I know I have been off for a while and I was AWOL for a month here. Did you miss my presence? I do care if you didn’t. That’s the kind of writer I am. I have written and rewritten this sub for a month and finally on the anniversary of finally getting myself outta doom and from the insane amount of hours I have devoted in trying to justify my Instagram bio which says 8 OTT & CHILL.
I discovered Voot like a dream. Watched Splitsvilla, The Comey Report, Oprah’s new show is here!!! Yes, Super souls and I enjoyed the interview with Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Outcry was decent. Discovered Love Fraud and Interrogation which I am going to watch next. yesterday, like a well-oiled tarmac for dancing planes, I clocked 22 hours in 2 days. 22 hours of screen time. Excessive but that gives me the authority to talk about what I like and what I don’t. Murder in the Bayou was not great and I didn’t continue watching it. Interrogation is a great show which has given me a nudge to break even with the crime (section) aspect of this killer OTT. I have loved Discovery plus’s JonBenét Ramsey: What Really Happened? , Family Man, Family Murderer which is about the murder of Shanann Watts, her two young daughters, and her unborn child by Chris Watts in August 2018 remains one of the most heinous and hard to understand crimes in recent memory. I have watched all the lie detector and interrogation, confession videos of Chris Watts with the police, analyzed the case alongside a dozen other similar family annihilators. From my research, I came upon Robert William Fisher who is wanted by the FBI for - First Degree Murder (3 Counts), Arson of his own. And I kept looking at the face of a man who had murdered his whole family. This loop keeps me distracted from heartbreaks, ailments, or bad weather, and broken ACs in a house with a dog and a cat. People Magazine Investigates Cults had some really amazing coverage of case files that are out there but nothing cuts it like 48 minutes of well-crafted documentaries.
Something happened midday mid-month, I ordered Macrons and some puff, mushroom valouets, after 2 hours of delay I got a call that the delivery guy got into a terrible accident. and I msged my friend who I had told to get me some of the macrons on his way home, who didn’t. I told him what if this guy would have been saved if you would have gotten me my macrons. I felt so bad at that moment. but also the executive was pleasantly surprised when I asked how hurt was the delivery guy. He was taken aback I am sure because I caught that paused in his voice before he said he will be fine ma’am and when I asked him to not hurry the next person and that my hunger can wait, I felt like this was the most emotional I could get on a dull slow day.
Not forgetting why I started this newsletter, I will now give you a low blow of all that I have read and not talked about yet in my newsletter or solemn bookstagram(because concretely, I am reclusive in posting much or very often)
Writing like reading is a need for me. What happens when you disregard a necessity and regard the trivialities? do you do a Travolta or a De Niro?
When I didn’t write a newsletter, as this one is just a month behind the last, I was doing so many useless things. a month spent in hope of getting to the better of the worst and finding the best in the least good side of the looking glass(watched this movie last night, along with few more gore flicks which blew it out the park for me, like the escape room, welcome home, unhinged) yesterday was a day of watching as much fictionalized gore I could, the day before that I was ready to complete the seven-season show on Discovery + which has some really amazing shows (if you can get VPN of the USA you will be in tremendous luck in terms of streaming some amazing flicks and docuseries) like Disappeared, the case studies with
I also watched Joker many times, not going to put in the exact figures here but I am enamored is the least I can say about how much I connected with the dark theme and the humanity of the inhumane kind. Do you get that?
I also read this article which gave me an impetus to talk about some more of where I come from, where I am being taken through my pursuits, and the dream to live and work from anywhere, not bound and not under anyone’s command.
I listened to a ton of soundtracks of some of my favourite all-time shows. I found a correlation that everything I love has great music in it.
Did I overhaul my wardrobe? (a first even for me!) and now it’s all summer and I am finally a happy sunflower. That’s all is that is needed… ..
I went to Gangaji’s tat and washed my sins. yes, I did that. being a good believer doesn’t require practice but devotion and I think I have that. I meditated in the wilderness. four of us, four of none. by doing nothing and just sitting and looking at the sun filtering through the twigs, boroughs, and branches, forming patterns in the water, the colors which the sky adorned and the pitch-perfect day is gone and goodbye, dear friend in the background on speakers which blast in a way it doesn’t feel artificial or pushed.
I also read some really good literature which I don’t want to talk about because let’s do not make this stack about books or writing, it’s about what I gain when I am not productive. ' there’s a theory which I discussed with my friend, a while back and as I keep on doing while listening to Tim Ferris’ podcast, I was introduced to BJ Miller, senior director of the Zen Hospice Project in California. BJ Miller, through his work with the dying, learned how to live more fully.
“If everything you do is for an ulterior motive – to be admired, to be in control, or to be wealthy – then chances are that you won’t enjoy the passing moment. And instead, you will spend most of your life feeling anxious or bored. On the other hand, if you learn to act for the simple joy of being alive, anxiety and boredom will disappear and you won’t waste or regret any moment of your life.”
I also learnt that meeting people should not make you too excited or too bored, initially. I learnt that I suffered when I expected and when I didn’t expect or forgot a thing after I was done with it, I derived more results from it. this feeling is important in execution because it provides motion to a stable chain of thought that you are doing enough and this enough isn’t defined by competition or comparing it to others. your peers are just that- your peers. every person is born with a set of skills unmatched to any other, it is so on a minuscule level. unbeknownst to many, these factorizations say that do as you please because these unknowns are what make life, life. and life worth living. if you knew the destination and you knew the route which your train is going to take, the journey would definitely become unbearable. knowing is not always great.
I also took the TOEFL test for reasons to follow someday later with a big reveal. Got 29/30 in required sections. Felt like the one mark missing was pinching my ego and gut. I know it ain’t that hard to guess but guessing is what I associate myself with a lot these days. so, yeah.
I also cried a lot. I call it my annual, biannual, or these times, fortnightly crying sessions, alone, into a pillow before, now its silent sob sobs. I think a practice like this must be crazy but it works like therapy.
I also went for sound therapy. I absolutely loved the sound bath and the experience. the sound bath identified the tension and stress areas/points in my body, largely in my stomach and leg areas. It showed that my back was receptive to stress a lot and I have always felt back pain. Its to do with really long hours of sitting sedentary for a long period of time. Now I am, 27 but my body feels 40 inside. (Nadia from Russian Doll is my human spirit) it is true.
I played drums at a senior’s house. it was amazing to finally love the instrument I had always associated with myself.
I also plucked Chinese tangerines, rubbed them all over my face as I listened to gloomy Sunday in the background, the renegades arrived a Lil later, I rubbed a real good love of scrub all over my lips and face. I dipped myself in santol and rose water. I dried my hair and dint blow dry it since I felt summer run down my spine and it hasn’t yet been a week of summer and I am feeling dry. I feel my winter skin never left me and all the goop which I have spent on are going to survive the beauty of me.
I cooked three meals in a day one of these days, these dog lazy days, and didn’t complete any of it. threw food in the bin instead of giving it to the hungry outside my officer at Lodhi and then when I don’t have an office anymore, cause now I am on a sabbatical indefinitely, I want to travel, get a wfh and finally appreciate the first anniversary of lockdown with another self-imposed lockdown in nature, somewhere.
I have also tried a lot many new goops, aka skincare products and I feel like I have finally succeeded in knowing what suits my skin. my skin eats rich and hungry. it needs the costly expensive but also natural and herbal spritzer to keep it glowing, acne-free and untanned, which is what I love even though I am brown, I shamelessly criticize my darker shades by putting filtered and playing with plenty of light which we are blessed within India.
After I read 41 chapters of shiva Purana, I realized I needed to sit quietly and absorb what I had read without doing anything. The maintenance of purity of the situation was the aim after the strenuous reading was done. one of the instructions of reading the Purana is to read it in one sitting, without omitting anything and by uttermost devotion. This work eulogizes Lord Shiva as the supreme deity, besides topics such as cosmology and philosophy. It is written in Sanskrit and claims to be a redaction of an original text consisting of 100,000 metrical verses. A state of mind that is not achieved by this author of belladonnaoflavender’s substack. so not following the two really important instructions to attain the absolute state of mind or moksha. but begetting what devotion to reading and learning about her expounding of shiva means to me is reason enough for me to devote myself, my time, and my energies, and that is what I let happen. but this went on for weeks.
I meditate on Śiva, the lord of Ambikā (Pārvatī), auspicious from the beginning to the end, having no parallel, the noble lord, the un-aging and the undying, the lord of Ātmans, the five-faced and the dispeller of the five powerful sins.
I met any different kinds of people and I wanted to learn as much as I could from them, which is what I did. informing my writing with her choices that I make of hanging. out with the kind of people who contribute to my growth and progress.
I baked wood-fired pizzas and ate the same while doing nothing. no multi-tasking for a while.
I read.
I left my legal job one day in between and its been a month, actually
I learned many things like F1, why is knowing about leaders and
Like a bull making head of a tails lion, I have encountered many Taurians and Leos and realized many things I had taken for granted with different signs. Granted things teach you the most.
Wrote a poem while I was doing nothing-
"They did not have a happy marriage," a former neighbor said
screams which turn to shrills
becoming the unbecoming
everybody heard it
but you never really heard the man of the house scream
I studied some paintings in the dusk of Delhi during an almost going to rain but not really rainy summer’s day from distant weatherings. I would like to list some of the masterpieces down for you-
even if you don’t like paintings-
even if you don’t like art
Peder Mørk Mønsted
1859 – 1941
Spring day behind a thatched farm, a little girl sitting on the doorstep.
even if you don’t like me
Henri Le Sidaner
1862-1939
The table in the white garden, 1900
even if you don’t like you
Winslow Homer
1836 - 1910
Moonlight
even if you love me
even if you abandon me in love
Norman
1894 - 1978
The family Psychologist
if you
Charles Oppenheimer
1875-1961
Artist's garden
do you
Norman Rockwell
Sunday morning (Easter morning)
1959
you can be like a timeless painting in a museum
you can be
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Until next time.
Very nicely written. Loved the part where you described your self imposed lockdown
aggrandising@!@ wowow