed up for Facebook, twitter and my blog in Jan - Feb 2007! 19 years... is a very long time! Strangely enough, the person who convinced me to join facebook just showed up in my friend suggestions - obviously because she's now unfriended me. LOL. But I'm happy these sites have kept going for as long as they have. At least I know my blog can be kept alive for as long as the internet exists... Facebook and twitter, probably less so. So for anyone who wants to keep in touch, you can email me at any address ending with @krist0ph3r.com and I will get it - of course no guarantee that I'll read it, but you've got a path to get in touch.
Anyway, I've rambled enough. Happy birthday to the domain! Regular programming shall commence.
2025 ended and 2026 started over 3 weeks ago. It's been quite the year - and I think I need to write up some of it "for the record" lest I lose track of it. In fact, I've been actively putting this off as it's been a year I still have mixed feelings about. But since I've already just posted my first blog for 2026, now is probably the best time to give it a go.
2025 started with me in A&E - we went for a movie on 31st december, I had intense lower abdominal pain that was gettng worse, and we had to leave the cinema and take a taxi to hospital. bringing in the year in hospital felt surreal. almost a throwback to 2007, when I "celebrated" my birthday being admitted to hospital right after lunch with family and cutting (and eating) the cake. the only difference this time is, unlike 2007, when I remember telling mom she didn't need to stay with me in hospital, and was left there alone by my choice, feeling absolutely down and in tears, I had Shruti by my side this time. I started the year grateful for the people around who supported me when I really needed it. oh and the first thing that happened to me after midnight was a rectal probe - Shruti and I laughed that it was the absolutely weirdest start to a year anyone could have had!
even though kidney stones are not dangerous, painkillers weren't doing the trick, and the year continued with two more trips to A&E, the third ending with me being admitted and the stones "taken care of" - a week into 2025 and I had another achievement to be ticked off, my first ever hospital admission in the UK and the 3rd hospitalization of my life.
a few days later, there was another shock, when Shruti's mom, who had been visiting, had a cardiac arrest that she never recovered from. it's another moment that I can never forget - having to do CPR for the first time on a person, after the half dozen or so times I've practiced on a training dummy. taking a break while the ambulance crew used the AED on her - unsuccessfully - then the adrenaline injection, still unsuccessful, then another go at the AED, and me doing CPR in between all of this. The relief when her heart restarted. the surreal experience of being in the same hospital, the same A&E, that I just got out of less than a week ago.
what followed was three weeks of ICU, having to come to terms with the possibility of her never regaining consciousness, and finally being told by the doctors it's time to pull the plug. 6 days of watching Shruti grieve by her mother who was still alive, but inching to a guaranteed death. and when the time came, organizing the wake (sort of) and the cremation. after family left, it was time to help Shruti get on with her life, while simultaneously trying to get on with mine. back to work, back to trying to deal with my chronic fatigue without the help of Shruti's family and our friends who pulled together to support us when things were really rough.
a few weeks later we travelled to India. that was another emotional whirlwind for Shruti, reopening fresh emotional wounds every time someone would ask about her mother's death, every time she had to submit a copy of the death certificate to get some more paperwork done. that month was a blur - I still don't remember much about that trip other than it involving loads of paperwork and form filling and Shruti crying every night. I convinced my mom that now was the best time to travel to Belfast, and we were able to organize things so that we could travel together.
april to september 2025 went by in a blink of an eye - it's the longest time I've spent with mom since I moved out in December 2016. It felt great to reconnect with her, but my fatigue got significantly worse during those 5 months and while she didn't say too much I'm sure it hurt her to see me struggle so badly with my health. Shruti turned 40, I turned 42, mom turned 76. I earned my day skipper at long last (literally 4 years of workong towards it!). Those 5 months were a blur of walks (which tapered off a couple of months in as my fatigue got worse), fatigue-induced-haze, and trying to work. I did start getting better towards the end of mom's visit though, and was on the upswing by the time she left in early september.
my own trip to India (second of the year!) was in early october, and by thast point I had steadily got better in terms of fatigue. it was literally the day before my flight that I had my last therapy session, and the flight to mumbai felt weird, as it was the first time in over a year that I had nobody to be accountable to for my wellness, than myself. something any adult should normally feel, but honestly given the emotional mental and physical turmoil I had been through so far in the recent past, I felt like I was a child who had just learned to walk all over again.
I think my therapist was right in deciding I was ready to face the world and my fatigue without professional assistance. I was able to function. I was able to live within my limitations and energy levels. definitely not as well as before, but I wasn't spending days in bed like I did only a few months earlier. three weeks in, I felt ready for what (to me) felt like the ultimate test of my recovery - an ambitious motorbike trip across the country to harshad's farm near kodaikanal. it was not without hiccups, but by the end of those two weeks, I had returned home with something I was really missing all this while: evidence to back my hope. evidence that things are concretely getting better, I can still do things I enjoy.
I returned to Belfast in early november, and while it wasn't smooth sailing throughout, I was able to get back into the grind of work, life and day to day stuff, and I definitely felt like things were sustainable.
come end december, we were off to Mumbai again - after a tiring day and a half of travel, we landed on Christmas eve, for the first Christmas in Mumbai since 2018 (and back then, we couldn't really enjoy it as we flew back on the 26th!). This was the first time in years that I was on leave in Mumbai without any plans, and while in hindsight it felt like I didn't do much, I think the relaxation and family time, meeting friends, a good amount of digital detox, really helped me end the year on a much better note than it started.
2025 ended with a bbq at Myron's, and 2026 started with Tony's Ros - defintiely an improvement over the previous year!
that's it for 2025. the year that was so crazy that even when it ended, I didn't want to think about how it went, what I've learned, or what I want 2026 to bring me. I'm just happy and grateful to have survived it, come through stronger, felt feelings that must be felt, and kept going through it all (even if just barely!)
I was in a local train in Mumbai - running northbound on the western line. It was late afternoon. I was at a window seat, in the direction facing the breeze, just ahead of the door - an absolute prime position. The train was fairly crowded - all the seats were taken and there were even a fair number of people standing, but it wasn't packed like rush hour. I was reading a book, and had my lightweight fabric bag on my lap.
I looked up from my book and out of the window, trying to identify where I was.
I was pretty sure I was approaching Malad.
I put my book into my bag and (yes, I can't really explain this!) squeezed through the window! I hung on to the outside of the running train by holding myself up, like an extreme pull-up, from the bars of the window.
That's when panic struck: what if I got it wrong? What if I was not actually seconds away from Malad (or indeed, any?) station? I didn't dare look ahead. I just kept my grip and tried not to overthink the situation.
Thankfully, I was not wrong. The train entered Malad station seconds later. I waited for it to slow down enough before letting go and alighting on the platform without incident.
That's when I realized, I had kicked off my shoes when I was sitting and reading. I was barefoot on the platform!
My first reaction was to try and find my seat and wear my shoes. Easier said than done though. There was a pretty big crowd of people boarding and alighting the train. Also, I couldn't quite locate the door next to which my seat was. There was some confusion as I thoguht my seat was betwen the ladies' coach and the first class section, but when I located the two sections they turned out to be adjacent! Given the crowd and difficulty locating my seat, I decided to abandon that idea and buy a peair of shoes at Malad. I was afraid of getting my feet injured in the crowd, which was beginning to resemble rush hour from what I could see.
I walked out of the platform and on to the road, keepign an eye out for anything that might injure my feet. To my disappointment, there were no shoe shops nearby. I walked a couple of streets and finally found a small shoe shop - actually just a wooden shed, resembling a cobbler's shed. A young girl manned the shop - maybe in her late teens. To my surprise, she spoke perfect English! I pointed to a pair of shoes (a white canvas pair) and asked to try it out. It was quite a snug fit, but I was able to adjust the laces to get them to fit comfortably. I asked her the price, and she said they were Rs 3000. I was quite surprised, as I had picked that pair expecting it to be cheap. I told her I had lost my shoes getting out of the train and just needed a pair to wear to get home. She told me I had picked a high quality pair that had quite an advanced design and pointed out some of its subtle features that set it apart. I told her I wasn't interested in any of that, and actually had a canvas pair that costed barely Rs 1000, and suited me just fine. In fact I liked that design so much that I had two identical pairs, as did my wife and my father in law! She said that unfortunately this was the cheapest canvas pair she had and she recommended I buy it.
That's when I noticed that the bit under the laces, leading to the tongue of the left shoe, seemed to be darned. I asked her if the pair was new, which confused and then surprised her when I told her it looked like it had been darned. In fact, on closer inspection, it hadn't been mended properly, and a bit of the fabric was still ripped.
She told me this was a really embarassing mistake and she had no idea how such a pair was in her shop as she only stocked brand new shoes sourced directly from the manufacturer. She told me I could have the pair for free as she was going to complain to the manufacturer and get a refund. I thanked her and left the shop, thikning I had done well for myself, having got a pair that looked cosmetically new, and which could probably be mended cheaply!
But that's when I remembered I still didn't have the insoles that I was supposed to wear when walking. Those were way more expensive than my shoes and would be a pain to replace! The more I thought about it the more hopeless it seemed - the insoles had my name and phone number on the underside, but the phone number was missing the international code for the UK, so any attempt to contact me would be futile. Even worse, I realized that someone who found my shoes in the train would be unlikely to take out the insoles and check the underside so the odds of anyone even finding my number are probably close to nil. I was so disappointed I just stopped walking, closed my eyes and tried to visualize my shoes, cursing that moment I decided to leave them behind. Why did I even go through that train window? It didn't make sense. But then I remembered, those were my blue slip-on shoes I had been wearing. The ones that didn't have detachable in-soles. My (expensive) custom in-soles were in my black pair! Which means they were still at home!
A sense of relief came over me. All was not lost. In fact I had just got myself a nice pair of shoes for free! What a turn around!
And that's when I opened my eyes, in the dream and in real life - I woke up.
ps: my first thought when I woke up was this dream was based on very recent events - it's only been 5 days since I last rode a train in Mumbai, and the blue slip-on pair I supposedly left behind in the train was given to me by my father in law only three weeks ago! my second thought was... WHY ON EARTH WOULD I CONSIDER SQUEEZING OUT OF THE WINDOW OF A RUNNING TRAIN?
pps: I thoguht I'd add a photo of the blue slip-ons for the post but it turns out they're still drying in the bathroom as I washed them last night before going to bed! wonder if that's why they showed up in my dream!
