Day 5- Revisiting Laws of the Land

  I remember reading about Murphy's laws in the column of a magazine that a dear friend subscribed for me as a gift! This said subscription opened a new window into my small town girl world. There weren't computers readily available, the world wasn't connected through smart phones and social apps. The column used to be on the last page and I, Keeping up the tradition of doing things my own way, used to flip the last page first to get a fix of these fun tidbits. When I look back at my teen self, I do a lot of discoveries about how I was. One thing that alarmingly stands out is how neutral I was to everything I experienced...So did I marvel at the word play of Murphy's laws or did I believe in them? With massive resonance I can say that it was the former.

This exercise of writing a 1000 words a day started off with hopes that I'd keep my bigger writing goals in focus. Talking about them explicitly might not do me any more good than I am already doing by procrastinating the said 'bigger writing goals' so we'll leave it at that :) Now back to the 1000 words (give or take) on hand - so yesterday as I was browsing through the grocery isles and running my errands, a sudden epiphany of sorts struck me. I have to gently bring into focus that whether I commit my thoughts to a paper or a blog or not, I do have a lot of thoughts that cross my mind - yeah, the chronic thinker thingie - but let me not digress to the 'thoughtless' zen state I oh so sincerely want to achieve and stick to the epiphany and write about it. That might not end up very ironically - imagine writing about silence in a unnecessary elaboration! Unsilencing the silence. LOL and what a plot hole that would be?

Back to the point now - "Any thing can go wrong at any time" the Murphy's law marinating in my conscious memory sprung up to the conscious present of my grey matter. What followed was an aha moment and a smile. The knowing smile that blooms over one's face when one knows what to write about and is sure that there's no 'block' blocking the self imposed daily exercise. Notwithstanding, I did dodge the 1000 words last night...what I did though, was this. I opened my blog and started writing and promised myself that I'd revisit it and complete it before the day. Which I didn't do. I have spilled my putting off bug into the third day of February but I did log back in as you would see momentarily ;)

Okay, gingerly back to the point - I thought of this - what if we have to rewrite Murphy's laws? I did start a mental rewrite of one law and that's what started this whole banter.

"Anything can go right at anytime" - I'll do a little punning here "Anything can go write at anytime" (I didn't think of the pun when I thought of the rewrite though! Note to self - It pays to keep up a commitment that doesn't need to be kept!) So back to why this thought occured to me - DId I kind of say I was / am always neutral to life? I did right? and I am right! But just for argument sake, what if I chose to be polarly positive - I think I do look for the best in everything - probably a little too much, which explains the non ambition I exercise in my day to day life! A little stupor becomes a lot of stupor..that kind of thing :)And the best of the worst case scenario is that I justify it and how. Put all the weight on being content, sell the horses and sleep! (That's an adage in my native tongue, to indicate deep slumber. I thought why not translate it to add a few words to my count? Zeez, I Know. Talk about the desperations of life. 

But talking about life or about the laws, I did realize one thing. It is all what we choose to look at no matter what lies in front of us. We don't really need to allow Physics, Chemistry or Murphy to define that for us - but I do suggest not to jump off the cliff just because we defy Physics. Common sense, we shouldn't probably defy - but none the less we can write our own laws and live it up with a gentle tread, on the planet, on the people and more importantly on the self - our own self that is!

Tomorrow if I am short of ideas, I might mince a few words to make the counter move - but who is counting? Or may be I should ask the more pressing question - who is writing? 

Wait...Let me rephrase that - Who is reading?

That put things into perspective. And my writing and its necessity isn't contingent on the last question. It is imperative to keep commitments that are not needed to be kept. It is imperative to stop and scan at a broken signal - somewhat in the same way! And the best part is anything can go right at anytime. Or write! Suit yourself :)

Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels

Day 4 - What happened to day Two?

What if Sunshine is your best friend? The potency of the crux of solar system questioned you about your location - If it is the Earth days that you go by or something else, if you had relocated to somewhere out of this green globe? What if you, in an attempt to dodge the confrontation said - How about Jupiter or Neptune? Only to know that moving to any of these would  make your attempt to escape even more silly? And Sunshine himself comes back and says - "Neither would justify - Their days are shorter than here!" And you have your Oops moment, not just because you flaked out on something you said you'd do, but also because your knowledge of Planetary science is equally questionable. Tch, tch, tch!

Then, this is what you do. You promptly open your laptop, log into your blog and stare at it like a lost child, not knowing what to do, up until you use the very nudge that prompted you to keep at a commitment you oh so proudly, metaphorically and poetically proclaimed to world wide brethren.

It isn't easy, this discipline thing, and I say this, despite claiming that writing is the most enjoyable job I appoint myself with and words are my best friends. And the actual reason of writing a 1000 words in here is an attempt to write several thousand words elsewhere - no prizes for guessing how filled up with words the elsewhere is by the way!

Truth be told, and in my defence, I did log into the blog on day two and day 3 - and even thought up of the ponders and uploaded my customary images - but then I don't remember what sidelined me - It was life perhaps, by and large, or it was laze. One of these - mostly life I want to say, though in heart of hearts I know this is open for argument. I come up with all excuses, like a textbook loser - I am working two jobs lately, IT employee by day and Movie buff by night - well, to be honest, this movie buff thingie has more to it than parking my backside on a couch with a bucket of popcorn but that we'll save for another day, or we'll just let it be. The point here is that I have a jam-packed day. How am I to make writing 1000 words a priority? And let's not forget the laundry, the uber duty and the three meals a day routine added to the corporate slave repertoire. Where were we at - again? Ah yes. Excuses.

While we are at excuses, I have to confess, that my life in the past five years had been a series of excuses forged carefully to  dodge all accountability to myself. It probably qualifies as a art form - this whole carefully curated package of excuses and procrastination generously sprinkled with stupor and candor about all that stupor. Only the other day when the numerical 2022 peered at me through my smartphone screen calendar, it suddenly struck me that half my life is most certainly over - and another half, I am not even sure of having. Shouldn't this realization change something in you or about you if it had to have the effect it had to have? Did I hear a yes? Right??

So the Monarch ordered something and no wonder he has filled up his book shelf with manuscripts he authored himself - and me the mere mortal wanting to be the Monarch is wasting away a limited, endangered resource, which happens to be time in general and life in specific.

Now, I make a vow yet again (do I hear a faint murmur from somewhere that vows are made to be broken? Ah..nevah mind. The great Saint Ramana Maharshi said that we'd all do what we are born to do - so I put the responsibility of me writing on the likes of Sunshine (Remember? I talked about him while we started off on this blog, he is the very reason I am here, punching in these keys) and on destiny and the path I am born to tread.

On retrospect, I do need to give myself some sort of credit - after all, the soul with the attention span of  a two year old, kept this blah alive for 18 years (and hopefully counting)

So back to the Monarch I go, to his discourse the course of my life adheres to.

And no, that isn't a vow.

By the order of the Monarch - Day 1

Monarch could be King right? Albeit a milder version of the magnanimity. How does monikers matter anyway - when metaphors rule the roost. So let me call him the King. And let me tell you what the King ordered.

Do I really diss numbers? Or do I do it just use dissing as pretext to go into a mental stupor? Oh yeah, that gets me to my non-ambitious spirit but I should not digress and go back to King's order. But I'll tell you why I brought up numbers in the first place. Or this particular number. 1000. Yea, One thousand. Sounds like a sentence by itself doesn't it? And somehow this number had been haunting me for the past few days. "A journey of a thousand miles" some podcast highlighted it - in a rhetoric fashion of course, but it still was a journey none the less...and then when I landed myself in search of inspiration, I ended up face to face with the King himself. 

The king's ransom, if I might call it that - or the treasury wasn't open for me as yet. There's a price for admission and I need to pay it. But while I hovered around the gates to be let in, I caught whiffs of his wisdom. And from those whiffs emerged the number 1000. As metaphor in my mother tongue, I had to struggle to take the number literally and converted it into my currency. One thousand words I was to pen.. Or in this case, key in. How does the medium matter much anyway? I just attend to what was prescribed and I dust the blog and type away. 

In the process of penning a thousand words, I did some soul searching. You know where it started? Right around the block. The writer's block that is. And then I made a discovery of sorts. I had, all these years, used my creativity (If I an call it that myself) as a companion. I didn't really explore its potential as an expression. That's probably the reason why I leave it alone intermittently when life comes in the way and I prioritize cooking three hot meals a day over writing a thousand words, or even a dozen. I might not be a creature of ambition but I most certainly am a creature of duty. When my duties keep my company, I send my creativity to the attic, stacked alongside of the Christmas decorations that are dusted once a year. I resolved that it has to change. Why? Because I realized half my life is probably over, and I have no clue if there is another half. It could just be a quarter or less. Or more. No clue. What I have now is what I have. A moment at a time and I resolve to write a word per moment. 

I am not good at keeping promises I make to myself. I always falter. Am I not reliable? Of course I am. I just don't hold myself answerable to myself and that's a huge huge plot hole. In fact, it is a crater, a black hole perhaps, that sucks life and spits out nothing. Not the metaphorical nothing. No, not that. But actual nothing, the zero, zilch nothing. But you know what, no matter how I look at nothing, I see an epiphany. So let's leave nothing to nothing and go on the journey of a thousand words - if only metaphorically.

That's what the King ordered. I am not ruled by him. Heck, I don't even know a sliver of where he rules or how he does it. I know he is King. For now, that knowledge is enough. So would you be my witness to this odyssey of a rise, or a fall? Who knows what's to come? But a moment at a time, a word per moment, just one word!

I don't want to wait until Christmas to dust my mojo. It's a long way away - or it might appear before I blink a few times. Any which way, the mojo is unloaded, unpacked and would unfold....

By the order of the Monarch, the caterpillar lazes and grazes on the milkweed. Amen.

 Photo by Charles Haacker from Pexels

Newness

 I start off with a misnomer

I should have called it Oldness

I was supposed to write

Was I born to yield or fight?

And was I to express, to muse?

Or in the silence, I was bound to myself amuse!

I lounge by in sunshine

Counting my confetti poppers

Those need to be launched, to be released

To honor a life that can't be accounted

So to the oldness I bow

For letting me linger around a little more somehow

In a blink and miss matrix..

I was supposed to write

I wasn't supposed to yield, I was bound to fight

The flight of nothing I shun for now

And muse on a misnomer - like I mentioned above!

Newness is oldness with an identity crisis

I hope not!