Yashas Mahajan's Blog, page 13

Word of the Week #316:

Wordsmith

So, I have been thinking about this for the past few weeks. I mentioned it last week, didn’t I?

It has been some time since I wrote something.

It has been a very long time since I finished writing something.

After how long of a gap can I no longer call myself a writer?

At what point do I have to change the blog’s title to The Editor Guy?

It’s weird, but for now, let’s just see how things progress, you know.

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Word of the Week #315:

Archetype

So, I don’t really love using tropes in my writing…

And if I’m being nearly honest, I haven’t even been writing all that much, lately, but let’s table that for another day, yeah?

But, yeah, as much as you avoid them, some tropes are bound to show up in anything you write. In a way, purposefully avoiding tropes just creates more anti-tropes, does it not?

So, if you keep encountering and employing tropes, you will find ones that you like and that fit really well with the themes of your writing.

And as it would turn out, I do have a favourite trope, and for lack of a better term, I’ll just call it the “oh, you’re strong”.

Basically every rich kid in my stories is like, “You thought I’d be weak just because I’m rich and sheltered and my privilege would allow me to survive that way? Why didn’t you consider that because I’m rich, I have had the privilege to train relentlessly under the best masters of this land ever since I learned how to walk? You may have me outnumbered, but as you will soon learn, you are far outmatched.”

Fun, right?

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Word of the Week #314:

Pygmalion

So, as most people know, I am a cocky boy.

But on the other hand, I am not reckless and irresponsible, especially when other people’s well-being is at stake.

And that brings me to the topic at hand: Am I skilled enough to transform a person’s perceived status and stature in the world just by transforming their ability to converse in English?

As much as we may want to deny it, there is major stratification in our society based on numerous criteria, and in our generation, spoken English has come to be seen as a major identifier of our strata. More often than not, the diction and the true quality of your language—the way an editor may assess them—are not pertinent either; your fluency and confidence tend to carry you through the conversation.

I cannot even argue against this manner of stratification. People who can communicate with each other will; those who can’t literally can’t.

The problem is with the exclusivity of these strata. Any person should be able to acquire the ability to break through the barriers that exclude them from any conversation, and therefore, they should retain the ability to learn and improve at speaking and understanding the language.

Now, can I facilitate someone’s growth enough to help them break past the shackles of their strata? Particularly an adult with limited means and resources? When you yourself are an adult without unlimited means and resources?

Of course, adopting and raising an infant—while a challenge in itself—does give you a fair chance to alleviate much of the challenges they would have otherwise faced. And of course, being freaking Bruce Wayne would have made it easier to help anyone I ever wanted.

But given my current skills and limitations, can I be the catalyst for someone’s transformation?

I guess there is only one way to find out.

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Word of the Week #313:

Cognoscenti

So, despite what I intended, I never actually got around to making that pineapple jam I mentioned last week.

Instead, I ended up making two more batches of the strawberry jam itself.

One, yeah, I loved it a lot. And since strawberry season is almost over, I wouldn’t have had a chance to make it again if I waited too long. I had no such constraints with the pineapple, at least as far as I could tell.

But more importantly, I wanted to change some of the variables and check the results. I wanted to see if I can improve the recipe I had instinctively stumbled upon.

This is what the scientific method teaches us.

Maybe there is something to be said about mastery, after all.

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Word of the Week #312:

Polymath

If there’s one term that irks me, it is “jack-of-all-trades”.

And, sure, there is nothing particularly triggering about the term itself, but there is always the underlying implication of being a master of none.

In my opinion, the term is far too often used as a pejorative towards people who have actual hobbies and passions and interests by people who lack them.

Let’s be real, nobody can completely master a trade within one lifetime, at least not a real, expansive, and dynamic one. We can all gain proficiency at several trades, and proficiency is again a relative term; there are levels to this.

I am proficient at many things, and I usually have a fair understanding how good I am at whatever I do compared to the people around me.

And beyond that, I cannot stop seeing more skills that I am eager to explore and add to my skill set.

Just last week, I got very suddenly and very profoundly engrossed in the art of making jams and pickles. I made a small batch of strawberry jam, and it turned out amazing! We finished it in hours.

Since then, I have placed a batch of kimchi to my kitchen which should be ready to eat by tomorrow, and another batch of strawberry jam that should be done tonight.

I already know what I want to try next—pineapple jam.

Life is fun when you are surrounded by the wide array of things you can do and enjoy.

Life is fun when you live your life exploring the many facets of being human.

I would always much rather do that than be reduced to a specialised drone tethered to a hive.

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Word of the Week #311:

Celluloid

Have you ever wondered why some of your friends and loved ones seem not always like that one pic of yours that you really don’t?

It is odd, right?

And it happens all the time! There will always be that one photo in which we just look… odd, but for some reason, everyone else seems to love that one photo. Why is that?

Well, I believe there is an actual reason for it.

The thing is that what we see in the mirror is a very distorted image of ourselves. There are some technical aspects to it, such as the distance from the mirror and the lateral inversion.

However, the big difference is in the expressions, or rather the lack thereof.

Since this bland, warped version of ourselves is what we see the most often, we tend to form a very distorted self image.

Because of this, most of us don’t realise how good we really look, nor what aspects or features of ourselves help us look our best.

On the other hand, the people who know and love us—and more importantly the people we know and love—get to see us in all our animated forms. They get to see too many more facets of ourselves that we rarely would… unless we happen to star in a documentary about our real lives or something like that, but who would ever sign up for anything like that, right? Right?

Now, this image that they form of us is very different from the one we get to see in the mirror and in most of our standard, posed, “I-guess-this-is-the-best-I-can-look” photos.

That is why a lot of candid pics that we would never consider even close to our best version would seem lovely to the people who love us—because they contain the love and joy and animation that makes up the best part of who we are beyond just the bones and skins.

The people love who love you have seen you more than you’ve yourself, and they’ve seen you look better than you’ve seen yourself.

They know what the best of you look like.

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Word of the Week #310:

Origin

Eight years ago, on this very day, I took a decision that forever changed my life.

In an instant, I let go of a lot of things I had worked towards for many, many years, and I began a journey towards seeking only the things I truly love.

So far, it has been an interesting life.

It has been far from simple. Or easy. It got pretty weird and pretty tough at times.

But no matter how things go hereafter, and no matter what lies ahead for me, I know I will be able to keep moving forward with no regrets or doubts.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost

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Word of the Week #309:

Iteration

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Someone said this. 

Not Einstein, though, even if there are many who believe he did.

Regardless of the attribution, the quote stands on its own, right?

However, the scientific method requires us to repeat our experiments to see if the results can be replicated with varying samples and conditions.

That is why, when I do things that repeatedly lead to occasionally hilarious and frequently disastrous results, that is not insanity on my part.

No, that is just science.

Now, what does that make me, I wonder…

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Word of the Week #308:

Subsistence

Lately, I have been noticing that I allot the entire weekend of maintenance.

And when I say “maintenance”, I mean the things about myself that I should take care of on a regular basis but tend to get away from me during the haphazard, helter-skelter routine of the rest of the week.

I suppose this began when I was in my late teens or early twenties, when I finally realised I haven’t been taking care of myself the way I ought to. And as usual, it began with the obvious and the superficial—chapped lips and jagged nails.

Gradually, I began to see the initial signs of attrition. My hair were thinning rapidly. My skin was losing it taut, supple, youthful look. And that was still fine. I added more things to my maintenance schedule, and I took care of it as and when required, but I could still afford to be a little haphazard with it. That was a part of my charm, back then, I suppose.

But once I had moved into my late twenties, things changed. My eyes would get tired after a couple hours of work, unlike the days when I could easily go twenty hours without a break. My joints were beginning to ache more often than they had ever before. I was finally reaching a point where not taking care of myself was beginning to actually directly hinder my life.

Finally, I had to make a more rigid routine and stick to it.

Of course, this is still like just rubbing aloe on your bare fingers after you’ve been using them to scoop fries out of boiling oil.

It might help, but it sure isn’t enough.

Until I stop doing the dumb things I do on a daily basis—like, at this moment, I have had 4.5 hours of sleep in the past 60 hours or so, but I’m not sure; not sleep-deprived to math—it just isn’t going to be enough.

After all, we have to take care of ourselves. Because no one else will.

Apparently, there will come a point when I will have to stop doing dumb stuff.

Apparently, there will come a point when I will have to be more regular and extensive with my maintenance.

And apparently, that point has yet to come.

So let’s see how things go for now…

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Word of the Week #307:

Grail

Ambition is a good thing. I like that in a person.

It is good to know what you want and to never settle for anything less.

After all, there’s that one proverb or adage or something, right? I don’t think I can remember it verbatim, so let me paraphrase a bit.

Reach for the moon; if you fall short, your vessel will probably get incinerated as you plummet from the sky, letting you go out in a blaze of glory, never to return to the ground.

Isn’t that what life is all about?

Isn’t that the dream?

It is, right? 

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