O n w a r d

Oftentimes I find that waiting a while to write a blog post changes its direction somewhat, but makes it feel truer to myself and the moment. This particular one originated in about 495993 angry notes on my phone, until they swelled to a size that felt impossible to tame. If I had written this a few months ago, it would most likely have been an essay about how lonely I've felt the last couple of years in my bone-deep hatred for generative AI – most people were seemingly enthusiastic adopters, and others were of the less enthusiastic but not really seeing the problems variety. (The draft was titled "The peculiar loneliness of hating shunning AI"). It's not the first time I've felt like an outlier, and it won't be the last, but knowledge is usually my response to feeling alienated. So I informed myself, and the more I informed myself, the stronger my convictions became.  Anyway. At this point in time, I don't feel like an outlier. The tide has turned, and I ...

I'm in the business of life stories, and often that makes me reflect on my own life. I've journaled since the age of thirteen, and blogged about my lifeworld for nineteen years, so this comes quite easily to me. I also keep a timeline of each year of my life, now divided into chapters – not for the purpose of writing a book, but merely because they feel like chapters. Sometimes I can't believe I lived those stories in this same life.  I've been realising that my life has been rather interesting, but I'm not sure if, on the whole, it has felt joyful or exciting. It hasn't really turned out the way I'd hoped in many ways. I've done my best, I regret nothing, I've laughed a lot. Good things happened, there were challenges and heartbreaks, there were large periods of just feeling meh and not looking forward to much and agonising about the future. Probably like most people.   But lately I've been looking at it through the lens of magic.  I do believe ...

I almost went to Chiang Mai for New Year's Eve 2016. I had been harbouring a dream of seeing thousands of lanterns floating up into the night, Tangled -style, even though this wasn't the main festival for it. I've also long harboured a desire to have a special last-day-of-the-year, which is usually a meh affair. So Thailand had seemed like a great plan at the time, but I was hesitating – and then, just as I'd made up my mind to click on the tickets, the prices suddenly skyrocketed. The universe decided for me. It was mostly okay; I was just embarking on my first relationship, there were things to look forward to. Maybe if I'd known that not going on that trip would start a seven-year travel hiatus, I would have booked it anyway. I had the money, though my job was in trouble. But we have no way of knowing the future, so I folded up the dream and put it away. Over the years, I thought about it again, but the discourse around lanterns had become dimmer: they were toxic...

Returning to my grandparents' home after seven years was bittersweet. Everything has changed; much of the time I felt like I existed between the wonder of the new and the ghosts of the old, trying to reconcile the familiar with the unfamiliar, separating the superimposed layers of what my eyes saw and my mind remembered.  It was the first time I'd returned since my grandfather passed away in this house that he built, this adventure that he gave us all. I wanted to feel his presence, imagine his movements, his path through the home, his favourite position with the best mountain view, the table where he would cut paneer with precision prior to selling, the sound of his army boots on wooden floorboards, the nook where he watched TV. Some of these, including the stove upon which I once burned my hand, have been erased. We can't live in memory and time won't stand still, and so much of the old is...just falling apart.  And maybe it's change that helps us cope, rewriting...

My heart had its reasons. An email and gifts from my cousin. Unsent letters from someone I would have loved long and deep – A life built within words and ideas and spaces "Meh" t-shirt to a dreamed-of address. It eventually found its way to me after years knocking together two heartbreaks. I was younger then, more hopeful perhaps naive  (I'm still naive  sometimes and I keep reminding myself to dream.) Ah, feet at last in Sweden. It felt like I should have big feelings,  but I didn't, not really, seven years since my past. Seven years since I'd traversed foreign roads but by the time I arrived in Sweden  I had my confidence again, and the comfort of my Korean playlist  in the chill of October autumn nights – the ways we build ourselves back up after being shattered all the way from India long-distance words once again.  The next day I switched ring fingers just to see what it felt like. I took myself to the ABBA museum  this music of my youth...

There comes an age in every person's life when they accept that disappointment is inevitable. It may not come easy, however, and on the warm bus back to Reykjavik on a cold midnight, I tried to placate my slightly sinking heart.  "At least I saw something."  "We've got like three more nights."  "I can return someday."   It sort of worked. I was a little sleepy, and the disappointment was no longer in waves, slowly ebbing into acceptance. All we can do is try, and try we did. The aurora answers to no woman, and she appears at will – this much I had learned from my antsy walks peering at the sky in Rovaniemi a few nights prior. The clouds and the weather might cooperate, the app might show false promises, and she might appear as white wisps to the naked eye, which, to be fair, she had. The camera picked up more colour, but was hard to operate in darkness with frigid fingers, and I hadn't done my research on the ideal settings. At any rate, there ...

noun movement forwards or towards achieving something verb to become better; to develop (well) *** It has been two years since I (soft) launched my business.  In 2020, having finally paid off my loan and facing what seemed to be a changing, precarious work culture, I found myself thinking about progress. I knew I wanted to move on from my job at some point to something that fit me better, and where I could keep growing. But I wasn't optimistic about opportunities. At that time, I'd also been avidly listening to podcasts , and I seemed to attract those about living a different way of life – slower, more fulfilling, and not necessarily adhering to conventional work milestones.  It was then that I started – very hesitantly, but increasingly more and more – thinking about working for myself. This was distinct from freelancing, which I'd tried before; rather than pitching articles to publications, or being on a regular contract, I'd offer services and packages with r...

Care is such an interesting word. In our fast world of clicks and likes and 26-hour work days, I'm not sure whether that word actually has a significant place in our vocabulary. It feels too delicate, too intense. It implies time, a depth of feeling. In the last couple of years, we've talked about "care-givers", as most of us learned to nurse our loved ones. We've said "take care" at the end of every conversation, to the extent that it has lost all meaning and become just one of those platitudes that seem appropriate for the times without having to think too much about it. We send "care packages", and we advocate "self-care".  But handling something with care implies fragility. Most of us probably feel that way, especially now. But as we chase the "new" (or is it really just the old?) normal again, and thank goodness for it, have we left any space for fragility? For healing from an experience that left marks that won't g...

Truly fascinating phrase, isn't it? I was made aware of this twist on it through an Instagram reel, of all things. Apparently a similar phrase was used to dismissively refer to Shakespeare, and then to all "generalists" – people interested in and fairly good at multiple things, who chose not to narrow their focus – and this second line seems to have been added on more recently. One of my favourite K-dramas,  Hometown Cha Cha Cha,  features a man who holds a whole assortment of qualifications. Known simply as Chief Hong, he's taken courses in everything from painting houses and being a realtor to fruit plating and entertaining children. (At one point, Yoon Hye-jin actually wonders if he's a certified dentist too, and doesn't seem surprised at the prospect!) We see him speak Russian, read Mandarin, communicate via sign language, repair a boat, make soap, make wine, make coffee, make a jewellery box, cook, patrol, take photographs, read poetry, collect records, f...