Being a writer

I just joined this support group for writers  - The Insecure Writers Support Group, also known as ISWG. IWSG was created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and his monthly support team, Joylene Novell Butler, Jen Chandler, Mary Aalgaard,Lisa Buie Collard, Tamara Narayan, Tyrean Martinson, and Christine Rains!  Special thanks to all.

The first Wednesday of each month is officially the "Insecure Writer's Support Group Day". A writing prompt is given on that day, and you are supposed to post on the same. So, the prompt for today, being the first Wednesday of November is:

November 2 Question: What is your favorite aspect of being a writer?

A writers derives many things from writing. For me writing, like a magic potion, has always been very therapeutic. Here is an attempt to crystallize my thoughts on writing in the form of a poem:

Writing is the culmination of the tsunami of my thoughts. 

Writing is the proof of the exuberance of my emotions.
Writing is the visible iceberg of my imagination.
Writing is my heart, soul and inseparable companion.

I do not create stories, poems, plays or prose.
I create and destroy several parallel universe.
I give birth to some and kill some character
I play God, in my head, and on paper.

I derive strength, I derive solace,
I derive happiness and I derive joy.
Writing is a way of expressing a promise.
Writing is the freedom from this matrix.

So, if you want to join this group, please sign up here #IWSG

Zero, zilch, nix, nothing!

This is a story that illustrates the difference between the western view of life and the eastern. 

Alexander the great, who was on his dream of conquering the world, reached the banks of river Sindhu. On the opposite side of the river bank, sat a Jina – a Digambar jain- a gymnosophist. He was a enlightened soul, but as a Digambar, he was completely naked. Alexander looked at him and asked, “what are you doing?”. The Jina said, “I am doing nothing”. Alexander heard him and laughed. The Jina asked Alexander, “what are you doing?”. Alexander answered, “I am conquering the world”. The Jina heard his reply and laughed out loud.

Both men were correct. Both men understood the world from their perspective. Both men were evaluating the situation against their own paradigm.

Alexander was brought up in Greece, under the western philosophy of heroism. He believed that man gets only one chance at life. The value of one’s life is all the achievement that one can garner in one lifetime. So, wasting time doing nothing was absolutely ridiculous. Thus he laughed at the Jina, who was doing nothing.

But the Jina was brought up in the eastern philosophy. He believed that this life is just one of the infinite birth that the soul goes through. While the external actions in the life are important, in the perspective of the infinite births that the soul goes through, one birth is insignificant. 1 divided by infinity is Zero, zilch, nix, nothing. He believed that trying to conquer the world was futile, zero, zilch, nix, nothing. He believed that conquering the self was paramount. Conquering the world, zero. Conquering the self - Infinite!

While Alexander and Jina can keep laughing at each other, what is it that you learn from this exchange? 

PS: I heard this story first from Devdutt Pattanaik and have added a bit of my own interpretation as well.

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 141 #zero

5 Tips for a Great Blog

I am by no means a great blogger. There are national and international professionals in blogging. I am just an amateur who likes to dabble in this for fun.  Since I have been blogging for quite some time, I have read many blogs of various genres and here are some of my thoughts on how to have a better blog

1.  Language is the prime tool in a bloggers kit - absolutely unpardonable if it is not robust. Good language, as per me, does not mean usage of heavy words, complex sentence structure and a bizarrely woven plot; but it is one with small, simple sentences, correct spelling, and grammar. I see spelling mistakes in posts of many amateur bloggers. I am sure they are typos which could be rectified with a review. 

2.   Alignment of posts makes the presentation look much professional. Try to experiment with different alignments and figure out which suits your blog. I prefer a justified alignment.

3.   Giving a double line space between paragraphs in the article is a good idea. It helps the reader navigate through your article easily and understand the transition between various ideas.

The root cause for all the three ills mentioned above, seems to me, is that amateur bloggers probably start writing directly on the blogger editor. Also they do their edits there itself. A simpler idea would be to use something like MS Word to draft, edit, re-edit and polish the article, do a spell and grammar check, do proper alignment, and them post it in the blogger. Professionals use software like scrivener. But for mortals like us, Bill Gates’ product is good enough.

4.   Before you tell anyone anything, there is one story that you need to tell them all. Unless you clarify that question in others mind, no one is really going to listen to whatever you say, or in your case, read and believe whatever you blog. That question is "Who am I". Hence, I suggest you should have a nice description of yourself and your world in the About Me/ Profile section. This will help readers to form an image and connection to you.

5. You may also consider adding some social media widgets on your page. Blogger provides many such options as Google+, facebook, twitter  - widgets and many other funky ones as well. I personally prefer a minimalistic approach. But again it depends on what the purpose of your blog is and what is your adopted method to achieve the goal. I guess that would be a good blog post by itself.

Hope my ramblings have not irritated you. Do give your feedback on the comment section.

4 Ways to Calm Your Thoughts

The mind is like a very thin liquid. It is most beautiful when it remains still.  But, it can break into simmering ripples, undulating waves or even an unbounded tsunami with the slightest of disturbance. The mind is also like a transparent, clear liquid. It can become colored. The color can be anything. Any thought is like a color. Thoughts can be worrying thoughts, pleasant thoughts, thoughts of gloom and doom, desperation, happiness, elation and many more. These are the different emotions which color our thoughts. This evening, after coming back from the office, I was not feeling fully alive. Some irritating thought was running as a background process which was kind of slowing down my mind. I could feel it. But I could not put a finger onto it. I could not trace which thought process was slowing it down. There were a zillion thoughts flashing in my mind and it was in all a state of chaos. It was like a giant muddy wave - unclear, uncontrollable and unorganized.

I tried to gather my thoughts to control and stabilize them. In fact, I wanted to kill them all. Going for a run would definitely help, I deduced. Hence, went for a short run. It did help. That was some 'me time'. It was a half hour of time that I spent with myself, planning what to do next and prioritizing. It calmed me down quite a lot. During my run, I decided to do a few things that would help me further arrest my thoughts. I had discontinued the practice of meditation for the last 3 weeks that I was sick. So, after I was back from my run, I sat alone for 2 minutes. I focused on my breath. I meditated on forgiveness today - on forgiving myself for what I did and did not do and forgiving others for what they did and did not do. Then I spent a few minutes reviewing the goals and priorities in my life. That helped stabilize me even more. And finally I thought what better way than to vent out all remaining vestiges of thought in my blog.

So that is what I am doing now. I feel quite calm and collected now. The waves have died down. The sediments have settled. No more thoughts tsunami. It is all peace and calm now.

Stop and Start

Danger foreseen is half avoided. But the other half still poses a challenge to me. Though I knew of the danger of not being able to stick to my schedule, I still could not maintain it. I have had a break in my running and blogging schedule.

I had a break of 1 week in running and 2 weeks for blogging. Initially I felt bad, because I had promised myself not to break the streak. But then, I recovered and thought that there is nothing better than starting again instead of ruminating over missed targets. So, here I am back again. This week, I started running. And now it is the blog.

During the past 1 year or so that I have started running, there is this lessons among many that I have learnt. No matter how many times I stop doing something that I am supposed to do, if I start it all over again, within a few days or week, I am back on the track. Not only running, but the same lesson can be extrapolated to other things in life. Blogging  or getting into the habit of saying ‘Good Morning’ to people you meet in the office, or greeting  people on the elevator, there are many such small things we often tell ourselves we will do, but again either due to inertia or due to some other important or unimportant activities, such plans go kaput. But, as long as we start again, we are not a failure.

In running parlance, completing your run within your target time is best. Completing the run, even if you may not achieve the target time is better than DNF (Did not finish) . But DNF is better than DNS (Did not start). So, it is important to start. But it is even more important to start again if you stop for some reason.

The above lesson I believe can be applied to any new habit that we wish to create or existing habit that we want to change. This is possible only if we forgive ourselves for our failure and understand that everyone including your own self deserves another chance.