Random Musings on a Sunny Sunday!

It has often been seen that once you are out of habit of something, when you get back to that act, it seems that you are starting from scratch again. All the momentum that had built up has gone. It takes considerable effort, discipline and consistency to come back to the same level.

Writing also follows a similar philosophy. Nowadays, when I pick up the pen and tend to write for a little more than a few paragraphs, my palm and fingers start aching as I have lost the practice of writing for hours and filling copious amounts of paper. The world of technology, where everything is on my fingertips has had such an effect that now the fingers that grip the pen ache whereas the fingers that tap the keys feel very normal about it. 

Now when I extrapolate and extend this philosophy to blogging, it seems very similar. Coming back to put down a blog after months and it seems like a tedious job. The mind doesn’t know what to write on, where to begin, how to keep the flow going, how to connect the various pieces. This is despite the fact that thoughts come to my mind at regular intervals of what can be the next interesting topic to blog on. The problem is that these thoughts do not come when I have the resources – my laptop and time for a blog, but rather they strike me at the most unexpected and unprepared places. These thoughts will occur to me when I am trying to concentrate on my run, or when I am trying to pay attention to the speaker in a meeting, or when I am enjoying the cold shower in the hot summer of Delhi or when I am counting the number of red lights that I am encountering on a day when I am supposed to be at a place at a certain time and I am already running late for that. It seems that these thoughts have an evil mind of their own and they just want to tease me and titillate me but they have no intentions to let me enjoy them when I am waiting for them! 

Maybe, here is an opportunity for some brave and bold entrepreneurs as well as scientists to work on a technology that allows thoughts to get converted into meaningful ideas or blogs as and when they strike us so that a lot that has popped in the head comes out in the open for the world to witness, see and read! If anyone puts up a technology like this on kickstarter, I will be one of the first ones to put my money behind their venture as I know that not only will it help me immensely, but it will also be a winner in this crazy, chaotic world.

If I have still been able to hold your attention and if you have reached till here in the blog expecting some more nuggets or gems from me, let me burst your bubble right here and tell you that this blog is nothing less than a random musing on a sunny Sunday, where just like the rains that are being a spoilsport by not making an appearance, a similar conspiracy has been hatched by my thoughts as well. 

So till the time my thoughts do not show some empathy and kindness towards me, you – my reader friend will have to do with this blog that just speculates of what could have been, had my thoughts not deserted me. 

IF THIS WAS THE LAST BLOG FROM ME

When I start tapping the keys on my keyboard to write a blog, there is always a topic I want to talk about and share my views about. But today, it is different as the idea was to blog again after a long time but there was no topic to talk about. 

I kept thinking and trying to recall all those topics that had popped up in my head while driving or working or travelling, hoping that since they popped up from the head, they would remain there. But realization happened today, when none of those topics that vie for my share of mind came out today while I was struggling to write something. Seemed like they were enjoying this game of Hide and Seek with me. 

So finally giving up on that, I suddenly remembered that sometime back, someone who reads my blogs had asked me to write a blog with the assumption that it would be the last blog from me. Now that is an extremely interesting, complex and difficult thought to write on. But then therein lies the fun of putting something together on such a topic. 

If this would have been the last blog from me, chances are that I would have said all that I wanted to ever tell to the world and nothing more would be left for me to say. Something like that could only happen when one’s mind stops processing as the human brain will always have ideas, thoughts, opinions till the time it is active and the person is alive. 

The other reason this may be the last blog could be that this phenomenon and magical world called the Internet would be coming to an end and hence rather than choosing to put forward my last blog, I may be forced to end my blogs with one last blog. In that case, my last blog would actually be an amalgamation of so many blogs or rather thoughts of what I still intend to say and put forward to all of you. 

My last blog would probably cover various genres – fiction, poetry, philosophy, humor, observations of life and the world. But then who knows that a mixture of so many things would appear so gibberish to people that they might say themselves “I am glad that he decided to end his blogs. He had stopped making any sense!” 

Now before that happens and I leave you guys confused, I would like to bring a conclusion to this blog. 

But then, there is another thought that strikes me as I come to an end of this blog. Chances are that when I would be putting my last blog, I may not even know that this is going to be my last blog and hence some of the things that I have said above may actually not even appear in that blog. 

In fact, one thing is for sure. If it were my last blog, the headline of the blog would not be the same. After all, there is no reason for an If when there is a sure and certain eventuality to something. 

Think about it!

TRUST – It Comes and Goes at Unknown Places

The thought of this blog came after a few messages that got exchanged between a friend and me on Twitter. It made me thinking and I thought that the word/feeling/emotion called ‘TRUST’ needs a more detailed probing and thinking, and rightly so, as this small but powerful word plays a critical and crucial role in relationships, businesses, partnerships, negotiations, and any other human transaction one can think of.

For the purview of this blog, I would like to keep relationships out of this deep dwelling as presence of trust in that is a given and is a mandatory. It would be interesting to explore the dimensions of Trust and how it acts up in non-personal situations.

Let me start with an incident that happened a few days back and which further strengthened the idea of putting this blog: I had gone to the petrol pump to get fuel filled in my car and the attendant asked me to check the zero sign before he started filling the tank. Since I could not see the digits while sitting in the car, I got off the car to check the zero. What struck me there and then is that trust is the first thing that goes out of the window as soon as you enter a petrol pump. You will perpetually go and check the zero sign every single time even though it may be the petrol pump where you go regularly to get fuel filled.

This made me sit up and start thinking about places where trust is at the lowest level and then there are also places where trust is the highest. Let us talk of another example where trust is high.

Ever tried opening a new email account or signing up for a new account online. Chances are that as part of the registration process, you are asked to accept the terms and conditions which run into a few pages. No one and I repeat no one ever bothers to go through the fine print and immediately presses the ‘Accept’ button.  This happens despite the person on the other side being a stranger and an unknown face and the risk being higher that what you are accepting may not exactly be what you agree with. So how is it that trust in such a situation tends to go up significantly? Is it lack of time, the hurry to get the registration done with or difficulty in understanding the legal language? If you sit back and ask yourself, the answer is none of these and it is our inherent trust that stems from the fact that if a site is online, it has to be reputed and hence can be trusted. Not necessarily true but the reality.

No matter how good a human being and truthful a real estate agent may be, the trust that you put on him while doing a property deal is never rock solid and it is always wavering. You are always hoping that you get what you have been promised at a rate that does not make you feel that you have been fleeced or cheated. In this case, trust gets governed not by the individual but by the perceptions that have been formed.

The word SALE often used to conjure doubt in the minds of shoppers, atleast till a few years back. One would often hear comments like “This must be their rejected goods” or “They must have increased the prices first and now they are showing it as discount”. Thankfully, due to the presence of more and more organized players, such perceptions have changed for the better and people trust Sales and Discounts to be genuine nowadays.

Every time you hand over your car keys to a valet, whether in a 5 star hotel or a small restaurant or a wedding venue where valets have been hired, you are not only handing over the keys but you are also placing implicit trust in the valet with the assumption that not only will he park your car safely, but you will also get your car back the way you gave it.  

I think the above-mentioned situations should give you a drift of what I am trying to say. I am sure there would be many more such incidents in each one’s life where trust tends to go up or down depending on our experiences, our perceptions and our own approach to life.

Procrastination

Pro-cra-sti-na-tion - A four syllable word, writing which takes so much time - no doubt the meaning of the word is to keep putting things for tomorrow.

While I write this blog, I wonder what is it that makes people procrastinate. I have been wanting to blog regularly, but this one comes almost three months after my last blog. So coming back to my thought as to what could be the possible reason for procrastinating?

There are clearly two types of procrastinators -
1) Those who push each and every thing for a later date. They just do not want to take any initiative and will keep things hanging till the last minute

2) Those who tend to procrastinate only a few things out of all the things that they do in their daily lives

Today, I want to talk about people who come into the second category.

Let me try and put down some of the plausible reasons of procrastination for these kind of people (including me)
1) Lack of time - This is one reason that comes to mind, when there is great interest and desire to do something, but yet one is not able to do something.

2) Low committment - People need to be pushed to do things, where they do not feel committed to do something. The irony is that lot of people are not committed to the idea of committment itself, and they tend to push that as well.

3) Less passion and interest - When people do not have a very high passion and interest for something, they tend to not give it too much importance and so those things keep getting pushed to the sidelines.

4) Low on priority - In such situations, people have the interest to do something, but they feel that there are other more important, urgent or pressing concerns or things to be done, and as a result, few other things get moved to the bottom of the list.

5) Difficult to do something - Sometimes, people do not want to tackle difficult situations or problems immediately and want to put it off, till as long as possible. They tend to do all the other easier things first and they feel that, it will be better to tackle this difficult problem later, when all the other easier things are dealt with.

6) Feeling of pressure and deadlines - There are some people, who just love the feeling of deadlines closing in. When the pressure gets to them, their creative levels and energy levels go up by a great notch, and so these people will keep certain things on hold till the time, the deadline comes within breathing distance.

I think these are some of the reasons, which I could think of, which lead people to procrastinate. Some of these reasons hold good for the same person in different situations, so you may not be able to put down one single reason on a person.

I would just like to end this blog with Kabir's Doha, which I had studied in school:

Kal Kare so Aaj Kar, Aaj kare so Ab
Pal mein Parlay hoegi, Bahuri Karega Kab?

Once a Month

Yes, once a month is when I have been blogging, since the time I have created my own blog. June had one post……July saw one…. and now comes one in Aug.


The rate of blogging needs to go up from now on. Just spent the last one and half hours reading Mr. Amitabh Bachchan’s blogs. With his hectic and busy schedule, he manages to post one or two posts per day, so I definitely can do better than once a month. Coming back to Amitabh Bachchan’s blogs, I must admit that he has a way with words and one can get lost in his blogs. The way his movies take you to another world, his blog also transports you much closer to his life.

His blog on his mother is a true master piece. Just goes to show how well he expresses his feelings, whether it is through his blogs or through his emotions in his movies.

Coming back to the slow rate of putting down my thoughts, I can attribute it to sheer laziness, lack of thoughts to put down or having too many thoughts and not being sure which one to take forward and build.

But, as once would put it, if the interest, passion and dedication is there, then all these obstacles can be overcome.

So, watch this space for more action at a much faster pace.