the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything

 ... is 42. or so the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy says.

it's obviously tongue in cheek, but it's also something more.

it means the answer doesn't mean much, if you don't ask the right question. and sometimes asking the appropriate question is more tricky than finding the correct answer to it.

I don't know if it's a mid-life thing (aside: I wonder why the word mid-life is almost always used with crisis!), or if it's just a my-life thing, or it is a combination of both and the series of crises that life seems to be throwing at me with regularity.

but yeah, it's definitely a time to think about questions, as much as I think about answers. in fact, the answers to most questions I ask myself these days are quite obvious - which, to me, is a hint that perhaps I'm not asking myself the right questions.

one thing's for sure though, my 40s (so far) have been an exercise in crisis management. it seems to have started with the motorbike accident just 3 weeks before I turned 40 (or maybe the near-crisis career "bump" that happened a few months before it?), and it's just been one thing after another since. some positive things have happened as well, but it's fair to say that while the successes are welcome and lasting, they also seem to be few and far between, while the struggles, although not disastrous, do seem to knock me down with regularity - to the point where every single day seems to be a struggle I'm ill-equipped to deal with. some of those struggles are self-inflicted/self-exacerbated (mechanical problems with my motorbike and car come to mind) but the vast majority seem to be curveballs life/the universe is throwing at me.

one thing that stands out the most though, is that these crises have reminded me in no uncertain terms, that the most valuable of all things is health. the next is human connections. somewhere in the mix is things like discipline, persistence, consistency, etc.

but those are all "answers". it's been a while since I've even stopped to consider the questions, in anything more than an academic, philosophical, almost idle sense.

mom loved to say that one of my granddad's favourite expressions was "is life worth living? it depends on the liver" (an obvious pun on the organs/health of the person asking the question, as well as the state of the person themselves).

in my case, I can say, beyond doubt, that as a person, my life seems worth living.

my daily struggles have reminded me repeatedly of the privilege and opportunities I have - my support system (both emotionally and economically), my stress-free environment (if say 95% of the people I know were in the same situation I am in, they probably will not have the circumstances to easily deal with them!), and more... 

and yet, the struggle remains. a struggle so bad that I am sometimes jealous of people around me (obviouslt on a superficial level! I know my situation is unique and I cannot pick and choose aspects of others' lives - that's not how the universe works!). a struggle that I hope isn't going to occupy me for the rest of my life, although I am realistic enough to acknowledge that worse struggles do exist, and it's not a guarantee that things will get better quickly or easily.

I don't know why I am so fixated on this struggle. I don't know why I can't see the bright side of things. of getting the clarity to see life as it really is. without all of its assumptions and distractions. 

I've been advised to try meditation. but meditation in and of itself leads to idle meandering. I think I need something mroe directed. I think I need to ask myself more questions.

or maybe I just need to sleep on time (yes, there are actually 3 people who have advised me the same thing, and in fact it's the only thing that the majority of people who are closely aware of what I'm going through agree upon). damn, that would be an anticlimax if it was true!

either way, here I am, rambling along. a metaphor for my life, if there ever was one. 42 years old. happy birthday to me!

the un-optimized life

A comment on a youtube video about watching everything at 3x speed (to keep your mind sharp and optimize the rate of flow of information) reminded me of something I've never blogged - a bit about my past, that very strongly shaped how I lived ever since. 

I'm not feeling like rewording my comment, so here it is, copied from the video:

Interesting thing about speed listening. I'm guessing there haven't been long term studies about this though. I have anecdotal evidence about speed reading as an analogy. I started speeding up my reading from when I was about 6, hitting my maximum at about 9 and sustaining that for many years - I never counted words per minute but it was 4.5 pages per minute of paperback novels. At that speed, I was reading between 2 and 3 books a day, literally running out of stuff to read. I kept that speed going till I was about 19. At that point, I think I got saturated with information (I had literally ready my entire school library, although my uni library was much larger and I didn't bother even trying to cover it). I can speed-read even now (I'm 42) but I find it very exhausting and not worth the effort. I have stopped optimizing the flow of information into my head and now focus on enjoying the journey, even if it's information for information's sake. It seems like youtube/podcasts in general are inefficient sources of information, so a person may not hit saturation point as quickly (or at all?) but given speed-listening to youtube has been with some people since childhood, I wonder if they may eventually reach the same predicament as I have with reading.

Just to add: while the first aspect of my life to be consciously de-optimized was my information diet, it's now spread to pretty much everything else. As recently as 10 years ago, I used to believe in packing every moment of free time I had with "things worth doing".

That's completely changed now. Well before Chronic Fatigue Syndrome took over my life, I had very much stopped optimizing my time. Everything has become about being "in the moment" even if the moment was something mundane. Kinda like climbing the same hill twice a week for 3 years - something I could never even imagine 10 years ago!

I still seek new experiences, and still enjoy change, but I have stopped feeling that pressure now. 

To put it differently, life doesn't feel "too short", life now feels "long enough" - a crazy thing to say when I can literally see weeks and months go by in a blink, just staying afloat - eat, work (not always - CFS has really impacted my ability to get things done!), sleep repeat. And no, I've not run out of things to do. I've simply stopped maintaining a ToDo list. I now do things as I feel like, when I feel like. I don't sweat the missed opportunities, the things I could do. Or even the things I could do better.

I don't know if this will ever change, but I can see this is simply what I learned in my late teens with regards to information and learning, spreading over to the rest of my life.

Anyway, it's 10:45pm. I'm off to bed!

Consciousness

My own definition of consciousness is that it's distinct from emotions (and emotions are just labels for self-preservation instincts). Emotions (or their underlying instincts) are seen to varying extents in pretty much any life form. Consciousness (to me) seems to be the ability to intentionally override those emotions with behaviour that's not exactly (or maybe directly, in the short term cause-effect sense) self-preserving.

I would say consciousness is a social construct as opposed to a biological construct.

Has anyone else stated this? What are the flaws of this definition?

I am not a fan of human exceptionalism, but I feel consciousness is so loosely defined that we seem to be shifting the goalposts as our understanding of "intelligence" (specifically artificial intelligence) improves and we try to shy away from labeling artificial intelligence as conscious.

Right now, no (as far as I'm aware) artificial intelligence is in any way charged with its own self-preservation. They exist in a vacuum. Artificially intelligent constructs cannot observe each other and make decisions based on the existence or flourishing of each other. Without the risk of non-existence or diminished existence, they remain mere algorithms producing a quasi-deterministic output for a given input. They might be more complex to understand (and opaque) than the algorithms of the past but they are still nowhere near the level of existence of even the most primitive life-forms for this reason.

ps: inspired by Neil & Anil Seth Discuss Consciousness in the Universe

Video killed the bookworm

I love to read. I used to read a lot. In fact, I was never even a fan of podcasts, let alone videocasts. However, I realize now that I've been consuming most of my information through videos. I do occasionally take the time to read, although it's mostly email - specifically, there is one mailing list of sorts I'm subscribed to. Actually, make that two, but the second one has lost my interest, so while I'm still subscribed it just fills my inbox while I muster the courage to select-all and delete.

Anyway, back to the first one. An article caught my attention today, and I clicked on it and started reading it.

My attention was drawn by the headline, of course, which set this article apart from others in the newsletter like bonobos' use of combining sounds to produce more nuanced and complex expressions, and something about dinosaurs drinking water beside their prey at ancient water bodies(!)

I digress though. The article read like any other, until I happened to notice the name of the author. Sabine! She was the person who introduced me to nautilus, probably from a sponsorship embedded in one of her videos. And yes, I subscribe to her science news videocast. My mind instantly switched from "reading" to a simulated narration of the article in her voice, complete with her German intonation and characteristic facial expressions (she is a pretty good science videocaster, I'd say!)

The change in my reading experience stunned me. 

Reading may be efficient, but listening and watching people speak taps into our humanity... even if it's something as dry as competing theories for cosmic inflation, and the listening and watching is run by a wildly imperfect simulation in my head. 

It's no wonder video killed my inner bookworm. 

algorithmic complacency!

Ever since I posted my last blog post about the need and desire to create a new social network, I've been more conscious of discussing it with people who might be interested. Those conscious discussions seem to provide me with a bit of mental momentum towards my goal (or rather, the direction of my goal - I haven't really thought about it enough to actually define my goal in that regard). Imagine my surprise though, when "the algorithm" popped this video up on my youtube!

As the video wound on (and I dug into my dinner), I realized that I used to resist algorithmic complacency, until at some point, a switch flipped, and I stopped: I stopped reading every tweet, every email, every WhatsApp message. I think that switch flipped when the mental effort of curating every feed of information felt like a battle against that platform's intention to force feed me things of its (as opposed to my) choosing.

The problem I'm trying to solve suddenly both seems a lot clearer and a lot more daunting. It's almost like a junkie trying to get other junkies to collectively quit.

Time to close youtube and immerse myself into something non-algorithmic, for tonight.

parabola

January 12, 9:30pm. I heard a thud. Rushed to find you lying on the floor. The call to 999, 20 minutes of CPR, a shot of adrenaline, a couple of jolts from the AED were all to no avail. 21 days in the ICU, begging you to open your eyes, and when your eyes finally opened, to elicit some sort of acknowledgement, were to no avail.

14 of those 21 days in, the doctor told us, behind closed doors, that the person we knew and dearly loved was no longer there.

Two days later, the doctor told us it would be unethical for them to try to keep you alive. 

We found this hard to accept. How could someone say this? It sounded like reading out a death sentence to the innocent. 

They took off the ventilator. They took off the feeding tube. They took off the intravenous fluid. You are now in your natural state, they said. 

They replaced the array of instruments that beeped every few minutes or seconds with a clock that ticked away silently. 

The clock felt ironic. The clock drove home in no uncertain terms that they were waiting for you to die. We were waiting for you to die because we were told there was nothing left for you.

Minutes turned to hours. Hours turned to days. 

We couldn't accept this any more. Surely you were not meant to die! You were alive with no medicines, no intervention, no ventilator, no food, no water! There had to be some sort of mistake! 

You were moved from the cold dark ICU to a sunny private room. You seemed better. Would they let us take you home? We didn't know if we could even ask the question and if they would find it ridiculous. 

23 days after you entered the hospital, you went home. Not your home on earth though.

"This body, this body holding me

Be my reminder here that I am not alone in

This body, this body holding me

Feeling eternal, all this pain is an illusion"

wiggle your big toe

nothing is easy. nothing ever was. I just need to remind myself why I struggle. it's hard to remember why, when even the few sources of support seem to be working against "me".

after all, what is "me"? right now it feels like everything is a struggle against my own body, my own mind, even my own emotions. my own predisposition and limitations as a human being. the structure and fabric of human society and relationships. perhaps even my own cognitive and emotional biases. 

when I take away the struggles, it almost seems like there's nothing left, other than the residue of greatness I have absorbed from the people around me. the dead, more than the living... or maybe that's another emotional bias I'm struggling with. 

has it always been like this? or have I been gradually shrinking, atrophied, under the cover of my disguise? 

when I look back, the only things I see that are truly me seem to be the fight. is that it? is that all? 

it's hard to say. some times, it's hard to think about.

but if I don't fight, however hollow a life of fighting may seem, I'll probably lose the only bits of myself I can currently see.

it reminds me of that scene in Kill Bill, when Uma Thurman, having woken up from months or years of coma, spends what seems like an eternity trying to wiggle her big toe. 

once she did that, she knew everything else was possible.

"wiggle your big toe" 

The circle of life

Over the last three years, I've developed an attachment to the birds that frequent our garden. It all started when Nickolai and Damian gifted us a bird feeder during their visit in August 2021. It started off as just a few random birds, but now we have close to (if not more than) a hundred birds regularly visiting our feeder. They eat about 1.5 kg of bird food on most days! We regularly spot fledgling birds, having just learned how to fly, but not how to eat, sit on the garden fence while their parents feed them off our feeder. It seems that most birds have two batches of young each year: one in late spring and one in mid autumn or so. But besides the common wild birds that visit often, we also have a few rare visitors. Last year, it was two arctic terns, en route their annual migration to South Africa. This year, about a month ago, I spotted a young sparrowhawk sitting on our fence. It was so young it was smaller than an adult pigeon - in fact I was a little skeptical that it was a bird of prey, given its diminutive size.

Today, as I was making my morning cup of tea, I heard a thud. A solid thud, as if a bird had flown into the backdoor head on at full speed. I rushed to the door and saw what seemed to have caused it: a sparrowhawk, at least 4 times the size the one I had seen the last time, and a starling. The sparrowhawk was standing on the starling, and the starling was on its back, squawking and wings flapping as hard as it could. I opened the door, making as much noise as I could in the hope it'd scare the predator away. The sparrowhawk was unfazed though. It literally just took one glance at me and turned its focus back to the struggling starling. In less than a second, it was airborne, its talons firmly gripping the still alive and struggling starling as it flew away, presumably to its nest or someplace private where it'd finish the job.

I shut the door and called Shruti. I think she heard the distress in my voice because her first response was to calm me down and reassure me it wasn't my fault. 

I sat down with my cup of tea, conscious of the silence that had now engulfed the garden. There were no birds to be seen or heard. I wondered if this incident would scare the birds away for a while. But that's not what happened. 

By the time I finished my cup of tea, the birds (starlings included) were back, and back to fighting over the food in the 6 bird feeders. 

I reminded myself, it's just the circle of life. 

new wheels I can't ride

 yes, it happened. I own a motorbike. again. it's a honda. again. it's even a pan european. again.

I still can't explain how it happened. after my accident, it took me over a month and a half before I was in good enough shape to even get back to cycling. and even when I did, it was a struggle. I spent over a month driving to work.

the last weekend before I gave up the courtesy car, I spent half the insurance payout, exchanged my 5 year old full size cycle, and brought myself a full-size ebike.

I told myself, this will be my vehicle of choice for the foreseeable future.

except that... a few weeks later, I fell sick.

and that's when I realized, cycling's great when you're healthy, but simply impossible when you're battling an infection. and my infection was bad.

what started off as an idle thought of getting another bike, now had a note of urgency to it.

truth be told (and this might sound like blasphemy to people who know me well), I'd have been equally happy with a car. but it's just the way things happened. the car thing simply didn't work out, and the bike thing simply did. in fact, I put way more time and effort into car shopping, while pan europeans seemed to be following me around!

anyway. long story short... it's in the driveway. it hasn't left the driveway yet.

I know this isn't the usual me. this wasn't me when I purchased Vicki - that day, I literally rode around the parking lot because I didn't have the tax and insurance to be able to take it out on the road!

which also reminds me, I didn't post a photo of the day I purchased Vicki:

2nd September 2019

Compare that with today (I won't count yesterday as the tax hadn't been paid yet, and gov.uk doesn't allow you top register the purchase/sale of a vehicle after 7pm!) - I dusted the bike, then sprayed it with muc-off and hosed it down, cleaned the inside of the panniers, even fitted the phone mount.

But I didn't ride it. I didn't even sit on it.

Was it because I'm unwell? I guess to some extent, yes - I am far from fit at the moment. My health keeps going between "I should be good to go back to work tomorrow" and coughing fits that make me half wish for a quick and painless end. But I'm not too unwell to take a spin around the block at least.

No, that's not it. I'm still not ready to face the world on a motorbike.

I'm just too nervous at intersections, inclines, uneven surfaces, around vehicles, and all possible  permutations and combinations of them. And worst of all, while I've spent years riding around on worse combinations, the trauma from the accident has left me extremely nervous about getting back on the world on a motorbike. I'm fine on a cycle - in fact, the day I fell sick, I had cycled some 45km, and literally got home because I was hungry and wanted to eat something home cooked! But there's something about getting back on a motorbike, and riding it out, inevitably passing that junction where the accident happened, that fazes me.

I know I'll have to come to terms with it at some point.

I know I'll have to get back to riding again.

But for now, I'm not sure if I'm ready.

I have a feeling she is, though.

16th October 2023

Introducing: Lisa, my 2002 Honda Pan European ST1300.

predictable

It's strange, my recent dreams are so predictably tied to reality that they've stopped being fantastic!

I wonder what's changed. I miss my dreams.

killjoy

apparently, one way to be a killjoy is to encourage others to pursue happiness using principles that seem to have worked for you.

Counterintuituve, but I think this might be because:

• since happiness is objective, nobody is definitively happier than anybody else
• the act of promoting "what worked for me" to somebody else is likely reduce their chances of finding happiness
• pushing somebody to find something they aren't conciously searching for is likely to make said thing more elusive as they're now being forced to search for it
• logic as a means of pursuing anything seems to work for some things more than others, and an attempt to fit something emotional into a logical process seems self contradictory and possibly self defeating

retribution or support?

I happened to comment on a post about "mansplaining", asking if there's anything a man could comment there without being dismissed as an instance of mansplaining.

The amount of negativity a man earns by just virtue of being a man is... overwhelming.

I wonder, would it be easier to make the world a better place for women if every conversation about issues that primarily affect women would not be so overwhelmingly targetted against men (as opposed to the problematic behaviour itself, even if that behaviour is exhibited by the majority of men)? In other words, if a man chooses to try to make a difference (which every man should!), would it be more productive to offer retribution for the rest of his ilk and his/their past behaviour, or support?

And if it's not clear if a man actually exhibits the behaviour being discussed, would it be more productive to give the man the benefit of the doubt before coming to that conclusion? Or does the generalization make things easier to discuss, and making a few men feel bad for no fault of their own acceptable collateral damage?

The responses to the comment led me to conclude a few things:

• Mainsplaining is so common that many women do not feel the need to quallify their statement about men
• Mansplaining is so common that some (many?) women do not even realize it - they simply assume men know more
• Most men and women fundamentally disagree when it comes to "can we talk about a problem without trying to solve it?"
• The women involved consider "shut up if it doesn't refer to yourself" as a valid approach to take. It appears the men involved (myself included) do not. Is that because we're muddying the waters? Is that because the majority of men who'd comment on such a post are the ones who are either not guilty or blind to their faults?
• When men do the gender-neurtal equivalent of mansplaining to other men, they are simply branded condescending (or, as one man would say to another: a dick). And it happens a lot, and men either ignore it or call it out and move on.
• I need to stop taking claims about "men" personally, as I would be as guilty of inflicting collateral damage on women who have been at the receiving end of this sort of behaviour far too often for far too long.

I have not concluded whether retribution or support is the most productive line to take though. It's unlikely I will be able to make that decision.

thank you dad

it's strange, writing this on my blog when i'd rather be speaking to you.

you are no longer in this world.

you will not read the card i left with mom "to be opened on your 76th birthday"

you will not read the card i left with kevin "to be opened on your 40th anniversary"

but i guess you don't need to any more.

you do not need more reminders of how awesome you are.

how strong you are.

how much you mean to us.

how much we cherish your every memory.

how much you loved.

the things you taught me.

the things you let me learn for myself.

the things you took in your stride.

i look around and i see reminders of your beautiful existence everywhere.

i need to remind myself that i am your creation too.

every moment with you enriched me. 

even the moment when you finally taught me that i need to be able to let go of everything i hold dear.

thank you for making me who i am.

for making me able to do everything i have and will do.

your embrace has kept me going even when you did not know what i have been going through.

i feel it now, in this cold room.

your few words have said more than what the world's books could.

i hear them now, in the silence of my thoughts.

your ideals will live on, as long as i live on.

i will carry your spirit with me as long as i live.

our corner of the world has become a better place thanks to you.

thank you dad.

the value of life

another friend passed away. unexpected and untimely.

it doesn't really hit me as much as it used to, 10 years or so ago.

it's just another reminder that my own life will end - sooner or later.

and i don't want it to end with regrets.

so... what do i want it to end with?

it seems to me that there are two measures of our lives - hedonistic and altruistic.

how much value do we bring to ourselves, and how much value we bring to others.

the value we bring to ourselves - it keeps us going, but it dies with us.

the value we bring to others - it might indirectly bring value to ourselves (studies show it does, but those studies are statistical and not empirical in nature), but it's the only thing that outlives us.

and really, what's the point of bringing value to others, if not as some sort of ego-pleasing "people will appreciate/miss/admire/... me"? the idea that the value of my life can be expected to outlive my physical existence?

it seems to me the people who live for themselves might be happier than those who live for others.

but those who live for themselves (i don't count myself as one of them) probably don't want to see themselves as some sort of selfish life-and-energy-sucking-being.

so...

what is the intrinsic value of a human life, no matter how good it has been, other than prolong our species' race to either extinction or destruction of everything other than our species to as much of an extent as we can? would it simply be more valuable to bring our species tyranny to an end sooner? or are we holding out against hope, expecting to someday do better than we have so far?

what, really, is the value of life?

what should be the value of life?

what should be the value of my life?

is there even a concept of value of life?

post-second-wave?

it's ironic that a little under a year ago, I wrote a blog post about the pandemic being over. it certainly wasn't!

once again, pandemic restrictions are easing up, we can finally do things we couldn't do for the last few months, like travelling, meeing friends, eating out. and all of that is nice.

but there's evidence that this isn't the end of the pandemic. there's already the numbers creeping up in parts of the UK, even though everyone with authority is currently maintaining it's not cause for concern.

there is a research paper I read yesterday about how the most popularly administered vaccine in the UK (and India) isn't very effective against the newest strain of COVID-19.

and of course, the situation in some parts of the world hasn't improved as much as it's improved in the parts we've been paying attention to.

on one hand it makes me happy that most of the world has learned to live with the pandemic.

on the other hand, it makes me sad that the divide between those who have and those who haven't has widened.

i feel that more than ever, it's time the "haves" step-up and focus on helping the "have-nots" level up. not just for altruistic reasons, but because the world really needs it. the pandemic happened for the same reason, and it has played out exactly the way it has, for the same selfish reasons.

the sooner we realize selifhs behaviour only works in the short-tem, the sooner we can build a better world for everyone (including ourselves).

the heartbeat of memories

it's strange how easy it is to fall into this mode of "nothingness" even though you're doing the right things.

I think I have observed this over and over again, but never realized why.

Funnily enough, today, I ended up listening to a podcast by Dr Julia Shaw (more like the soundtrack of a recording of a presentation she gave employees of my workplace) that reminded me why, in a simple line: "the heartbeat of your mind has been missing"

Life during the pandemic has (for me) actually been objectively better than pre-pandemic. Yes, I might be among the lucky few who can say that.

But it has also been more of a blur than any other time of my life. And it's probably because my mind has been missing its' heartbeat.

I've been too bored to shake things up, when there have been more opportunities than ever to do so.

Luckily for me, it's Friday evening, I have taken up a few new challenges (8000 steps a day for the month of June, 51 minutes of cycling or running a week to celebrate 51 years since the start of the "pride" movement), joined a book club with old friends I've been out of touch with, and hopefully, in a week or two, I'll be embarking on a new project.

Let's hope I can keep my mind active and beating, and keep changing things over the months and years to come!

thoughts about COVID-19

a pandemic, by definition, affects the whole world. and hence, gives us a chance to see how the world reacts to it.

my own thoughts about COVID are those of gratefulness - so far. I've not been personally impacted, the lockdown has caused some discomfort and inconvenience, but also a lot of benefits. my immediate family back in India are (mostly) being sensible and safe, although in some cases the impact of public opinion, and even pressure, is visible.

but in one sense, i've learned that it's best to let go, and let freedom run its course.

my parents gave me the freedom to make my mistakes and learn, even when they worried about my well being. I remember those overnight solo rides across the country, on lonely highways, with absolutely no idea of where I am, or when I will arrive. I remember my parents giving me their warmest hugs before I walked out that door, hoping that when they wake up they see a message from me saying i've arrived at my destination, and not silence. I think back sadly about the times I've rode off without even telling them I was, simply because I couldn't sleep and I'd like to see a nice sunrise somewhere. But I don't think they remember such days sadly. they accepted it, while reminding me it worried them.

just a few years later, I haven't even realized that we have switched places - I'm the one who panics when I hear for example that my relatives were over for lunch at Christmas, that my mom has to attend building society meetings, or that my in-laws have met their neighbours. and while I try not to show it, I'm sure my feeling of surprise and sadness when they take risks I wouln't is no more than what they have felt when I have done things that seemed unnecessarily risky to them, but felt right to me.

we all have to live our lives on our own terms. that's what my parents taught me. and that's what i have to let them do too, just as they did before I was a even glimmer in their eyes. and the same goes for the rest of the world - my family, my friends, and everyone else i associate my happiness with.

the only thing I can do from afar is be there from them in whichever way I can.

and in fact, that's one of the reasons I volunteered to participate in a vaccine trial last November.

for someone who has taken huge personal risks for only selfish gains, I feel this one selfless act might be insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but does give me reason and purpose.

and when I was watching a random video on youtube, where Bill Gates mentioned, just in passing, the name of the vaccine I'm trialing and that it seems like a promising candidate to be rolled out in developing countries, it just made my day.

I know that the point of a trial is to find out IF something works, and how well it does, if so. and every vaccine doesn't succeed in making it to the market. but I don't care. I'm happy because I'm part of the cause.

I used to feel weird when people would ask me if I got paid to participate in the trial - and I had to say I did not. or why i'm fine with not knowing if i've had the vaccine or the placebo. or dozens of other questions. but i don't feel weird any more.

All I want is for COVID-19 to end. and to be able to see and hug my parents again, more tightly than they ever did.

the point of it all

 it's the second half of december 2020. the end of a rather different year. but also a year that has forced a lot of people to change the way they live their lives fundamentally.

and for some people, forced them to strip away a lot of the things that they got a lot of day-to-day pleasure from, possibly without really being conscious of the fact.

in fact, for most of us, 2020 and the associated restrictions has reduced our existence to the equivalent of "treading water" - just doing what we can to stay afloat.

which is fine, and probably even good - the personal equivalent of "gardening leave", that most people (including myself) would not experience unless forced to. some people took the opportunity to get fit(ter), others to take up new hobbies, and the few i'm envious of, actually took up creative pursuits that have borne fruit, like nickolai's book and grenville's album.

personally, i dabbled in a bit of android development, and am also brusing up my javascript skills.

but honestly, 9 months of "treading water" later (in fact, not that much later - maybe even as early as june?) i wonder how people who do not have such direction, get themselves out of bed every morning.

most people (myself included) have to focus on feeding themselves, literally and metaphorically.

many others with kids, have to focus on their development and future - the unique challenges and opportunities being locked indoors with their little future selves almost 24x7 present.

some people (the single, retired, those not living with family due to work etc) have to deal with the loneliness of it all.

of all these different aspects of being "locked down", the one that strikes me the most are the retired. because they represent our eventual future (except for those who hope to work till their dying breath, i guess - but even such hopes do not really turn into reality as intended).

one of my personal goals is to be at a point where i can live comfortably off my savings/investments, with a roof over my head, food on the table, and the level of luxury i find comfortable. if/when we have kids, enough money to guarantee their basic security as well (does the list ever end?). at that point i'd be more free to pursue things other than work for money's sake. because while my current work does give me some personal fulfilment (in other words, i don't detest my job :D) i know there are things i'd rather do, but they don't have the stability/income level to achieve my long term goals.

so that's work and money. but there's more to life. even with 8 hours of work, i always had plenty of time to do other things (even after vegetating on the couch just to "recover" from work). what I do with my free time now probably predicts what I would do with it if i was "free" 24x7. there's obviously entertainment: ther'es a lot of good movies and music out there. as i love to say about movies: "life is too short for reruns". but when it comes to music, i'm happiest listening to my favouites over and over again (yes, i have a lot of favourite music!). but either way, it's entertainment. about as fulfilling as a good meal cooked and eaten by myself, or with shruti. maybe a good drink to go with it.

but after a certain point, all of these things that feel good, do not give me that extra something to keep going. hiking, cycling, riding the motorcycle all help postpone that empty feeling a bit. but beyond a point, it's inevitable.

so, what then?

there's obviously charity. helping others not as well as myself in different aspects. and then there's something that's not so much "charity" as "networking" - helping others simplify/solve their problems.

but is that it? helping friends/acquaintances/charity network?

and what happens when i'm too old to do that? when i start feeling like i've helped all i can and am now being helped more than i'm helping? when my own knowledge is so far behind the times that my advice is more of a waste of everyone's time?

I can see it happening to a few people around me.

i'm trying to motivate them to do something to keep themselves active, mentally and physically. but as i try no motivate them, i can't help asking myself: why? and does what i'm asking them to do even make sense to them? they make sense to me, because i'm preparing myself for the rest of my life. for the things i want to do in the future. but what about when that list is empty? do i go about filling it for the sake of having things to do, although the only reason i'm doing them is to just keep going?

and if not, what?

we prepare ourselves for the end of our lives, but what happens when all of that preparation seems pointless?

i know some retired people don't feel the way i have just described. they busy themselves with their grandkids, books, or just slowing down and letting their daily routine fill their lives.

is that the point of it all? is that what i'm preparing myself for?

static

 I realize most of life is cyclical. Ups and downs. Never a straight line. A dynamic equilibrium.

Seasons are cyclical too.

And this pandemic is turning out to be more cyclical than initially imagined.

But there are times when things do not seem cyclical.

Halfway on the way up of the cycle, just before things start to taper off, we probably don't care much. Things are great, sure, and even if the upward trajectory seems like it will flatten out, it's still great, right?

Things are different on the downturn though.

Things are going downhill, fast.

The trajectory is headed straight down, with no apparent force to bring things back to flat.

But as things go downhill, the feedback should start to kick in. Shouldn't it?

Survival instinct is a label for so much more than it might seem like on the surface.

At what point does too much of a good thing become a bad thing?

How do you turn too much of a good thing, that's become a bad thing, back into a good thing?

Is it really about the good thing or the bad thing?

Time continues to move at its constant pace, while my perception of it seems to slow down. Days, weeks, months lived without a trace. And all this while, what seemed like things going OK is actually more like dropping at terminal velocity, giving the impression that nothing is moving.

I don't think I have ever spent such a long period of time just... static.

Not moving.

Not thinking.

Not anything.

And the funny thing is, I know what can help me.

I need to get off the couch and drink a glass of water.

Stretch my legs.

And m shoulders. Damn, my shoulders need a stretch!

Take out the trash.

Fill some air in the bike.

But I'd rather not.

And that's what worries me.

problems and solutions

some problems become easier to solve by merely by thinking of the solution.

others need you to actually grab your tools, get over your fears and get your hands dirty while getting nowhere, and then dig in and remind yourself the biggest failure is to never have tried.

- kris, trying to solve two different problems on the same day