2037

I turned 50 years old today.

My kids are 14 and 17 years of age. 

I have made a crazy amount of money, but have had an ankle injury for the last 7 years because of which I havent been able to trek as well.

Luckily, we managed to do a few camper van trips with the kids. I still cant believe how loud they can be, but friends tell me that loud is much much better than silent.

But now we are at a bit of a cross roads; my elder one should be leaving us for her college, and we have a choice to relocate along with our younger one to be on the same landmass. 

Man, it will be a mad adjustment but I guess adjustment is better than being alone :(

Wifey and I have managed to dive a lot with the kids too... so it ought to be a place where we can easily fly for a dive?

Im also gonna convince some of our friends to figure out a move along with us, since the elder ones are going to the same land mass - the Amrika.

But is it really sensible to move without our friends ? Anyways the kids are quite busy with their own lives... but it also feels like our friends are quite busy with their lives here...

So, I guess Fra and I need to rely on each other and find things to do together; hence, is that better in this city where I cant walk anywhere or drive out to 20 degrees on a whim, but where all my chores are done by someone else?

OR!!!

Do the chores, but have better air, cooler climate, and whine about new things?

Man, how I wish we had done this move earlier, but the girls were too picky about their friends and shit and the wife was too whiny about 'chores'. Gentle Parenting my ass; shouldve pushed through.

Luckily, its still a good time; our bodies work and the new implants just make things better.  

Too much choice

 The confluence of 3 books:

The Body Keeps the score, Bad Therapy and Scattered Minds

And it reminds me that we can often be wrong

That we live in a world with too much noise, where everyone has a loudspeaker.

But also, a world where we have too much time and too many choices.

It is said that Indian and Buddhist meditative practices arose because they had the free time to just sit and breathe; and when we rested, we found out that our mind is constantly in a state of flux.

In my journey of parenting, I can see now that the abundance of time means that I am continually assessing how to allocate time, how to be mindful and be present.

But I look back at my one parent who was constantly there, and I can see that she too failed me. And even though she failed me, I have turned out quite ok, I am indebted to both of them and quite appreciative of my path.

And hence, it seems to me that there is no magic path.

Its just a constant tug between selfish and selfless (which is indeed selfish), between good and bad (habits, diet, lifestyle, thoughts, behaviour).

And eventually its just about getting through life without, hopefully, any serious disasters.

Our current lives are filled with so many choices, that it seems to me a root cause for a lot of mental ills in the world. The doomscrolling, and the ability to whine and worry because of a surfeit of time and resources. 

If you are reading this, the odds are you can overeat, oversleep, overexercise, overlounge, overdoomscroll without any immediate repercussions. 

But as soon as you glance at another who is too busy or too worried about money, the odds are that the 'depression' of theirs stems from something else entirely. 

We now live amongst a populace of whiners and wasters (me too).  

And again, my kids teach me. Today, K was dancing and walking saying " I daaat a taaaain!!!" (I got a coin). Thats mindfulness.

Money as the metric

Someone just estimated me at 10x of where I was. And that made me feel small; have I achieved so little?

I started defending all my steps, and my journey.

It finally dawned on me that his maths was flawed.

And now I understand that all of us are flawed.

Why is money the metric for achievement?

I told my wife the other day, that I see prisons everywhere...

My 2 year old kid HAS TO go to school; and my 5 year old also sees that.

And until they are 18 or so, they dont see an alternative; that is just how lives are lived.

These same prisons allow for an unencumbered life, full of joy and love and anxiety and performance pressures.

They then move to "what do you want to learn, in order to be employable"

The college life is a lot more carefree, where personalities are formed and clothing is finally your choice! You finally get to meet real strangers and you start fending for yourself in the world.

What happens next after the age of 22 to 26 is astounding... You HAVE TO report to work. You dress a particular way, speak a particular way, and you HAVE TO show up everyday and put a smile on your face. Unlike school, you cant choose to be in a grumpy mood or plain refuse to speak to anyone.

And the sad reality is that a lot of people spend a huge chunk of their hours being at work, managing chores, and very simply, imprisoned by the daily grunt of being fit, looking fit, and showing up at work. 

And then, by the age of 55-70 there is another astounding change. 

People stop working, and start preparing for a life of 'nothing'. There is finally, no showing up at work, fewer pretenses,  and there is now a mad scramble to hope you are fit and wealthy enough to live a full life.

And all of this can be traced back to forms of industrial revolution and colonialism, where the school culture and the work culture began.

And this brings us to what they call the 30s crisis, where people have now started having kids and they are forced to assess their health and if this is the life they want to live. They quit, go freelance, and start their own business so as to be more free.

Just last month, when I was faced with absolute freedom, I realised that beyond books, TV, reading for work and exercise there was precious little to life unless we find ways to reconnect with people. I suppose that this is the current plight of the people - we would much rather doom scroll than face life. 

Mimetic

 I have been going through a mid-life assessment for the last year or so:

1. Do I want to travel and experience the world with my kids?

Yes, but I dont want the grunt and I will be poorer without the work it involves :|
I am free to make my own time, but seemingly, not free to do it on my own selfish terms.

2. Why do I work? Is it not for fun?
I guess I am emulating these investors who read for a living; and the question is: Do I enjoy reading? Or do I like the idea of being a reader? An inch wide and a mile deep my friend said; but I prefer 2 inches deep and a mile wide. 

3. Isnt it time I prioritize health and happiness over mindless gluttony, sloth, greed, envy and ambition?

Yes, and my move to the new home has helped me immensely - surprising how life's events can surprise us. 

4. Do I have any friends? Do I long for anyone?

Here too, I have felt the tug of life's pace. 

Therapy made me realise that I was caught living between 2 ends of the spectrum; the person I didnt want to become and the person my wife wanted me to be. Non-blissfully ignorant of my strained situation. 

The self knew it and did not know it at the same time. 

5. Have I begun racing through life because of the need to optimise time and ROI?

Yes. There is an X amount I make per day, so how can I waste time going to a book store? I ought to buy it online right?
Rory Sutherland awakened me to this and so did the Good Life book, four thousand weeks book, Wait; Rick Guerin's obituary.

The joy of doing is slipping away because we can suddenly do so much.

Is there any merit in physically shopping for groceries? I am taking N to a market tomorrow

Shouldnt I pick what I want to watch, before I begin browsing? The cable TV allowed us to surf aimlessly, but that graduated to the OTT VOD platforms, where we are no longer watching anything intently? Hence, I aim to build a DVD collection of old movies

6. My old story of ' this TV works fine, and hence I dont need a new TV' , vs ' Why am I using an old broken kettle, when Louis XI would have killed to have a beautiful useful piece at home'

Shouldnt I upgrade my life to maximising joy from the leisurely things I love? A good manually ground coffee in a french press, a beautiful pair of shoes that can elevate my walking, a handsome kettle in which I can boil water for my tea? or should it be a stove top old school kettle that is energy inefficient and time consuming?

7. Is it important to read 40 books a year, or shouldnt I prioritise re-reading some great books? Why do I not have the time to read the Lord of the Rings again?

Our world of plenty is throwing at us options for what to do with our free time. It could be mindlessly scrolling through Insta, a leisurely walk, learning how to make a dosa, reading a book or reading a synopsis and believing  that you have done it.

Slow down. Watch my children grow. Take charge of my health. Be mindful. Minimize regret. 

10 years

 Am I the same person?

My body is stiffer, my mind is more distracted, my gene pool is flourishing, I am richer, I am wiser.

But may be, the starkest difference is that I am full of gratitude, I am more humble because there is a lot I have to be humble about and that I am dying.

Nothing serious really, it's just that life is something you experience right until the moment you die. And then, all you have is eternity.

I have two small kids now and my world is larger because of them; there is more to be alive for and be more aware of and be fitter. I am on my way out and I continually see me through their eyes - and its a joyful out of body experience.

____

The fleetingness of love, marriage, life, money and most importantly, happiness keeps chipping at me.

I had once written about happiness and contentment - and how the motive ought to be joy and contentment.

I would be a fool if I asked for a better life.

These last 10 years have seen a big shift in how we manage our time. We dont sit at a computer anymore do we? We dont wait for the news - we dont even know what is new. I see anxiety around me and inside me and I hope that we find a way back to the cassette and to the waiting for the train and to the silence.

I wonder if I will write more...

To be or not to be

Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.

- Victor Frankl

When I heard a friend speak of her fabulous trip to Greece, I grew envious.

And then I realised there was nothing to envy for we always see the greener parts on the other side.

Most of us are doomed to mediocrity, but there is nothing wrong with it.

We will never do the best things we hear of and read of and see... we will always do that which we are able to and allow ourselves to.

One should look back at life as though it has already been lived and once you do that acknowledge that you are about to act as wrongly now as you did the first time. - Frankl again.