Monday come slowly, I feel a bit out of touch
With all this daily heartache it hurts me so much
I cannot help it if I'm hard to love
There are things about me that you don't know, I don't like acting tough
You sometimes, walk out your door, sit in a cab (like me), look at the despondency of living in 2020 and wonder if this is it.
The cars whizzed past today, I sat in my cab, first time in my 21st century living did I not encounter a consecutive GOOD MORNING for the third time in row this week of November, 2020 and felt the opposite of GOOD.
The year is ending. Everyone is busy. Everyone is sad. Everyone is going a bit maniac, inside the shrouds of taman-shud, the coffee isn’t giving the hit in the morning, the cigarette is burning the throat these days (considering that it actually is smog city where I live, Delhi daredevils! baloney), I am drinking less-water, alcohol, fizzy drinks, lattes have less foam, the stench of my city is unbearable in parts and sometimes the perfume gets into my nose, too strong for me to smell anything else at all. This feeling of uprising. The gaslighting by the gods. (As soon as I WROTE THIS, I drafted a title on substack instantly, lest I forget)
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. Real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid.
The days are fleeting, alongside fleets the whole of New Delhi. It is a mirage in the sky, ashes on ground, dust in air and lungs, with a deadly virus, perfecting all the sores. The beggars look more impoverished and the rich, richer. The trees hardly even swish swash, the moon shines with a dimmer light, the smog city to thank for the obscured view. The way the heart flutters is even different now. Now, the pauses are more, the stares, longer and the feet,fleets.
The heart stays as it is but it hardly even jumps out, stomach acidity has killed all the butterflies and I feel entrenched in the… the feeling of feeling empty, which is more than ever, now. The now is so damning. In the search of lost time or is it In search of lost times?
https://www.popsci.com/story/science/ghosts-real-science/, dim or not, here comes the first deal breaker for a good sleep
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/tamil-comic-books-india, Tamil? Comics? Lit? - Need to read this if you're not much aware of any three!
https://www.edi.nih.gov/blog/communities/what-are-gender-pronouns-why-do-they-matter Recently I came across a question- If you would like to select your preferred pronouns, please select one from below His/hers…She, He….They……Correctly using an individual's preferred pronoun is an easy way to show respect or using a gender-neutral pronoun if not indicated or unsure. Using appropriate pronouns is a first step toward respecting people's gender identity and creating a more welcoming space for people of all genders.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/12/books/review/barack-obama-a-promised-land.html Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reviews our favourite president, Obama’s new memoir.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/barack-obama-i-still-believe-america/617073/- An excerpt from the most awaited read of the year for me
https://medium.com/p/da74bb973f37/edit A look at How the pandemic changed my reading habits, from my Medium blog which I want to look back upon. What would you add to this?
https://medium.com/an-idea-for-you/how-to-get-more-out-of-your-career-the-books-you-read-and-your-newsletter-fc26742ffee3 (Can you read the text in the link and guess if this link is worth clicking?)
https://medium.com/inc./how-freelancers-and-small-businesses-are-helping-one-another-thrive-bfc542e8c431 Can you read the text in the link and guess if this link is worth clicking? Please?
https://medium.com/swlh/im-a-writer-not-a-starving-artist-e868cda54a22, This is my perpetual topic of discussion with myself
https://www.businessinsider.com/colleges-that-smoke-the-most-weed-2019-8, The only way I would actually shortlist colleges is this is how! A rookie or an ancient cooker, this list is worth the read, get your GK green.
After I finished assimilating all the articles which I read and relished, I learnt in the process of doing so that the saying- If you share, it grows, is actually true. For instance, I now am adding three more links which I feel will-
Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."
And those who husbanded the Golden Grain,
And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain,
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd
As, buried once, Men want dug up again.
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where sonic buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head.
There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE
There seem'd - and then no more of THEE and ME.
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.
“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Ending with this snippet I found of Johnny payne,
TOP TEN REASONS TO BE A WRITER
1) License to spill out neuroses lightly disguised as art.
2) Fun to say “I’m a poet” when asked what you do at a cocktail party full of financial managers who are underwater on real estate investments.
3) In a profession where peers won’t buy your books even when you buy their books.
4) No pressure to develop hobbies, because you’re always “writing.”
5) Life, which already consists of deadlines, becomes a deadline-within-a-deadline, like a John Barth story.
6) Good ice breaker. Allows people in elevators to say “Do you know Nicholas Sparks?” or “I’ve always wanted to write a novel.” Or, if they say “I have a novel inside me,” you can imagine you’re in the movie Rosemary’s Baby and that they are Mia Farrow and you are the evil neighbor.
7) No difference between reading royalty statements and skimming a Gary Larson cartoon.
8) Being literate feels subversive these days.
9) People don’t raise eyebrows when you say you do “finger exercises.”
10) Allows you to spend all eternity explaining the difference between a poet and a writer.
Can you perform any of the above button foreplays for me??
XOXO
Shalini