Diary entry on self

 Low energy, low resonance with purpose, low sense of direction

What to do?

Correcting the energy deficit can only be done by exercise. I am sure of this because I have felt extremely tired even after a day's rest and a good night's sleep.

Lack of purpose: This is a challenge. I am redoing a job that I did with great enthusiasm 20 years ago. And doing in the format that is used today. This format of communication through ppts and elaborate teacher training material is time consuming and unsatisfactory as opposed to the simple way of giving hand outs and listening to audio clips online.

Low sense of direction could stem from an ADHD that I experience since my school days. All the three are connected.

When do I feel the flow

Fortunately, I still feel the flow in a classroom. I pick up on what the students need, what steps are to be taken to cater to their requirement. I feel the same while playing Candy Crush. It makes me content instantly. While it may seem counterintuitive to play Candy Crush, an addictive game, it is an undeniable fact that the game gives me immense calmness and sense of security. It would be wiser to use the game judiciously, as a shot in the arm which would keep me going rather than wallow in substandard stagnation.

Reading for me: magic glazed logic

Did some serious reading as part of a project on a variety of topics related to menstruation. Making a note of my responses to them.

1. First topic with author's name and tagline
 Pathologizing Your Period 
B Y PA U LA J . C AP LA N
(Despite a lack of evidence, the psychiatric establishment has made extreme premenstrual distress a recognized disorder—and a boon to Big Pharma.)
I felt that this article goes beyond the usual discussion scope on premenstrual syndrome, which usually covers physical and emotional distress such as cramps, dizziness, hopelesness and tearfulness. It speaks about American authorities on psychiatry, categorizing certain unrelated symptoms under depression related to menstruation and labelling that as a mental disorder. Men also show these symptoms, it says.
So the question that comes to my mind is why they connect a mental disorder to menstruation. The author says that it is sexism and a boon to pharmaceutical companies.
My personal response was to wonder if some mental illness cases reported in the media, diagnosed as due to extreme PMS could be due to some other undiagnosed disorder. How can we believe a single doctor's diagnosis when the medical body has no proof that this mentally aberrant behaviour is related to menstruation?

Poof! Life has neither magic, nor logic

 How can i spend time in front of  laptop  without falling asleep? I feel very tired and sleepy in the mornings. For a long time, I have had a bad attitude towards content creation. I fidget, try out multiple things like playing a game, learning new things and listening to music. But I end up falling asleep in front of the computer.  I wonder what this is all about. 

I started writing this in June.

June and July are gone and so are 12 days in August. In the past sixty days, I have increased my out put to some extent, although I am not yet in an optimal flow. 

And there is the recognition that I am not motivated enough to work full time, although I need to work for a few more years in this way. Acknowledging this and workin on it.

 How comical logic is/how comical I am

There' a young lady in her mid twenties on campus. She comes to class at 8.30, studies for an hour and goes to sleep at ten everyday. When the other students wake her up, she is startled and asks, "What happened?" 

She does this everyday. As a person from

I do not know when I started to write this blog and now, after two event packed years, have no memory of the young lady or of the young people who shared this story with me. 

When many events happen, incidents get pushed back to the back part of the memory. In my case, that area of the brain is pretty damaged and the above witnessed memory blank is proof to this.

Looking at the positive side, of late I hear many people say the same thing. Not just peers, but those 

whom I consider smarter, or younger or more capable. Could be information overload. 

 The (psycho)logic or vengeance

Vengeance is a psychological reality. My mild manners and forgiving nature makes me look like an easy target to aspiring bullies. I mostly watch them fall on their own toes. But even I do take revenge sometimes. 

There are many arguments against revenge, but it does calm the mind of a person who has been emotionally abused.  It also restores a feeling of equilibrium in a world, where not only the world view of the ones who have been exploited, but even that of onlookers and non participants are set off balance by thoughts of how unfair the world is. 

I have had my fair share of revenge, and in my defence, that revenge was rarely exacted by me and I was a mere witness albeit a joyful one, to the downfall of those who wronged me.

But there have been instances when I said or did something that was a catalyst to the other person breaking down. In my defence, most of it was unintentional. I am just confessing to being the instrument. 

The last line here would be that these instances have been moments of deep satisfaction, calmness and sometimes goosebumps.

 I now live on a campus. in a village My quarters are right next to the gate. 

But in between my digs and the gate there is a single room allotted for the watchman and his family. Not only do his four kids and wife live with him, but so do two cousins, an uncle, the wife's sister and an assortment of relatives who come and go. 

Nowhere is the acceptance of logic-less, magic-less reality more apparent than it is here. My quarters are simple, according to living standards of today. One living area, a tiny pathway dubbed as the kitchen, a decent bathroom and a small bedroom. 1BHK, as they say here, in Bangalore. But I cannot imagine how all of the watchman's family fit in that single room.

I live here with my two puppies, who snooze on the bed or the foot mat. The watchman's wife is woman in her early 20s or late teens called Sabu. Her sister is a seven year old called Paru. She takes care of her nephews, one a toddler of two and the other an infant of a say 6 months, when her sister Sabu goes out to work as a maid. 

Today ,when Sabu went to work, Paru also wanted to go to the toilet. She gave the infant in the arms of her 4 year old niece, Sneha. Sneha, unable to carry him gave him to three year old Neha, her sister. Now Neha's arms ached so much that she started to bawl in pain. When I went out to find out what happened. Paru beat Sneha for giving the baby to Neha. Sneha beat Neha for bawling. Sneha also accused Paru of lying and said that she really didn't have to go to the toilet.

I had the baby with me for a few minutes as Paru went in to the shrubs to relieve herself. She returned, took the baby back and thanked me. 

Will we ever live in a society where the rights of children are not so systematically trampled upon? While this is still better than a system in which the state takes care of children without caregivers, it's so unfair on the kids and the terrible unfairness of it all keeps pricking me.

The eternal magic of LIterature

 Today I read a book: The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst.

It was eminently readable, and after i finished the book I realized that I had somehow missed or inadvertantly skipped the part which explains the title.

So I looked it up, and was pleasantly surprised to read that this randomly selected book  is quite reputed in the literary world. And the title is from a poem, and puts the spotlight on one scene around which the whole story revolves. So I accidentally got to read an acclaimed book.

I have to agree. My experience with the book was that, in these days of distraction from multiple sources,  I had read the 562 pages at one go. Of course, over two days, and when I was left with no work to do. It was about writers, and the world of publishing, of ageing, of changing times, homophobia and the randomness of fame. 

After I put the book down, and even before I came to know of it being 'literary' I had actually browsed for History of Literature courses online and found one from a reputed University. I intend to enrol in it. So much did the book invoke memories of my college and the excellent lectures I had listened to therein.

I also began my second day with the book by reading a few verses from "The Waste LanD", a poem that I was asked to write about in my entrance exam to my English Course at Stella Maris College. 

I am at cross roads of my life now and this book reminded me how much I had loved being a student of literature before life and its demands swallowed me up. 

Though I may have lost the ability to review the book in a scholarly way, the lines here are my tribute to it as good literature; Literature that makes you want to be in touch with similar excellent works that have attempted to explain life with all its nuances.