A Note from the Universe

"Touchdown confirmed. We are safe on Mars"

The latest landing on Mars is something that I'll remember for some time. It was one those moments that took me out of the daily humdrum and reminded me that there is quite literally a  whole universe out there. It was an incentive to disengage from my own life for a while, look up to the heavens and recognise that I am a part of something bigger - that I'm part of both the universe and the collective that is constantly trying to decipher it. That while there is so much that is unknown, there is so much that is. That everyday, we're pushing the borders. That humanity as a race is exploring, that we are still curious, that while we are reaching new peaks everyday, we are still seeking enlightenment. 

It's reassuring to know that while I'm blocking my diary with assignments and essays, there are engineers and scientists who are working on such projects. Thousands of individuals putting in so much effort to conquer yet another frontier. I personally can't thank them enough. Their work serves as a reminder that we've come so far. From once thinking that the earth was flat to rejecting the notion that it was the center of the universe. To discovering there is water on the moon. To landing on Mars a couple of times with the latest rover called 'Curiosity'. It's been quite a ride! 

"I like to think of them out there in the dark, watching us. Sometimes we'll do something and they'll laugh. Sometimes we'll do something and they'll cry. And maybe, one day we'll do something so magnificent, the whole universe will get goosebumps."

(A favourite excerpt that examines humanity from an alien's perspective. From "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe' by Jane Wagner)

Sing to Me, Dreamer...

Sometime close to the beginning of they year, I declared to my parents that regardless of where life would find me in December, I’d visit a dear friend in Kuwait. She is quite the soul sister and now that she's moved back, nothing seemed better than seeing her in her part of the world. I also started reading up on  an ancient mystic poet by the name of  Rumi,  and it suddenly became imperative that I visit this Sufi’s tomb. So Turkey was also added to the itinerary. It was the best thing I’d planned for myself in a long while. Encouraged by my parent's input I started planning the trip, thinking up vague details in my head. Suddenly my  summer plans started following me around like a rainbow that only I could see. Life was good.

 Dreaming or the ability to do so = the best thing!

 For some reason or the other, things have come to be that this plan is no longer feasible. I only had a month of thinking about it before I woke up to the stark reality of logistics and the like. It was fun dreaming of doing this but I also knew that I wanted to take this trip when I was financially able and capable of doing so on my own. It would mean much more then. Perhaps I’d always known that  this ambition wouldn’t be all that feasible until I started working, but the vestiges of the child in me dismissed anything that smacked of practicality and finance. But the rational side of me inevitably took over. I didn’t really notice when I stopped, but one day I stopped thinking about this trip altogether. It happens.

But a couple of days ago, I was watching a movie set in Turkey, and it hit me – I’d not only stopped thinking about this trip, I’d stopped dreaming about it. I had stopped imagining the possibility of it. Is this what grown ups call growing up? When we start viewing and limiting dreams through the frames of practicality. Weighing everything up, deciding if something is feasible before allowing ourselves to  imagine it? A form of self-preservation perhaps. The fall won’t hurt so much if we stop climbing mid-way. But when did I start worrying about falling? When did just imagining something suddenly become so scary? I suddenly started hankering for the days of yore, of happy childhood days. When dreams were untainted by ‘reality’. When they were as big, beautiful and unpractical as the stars twinkling in the night sky.

Thinking about this has been good for me. I’ve made peace with the part of myself that requires rationality for everyday decisions. But I’m reclaiming my ability to dream unhindered and free from limitations. Surely, they exist in two different realms for a reason. Imagine if the innovators, the writers, the dreamers if you will, allowed their reality to limit their dreams. Would they be able to imagine as well as they did in the framework of 'what was' as opposed to 'what could be'? Reality has its part, but it can do so much for me. It can’t help me imagine the warm Konya sun on my back. Or the experience of smoking a sheesha in a legit Turkish market, over loud bargains and a hot mint tea. Yea, even if it is the globe trotter in me, I’ve started dreaming again. Keeps things interesting. 

The Sum of All Effort

I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since I wrote last. But a glance at my old posts assures me that it has indeed been an age since I did. So much has happened in the meanwhile; my brother got married, my best friend did the same, my nieces can now string words into cohesive sentences, nearly all my friends from undergrad entered their 3^rd year of working life… and almost all of them are travelling to exotic places. And I’m most assuredly happy for all of them. Although, I’m sure on a bad day I’d envy everyone in the above list (I mean, who wouldn't be envious of my baby nieces who can not only do the 'adorable talk' but also ballet their worries away??!) but in this moment sitting here in a lakeside café, I’m just happy to be me. Good ol’ “ambling-through-life” me. A part of me does balk at the word ‘ambling’, because it denotes a sense of slowness and life right now is anything but. Maybe I should just change it to something positive like “stopping to smell the flowers” or the more fitting “procrasta-living"? hmmmm. High on chai latte and incapable of making any executive decisions maybe I’ll keep them all. “Ambling through life and smelling the flowers sometimes, but mostly just procrastinating”. Yea, let’s go with that. 

So where does the beginning of August find me? Third week into my final semester of law school that’s where. The semester that will decide the sum of all my efforts so far. Cue last semester blues – all kinds of self-doubt, "how did it get late so soon?, should I have majored in Anthropology and Literature as an undergrad? would it have served me better? Is the big Law firm really for me?" etc etc. Feeling decidedly overwhelmed with the colossal amount of work I have to do and the places I have to apply to. If only awareness and knowledge of my "to-do" list could guarantee action! I’d definitely make a good case study for sociologists wanting to research the ‘knowledge-action’ gap. Cue - worrying, staying up late, waking up late, making lists, getting worried because of list, wondering why i'm still in college and trying to snooze my chores away. Sum of total effort or lack thereof, most definitely equals zero. Stress and worry have me physically paralysed.Yay, to self-awareness!

So how did today, turn out not to be such a bad day? Well, maybe it’s because I leveled with mother dearest on the phone. I told her everything that I had to do.  And she told me the order in which I should do them.  Maybe that’s the secret. Maybe we (or maybe just me) need our mothers to tell us what to do until we get a handle on life again.  I also just called myself ‘Bambi’ as typed that. Yea I’m having a Bambi day, but that’s ok, because doe eyed deers are cute. Being told what to do gave me some respite from actually thinking about the same and for the first time in days, self-doubt and I parted ways.

Anyway, I have only just ticked one of the four major things I have to do today but it’s satisfying. And it got me to thinking, hard work and maybe just working really hard on one little thing is perhaps its own reward. Even when the sum of all effort equals ticking one seemingly 'insignificant' thing on your mammoth list, it can render you incapable, if only for one sunny afternoon, of being envious of comrades, the richer, debt-free, better travelled friends. It's all about believing in your own work,  running your own race and knowing that everyone including you are exactly where you're meant to be. It's about starting somewhere on that endless list of readings, chores and job applications and staking claim to the result. Maybe one day, even my happy place will be upgraded to a sunnier more Pina Colda friendly environment. Uptill then, its enough knowing that productivity has a way of making me my own biggest fan, and it's the only thing that can stem the last semester blues.

I also realised that being holed up in my room gets me nowhere but to anxiety town so I drove down to a lakeside café. And I actually completed a tutorial due tomorrow midst murmurs, business meetings and my favorite lakeside characters – the gulls. To be surrounded by life is a wonderful thing.

(Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra)

Plan for the rest of the day is to actually sit down and draw up that timetable I’ve convinced myself will be the end of all my problems, catch up on a lecture and make a start on my 220 page article for a presentation due in a couple of days.

Writing this made me realize that I actually do get some peace from condensing all these thoughts on paper (blog) so I’ll  make an effort do it more often. For now, I sign off slightly (as opposed to alarmingly) overwhelmed …with a chance of finding my feet somewhere on the horizon.

Ps. As I signed in to read other blogs, I happened across the stats for mine. I actually have people (other than myself!) reading this. *mind blown *and Thank You for stopping by!