Category: Myself

Food For Thought, Myself, Random, Ziba

Thoughts For Food

Sanjay Sabarwal
A penny for your thoughts...Dollars for your t...
A penny for your thoughts…Dollars for your thoughts – NARA – 513735 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I have been doing the Daily Food For Thought for Ziba Beauty for almost 5 years, and I happened to read some of the old ones.  I realized that at first they started out as long one page inspirational stories that I scoured for on other sites. But now they are one liners mostly for quick digestion.  My world is slowly turning from one based on thought and reflection to easy consumption. We no longer seem to have the patience for learning through patience.  We seem to want our inspiration in 140 characters or less. As the messages get shorter and shorter, I wonder how much meaning is being retained?  Perhaps we are distilling it down to the essence of thought, yet truthfully for me, I miss the days of reading the whole story.

 

We are in the middle of a generation the prefers texting to talking. Leaving voice-mails seems old fashioned or just work related.  We no longer seem to feel the need to buy a CD or buy digital based entertainment.  The value of creativity based on words seems to be sinking.  I now have officially entered into the realm of the good old days.”  None of this change is bad. In fact, I love the ease and convenience of getting to music and ideas that I never could before. And there lies the lesson. It’s not really about the message or the shape or form of it. Its how you interact with it, what it does for you.  Someone who does not want to change will simply ignore a long or a short message.

 

That’s hard for me to swallow. I am a fixer. I want to fix everyone and everything. i know that is foolish and ultimately a waste of time. People will not change unless they are ready to. No matter how often I forward inspirational quotes, messages or texts, nothing will get through until they are ready to make a change in their lives. It’s hard to see people jumping over a cliff or harming themselves needlessly but as the quote goes, “until you get lost, you won’t find new ways.” Anonymous.

Touche.

 

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Brownness, Myself, Random

Choices

Sanjay Sabarwal
choice and context
choice and context (Photo credit: Will Lion)

I don’t always do the right thing. I realize that we each face moments every single day of our lives where we have a choice to do the right thing.  We could eat better. We could exercise. We could be better friends, lovers, and the list goes on and one. I know those are choices yet somehow as I get older, I find some choices easier to make than others. There are days I just don’t feel like eating or exercising right, but with people its different. I see now that if I choose wrong then there are consequences. When I choose to ignore my friend’s need to be heard, I take a little piece out of our friendship away. When I say a not very nice thing to a family or a partner, I cut into their trust and love for me.

Choices run my world. And I am lately seeing a pattern that I am not liking about myself. I am less friendly. I make unkind remarks off the cuff. I am not the Sanjay that many have known me for many years.  The only explanation I have is that my recent surgery have made me less certain of who I am. Whats the point of eating and exercise if I still had to get brain surgery? What’s the point of being patient when I see other make the silliest mistakes?  How can I stop loved ones from continuing on the wrong path?  Why are some people continually on the path of getting hurt when all they have to do is step back? On and on in my head, I see so much wrong, and I want to fix it all, but I cannot.

I forgot that it is a choice we make when we are around others. We cannot make others do what we want them to do. Intellectually, I know that but emotionally  I have lost patience. I no longer want to let others be, yet that is not something I should be involved in. I try to remind myself of that everyday.  I know I have to choose the right thing, yet more often than not I am struggling to do that. What was an innate part of my personality is something now I have to struggle to do.  I also know that is my personal battle. I cannot control anything or anyone except myself.

I have to choose to be me even though lately that is the hardest thing to be.

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Small Details

Sanjay Sabarwal
Image representing hulu as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

It’s the small details in life that make up so much of our lives. I saw that yesterday when I finally got my Hulu Plus subscription. Netflix had spoiled us with 8 seasons of Greys Anatomy that we rammed through in 6 week, but put us on edge when we realized that we were missing the current season. I had my great friend Sandeep Kumar gamely burn me a DVD but for some reason it didn’t work. Then one of my cousins recommended Roku and another Hulu Plus, and it suddenly dawned on me that somewhere along the lines, I had fallen behind. I no longer kept up on the current news or the latest TV shows, or for that matter anything remotely entertainment related. Somewhere, I lost the desire to buy the latest technology or watch the hottest show, and although I thought I was better for it. I lost a bit of myself.  Small details that chipped away at me where suddenly now I am flipping through channel with no idea on what to watch.

Yet, I have always had help around me. I just don’t ask for it very often. Or at all.  Small details that I consistently fail to notice. My big-hearted cousin helped set up my Apple TV which has grown dust on it since I bought it last year ( I still love my old Apple TV, that thing is a beast!), and suddenly we have a whole new world open up to us, and it hits me that I always seem to fail to call the ones who have never hesitated to help me.  It never even occurred to them to expect a thank you from me, and that made me realize that I have allowed too many small details to pass me by.

I have never been alone, yet I constantly choose to fight some battles alone.  It’s not about TV or HULU or for that matter entertainment, it’s the idea that I am surrounded by loved ones who reach out in a second, and yet I still hesitate to ask for help.  I just wanted to say thank you.  Small details …

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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. 

 

 

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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)

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No Words

Sanjay Sabarwal
English: Man with a turban, Bhopal, India. Fra...
English: Man with a turban, Bhopal, India. Français : Homme avec un turban, Bhopal, Inde. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

.

The music fills the room and my soul. Silence is my best friend while I pray for the music to enter me. I wait for inspiration. Nothing. Silence. I keep waiting.

No words come to mind.  I am blank.  The heart is too full of hurt and regret to allow anything out to anyone.  Time passes. The coffee cools.  Outside, I see a few old couples power walking.  Usually one is ahead of the other.  What is it about doing things as a race?  But that’s not true either. I know that’s my perception. My need to compete with anything. Always me. The “I” never lets go.  Me. Me. Me.

I notice the old man.  I have been seeing him for years. He is an old turbaned Indian, clean shaven, riding a bicycle.  Slowly. Methodically. Sometimes he is a carrying a child but mostly he is alone, chugging along. I often wonder who he is,  but really the main question I have for him is: Why the turban?  I want to ask “Are you from a village” or “Are you a Sikh who does not believe in keeping the hair?”  Where are you going, my friend?  Do you realize you have become a staple in my life?  A quiet one.  Someone who seems to ride by me whenever I am struggling with who I am.  You are a sign, but I just don’t know about what.  I watch you slowly go by me, and I am tempted to run out and stop you and ask “who are you, my friend?”  Yet, I know how crazy that is. s

So I sit here, watching you go by while the coffee has gone cold, and the words still seem to be eluding me.  Silence. The music keeps playing…

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