How can I serve?

You can move from a group to another group - any group you want. Every group has a "persona" just like we have one in product management and all of those personas are equally interesting and boring depending on what you already know. To me it all seems boring and noisy and lip-service after a point. They look interesting from outside, they are all the same from inside. So depending on what one likes or wants, they can become that to join the club. What if I do not like what the clubs offer from inside but find them interesting from outside? What if I do not even want to know anymore clubs because they are all the same for me? What if nothing impresses me any more? I knew this in 2018? Why am I taking such a long route for what I already know? 

Need normalcy

Feb and Mar has not been ideal weather wise in the Bay Area - we've been hit by the atmospheric rains and my hikes were on a pause. There was a lot to load at work and at home. It's only today that I am probably even trying to get back to normalcy. 

My Sweet Haven

 One item off the bucket list! Set up my sweet haven the way I wanted. Good vibes and grateful always for everything...

#walkingmeditation

Exercising in gym bores me to death but walking does not. I can walk for hours especially when I am alone. All I need is my phone and headphones. I took to serious walking in 2020 during pandemic days when the best places to visit were open parks and grounds - away from crowd and people. I got better at it as I started doing trails and soon it turned into the only form of exercise that I'd want to do anytime. So much so that when I do not have anything to do, my mind always checks if I'd should go for a walk. When I came across this article that Maria posted on Twitter, I was happy to see that it articulates exactly why I like it! 

See - Walking as Creative Fuel: A Splendid 1913 Celebration of How Solitary Walks Enliven “The Country of the Mind”

Some favorites from this article:

"Of course the best sort of walk is the one on which it doesn’t matter twopence whether you get anywhere at all at any time or not; and the second best is the one on which the hard facts of routes, times, or trains give you nothing to worry about."

-- Wendell Berry

"For company too often means compromise, discretion, the choice of the sweetly reasonable."

"Not a fiftieth part of all your happy imaginings will you ever, later, recapture, note down, reduce to dull inadequate words; but meantime the mind has stretched itself and had its holiday."

"But all these are only the by-products, the casual gains, of walking alone. The high converse, the high adventures, will be in the country of the mind."

-- Kenneth Grahame

“I walk everywhere in the city. Any city. You see everything you need to see for a lifetime. Every emotion. Every condition. Every fashion. Every glory.”

--Maira Kalman

New Year, New Post!

Past two months have been this crazy or what! No updates here since Nov... :)

I recovered from the Holiday mood just this past weekend probably. Was able to get into the normal rhythm of things. First hike of the year was long pending. Hoping to be more regular there. 

I love walking aimless in cities, towns and in nature. It's my personal meditation. All I need is a light backpack with essentials, my phone, extra batteries and good walking shoes. I love it! 

My happy place :D

             

Faith

I am happy! The various ways in which universe reiterates and confirms is absolutely fantastic. I mean all we ever have to do is take that leap of faith. 

Home

• The expectation of permanence from mortals is naive. That kind of state can only be achieved with self and the extension of self (Atman and Paramatman). 
• This thought brings freedom - to do anything without expecting anything from anyone. The subconscious fear of change cannot drive self anymore. 
• What we seek in the other, already exists in us. Only we can fulfill ourselves completely. Others can only be catalysts and can make us think/realize alone. That's their role. The actual realization needs to come from us. 
• Any change induced in self to be accepted by others is an aberration. It is wrong. It is self harming. 
• Remember, who you are. 
• The presence I was looking for in my own home is already living there. What freedom and what joy! I come back to the home that already has that presence. 
• We are all alone in this journey, truly alone. Everyone and everything else around us just helps us till we need their help to come to this realization. This realization is not an unhappy one. It is very liberating; as if some weight has lifted. It brings satisfaction and joy of finally knowing. 
• It is my job to be present for others but I cannot make them evolve till they themselves are ready to evolve. 
• So now that I know this, let me have a nice time and do everything that I love to do!

Path

My journey is mine. Even as I walk with others, I should not forget what is it that I should be doing. I have my own path to walk. So let’s remember that. 

Change

"When things change inside you things change around you"

I can vouch for it. Things are more settled, calm and at peace. Two months seems like a life time ago. 

June

June has been a roller coaster. 10th, 11th and 12th. 

Quarantine

Oh my! I could get used to this quarantine life. Gives me time to think and be. 

Me

I am loving the quarantine. I don’t say it out loud because everyone seems to be hating it so much. I don’t mind it because it has automatically canceled all social events for me. I can live my life with my bare essentials and that includes people. I have only realized how liberating it is to stop doing things - things that would be frowned upon in social norms. These small pressures are not needed actually for any of us. But we have made them necessary for us so that we can be recognized as the functioning adults of this world. I don’t want to be the normal functioning adult. Let everyone else do that. I am happy being me - whatever that is 🤷‍♀️👩🏻 

Draining

I do not want to meet anyone for the next year and hibernate in peace. Cleaning, cooking, laundry, reading, re-doing home, sleeping and outings only with kids/husband - that is all I want to do on the precious weekends that I get. But no, they will be sabotaged by well meaning-well wishers and before you know the weekend calendar is spilling over. :(


#drainingweekends #loneratheart #suchabore

Thou shalt not...

So time did slow down for me and everything was happening split second later - giving me enough time to even ponder on the thoughts that I was thinking. I was laughing because it has happened. I was laughing because I could feel it so clearly. Everything had heightened - senses and thoughts. I closed my eyes though and felt it in my bones. I could literally pick out the heightened emotion and analyze it in isolation. It felt great!

My sense of smell and touch was greatly enhanced - I could literally feel the pressure I was putting on things. As I tried to type some words, I knew exactly how much pressure to apply - I could "judge" that. I did few things on purpose. I felt the need to let myself go. I was not speaking yet I was doing more than I could ever have.

Greatest experience so far. 

In love with myself...

I recently experienced a day which was unlike any of my recent days. It consisted in taking a day off to be on my own for no rhyme or reason. It was the best day that I spent with myself - the kind where I just traveled to see a place. No rush, no commitments but an open day to choose what ever came my way.

Every time I am in such a situation - I feel as if I am out of the system. It feels as if folks around me are the continuous fabric of a story and I am observing it from outside. 

On such days I do things I would normally not do.

And I fall in love with me on such days.

Blocked!

I am experiencing the worst form of torture, clad as a bout of common cold, that insists that my nose should be blocked at crucial hours.

What could be the most crucial time in a week? Sunday night, past midnight - officially Monday morning - those last sweet hours of freedom before crack of dawn.

Blocked nose demands that I should not sleep and give it company. My head is propped on three pillows trying to help my nasal tract to relax and breath. Yet no sign of relief. My eyes are half closed, trying to form the words in the keypad of my iPhone. And the nagging voice at the back of my head screaming that my morning is pretty much ruined at this point now. How will I make it to the night tomorrow? 

No sleep. Cannot sleep. 

I wish I could be free.