Sleeping Awake

Last month I (finally) watched 'Inception', and this morning I had a dream.


'Inception' is quite possibly (in my opinion) this decade's equivalent of 'The Matrix'; a stunning and mind-blowing story told in amazing fashion by Christopher Nolan. For those who haven't seen it yet, it tells the story of a group of people who steal ideas and information from others by entering their dreams and tricking their target's minds. I can't even describe it properly and do it justice, so I'm just going to link the imdb page here and you can watch the trailer below.




Take it from me, a really fantastic movie. Not since I saw 'Dark Knight' (coincidentally, another Nolan project) have I actually gone back and pondered over the storyline of a movie long after I had finished watching it.


And now, on to this morning. Today I reached our staff quarters a little earlier than usual, so I decided to take a power-nap before getting dressed for work. As is often the case with these short naps, it was filled with very realistic dreams.

One of them featured two of my very close friends from India, where I studied. Part of me knew it had to be a dream, and yet the rest of me was convinced that they had actually arrived at my work place to surprise me. One of them was my room-mate from college, and as can be expected, he looked exactly like he did back then, down to the terrible hair cut. My other friend was lounging on my bed the way he used to in hostel, reading something with that half-intellectual, half-amused smirk on his face, and for all intents and purposes it might as well have been 2005 all over again.

And then, I woke up.

As my eyes opened, and I took in the very real surroundings of my room, I realised two things: a) I was dreaming and b) I was, surprisingly, exceedingly upset about it. The power that dream had over me was amazing; it took me a good 3-5 seconds to get my head straight, and during that time I felt immense and very real disappointment.


I have no idea why those two featured in my dream, as I haven't spoken to or heard from them in years. Nothing in the recent past made me even think about them of late, and yet somehow my brain dug up those images from almost 6 years ago to replay in my unconscious mind, just like it was yesterday.

Something so random, and yet it got me thinking about the sheer processing power and untapped potential of the human brain, and its amazing ability to lift and destroy our mood, and as a result, our very lives. If it's true we use just 10% of our brains, imagine just how powerful we really are. In fact, the very act of imagining itself is an amazing feat in itself.


I guess I'll end with this; made famous from the movie 'Coach Carter', it's a quote from Marianne Wilson's book "A Return To Love".

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."

Was This Necessary?

While I'm sure none of my readers would find this worthy of a post, and in fact, most would find this highly amusing (it is quite clever isn't it?), my question is:

Was it necessary?


Happy Holidays.

Family Planning

I'm sure I'm not the only one that stops and wonders "What were they thinking??" when coming across a very large family. I'm not talking about a 'family of five', mind you; I'm talking basketball team plus reserves. While I'm sure there are ways to handle such a large family, it just strikes me as being silly and inviting conflict more than anything else, especially these days. Some kid always ends up the favourite, and daddy always gives him the 'coat of many colours', and next thing you know his bro's be selling his ass to some tourists.


Raising a family is no laughing matter. It's something that, regrettably, crosses my mind every now and then, much to my own dismay. Perhaps I'm having a mid-twenties crisis; perhaps I just have too much free time. Whatever the reason, it is a legitimate reason for stress.


I mean, have you seen what the kids are doing these days?!


Lets face it; the kids aren't alright. They got issues, stemming from a smorgasbord of factors ranging from the petty to the pretty freaky, and no one can deny it. Naturally, we try to create safe environments for them, organise programmes to teach them it's in fact not a good idea to get knocked up in high school, that drugs and alcohol are only cool when both you and it are legal, and yet somehow, we've forgotten all about the parents.


Who's talking to them?


I am convinced that I would be a terrible father right now, simply because I just haven't experienced enough to qualify myself for the post. As I look at my own parents who, just like all parents, are great but far from perfect, I realise how much of thought and planning went ahead of both my brother's and my arrival into this world. I see how their experiences, both good and bad, have influenced the way they raised us. It's a fascinating study, one that only people who are as jobless as I am seem to notice these days.


But where do you learn about becoming a parent? What kind of life experience could possibly be relevant to the raising of an infant? Sure, there are books and studies on these things, but those are as helpful as googling how to ride a bike. Do our work and social lives really provide us with enlightenment towards being a better parent? Knowing how to organise a party or negotiate a deal or how to raise funds for a charity; all completely useless to a parent. My expertise lies in basketball. I hardly see how my knowledge of a pick-and-roll or a backdoor screen will be relevant at all. And no, none of those are related to sex, you pervert.


It's at this point that my mind freezes, turns to a blue screen and reboots.


I know this is a completely random post, and rest assured I am nowhere near the perils of becoming a parent. Yet, something for you, dear readers, to ponder on before you decide to bring a screaming miniature version of yourself into the world!

Living and Story-Telling

Yes I'm still here.

Due to a sudden avalanche of work-related activity (notice how I didn't say 'work' per se) my return to blogging suffered a slight break from the internet. It's a shame, especially since there were many times when I felt the stirrings of a post but didn't have a laptop nearby.

Either way, it's been an eventful 3 weeks, and I feel I have made it out relatively unscathed. As I type that sentence out, I once again realise how 'survivalist' I sound. Honestly, I think I need a break from all this 'fighting' and 'surviving'. I just want to live for a while, no matter how teenage-angstish that may sound.

---

Recently we went out for dinner with some family friends. My father had schooled with him, and he regaled us with stories of all the mad things they did while in school to their lecturers and classmates, ranging from theft to forgery to faking suicide. It was all done in 'good humour' though, where the students often owned up to their pranks, unlike nowadays when students seem to commit pranks for a more sinister agenda. Many times I wanted to interject with some story of mine from school or college, but every time I had to stop myself because it just didn't fit. I wanted to tell the story of how some guys got caught smoking weed in the chapel at night while drinking arrack from the chapel chalices, or that time some kids broke into a lecturer's chambers to change their marks, only to be expelled a week later (the lecturer had a backup and just checked which grades were changed). But none of them seemed to be appropriate for the kind of humour that existed among students 'back in the day'.

As I sat there laughing by guts off at their stories, I wondered what kind of stories I'd tell when I was in my 60's, and whether I'd be able to tell them at all.

Rise

~The Rise of a Planet II by 'taenaron~

It's been a while, hasn't it?


I haven't written a post in a long time, and I find myself struggling to start this one. I missed writing. When you write, you have time to read and review what you say, before putting it out for your audience to see. It is an advantage that I would dearly like to have with the spoken word, for I have lost count of the number of times I have spoken without intending to, or said something that ended up being taken in a way I had not intended.

There were two reasons why I stopped blogging:

1) I didn't enjoy it anymore.

My posts had turned so - gloomy - and no one likes a whiner. It was not just the content, it was also the quality. Whenever my mouse hovered over the 'publish' button, I could hear my older posts mocking my new one already. It just wasn't the same, and it somehow lacked that zing. I didn't want my blog to suddenly turn into a party-of-one-pity-party, the type I had often mocked 'back in the day'. It had to end.

2) It reminded me of how much had changed.

Perhaps the biggest reason was that I realised I was not the same person I was back when I started blogging. My blog constantly reminded me that there was a time when I was happier, and a lot less - poisonous. Had I changed so much? Had I let life's challenges rob me of my laughter, or had I been the one that decided to focus my efforts solely on survival rather than actually living?


Another reason, I suppose, was that I was increasingly distressed with what I felt was the general opinion of the blogosphere of me. This is not something I easily confess to, but honestly, due to several poor choices and bad judgement, I had perhaps built up a false persona of myself. One that was, maybe, much too close to the truth than I liked to admit.


Truth. What is the truth anyway? Is it what we say it is? Is it the general consensus, the acceptable norm? Is it a variable factor that is dependant on time, situation, place, person? If the truth is not constant, then what is?


I've learned that when people doubt you, question you or misjudge you, you only have one option, and that is to be honest. From now on, this blog will represent me as I am, whether you like what you see or not. Whether I like what I see or not.


Perhaps, the truth will set me free.