The end of a decade, my Twenties

As I look back at the past decade, my twenties, I can remember every incident that molded me and made me the person I am today. I did not enjoy my twenties at all. In fact, I have grown to hate so many years of the last ten that there seems to be more despair than happiness. I have resolved to make it my mission to take charge of the next decade, to make it my own, to grow as a person in a multi faceted way. I am bursting with ideas and philosophies that I will elucidate in another post. In that post, I'll to write about what I learnt from this era, what I plan to do and how I will try to shape the next ten years.

I have left out a few experiences and have only obtusely referenced others. But the ones I have cited suffice to acknowledge the various influences in these years.

Without further ado, a tribute to the decade that was -

2000 - mid 2002:

I thoroughly enjoyed my undergraduate days. People often speak of their "halcyon days" when looking at their past, these days were my halcyon days. I played hard, studied hard and formed lasting friendships, Myriad Maiden (of course!) and Nazgul. I also chanced upon what I knew to be my career. These were defining years, every which way.

mid 2002 - early 2005:

The world had its dark ages before its renaissance. This was mine. Darkness was my companion and friend. The only saving grace during this period was that I had LonelyPlanet and heavy metal in my life. I lived in poverty during these times, abject poverty at that. I experienced shame, a burning shame that I couldn't share with anyone. I learnt disappointment, bitter disappointment at my own naivety, the ways of the world and my inability to shape it, at my helplessness to help my parents. The list goes on.

Some of the highlights:

I lived on one pretzel and a cup of coffee for more than a year.

To eke out a living, I cleaned restrooms, folded clothes, lifted crates and operated a fork lift.

I worked free for a long long time. This was in addition to the afore mentioned manual labor.

My preconceived notions of a masters came crashing down. Drexel had its way of grinding your dreams into dust.

Huge mood swings between misery and sadness to manic happiness.

What made it all worthwhile:

LonelyPlanet - we shared some good times!

Awesome room mates - Hejmady, Setlur and Giri.

Heavy metal - I did stupid things to save money and go to these shows, but did it make life that much easier! If there is anything I underestimate, it is the influence that this music and these shows have had on my morale.

early 2004:

I lost my father. May his soul rest in peace. If there was one incident in the past decade that I still haven't made peace with, this is it. The circumstances around this incident crushed my spirit. I still have many unresolved issues, too many demons to conquer. I hope to put them all to sleep in the next decade.

mid 2004 - early 2005:

This was another period in my life where I dreaded waking up every morning. I woke up everyday and through elevated stress levels, counted the hours till sunset. This was the period I was job hunting. The job market wasn't in good shape. Software jobs, through consultants, were available but were not exactly my first choice. I didn't go through hell for the last two and half years to quit this easily. I was constantly preparing for interviews for jobs in my field of choice but my need to get a H1 was more pressing than my preference in the type of job. I went down the rabbit hole that is consultancy - this was akin to living in the movie "Nightmare on Elm's street". I lied about myself and faced constant humiliation when I fell short. I was miserable that I was lying about myself and my confidence was at an all time low. This is as lightly as I can describe my sense of self worth at the time. My attempt at filing an H1 application was met with a 4 page RFE - I had all but both legs on a flight home, a flight that would have been my crowning defeat.

But the sun did rise on my plight - I got, what in retrospect I consider to be, a wonderful first job.

early 2005 - mid 2007:

I thoroughly enjoyed this period. I loved my job and the people I worked with. I had little time for a social life but I learnt, worked and accomplished a lot. Some rough patches, socially speaking, but I am glad nothing fell apart. A significant highlight of this period - I fell in love.

late 2005:

I must mention an absolutely wonderful trip I took with my mother and brother to Cambodia and Thailand. This was the first international vacation my family was taking. My mother was absolutely thrilled on seeing Cambodia. This was one of the best vacations I've taken.

mid 2007 to late 2009:

This period was a bit of both - happiness and despair. It's no secret that I did not like what I was doing. I had a host of problems with people at work. After what I had tasted previously, in terms of work, I was left very unsatisfied with my current responsibilities. It was a culture shock that took me a while to get over. I bit the bullet and tried to stay the course as my H1 was on its second term and I needed stability to board the immigration train before it left the station for good. There were some shining moments at work that did leave me with a good feeling but these were few and far between.

But I was in a city that I came to love quickly, I had great friends and an active social life. Looking back, I think it was these non-career-but-equally-important-for-your-well-being activities that lulled me into a sense of complacency. I hoped to overcome any and all reservations I had just to keep a good thing going. But that wasn't meant to last and in yet another twist in the saga, I found myself in a very familiar place - a place that I hadn't been in since mid 2007.

I had a mid-life crisis (or whatever you want to call it) at the total lack of direction in my life. Time flowed and took me along with it but I was going no where particular. This lack of a sense of purpose and direction caused me great concern.

I also lost love. It broke my heart.

mid 2008 - late 2008:

My mother's visit to the USA. I had been away from home since 2002 and I was really looking forward to spending some quality time with her. Since she wasn't keen on seeing cities or monuments, I planned an elaborate vacation spanning the course of her 6 month stay to visit and more importantly, experience as many national parks as possible. Much to her delight, we covered an impressive list of parks. I am so proud that she held up without any fuss. She is a fighter! I was really sorry to see her go, but she was mentally done with her visit. She needed to be back in her environs, where she was lord and master of all that she surveyed.

early 2010:

I am happy with where I am now. I am wiser. The experiences of the last few years have been invaluable in making me the person I am now. I know myself, my motivations, my strengths, my weaknesses - I have understood myself by living life with its ups and downs. Even though I did not enjoy long stretches of my formative years, I am glad it gave me an opportunity to examine and understand myself in great depth. This had given me great strength in planning for the future, a future that I can make my own, a future which isn't just shaped by my floating along with the tide of time.

[end of part 1/2]

Avatar

Yes, I just saw the new James Cameron opus "Avatar".

Some quick thoughts on:

The visual experience:
in 3D, its visually stunning! Its magnificent! The boundaries of imagination of what an alien planet blessed with rich flora and fauna will look like have been challenged, no, have been assailed resulting in a world that has been painstakingly crafted in all its exquisite detail. I was impressed by the diversity of fictional biological life. Creatures, though very dinosaur and prehistoric Earth like, have wonderful design detail and flawless rendering. There is no doubt that Avatar is a visual tour de force!

The cast: (in order of my preference)
Zoe Saldana
Stephen Lang
Sam Worthington
Sigourney Weaver

Zoe Saldana or her character Neytiri, a princess of the Na'vi tribe, is my favorite character of the movie. She is feminine, beautiful (character wise), elegant, tender and at the same time is aggressive, loyal and trustworthy. Her emotions ring true and the manner of display, honest.

Stephen Lang, as always is the case, is a battled hardened commander whose dedication to the mission is so personal that there are no distinctions between failure and death, between success and life. His absolute apathy to the plight of the Na'vi serves as the face of unrelenting oppression. His character is designed to be so hard and unlikeable that the viewer's sensitivities swing the other way to associate and sympathize with the Na'vi.

Sam Worthington's character Jake Sully is the typical Hollywood character who dusts off bullets, plays a game of chicken with death and wins, one who walks on water and can eat fire. He, in the face of great adversity, overcomes tremendous internal conflict and saves the world just to uphold and save what is worth saving - truth, love, and loyalty. His character development is the most interesting though as we learn about him only through his avatar.

Sigourney Weaver is back as an all out, ballsy, 'I take no shit from nobody' researcher except this time her character is rather matronly. She oversees Jake's induction and continued interaction with the Na'vi. She is the resident expert on all things biological on Pandora and on the social mores of the Na'vi. Her conscience is a razor sharp knife - things fall on one side pretty quickly - her side or on Stephen Lang's.

Honorable mentions must be made of Michele Rodriguez as a marine pilot and Dileep as a lackey on Sigourney Weaver's team (except that his name is spelled wrong :))

Some viewer reactions:
Most people who watched Avatar focused on its pace - it is a rather long movie. The character development and the exploration of the visuals (mainly of the forest and of the creatures that inhabit Pandora) contributed to the pace and totally escaped many viewers. Its akin to Peter Jackson's "Return of the King" taking all the credit over "The Fellowship of the Ring" because it leverages all the elements of an excellent action fantasy movie but is based of an entire movie's worth of character development.

Even though it masquerades as an intelligent character driven movie, it suffers from annoying cliches. The dialogues, at most times, are frustrating. They are predictable, mundane and appear to have been written in a hurry while in the bathroom.

Overall this movie has many moments where cliches and banalities threaten to engulf and drown the experience but there is always something developing, be it characters, visuals or action sequences to redeem this movie.

My reactions:

Pros:
Action and visualization - incredible stereo camera angles takes you into the skies to fly with the Na'vi warriors. The incredible detail in the jungle and the lush landscapes is worthy of the master Peter Jackson. The creatures on the other hand were a little simplistic and too earth like. They were not fundamentally different in any way from creatures we are familiar with. The attempt at being ever so different falls short by a mile and then some! All they could do was strap on two more legs to a horse? and give it a snout?

Symbolism - Jake Sully's avatar swatting away the seeds of the tree of life - he doesn't understand it so he fears it and thinks of destroying them. Once he is saved, his playfulness with the forest betrays an inquisitiveness, he is now very keen to open his eyes, ears and heart and let the sights, sounds and spirit of the forest get in.

Love - their love was simple and honest. I am thankful it wasn't more involved. Cameron sets up the stage with a few subtle clues in scenes leading up to the one in the tree of souls.

The larger human condition - Man is afraid of the dark, of things he doesn't understand and once this fear sets in - there is a high resistance to learn and understand and is replaced by a yearning to destroy this unknown, poorly understood horror.

Cons:
Character development - Though an attempt is made to be patient and textured, the development of various characters was too simplistic and episodic with some characters reduced to mere statements. This is frustrating as I feel certain aspects of various characters could have been explored in a little more detail. Maybe the real issue I have here is the line between stating characters as fact and developing them consistently fell on the wrong side.

Dialogues - This department single-handedly ruined the experience with gems like "I see you", "You have a good heart". It really does seem that Cameron downloaded a Hollywood phrase generator, clicked on it a thousand times and paid someone minimum wage to stitch these together to form dialogues.

Some home truths

of the average human life.

Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree sings -

"And pride is just another way
Of trying to live with my mistakes
Denial is a better way
Of getting through another day
And silence is another way
Of saying what I wanna say
And lying is another way
Of hoping it will go away"

Response to a comment on "My mid life crisis"

Anonymous posted "You will feel alive when - you get out of your comfort zone ready to set new expectations and change."

I thought I addressed this in the post but let me elaborate a little -

Setting new expectations for yourself outside the norm and striving to meet it is, as I've pointed out, what will satisfy most people. Personally, being out of my comfort zone and challenging myself is currently in my comfort zone. So much so, that I fear that these challenges, in order to be satisfying and enriching, are going to have to get taller and come at intervals way more frequent than they are right now.

All this talk of setting new expectations and change usually refers to your personal life and your view of your personal self. I want to extend that to your professional life too. I see no point in attempting to re-define yourself in your non-professional life but go back to an existence where all you strive for is the corner window office, better pay, better benefits, aspire to become a manager or any equivalent of this whatever your domain maybe. Couple that with buying a house with a yard, getting a dog and raising a family then you get a life awash with the gray of mundanity. Think about everything that is the norm of your life - from going to the mall to check out the latest sale to drinking coffee from your favorite barrista - I hate the ordinariness of it all - it closets and stifles the possibilities of enriching life beyond keeping up with the joneses.

Following this pattern of life gets you what exactly? A facade of happiness? A facade of stability?

Not that there is anything wrong with this - this is exactly what floats many a boat. Just not mine.

I don't know what I want of and from life instead but the possibility of living this shell of a life just because I did not try to break out and redefine my life is positively terrifying. I feel trapped by this life - the only life I've known.

[Some other random thoughts]
Can I, at this stage of my life, be, say for example, a musician? *Maybe* Why exactly is it this hard? Because I've been following the harder/faster/better routine all my life (I haven't even gotten anywhere doing that). Staying in this rut has precluded so many possibilities, one of them being a life as a musician.

The point I make here is that the longer I stay in a lifestyle governed by these norms and accepted ways, the harder it becomes to break out and change your life in a fundamental way. You may compensate by launching onto themes that are finely nuanced to differentiate you from the rest of the herd but that is as far as you are going to get with this exclusivity. Even though this drive to be different and exclusive is not what drives the initial desire to be fundamentally different, this is the only resort available when you no longer are able to enrich your life in a fundamental way. This is why, I think, you see people in their 40s and 50s suddenly going berserk and going "out of their comfort zone" by going sky diving, buying a swanky new Porsche etc. What is the point of it all?

Category: IAmAlive

Following up on my last post, I am creating a new category of posts on this blog - "IAmAlive" - in this category, I plan to include posts on people that have seemingly broken out of their mold, turned their seemingly normal lives around and achieved something that is close to their heart.

Though I dislike self referential links, I present "The Torture Garden"

A bunch of Indian guys hook up with a few others online. Huh? where is the adventure in that you ask? Well, they are taking part in the 2009 edition of the Mongol Rally - 12,000 km, 16 countries, 6 weeks.

How about the Plymouth-Banjul challenge?

Feeling alive yet? More to follow.

My mid life crisis

[Warning]
I wrote this post in a hurry. The sentences might seem rather long and my thought process rather choppy. Be warned. Proceed with low expectations on clarity of thought and expression.
[/Warning]

I have, for some time now, been disillusioned with the road map of a normal life. You grow up doing the things most normal children do - you go to college with dreams of a successful career and comfortable life, you want to fulfill all your parental obligations and keep them happy. You try and reach higher for better colleges, better jobs, higher pay, better comforts etc. In my opinion, the ultimate worth of being a lead rat in this rat race is really nothing. Nada. Zip. You still, despite your best efforts, go through life much along the same lines as a lesser accomplished individual except that the degree of refinement in your life is higher.

Don't read this the wrong way - this is not to say that ambition is bad. In fact, I think it is the very essence of what makes us better individuals. People without any ambition are the worst offenders from the perspective of this post.

My point is that despite all the fruits of your ambition, your life is fundamentally no different and hence, no richer, texturally speaking, than a life confined and stifled by normalcy. Let me lay it out for y'all - this grand plan that governs just about everyone's life (including mine)

go to school-> (harder/faster/better routine) -> good college -> (continue to follow harder/faster/better routine) -> good high paying job -> higher studies (abroad) -> (you know the words - harder/faster/better) -> get into a job -> start worrying about immigration.

Meanwhile, your personal life follows this routine -
you hit 25 or something nearby -> you've already been dating or been in a few relationships -> look to get married -> get into this "save, save, save for your future" mentality -> get married (either because it's the right time or you've to fulfill parental obligations or your girlfriend/boyfriend is yanking your chain or maybe you really want to(!)) -> move into plush apartment -> furnish apartment with the latest and greatest that your combined salary can afford -> have elaborate parties, hob nob with sheeple and discuss politics and economics.

Aren't you already disgusted with the pointlessness of a life awash with the gray of boredom and accepted norms?

Depending on the green card situation, your job stability and the pressure from back home you (along with your spouse) decide to start a family. -> buy a house (this can take a long time and significant investment) -> deck up your house in the usual way - game room (with attendant giant screen TV), living room also with large flat screen TV, plush leather furniture etc etc -> pop babies -> green card approved (it could very well be that your green card is approved before you decide on a baby).

I hope you see where this is going - other individuals, whom you left on the wayside of accomplishment as you sped past them on wings of ambition, have, I'm sorry to say, a life that is darned similar to yours. In some cases, way better than yours.

Coming full circle, the ultimate worth of running this rat race? NOTHING. A life time of effort and sacrifice and yet, no sense of fulfillment, no real improvement in your sense of self worth.

Have you really thought of what makes you content in life? I am not talking about the happiness you get from taking that adventurous vacation or going sky diving or hand gliding or whatever is the current rage amongst sheeple trying to be different from the rest of the sheep and hence, exclusive. I am talking about happiness that can only come from being contented in and with life.

Most people over compensate for the abundance of boredom/discontentment/disillusionment that is a direct consequence of the stifling grip that a plain ol' vanilla life has on your life and future. I do too.

The following thoughts run quite tangentially to the point I was trying to make all this while.

Have you ever stopped and wondered what really separates you from a kid, any kid, growing up in a slum somewhere in the world? just pure chance. I'll repeat, just pure chance. I do not subscribe to the argument that one should be grateful for what one has and all that jazz. My point is more along the lines of what are you doing with it? Just living it as is? Just going through it with a mindlessness of a drone that wakes up periodically to the reality of its meaningless existence but by the sheer inertia of a lifetime of laziness, just sinks back to the torpor that has been the hallmark of its life?

The sheeple that most people are, end up pissing away their infinitely more valuable lives, one day at a time just by pursuing their fascination with self gratification through living life in the trenches of accepted norms. A normal life that guarantees them a secure, safe life peppered with episodes (often lengthy ones at that) of escapism when each tries to mold himself/herself into something exclusive in a vain attempt at being different from the herd. From what I've been told, being a normal sheep is highly over rated.

Some people are actually somewhat satisfied with their lives(!!!) and ever so often indulge themselves in some form of escapism to compensate for the boredom in their life. They feel renewed anew after an episode of escapism and feel like they can go through the drudgery they think is life for a little longer before they need another break. I think I am in this stage now. And if you are anything like me, this feels like exactly a drug habit - you need fixes faster than before and each with a bigger/better high than the last. You know where that story is going to end don't you?

Sigh! I sometimes find my cynicism too cynical.

But, my question is just this - What is the point of it all? Is there any? Is there meant to be any? Is terminal boredom a fact of life, a way of life even?

What does one have to do to BE alive? to FEEL alive?

The final bell....

Did you imagine the final sound as a gun?
Or the smashing windscreen of a car?
Did you ever imagine the last thing you'd hear as you're fading out...
Was a song? A lament?

All my designs, simplified
All my plans, compromised
All my dreams, sacrificed