Universe's way of helping me

It appears like Medium, Google and Quora knows about my present situation, much better than I, myself. I keep getting article recommendation. Sometimes, the article appears like it was written for me, exclusively. I went through plenty of those, and it is one of the reason why I was able to bounce back to positive side of things.
One such article titled,

"Lessons from Voltaire on Finding Purpose in Life".

This had practical lessons to find purpose in life. How to go about after finding the purpose. The article talks nicely what not to do.

For example, the dangers of positive thinking without action - it is like just dreaming. Of course, positive thinking takes us out of depression, but later inaction will impact negatively much deeper.

Finally it ends by saying, Cultivate your garden, which is the best of the whole article.

Elsewhere I read, more and more such articles are published everyday because world is not longer a peaceful place as it used to be!!

Prejudice and judging

I generally have a prejudiced notion that all auto rickshaw drivers are rude. May be most of them are.
Few days ago, it was night and I was at Banashankari looking for a transportation to reach home. None of the app based modes available after trying for some time. Then and auto came, I asked if he will come to my area. There was a very soft touch in his voice when he asked if I can give Rs 20 extra on the meter. I couldn't say no, the manner in which the driver asked for it was extremely polite and there was no hint of demand at all.
I agreed and when we started, I generally started some conversation on the road conditions and general topic. The driver was so knowledgeable, he had studied in college, perhaps he had chosen this profession due to a lot of factors. There was no sign of arrogance in his driving or his talks. This incident made me rethink my prejudice about auto drivers and in general any type of people.
There are different types of people who have chosen a profession because of lot of constraints. We can't have a general opinion about a profession. Each individual is different.
I hope this incident brought out a slightly better version of myself.

Protecting my personal feelings

I made a mistake of posting my very personal feelings in this public blog. I poured all my feelings into this blog as it kind of relieved my mental load as I did not have time to setup another private blog suitable to capture my very personal feelings.
I will post only neutral information in my life here.
I have created a new home for all my personal journals which will be restricted for viewing.

Here is my new journal home : https://samayadagombe.wordpress.com

If you are interested in knowing my life more closely, you may want to send me a request by visiting above journal home.

Another sleepless night

It was another sleepless night yesterday. Though I had woken up at 5:30 and have been doing some work, had done Dance fitness in the evening, I was confident that I will sleep well. But for some reason, I woke up at around 12, couldn't close my eyes at all.
I watched Kabir Singh one more time on Netflix. It is strange that I was watching a Hindi movie twice and I had already watched Telugu version of the same. I got some messages from the movie, so mid night sleeplessness did not go in vain.
Kabir's dadi says there are 2 ways of parting. One where the person dies, and we somehow manage to convince the mind that it is impossible to bring the person back. The other is, we have to forget the person because he/she decided to move away. It is the second one that is very difficult to convince the mind. It is actually true. Suffering is personal, no one can feel it.
I don't know if I slept OK after watching the movie. Now I am alive and awake writing this. Hope this Sunday will not be wasted.

Improvement in recovery

I am almost back to normal now. The hauntings continue, but in small bursts and does not last longer. A lot of medium articles about happiness, how to get out of misery are helping the mind to be stable and lean towards positive thinking.
A good sign is, I am able to do 2 back to back workouts these days without fatiguing completely. After a strength workout, I am going for Dance fitness. My stamina is comparatively better during second workout compared to earlier.
Somewhere I read, "patch up or break up, don't go too low on your self esteem", which makes sense. But, what happens to life later is a haunting question, which I still have not found an answer. Most probably I might take the life as it comes.
One probable change that might help me is travel, I should take up solo travel to some tranquil places so the soul starts healing and accept the reality.
In spite of all these, I am still unable to figure out my fault in the whole scheme of things. In whatever angle I analyse, my actions were mere reactions to what happened, and at that time, I tried my best not to loose control. But still why this happened in my life is a big question. Did I expect too much? I don't know. Anyway, I can't blame anybody for what happened in my life, it is my life and I should figure a way to live it.
Signing off for yet another day...

Positive recovery

Today was better than yesterday. I could dance like crazy and sweat so much as I was literally drenched in sweat, yet was not so tired. That is a good feeling, shows my endurance is increasing. Thats a good sign for a fit body.
On my mental state, some of quora's posts, medium articles and interactions with friends are really helping me get over the past and focus on what I currently have in life. The very fact that I am writing this post shows, I am focussing my time and energy on things that matter.
Though I missed on guitar practice, I plan to spend some time tomorrow so that I am prepared for the weekend class.

The mantra is - "This too shall pass".

A mixed feeling day

Today was a day of mixed feelings. The feeling that I am going to miss a part of my life kept on lingering every moment. I tried suppressing this thought by bringing in a lot of positive thoughts. Interaction with friends helped get over the haunting thought.
Workout at Cult gave me a break for 2 hours. There was absolutely no thoughts during those two hours. I was dancing crazily though legs were paining. There is a wicked satisfaction in enduring this pain.
But I kept checking if there was a call or message. There is still a hope that things will get better, but that hope is diminishing by the days.
My life is going through interesting phase. Though I convince myself that I have accepted the worst case scenario, sometimes mind becomes weak and causes lot of confusion. It affects daily routines and I should consciously choose not to get distracted. I must work on controlling my mind and thoughts. May a bit more spirituality will help.

The Recurrence of that feeling

As the days pass, you are very confident of your role and purpose in life. You read good books, watch good movies and growing positive attitude towards life. You think you are going to conquer the world.
And, suddenly one day you wake up and feel you are lost, and your longing for that which was the primary reason for your existential crisis, increases. You can no longer focus on things, sleepless nights haunt you, you become very vulnerable. You have crossed over to the negative side.
This could be an opportunity to bounce back and gain higher amplitude on the positive side. But it is not an easy task, you will go through the suffering and same questions about purpose of your existence starts to haunt you.
You are afraid, life is not going to be same again. The eternal loneliness, the void, aimlessness - all these feelings hurt you to the core.
You become vulnerable and try to mend your broken heart and begin making peace with the same life that you once buried not to be re-opened. You beg, plead to go back to that life again, but somewhere you know it is not possible.

Then, slowly everything becomes clear, you make new conviction to live your life, and it is all over again. Sound mind in fit body becomes theme of life and future days will be happy and productive. But it doesn't happen just like that. You need a stimulus. This time, my stimulus was the book, "Be my perfect ending". When I started reading this book, some transformation took place and whatever I am feeling as missing in life became too small compared what I can achieve. So, I bounced back.

I am writing this so that if I ever get into the trap, I know this place will get me back to normal!

September "Fit body" updates

So far, I have lost 11kg in about 5.5 months.
Haven't been on any cycle rides. My walking goal was also not met in September.

The book - You are the best wife

This is a book I accidentally started reading without knowing that it was based on a true story. The whole story is very well written and I had my own imagination of Bhavna.
Like every tragedy story, the victim (in this case Ajay Pandey) faces existential crisis and starts asking fundamental questions like, what is the purpose of life? Why should I live? Should I earn? etc... (Can I relate to my earlier post? May be!)
But the way author has recovered from the terrible loss and his struggle to find the purpose to live, to live for others is really inspirational.
After finishing this book, I started asking questions like why do we love someone so much? When we know the absolute truth in life is death, why do we have desires, love, hate, anger and all the complex emotions that lead to mostly misery. I hope I will find my answers one day....
I feel this post is quite shallow and I have not been able to articulate my thoughts justifiably.

My fight with Existential crisis

I am sure at some point in time, everyone faces one or more of these questions

• What is the purpose of my life?
• Why should I exist?
• Who is going to remember me when I am gone?
• How should anyone remember me as, when I am no more?
• Does anyone know/care that I exist?
• Why should I achieve anything at all in life?

and so on....
When faced one or more of above questions, you are dealing with "Existential Crisis". (Actually, I did not know that it is a general term even when I chose the title of this post!!)

Since, I am writing this post, it is very clear that I am currently facing Existential crisis. If I think deeply, I know I will get into depression. So, without giving into the easy ways, let me document my ways of fighting with it. Although, I had my own downtime of couple of weeks.
The solution is simple - "A sound mind in a fit body".

How to achieve a fit body - Simple Join a gym. I was so lucky, I should thank my cousin Ganesha who introduced me to Cult.fit. It is changing my life beyond I could imagine. As of today, I have lost 10kg of weight in 5 months. I am actually in a jolly good mood now.
I enjoy weight and strength exercise, dancing, boxing and prowl.

• Cover at least 100km of bicycle ride each month.
• Walk at least 30km each month.

To keep track of my resolutions, I must keep posting my progress every month here. I am doing it for myself, so no cheating here :)
So, I tackled my "Fit body" problem.

Then comes to tough one - the sound mind. Mind is something that is extremely volatile. There is no limit to the train of thoughts that pass through the mind. Most of the times, I wonder how I ended up with a particular thought. The train is lost! It is extremely difficult to keep the mind from wavering around. It steals away sleep. No matter how much tired the body is, if the mind does not stop its activity, it is a sleepless night. I had my quota of sleep deprivation. My overall productivity hit the bottom. I had to do something to stay relevant in the universe. Thats where I went to my friends for help. And below are my resolutions to take the flaky mind to a sound one.

• Read lot of books - Starting with "Travel gods must be crazy"
• Learn a new language - Spanish
• Learn a new skill - Learning guitar since 3 weeks.
• Regular journal of my activities (hence this post!)
• Master a technology - Machine Learning and AI
• Give the world, something it needs, free of cost - Teach somethings I am good at. This is still being shaped.

Wow, so many things to achieve in one short life, what I am waiting for.... Hey, world here I come!

Actually writing this post itself is bringing a lot of positive impact.

Recent movies about intense love

After almost more than a decade, I watched a Telugu movie, Dear Comrade. I watched it because I loved the Kannada version of the song - "Kadalante kaada kannu". It is kind of crazy, liked the Kannada song and watched the Telugu movie. But that is not the point.

The movie was quite refreshing. I don't want to go over the story line, but want to document my take on 'love', the intense version of it.

Another movie is Kabir Singh. I didn't know its original is Arjun Reddy, until a friend told me. I watched this movie after falling in love with its songs.

In both the movies, the boy and girl love each other intensely. Both movies deliberately ignore the details or the reason for their intense love. It is just given. Once we fall in love, we can't find reasons for it. The suffering after break up, is so intense and painful. Both the girl and the boy go through it. The more you love, the more you suffer due to break-up. The suffering just increases, because both love each other, and both think they are correct. Their reason is not selfishness, not to inflict pain in other, not hatred for someone, not misunderstanding, but it is pure love for one another. Both are ready to sacrifice anything, both love each other, but something keeps them apart. That is the strangeness of love. Somethings can't be explained at all. 

Perhaps a quite introspection could have helped, but things suddenly go out of hand due to aggression and anger. In both movies, it is shown that more suffering makes the love more intense. Not sure if that is the case in real life.

I started this post to express something, but I failed due to lack of words. Perhaps that is love, you can't express in words, you have to feel it. Finally it is love that wins over everything in the world.

A sound mind and productivity

A sound mind can do miracles. Even though it is very apparent, I failed to record the earlier episodes in my journal.

We all go through ups and downs in our life continuously, of course, that is life. When we face situations where we can not make decisions because we think whatever we decide is going to alter the course of our life. Actually the random events change the life more often.
The mind keeps weighing various options and starts projecting how each decision is going to affect the future. In this phase of life, the productivity is at its lowest. Because the mind is occupied with analysis of endless combination of inputs, decision and outcomes, we ignore to notice apparently obvious things.
At this point, friends play an important role. They provide perspectives that our mind is not capable of, due to its preoccupied thoughts. If things lead to depression, expert consultation helps.
But in my case, most of the times, I come out of this phase eventually (of course after couple of sleepless nights and some tragedy movies!), and voila, things become quite clear. I wonder, why was I not able to think this way.

Once the mind is on a high tide, we miraculously achieve many things, solve problems. I wonder how many people on this earth are fighting their own war. What if everyone makes peace with mind and become productive. We can make earth a much better place!!

I stumbled upon a Medium article about how to stop thinking. I liked these lines from it - No matter how much you want to achieve in the future, and no matter how much you’ve suffered in the past, appreciate that you are alive now.

Love Actually!!

From past couple of days, I had been wanting to watch this movie "Love Actually" for the reasons that are only known to me. It is movie that revolves around various classes of people include a British Prime ministers to C grade movie artists to already married man to an adolescent boy - All in search of love. Of course most of these themes are westernised and takes some effort to see them in Indian context.
When I was randomly browsing on Zee 5 app, I stumbled upon this Kannada movie, Happy New Year. I very much liked a song from this movie, apart from this I had no clue that it is influenced by Love Actually! Of course all themes are completely Indian.
Love is such an amazing experience, feeling or emotion which is impossible to express in words. I don't think it is mere longing for someone, it is such a profound concept, various artists have written very touching dialogs about love.
My favorite is - "True love is putting someone else before yourself, even if it means not being happy" from movie Frozen.
Yes true love is doing everything to make that person happy, even if it pains you. Here, the domain of love includes parents, kids, your true love, anybody you care for.

The movie Happy New Year depicts how each one of them, people from various rungs of life, find their love. One finds it by fulfilling her last wish on her death bed, one finds it in searching for her, a father, when his daughter and wife understands him, when a rowdy finds it is a foreign lady though he doesn't understand her language and so on... The movie managed to make my eyes moist, the song "Preethiya Hesaru Neenu" will keep filling my heart for a lasting time...

A story and music have so much power to fill an empty heart and to keep the person going. It was a well spent Sunday. A Sunday best lived!!

Some Vague thoughts

This post contains some of my random and raw thoughts, learnings, explorations, confusions on life...

Of late, Satya and I are discussing some of the next level stuff about life and existence. What is our purpose here, why do we have certain desires, how to control our minds, what is next?

Often times, I have failed to understand the meaning of 'Self' or the 'the soul'. I follow Swamy Sarvapriyananda's discourses on Youtube. I do understand to a certain extent but I feel there are gaps in my understanding.
Swamyji says meditation is the key to control the mind. We carefully prepare our food so that the stomach does not get upset from what we eat.
We don't just take a morsel of junk and put it inside our mouth. But we do exactly that with our minds. We take in things from the world indiscriminately and dump things into the mind until it becomes a mental dumpster. Through the cyclic process, these become part of subconscious mind. We don't have direct access to this part of mind.
I will write more as and when I get some more insights.

A random act can change someone's life forever

A random act of someone can change one's life forever. Changes can be positive and negative. Those resulting in positive changes are often selfless acts and we often forget to recognise.

Around March of 2019, my mental and physical state had reached its worst. My body weight had crossed 3 digit figure in kilo grams. I stopped evening walks, had very few clothes that fit my obese body. Could not sleep during nights. Was losing concentration at work. As a result of all these, I was losing confidence in myself. A trek to Bear mountain in March shook all of my confidence. I was struggling for breath after climbing one floor. I hope that was my worst ever possible state - mentally and physically. I believe I was on the verge of depression.

Yet, I was not doing anything. This is when my cousin Ganesha gave me a 7 day free pass to cult.fit fitness center. At this point I did not have a slightest idea that it is going to change my life forever.
Though he had been going there for several months, he had not pushed me to join. Madhu and I visited the JP Nagar 7th phase cult.fit center. The manager was nice and explained how things work. I signed up for free classes, then bought annual subscription, and the rest is history.

Now, I am regular at cult.fit and manage to do 2 sessions some days. This opened avenues to express myself. All my inhibitions were shattered, that dance move I had been suppressing for years, burning the flab that was always coming in my way, it is an awesome feeling at the end of the day.
In 4 months, I have lost 8kg of body weight, I easily fit into old clothes. Last week, I walked 15km at Turahalli forest, yesterday's 63+km friendship day bicycle ride is boosting a lot of confidence in me.

I must thank Ganesha for being the reason to change my life forever. Another lesson I learnt is, I should also always try to influence others for their well being - it doesn't matter if they follow, but my duty is to help.

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

I don't know why I hadn't watched this movie so long. I kind of had an idea about the message the movie might convey, but for some reason avoided watching it. It was last Saturday (3rd August) that I eventually watched it.

Oh boy, I think it was my destiny to not have watched this movie so long and finally to watch now. It had profound effect on me, given my situation and mental state. I think there could not have been better timing. For sure it is going to have some change in my life (however small it may be)

I think most people can relate to many characters in this movie or have been through those situations. What stumped me are the dialogs, the movie has excellent, punching dialogs. Somewhere it felt like the script writer has stolen few dialogs from my life!! I would like to mention one here.

Sieze the day my friend.... pehle is din ko poori tarah jeyo, phir chalis ke bare mein sochna - Laila
So true, isn't it? Sometimes we miss living today worrying about future. So my version of this is - "Sieze the day, because you never know if you are going to wake up tomorrow"

So go ahead, do the things that you are always postponing - strum those strings that you always wanted to on that guitar, play those keys on the keyboard, sing from your heart, dance like you are crazy, write those lines.... don't let someone else spoil the day, because it is your day, you have to make best of it.

There was a plan of bicycle ride with my buddies Sridhar and Karthik on Sunday. The movie elevated my spirits for this ride. And it was friendship day too... what more could I ask for, it was one of the best days of my life. I hope this new found spirit will be part of me until my end.

My friend Satya said, "Shashi, the purpose of our existence is to express, not for survival". This too had great impact on me. May be it deserves another post.

Until then, Yay, life! Express yourself, it is your life, you have to live it.

Hello journal!

I think it is time I resumed my journals and upgraded the infrastructure that hosts it. I will be back very soon.