DreamingAway

Love has the power to let go. No doubt about it - Dad is the real hero for most of us. And this hero has a harmless villain side too, especially when you are a kid. Specifically a male kid. You know what I mean - those moments when he “orders” you to do something that you don’t want to do. The justification is simple: he teaches us the things we need to learn. His love is about shaping his son into the best version he can be, and this is his way of expressing his love. While this kind of love filled with care, lazy dads are happy enough to “use” us to do things for their convenience, and crazy dads make sure to call us exactly when we are in the middle of something we love. Well, the fact is, dad is the first person to love us to the core, and having letting go as part of that love. Love is an intoxicating bond. It blinds us to the demands of the world. One of my friends, a father of two, is very particular about independence. The first thing he did after marriage was teach his wife to...

2023 gifted me 5 extra kgs, and despite my best efforts in 2024, I couldn’t shed them. The silver lining? At least it didn’t increase! 😅. Yeah, that is about my weight gaining. Over the past few years, I’ve been setting pull-up goals and missing them entirely. So, this year, I’ve decided to focus on chest press and squat goals — aiming for at least 20 kgs. I’m also thinking of setting a 390-minute sleep routine . Lately, I’ve been overindulging in sleep (450+ minutes on most days). I use two alarm timings, but they aren’t helping much, so I’m switching to a single-alarm system. I also plan to include some basic morning stretches. Despite my poor eyesight , 2024 saw me continuing my long-standing tradition of binge-watching movies and Tamil serials. This year, I really enjoyed Oppenheimer, The Art of Flight , O2, Blink, and Ghoomer. This is perhaps lesser than the previous years. The Guns of Navarone, Laughing Bhudha, Level Cross were disappointing.   On the reading f...

  Had Gandhi not been present in Champaran, he would have still become a Mahatma. Had Che Guevara not studied Marxism, he would have still become a revolutionary. Had Siddhartha not been born in a palace, he would have still become the Buddha. Throughout history, countless leaders have risen to greatness. It didn’t matter where they were born, when they lived, or what challenges they faced - they had something inside them that pushed them forward. But why only them? Was it destiny? Were they born with a “greatness gene”? If I told you that was absolutely true, would you believe me? Let us take a moment to dissect this and see why it is not out of your reach. Imagine this: You are blindfolded and left in a grand hall, much like a child born into this world. Your task? To create tunes. All around you are walls, pillars, tables, curtains, and, yes, a piano. You can create sounds with almost anything. That’s how most of us live, just creating some sounds somewhere, somehow. In fact, ma...

 “Be the change you want to see in this world” is a famous quote. But what if I want change but choose to do nothing to make the change happen? Well, I simply leave it to others, including God or convince myself that the change is not necessary. This is one of those, a random thought on inequality, imposed indirectly. Return journeys, especially after a 500+ km trip between cities, can be tiring and boring. My last one was no exception. We were returning after attending a teammate’s wedding. Since I don’t drive, I sat in the front seat, just watching the scenery and the road. And only the road, once the sun disappeared below the horizon. That was when I started watching people travelling long distances on motorcycle. The first one, the one that no longer annoys me as much as they did once were the daredevil riders. I know they require great skill and courage. Of course, it is a risk for them, but more importantly, it is a risk for others as well. And then the good guys, the real bi...

 I had a hunch that I had heard of it somewhere - “The Deathbed Experiment”. Confused between Covey’s “Begin with the End in Mind” and Robin Sharma’s “Who Will Cry When You Die,”  I set out searching for the “Deathbed Experiment”.  My search led me through things like “Legacy thinking,”“Mortality Reflection,” and the “Eulogy Exercise”.  And it went a little deeper, the more abstract ones, like “Memento Mori Practice”, “Terror Management Theory Experiments”,  “Thanatotherapy,” and “End-of-Life Journaling Exercise”. No, I wasn’t looking for those. The idea itself was simple: imagining how people would cope with your death. Well, the name didn’t matter to start my own experiment. Here is how I progressed. I’ll skip over friends, as I believe that each one of them would fall into one of the categories that follow. Let me begin with the easiest group - my neighbours. Their response would be straightforward  - they would simply find out that I used to live there....

 My mom has been making a comment that is becoming a regular now-a-days. On Saturdays, she will say, “It feels like the week just started, but the weekend is already here.” At the start of each month, she will say, “The month just started, but the next one is already here.” One of my teammates echoed a similar sentiment recently. I believe this feeling is very common, and we may differ on whether we say this to someone or not. So, is the time really moving that fast? And for everyone? Of course, the actual time measurement is the same for all of us. It is our perception that makes time feel as if it is speeding up or slowing down, and that perception is deeply individual. While we have natural senses for things like sound or smell, we don’t have an innate sense to estimate time. For example, try starting a timer and then stopping it when you think a minute has passed without counting numbers, breaths, or using external cues. Chances are, you’ll stop too early. The point is that whi...