Month: April 2013

Food For Thought, Random

Boston

Sanjay Sabarwal
THINK
THINK (Photo credit: Erik Eckel)

I will be honest. I only know that 3 have been killed, and 147 injured. I have heard that from NPR, and have actively avoided watching TV.  I have briefly glanced at Facebook statuses which either express horror, or underscore people’s own insecurity. Muslim?  Then you go on a rant for people to be open-minded and wait for the person to be caught before blaming.  White? Silence. Because the reality is if it’s a minority, we will put you in a box. We will launch missiles, but if you are white, we will just call you mental and ask for gun control.  These types of events are so loaded that many of us struggle not to say anything that compartmentalized or sounds vaguely racist or xenophobic.And others feel free to spew their vision of the world. But as humans, that’s what we do to survive. It does not make it right, it just is.

So before we go balls to the walls on our social media networks announcing what we think, perhaps just for a moment take some time and think about those lost, and perhaps forever maimed mentally. Give a breath and a prayer to the ones who will never get to see another day.  These type of tragedies make me realize how truly alone we have become.  We only listen to like minds, and have no interest in knowing the Truth.  Whatever fits into our narrow scope of thoughts has to be the truth.  I realize that past experience forms our present prejudices, but it also allows us not to think anymore. We, as humans, can do better than that.  We owe it to ourselves to not let emotion run us all the time.  Yes, the person(s) intended to create terror, but their real win will happen when we become less tolerant, and more willing to let others do the thinking and actions for us.  We can do better than that.

We have to.

Related articles
Myself, Random

Clutter

Sanjay Sabarwal
Clutter Nutters
Clutter Nutters (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Clutter. All around I see piles of clutter.  First, and always the mental.  The master To DO list that never seems to go down.  My creativity at adding all my thoughts onto a piece of paper does provide some relief, yet some items just languish there for ages.  It’s as if I hope time’s dust will bury them, and I won’t have to do them.  There are several I have been avoiding for a long time.  I know donating old clothes from my overflowing closet would relieve me, yet I hesitate to go there.  I realize that my library needs to be organized, and I need some breathing room in my work space.  Currently. I am typing gently so as not to disturb the stacks of the books I have placed all around me so they don’t fall on me. Yeah, the height of irony, me buried under words.  Everywhere. I see clutter in my life.  Words fill inside me, and I don’t make room for new ones, instead I push them down under more unsaid words and actions. 

 

Behind me, I sense my pacing dog who anxiously, but patiently, waits for me to take her on her daily walk. Back and forth, I heard the skitter of her feet.  Each day is a choice of actions.  Each day. I can remove or reduce the clutter or I can take care of some other pressing problem.  As I type this. I wonder if I should take the garbage cans in first or ensure Bella can get her morning walk in.  Each clear moment has become about decisions that make my day. I resist the pathological need to check my Facebook account or the FML website. Each passing minute, I make decisions that create my day for me.  And so lies the dust in my life. Some days, the dust seems to far spread that I don’t even feel like trying.  Then there are the other days where I begin to pick up something, and the whole weight of what lies ahead feels so suffocating that I rather just aimlessly roam over Spotify and keep creating playlists.

 

Each moment is a decision, and some days are just spent in whimsical searching of my past. The To Do list glares at me, and it becomes part of the clutter in my life.  Each time I glance at it, the enormity of it just gets to me. It has gotten so bad that I have been put taking my meds as part of my life.  I am drowning myself in to do items, and it hits me that I have cluttered thinking as well. So the past weeks, I have been doing Morning Pages from The Artist’s Way, and suddenly even the smallest thoughts are written, and I begin to see patterns.  Sadness and anger and regret at the thing I needed or wanted them to be. So much regret, so much longing for how I want things to be.  So I put the thoughts down on paper, and suddenly I feel a bit lighter. The clutter no longer seems suffocating. 

 

I move the books, and the words are no longer threatening to bury me.  One day at a time.  One thing at a time. 

 

 

Related articles

 

 

Brownness

Food For Thought For Monday, April 15th, 2013

Sanjay Sabarwal
Happy Tax Day!

I'm proud to pay taxes in the United States; the only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money.
Arthur Godfrey

My Past, Myself, Random, Ziba

Music

Sanjay Sabarwal
Anokha – Soundz of the Asian Underground
Anokha – Soundz of the Asian Underground (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

These past few weeks, I have started to delve into my playlists again, and realized that I have become stagnant.  Each playlist is a compilation of the same songs as well some new albums that I thought were interesting.  My playlists are the height of my laziness. I no longer hand-pick the songs. Instead, I am content believing others that this is relevant music.  Worse, I have even tried to convince myself, yet the playlists have become dustbins of music that I wish I liked but don’t really.  Just like me to rationalize that all recommended music is something I want to listen to.

Are they all bad?  Of course not! It’s my lack of willingness to sit through music so I can fall in love with it. Instead, I rather cursorily go through it, and added them nonchalantly.  So there the music has languished and so has my willingness to engage with it. In the process, I completely stopped listening to music.  Period.  I didn’t quite miss it till much recently as I began writing. I felt something was missing.  Music has always been my soundtrack, the thing in the back that goads me to keep punching these keys. It takes me on flights of fancies, and remembrances. Listening to some of the original playlists, I see how each track meant something to me, a bookmark for a particular person, time, or event.  Some had instrumentation that shook me like A.R Rahman‘s theme music for the movie “Bombay” while others like Talvin Singh‘s “Jaan” featuring the ethereal voice of Amar hit into my soul.  Each song had personal meaning or connection.  They were friends.  They were there when I needed them.  Yet. I had abandoned them so thoughtlessly. So now I am back on Spotify, You Tube, Podcasts, looking for music that will feed me.  That will make me dance across this page, keep me sustained as well as entertained.

A tad romanticized? Of course, what would music be if we didn’t add our own meaning to it?

Jaan By Talvin Singh Featuring Amar

Kehnde Ne Naina- Devika (Reshma Cover)

Related articles
Brownness

Food For Thought For Wednesday, April 10th, 2013

Sanjay Sabarwal

Take calculated risks.
That is quite different from being rash.
George S. Patton

Brownness

Food For Thought For Tuesday, April 9th, 2013

Sanjay Sabarwal
Good morning team, I would like you know that if any of you have any concerns or questions that you wish to address about work, but dont know who or how to ask, then please feel free to email or call me at (562) 881-7197. 

Also, I would love for you to submit any food for thoughts, quotes or short stories that inspire you. 

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.
Aristotle