A Love Letter to The Good Boys of The Country

So, you are a good boy? It would unfortunately be taken as your weakness. Politically speaking, it is a weakness but just politically speaking. Good people never make it to positions of power, if they did, the world would have been a better place. What you can do however is create your island of peace and fun. You will have to fight to keep it sustained and thriving, but being good doesn't necessarily mean weakness. In fact if you are only good because you are weak you'll be a monster when you get power. If you are good, your life is simple, as you anyway won't be able to get positions of power, you have only four things to do, take care of your family, earn money, learn your profession well and do your job well, and pursue your interests. Stay away from office politics but aware enough to save your ass when required. Take part in corruption but only if it can't be avoided, because of course you have a family to feed and that's the priority. Not getting involved in corruption, at least in this country is a privilege, and that privilege is afforded by a few. The truth is being able to do hardwork is a privilege too, just don't treat it like a privilege, because it's a basic human right, not being able to do hardwork just gives you a peek into the soul of this nation. You have to realise that there is no higher purpose of your existence except achieving mastery in what you do, except, of course, crime and rape. As far as women go, know that in this country Pareto's principle applies in case of women, twenty percent of guys fuck eighty percent of women and by the time they reach good guys, they become a liability. Never be bitter about this fact, and know that it's not the fault of the women, it's just how this country works and would always work. You have to fortify your personal islands, and know that the nature and universe are beautiful, even if the country has gone to dogs. Also, know that God helps only those who help themselves, and you'll wonder what's the need of God then anyways? If you're lucky you'll get the answer, and then your lifetime of goodness would come to fruition. 

Write Concepts #5

Imagination is one of the greatest gift of nature or, if you believe in him, God. A man with unbridled imagination has everything he needs. I grew up in the golden time of children's magazine and comics in India and I got to read and imagine a lot for which I consider myself lucky. My imagination deteriorated during my college days, when I got more theoretical and methodical than imaginative, but I suppose people in imaginative fields such as art and animation retain their imagination. I have had a novel in my head since the early 2010s which I decided not to write after seeing the redundancy of literature in India. Finally, when I got another idea for a novel, I decided to write the novels for personal pleasure and not for publishing as publishing something in India is futile because the golden age of reading which were the 90s have passed. When I started writing the novels I realised that I am not as imaginative as I was back in the day. My imagination had deteriorated. The good thing was that I had the scheme and plot of novel in my head which I had imagined earlier and so, I write when I feel like it for personal pleasure. I do regular exercises, like writing projects, for improving my writing. I think the most important quality of any sort of fiction is to pull you inside its world. A good example of it would be Bram Stoker's Dracula. When the main character visits Eastern Europe in the novel, you actually feel the cultural shift and you feel that you are actually inside Eastern Europe. Writing is futile until you are able to create that sort of magic in your writings. I remember from my childhood that each and every comicbook had a distinct vibe about it. You saw the comic book and the vibe of that particular comic book would overcome you. People who have read comic books in their childhood would relate to this phenomenon. What other book did this, Harry Potter surely did this to countless kids around the world. People who haven't and don't read books and comic books would never understand this. When I imagined my novel, I had the vibe in my writing, which unfortunately died down as daily grind of life deteriorated my imagination. I have the stories, but even if I write it, I find myself unable to get pulled into the world that I have created, to feel it distinctly and this is because my incapacity to imagine. In my writing projects, however, which contain mostly short form writings like vignettes and flash fiction and short stories, I'm able to pull people in the world that I create. My creative life has gotten darker, which is a reflection of the experiences that I have had with the world. I had quite a bright childhood with stories, magazines, comic books and books like Harry Potter, but my youth was composed of Chekhov, Kafka and Conan Doyle, which later came to include Chuck Palahniuk and Kurt Vonnegut. I love noir and hardboiled since my youth, and I like writing in the noir style, at a point of time I wanted to delve in transgressive fiction, but later I realised that my writing should be weaved out of light and dark both and that it should either comfort or educate or do both. I retain the element of my inclination towards transgressive fiction at one point of time and I don't hesitate to use transgressive elements in my writings where I deem necessary, and it is justified when you grow up and realise that a considerable amount of people in India live a life that's transgressive and there are well oiled and functioning worlds at the margins of society which are in fact facilitated and supported by, well, powers. I still try to write my novel whenever I get time and feel like it, the goal here is to get the story out of my head, and if I fail to pull readers into the world I create, I would work on it later. 

Practical Lessons Derived From Mistakes

I have made some mistakes in life, and I would like to recount them so that I always remember what they were. One of the biggest mistakes I did was thinking that catharsis is necessary. Catharsis is the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions or conflicts. At one point in my life I used to think that it was necessary for mental health. Catharsis can include, acting out, venting or crying to release pent up emotions or conflicts. The truth, at least for me, is that it is not necessary. Psychological conflicts don't need catharsis, they need resolution. The conflicts, especially psychological conflicts, should be nipped in the bud through resolution. One method of resolution is assessing whether you can do something about that conflict or not, if yes, you must do that thing to resolve that conflict, if you can't do anything about it then you must just focus your attention and energies somewhere else. This approach works in all kinds of conflicts, even deep seated psychological conflicts such as child sexual abuse. You can tell the person who has suffered child sexual abuse to acknowledge her feelings and the cause and effect chain that formed due to that event and break the chain. Child sexual abuse is just an example and this approach can be used on any type of conflict, especially deep seated psychological conflicts. Catharsis is not necessary, but if you want to try catharsis, the best method to channelise your energies is through physical activities such as sports, rest of the methods are not only useless, giving just temporary relief, but may also prove detrimental in current social situation of this country. The second mistake I made is choosing the wrong psychological defences for myself. Psychological defences are of utmost importance and if you don't choose them consciously you are anyway going to choose them unconsciously so it's better you choose them consciously. I had chosen altruism and compassion as a psychological defence, empathising with people who have suffered just like me and helping them, in an ideal world this would be the best possible psychological defence, but as I grew up, I realised that it doesn't work like that in this country at least, where corruption and exploitation is facilitated by the deepest structure that controls this country and its inhabitants. Here again the best psychological defence is channelising your emotions in physical activity and focusing your energies in things that have the capacity to hold your interest. Third mistake I made is believing that rules and laws exist, they actually don't. I mean they do actually but only good and stupid people take them to heart, while the practical people consider rules and laws as obstacles in a video game. The rule of thumb is that you are wrong only if you get caught, so don't get caught. Real morality, piousness, ethics and respect mean shit in this country. If you are raising kids, the best method would to teach them morality, ethics and manners, and in an authentic and genuine manner, till they are fourteen years of age and then gradually expose them to sociopolitical reality of this country. It would prevent them from getting exploited and even if they are getting exploited, they'd know what's going on with them. Religion, morality, ethics and social conventions are just blueprints which are used to either judge people or frame them, and only the middle class follows them, only to get exploited due to them. Always remember the rule of thumb to never to get caught, and know that if you get caught you are on your own. 

An Account of Personal Interests

You approach your mid-30s and you lock in your interests. I have been finding myself getting attracted to farming and gardening. I would probably find myself doing farming after some time. I'm specially interested in horticulture but that needs land and capital so I guess farming has to wait a bit and till then I can focus on gardening. I have had kitchen gardens since I was a kid, and growing flowers and vegetables while getting peace of mind working in your garden is satisfying. I love dogs and have had a Labrador Retriever and two Anatolian Shepherds in my family. I have wanted to own a Sheprador since a very long time and probably I will but it is difficult to find a purebred Sheprador. I love dogs as pets, and I recommend anyone struggling with mental health issues to own a dog. This one animal loves you unconditionally and is loyal to you, more than any human will ever be. I like cats as animals, but I have intense hatred towards them as pets. In my personal opinion, and pardon my french, only masochistic idiots have cats as pets. For entertainment I watch wildlife documentaries and superhero movies and read books and comic books. I personally find movies other than superhero movies a waste of time though there are some exceptions like when Cristopher Nolan or Tom Cruise release a movie. I like doing Yoga and Pranayama, and I really want to master Yoga and increase my flexibility as I had suffered a bit of neurological issues during my college time. I love watching American professional wrestling, and although they have toned it down since late 90s and early 2000s, it is, in my opinion, still the greatest form of entertainment known to mankind. I like watching martial art competitions and taekwondo tricking competitions. Taekwondo tricking is one of my favourite sports. Another favourite sport is Freestyle Motocross and I try to follow it as much as I can. I like motorcycles and in them, cafe racers and dirtbikes. And though I see a lot of people having genuine interest in cars, I'm not much interested in cars. I like small cars that can take me from one place to another. In music I like rock music and Indian classical, especially Carnatic, I like a bit of funk and dubstep and other experimental genres too and I love to listen to American hiphop from the 90s, I like watching turntable scratching competitions on YouTube. My idea of a good time is discussing philosophy and cosmology with like minded people on a Saturday afternoon in a very middle class but decent Kolkata beer pub. And, as people who know me know, I write. I don't get time to pursue all my interests but I read and write regularly. My favourite authors are Lovecraft, Kafka, Conan Doyle and Premchand. I try to read at least one book a week and try to write daily, in my journal and on my blogs. 

No Country For Free Men

What matters after food, clothing, shelter, health and financial and social security? Many people don't realise it but it is freedom and privacy, and for some they might even be the first two things to matter. The next few decades are going to be crucial, because people, ultimately would realise that there is neither freedom nor privacy, and then they would have to choose, die free or live as slaves. Free souls can be made to live, and the only method to make them live is by blackmailing them with the well being of their loved ones. I discovered slavery by serendipity and it is then I realised that there is neither freedom, nor privacy. This country is going to be a special case study in the next few decades. The game is not complex, it's giving perks to selected individuals to enslave people, and blackmailing and intimidating the others. It's a mediaeval arrangement with everything taken care of. People like me who were imagining flying cars in the future while watching Discovery Channel in late 90s and early 2000s hadn't imagined in their wildest dreams that that future would be like living in a penal colony, with an illusion of complete freedom while the truth being that each and every aspect of lives of people gets manipulated by incompetent gatekeepers. I assume that the narrative for every level of existence is different, probably I just couldn't make it to the level where the narrative of my life matches my mindset. The machine knows you, but it only knows the superficial details. Let me free you right now by telling that the machine and the individuals who are in the machine can never know you, despite knowing everything about you, even the colour of your underwear and how many times you masturbate in a week. The machine will first pose that it knows all about you, and then it will pose it knows you to intimidate you. The truth is only the people who love you can know you and no one else. Love is a force, the most powerful and gentle force and so it's being systematically destroyed. Families are being broken, people prevented from finding their soulmates. All of that so that you focus on picking the metaphorical cotton. People are resource and it's this resource that's being exploited, for power, for pleasure, and it would continue. I hope to live the next couple of decades to see the drama unfold, to see if people realise that they are still picking cotton, it's just that the slavery has gone even deeper. The good news is that it cannot go any deeper. 

Nature, Nurture and Snowpiercing

The debate between nature verses nurture is an old one. The nature of individuals can't be changed really but it can be modified into socially positive traits, and that can be done with any element of nature. The reverse of this is true too, nature can also be modified into socially negative traits, and in common terms it is known brainwashing. An idealistic person can be brainwashed into becoming a terrorist, while at the same time he can be groomed into a human rights activist. It is here, good education plays an important role. I would suppose, with the experience I have had, that nurture gets imbibed into the nature and expresses itself into the next generations. An evidence of it I have seen in dogs, as offsprings of well trained dogs retain some amount of training within them and it gets better in further generations. A very specific example of it I have seen in a dog which is a cross breed of a Labrador Retriever and an Indian indie. The pup had been well behaved since the start with no training despite having indie genes. When given food, the pup, and even when she grew up, didn't show any greed and waited patiently for her food to be served and only ate when told to eat, and mind you this was with no training at all. So, it can be assumed that manners are genetic too. And that leads us to the consequences of terrible education in this country. When one realises that people in this country don't have basic manners, and even toilet manners, and when seen in the light of things that we have just discussed, we know that situation in the future is only going to be worse. I'm basically an optimist, but I'm a realist too, and I have seen the external and internal socio-political setup of this country in detail in the past decade. The fight for survival is tremendous and it's a crabs in a bucket game with no rules. The situation can be explained through the metaphor of a train, there is first class compartment, there is second class compartment, there is third class compartment, fourth class compartment and there is the general compartment. I have travelled in all of them and so I know the reality of the situation. Expecting dignity of life here is futile. In this situation a honourable man should try to keep doing his job, keep paying his taxes, and should know that his fate is metaphorical equivalent of a man bleeding out in a corner smoking a cigarette. Smoking the cigarette, again, is his choice, a majority doesn't even get the cigarette while they are bleeding out. 

Dark Humourous

Dark humour helped me cope through painful times. It is not everyone's cup of tea though. And the thing about it is that it only suits good people. Dark humour takes uncomfortable truths of life and makes you laugh about it, that is, if you have an appetite for it. A lot of good people enjoy dark humour, but it took me some time to realise that there is a vast majority that doesn't enjoy dark humour as a form of humour but as a source of pure schadenfreude and sadism. I'll give you an instance of a dark humourous situation. Imagine that there is this guy who is very pious and law-abiding and he is alone in his life with no women around him, and situations are such that he sees people around him mindlessly indulging in sexual excesses and depravities, and after watching it for quite a long time he decides to keep his morality aside and decides to visit a prostitute for easing his loneliness and sexual frustration. He visits the prostitute and has sex for the first time in his life and contracts HIV. This is an unfortunate dark humourous situation and the humour here is in the absurdity of situation. People who have lived with painful situations, depressed people use dark humour to cope, people with suicidal ideation use dark humour to cope. Dark humour is a good coping mechanism but the problem with it twofold, one, the majority of people misunderstand it, and two, sadistic scum genuinely enjoy the absurd and miserable situations it portrays. I used to enjoy dark humour because I have seen depression and it was kind of a coping mechanism for it, what made me not enjoy it anymore later was the realisation that in our society there is a vast majority of people who genuinely enjoy misery and suffering of others, so much that it gives them sexual pleasure to watch others suffering. You remain in the business of mental health for long and society unfolds itself and when you realise this truth about society, especially of this country, dark humour becomes redundant. I couldn't know the truth of this country and still kept liking dark humour, it would have changed me as a person and into scum that a considerable population of this nation is. Though what I consider fair for dark humour still, is the incompetence of individuals who are in control. 

Serving The Dish Cold

The sociopolitical setting of this country can be simplified into favours and revenge. There is a lot to life but when things go south in life in this country this is what remains. Revenge is, I suppose, a basic instinct in humans. Humans react, even the most selfless of humans, like mothers, hit the child instinctively when he does something that offends them. Education gives understanding, and understanding develops empathy and here revenge gets replaced by justice. Unfortunately our country is not an educated one and thus the basic currency of sociopolitical exchange are favours and revenge instead of understanding and empathy. The political machine thrives on this and there are stratas, higher the strata more the cooperation and solidarity, and lower the strata more is the fight for survival. Good people in the lower stratas are not common anymore unless they are part of communities. Situation is getting worse as in the lower stratas it's cunning and deception that wins. The individuals living in solidarity at the top, exploit the people in the lower stratas in solidarity too. And to keep things simple the life of people becomes simplified into favours and revenge. Anyone who knows this country enough knows that there is no true justice here, and thus revenge sometimes becomes just and necessary, though due to absolute sociopolitical control avenues for exacting it are either very few or none. If you have been molested as a child, revenge is a just approach in this scenario, though you don't go for it as it would mean telling your family that you had been molested as a child. Courts in this country are the last resort, and there too justice is an exception and not a rule, in most cases your whole life gets wasted visiting the court and your shoes get worn off. It's not until you become aware of the sociopolitical arrangement that is beyond courts and the government you realise the actual sociopolitical reality of this country. Revenge is not worth throwing one's life away, but if it has to be taken it shouldn't be generalised but taken with the exact person who has done the harm. The real nature of this country is tribal, and beyond all the drama of religion, morality and social conventions, people operate with a tribal mindset. It's not to be forgotten that revenge is only for the privileged. The majority is busy surviving while at the same time getting oppressed and exploited. Power dynamic is one true God and if you have to survive you have to play the sociopolitical game of favours and revenge. The bigger the ego in front of you, the more is the offence taken on real or imagined slights. The more the power dynamic between you and the person in front of you, the more amplified are the consequences of slights, real or imagined. The examples are many, from you getting fired from your job for offending someone powerful on social media, to someone filing a false case on your for hurting their ego, to you getting murdered for offending the ego of wrong people. As I said, the real nature of this country is tribal, and the more educated and empathetic you are, the more will be the suffering, but it's always better than taking part in the never ending game of favours and revenge and always looking over your shoulders. 

Gamestopper

I got exposed to video games in the late 90s. Like every kid in the 90s my first exposure to video games was 8 bit gaming consoles. I played innumerable games, bought game cartridges. After that I got introduced to arcades where you could play arcade games and playstation games like Tekken 3. In the early 2000s I got introduced to computer games. It started with game demos that use to come in complementary CDs of tech magazines. There was no steam back then and only relation to steam I had was that it was a company that launched one of my most favourite game series Half-life. When I got a computer, I started with games like pinball and DOS games. There were DOS games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D and other DOS games. I spent a lot of time playing games like motocross madness and it is probably the reason I have an inclination towards freestyle motocross as a sport. I remember I had visited Nehru Place to get a joystick, and I used that joystick to play games like Crimson Skies and Motocross Madness. I also played Midtown Madness, but I liked Motocross Madness better. I spent a considerable amount of time on Zoo Tycoon, a game where you had to build a zoo and run it while taking care of animals. My all time favorite game however is Half-life, especially the first game of series, including the game Blueshift and Opposing Force. Its protagonist Gordon Freeman PhD was a character that inspired me. The character Gordon Freeman is PhD in theoretical physics. It was one of the reasons I wanted to do a PhD later in life. Another great character from that game was Adrian Shephard a US marine in his late teens. There was a team that was with Adrian Shephard which included a medic and a welder who always had a cigarette in his mouth. I didn't like Half-life 2 as much as Half-life but technologically speaking the game was ahead of its time and when it was released and had a great physics engine. There was another game that was launched at the same time and was actually great was Doom 3. It was a horror game, though new games in the franchise stick to the run and gun approach of earlier Doom games. I used to play Tribes 2 and miss that game and I was glad to know that there is a community of gamers that likes that game on YouTube. I loved Age of Empires back then and used to play it with my friend on a dial-up LAN connection. I played games like Max Payne, Matrix Path of Neo, Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City and San Andreas. In my late teens I stopped playing games and only reconnected with gaming in my late 20s. I have played countless games, and now I collect games on Steam to make up for my disconnect with gaming from my late teens to late 20s. I don't play games often, but I collect the new games hoping that I would get time to play them later. I collected the games that I couldn't play back in the day, like Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, Far Cry, Crysis and many others. I had played Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 back in the day, but kids now play games like Call of Duty online. Call of Duty is a great franchise and back then there were games like Medal of Honor too. I still wait for a new game of Half-life franchise. The options today are numerous, but nothing can match the vibes of the games back in the day. 

Idiot Box Over The Top

Does anyone watch television anymore? Middle-aged and elderly ladies surely do, the daily soaps. Television is an idiot box, but back in the day it was actually great, not because it is nostalgia but because it was actually great. There were fewer options and more effort and artistry into creating programs. I seldom watch TV now, and when I do I watch channels like animal planet, and mostly things related to nature like wildlife documentaries. Young people have switched to YouTube and OTT platforms such as Netflix and Disney+ and other OTT platforms. There are good TV shows on OTT being made in India, at least on the outlook, but I don't really know because I don't watch them. I had a rendezvous with the political reality of this country a decade ago and it is since then I lost my interest in the content being produced in India. I watch American stuff, but it is limited to superhero movies and shows and movies based on comic books. YouTube has lost its sheen in the post-truth world but I do watch bushcraft, camping and fishing videos on it as well as some other things like freestyle motocross, tricking competitions and a bunch of other stuff, I use YouTube mostly for musical nostalgia though. In short, the only content I watch on screen on TV and OTT except for the random stuff I watch on YouTube are wildlife documentaries and superhero movies and shows. TV was important part of me growing up, and back then there were great shows, and they are not nostalgia, they were actual great shows and if you do not believe it, rewatch them and see them standing the test of time. Shows like Batman The Animated Series, Batman of The Future, Johnny Quest, Max Steel, Dandare, Courage The Cowardly Dog, Dexter's Lab and a huge bunch of other shows. Kids today do not have that. What they have are half-assed attempts of storytelling, which I think will not ever stand the test of time. 90s middle class kids had it good when it comes to the idiot box. What still stands its ground is American professional wrestling, In my personal humble opinion American professional wrestling is one of the best forms of entertainment ever conceived by humans. They have toned it down since the 90s and early 2000s but it is still entertaining and I still follow it, if not on television, then on social media. I have never been an anime person, and only anime I have ever watched is Pokemon, but I see that kids of today are crazy about anime. For some unknown reason I trust Japan for kids content, the same I can't say about post 2010 India. I'm planning to watch some adult oriented anime to see what the hype is about and while at it I would also check out Studio Ghibli movies. I like exploring things to discover new stuff but I'm old enough to finally have settled with what I actually like and it's wildlife documentaries and superhero movies and shows.