Yashas Mahajan's Blog, page 12

Word of the Week #326:

Munition

“Would you take a bullet for me?”

That’s something many people ask each other, right? As if that is an epitome of true love?

Well, by all means, it is not. 

All scientific research suggests that how someone would respond in a crisis is encoded genetically. Will you jump towards danger, run and hide, or stay rooted to the floor and per your pants is not necessarily in your hands. We are what we were made.

And some of us, it would appear, are just more willing to die for our loved ones than others are. Heck, some of us are just more willing to die.

What I be willing to die for someone I love? I think I’d be willing to for a stranger. Hell, I think I’d be willing to die for someone I dislike.

I don’t think I “hate” anyone, so… 

Anyway, dying is easy. It happens quick. 

Boom. The end. 

But living? Living is hard. 

So maybe you can die for someone, anyone, but for whom would you want to live?

Who makes you want to finally start taking care of the food you eat on a daily basis?

Who makes you want to sleep enough and at the right times?

Who makes you want to be patient in your life, even though that has never been one of your strengths?

Who makes you want to give them a call, even when you know you’ve always hated calls?

Who makes you want to live the very best life you can? Who makes you want to be the best person you can? 

Answer that, and you’ll know whom you love.

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Word of the Week #325:

Enervation

So… Apparently, when my limbs are tired, they are more likely to get hurt.

Now, that statement sounds just SO obvious when I say it, but it is still one thing to “know” and quite another to receive a sudden and stark reminder of it.

I think I am beginning to understand the mechanism of how that happens too. I mean, about time, right? After all, I have already experienced it often enough.

When I do play fatigued, it feels as if the muscles meant to control and stabilise the joint are tired and weakened. Each time I take a step, land hard on the floor, or bump into an opponent, the impact seems to reverberate through my body deep into the bones. All the energy that should have been absorbed by the muscles seems to jolt through the joints.

It… hurts…

I’m afraid I am getting too old to keep running and jumping and playing without getting enough rest. Another one of those obvious statements, I suppose.

More than anything else, if I want to keep running and jumping and playing at all, I ought to start being just a little more cautious and a little more patient.

In time, I’m sure I’ll be glad for these changes.

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Word of the Week #324:

Denouement

You know, my philosophy of life is pretty simple.

I will always try to help people do what they want to do. After all, that is the best thing we can do for the people around us, right? In many ways, it is the only good thing we can do.

It seems odd to me how people try to enforce their opinions on other people. Far from helping them, these people will directly try to hinder them, which I find especially bizarre.

Now, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t warn them about all the possible outcomes. I should always help them make an informed choice about their own life.

But beyond one point, we have to know that some mistakes need to be made. There are some things that you need to do. There is no stepping around them.

People fall. It is only natural. Gravity is ever-present and unrelenting. If you make a mistake big enough, you will fall. And you can never expect anyone else to catch you on your way down. The best you can hope for is someone to help you get back on your feet.

I understand the instinct to protect someone. But ask yourself: Can you really protect someone from themself?

The simple fact is that we as humans cannot always see the lines of causality. We do not know what action will have exactly what reaction.

In a world where everything is random and no outcome is guaranteed, the least we can do is choose how we fall.

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Word of the Week #323:

Putrid

People often complain about how poorly male writers write about female characters.

However, unless you make it a habit to troll something like the darker corners of Wattpad, believe me, you have not seen the worst of it. 

I’m sure there are exceptions to this—as I’m an exception—but most readers only encounter relatively popular, relatively well-edited books written by relatively competent authors and published by relatively respectable publishers, which still retain a large amount of objectionable content. 

What you do not encounter are manuscripts written by inexperienced middle-aged Indian male writers that are not screened by a publisher and have reached your hands completely unfiltered and unedited. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am far from a prude. I do believe sexuality has a part in our literature… as any rational reader or writer would. What is literature, after all? It is a record of our lives and experiences as humans, and sex will always be a part of it.

I have edited my fair share of steamy content, and what I’ve often found is that books with explicit sexual content often do a better job of handling these things. It is just more natural and reasonable.

What irks me is when writers sexualise a character whose sexuality is completely irrelevant to the rest of the book.

I have, for example, edited a book where the writer spent an entire page describing how attractive the protagonist’s professor was. Now, in a hot-for-teach plot where the protagonist falls in love with her, that would be completely fair. But in a non-fiction book about leadership where the rest of the chapter focuses solely on that character’s contribution to the protagonist’s understanding of an aspect of management through neuroscience and where the character is never referenced again?

Like, what are you even trying to do?

Needless to say, I erased the entire page.

This wasn’t the first. Nor was this the most egregious. It is just one of the things that irked me recently.

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Word of the Week #322:

Correspondence

So, I’ve been noticing that I don’t enjoy texting anymore.

Now, anyone who has known me over the years—and certainly everyone who has dated me—knows that texting has been my preferred form of communication. I remember telling my friends how texting was by far the supreme form of communication and how I should never be contacted any other way.

Now, I don’t even like texting.

It just feels more empty than it used to. Hollow.

You know, so much of a real conversation, real bonding, is non-verbal. We lose a lot of that over text. There are so many times when just sitting together, not even talking too much, but being around each other can feel so rewarding. You can never get that over a text, right?

And let’s face it, I’m a writer. If someone knows the limitations of words, it must be me, right?

So why the sudden change of heart?

To begin with, it was probably not quite sudden. It must have been going on for a while now. I have been noticing that I feel less and less involved in my ongoing conversations over texts. However, there have just been enough exceptions with whom it was still fun.

Most importantly, though, I think I go along with texting because all other options are so much worse.

Would I like to connect over the phone? Hell, no!

Do I want to meet in person? I mean, even if I want to, odds are that I won’t, even if I can. And with my friends being scattered all across the globe, there are just people whom I can’t meet in person.

So what other options are there?

I’ve been thinking of writing letters. Now, I know what you’re thinking—emptiness of words. How are more words supposed to remedy the fundamental limitations of words?

Well, I’m a writer. If anyone can keep faith in the power and the magic of the written word, it is me.

With letters, I hope to retain control over the flow of my words in a way that one cannot in a dialogue. That’s why I like writing books and blog posts, after all. Unilateral control.

By just writing one letter every week—or two, or four—to only the people I love, I have to communicate my thoughts and feelings in a deeper, clearer, more effective, and more coherent way without being restricted by a need for the right questions and right responses at the right time with the right flow and mood and tone.

To be honest, it sounds like a lot of work… So much that I might not even do it…

Still, I think there are some merits to the idea.

Let’s see.

On the other hand, do I even want to communicate with people? Or do I just want to be left alone?

That, Detective, is the right question.

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Word of the Week #321:

Resolute

How do I deal with the pain, I was asked the other day.

I don’t quite remember my answer, but it was something casual… something on the lines of “I don’t feel pain.”

And, yeah, when you look past the obvious bravado, you can say that I do live a fairly happy life. Fairly pleasant. Fairly painless. 

Even when I do experience pain, I’m usually able to resolve it well enough. I may not be immune to the pain, but I am quite resilient. 

Is anyone immune to pain, really? 

Should anyone be immune to pain? 

When you think about it, what is pain? Why do we feel pain? 

In my limited experience, pain is a sign of life. It originates from losing what you love or from yearning for what you seek, or a fear of either. 

Can we live a life without pain? Would we even want to? 

After all, why do we live but to love and to yearn?

So what do you do when it hurts? How do you deal with loss or yearning?

Well, to begin with, I do not fear pain the way many others seem to.

Of course, I wouldn’t say that I necessarily seek it out, but it is going to find me sooner or later, so why hide from it?

All you can you do is accept it, feel what you feel, and keep moving forward.

I always keep moving forward.

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Word of the Week #320:

Amber

Love is a many splendored thing…
Love lifts us up where we belong…
All you need is love…

Elephant Love Medley, Moulin Rouge!

We’ve all heard this song, right?

No? Not many fans of musical dramas around me, it would appear.

Well, tonight—and really for many nights over many past years—I have been thinking about love. 

What is love?

What does it mean to be in love?

I have experienced it enough to remember its taste on the tip of my tongue, yet not enough to understand how its flavours are all borne.

I know it just enough to know I want more.

What is love?

Isn’t it the lightning that strikes through the nape of your neck? Though unlike lightning, it will strike the same place once, twice, thrice, a thousand times in a thousand nights.

What is love?

Isn’t it the bright sweetness of a homemade—handmade—pineapple jam that fills the whole kitchen on a warm summer afternoon?

What is love? 

Isn’t it the lingering gaze that hangs just a moment too long on a pair of lips, their crooked smile igniting the end of a long day?

What is love?

Isn’t it the comfort of knowing that you are exactly where you are meant to be, now and forevermore?

Maybe love is home.

You put your arms around me and I’m home…

“Arms“, Christina Perri

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Word of the Week #319:

Aether

So I’m a pretty smart guy. You know that by now, right?

However, I sometimes feel like I am not able to fully utilise my intelligence, and a large part of it is the blink-and-miss nature of thoughts.

I’m not sure if it just happens with me or if it is a normal human thing, but so many of my best and brightest insights just enter my mind in a flash and then vanish the next moment without any value being created off it.

And that is just so disheartening, right?

It is like I’m playing a video game, and it’s an expansive open roam world with a broad story. And every time I play, I close the game without saving my progress.

That has got to be the worst possible way to approach character development in a game, right?

Imagine all the EXP I’m losing out on, all the advances and collectibles and perks I am squandering…

This was one of the reasons why I started writing, actually. I didn’t want my thoughts and ideas and—most importantly—my worlds to vanish into nothingness every time I stopped thinking about them.

But now, I think I want to expand this practice and be even more diligent about noting down all my thoughts and ideas.

Because let’s face it, my ideas are amazing. They are worth being recorded and stored for posterity.

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Word of the Week #318:

Contrarian

I have been reading up on the concept of neurodivergence. Seems odd to me, to be honest.

I mean, what is “normal”? Who decides what “normal” should look like? Really, who defines and delineates anything?

This is the kind of conformity was something that bothered me throughout my childhood. Apparently, I am far from the only one. Apparently, being different in the way they think and learn and understand the world around us is seen by many as a neurological condition.

Divergence is such an ugly term, isn’t it? But on the other hand, I was born different. What you gonna do.

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Word of the Week #317:

Catatonic

So, just earlier today, I realised that I do not have a great understanding of the concept of “fear”.

That is an odd thing to realise, especially someone my age, right?

After all, it is not like I do not experience fear. I am far from immune to it. And yet, I have never really thought about it. Why would that be?

I often think in great detail about what people want. It reveals a great deal about who they are and who they have been. But the same can be said about fear, right?

Now, of course, some fears are generic and rational and—I would say, in many cases—necessary. We need to have a reasonable amount of fear to avoid or mitigate the very real dangers we face in our day-to-day lives.

In fact, I vividly remember the very first story I ever wrote…

Okay, I say “wrote” figuratively, but it was more of extempore storytelling in competition of some sort. Apparently, the other kids had read and memorised existing stories to recite and, as usual, I had no idea and decided to just wing it on the spot.

I won, by the way, and got selected for the next round, where I again had no idea about the benefits of preparation and the constraints of a time limit and what not; I bombed so bad…

So, anyway… What was I saying?

Yeah, the very first story I ever wrote was about a snake who completely overcomes his sense of fear. Good for him, right? Right? WRONG! He trespasses into an anthill to mock the ants, gets stuck in one of the holes, and ends up being eaten alive.

In hindsight, pretty macabre for a six-year-old, right? And I say my art is fuelled by joy…

Maybe that’s another thing I need to reexamine.

But what makes us fear the specific, niche things that may form a large part of our personalities.

I have close friends who severely fear dogs, pain, and death, among others. Now, is it unreasonable to fear any of these? Even I would fear some dogs in some situations. Pain is uncomfortable, and I would avoid it if I can. And death… Well, I will die someday, and I think I have a fair acceptance of it, but if a boulder is hurtling down a hill and is bound to crush me in ten seconds, I would be afraid for at least the first five seconds.

So, yeah, a reasonable amount of fear makes sense to me. But an irrational fear of dogs or pain or death is perplexing.

On the other hand, I do have fears that might seem irrational from the outside, but once I explain exactly how they originated and how they affect me, they make more sense. I wonder if their fears can be rationalised as well.

Maybe I’ll ask.

I wonder if they’ll tell.

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