commitment

a recent late night conversation spurred me to come up with this gem of an observation:

everyone is commitment phobic...those who seem to not be, also don't really commit. they just appear to!

when you commit to something, you're also making a decision to stand by that commitment. and you can't truly commit unless you've considered what it takes to stand by that commitment.

so if you commit "easily", you're not thinking it through. things may be smooth sailing for you, who knows. but if they aren't, you haven't already made the decision to plow through. and when you do, that's when you're truly committed to whatever decision you've made earlier.

i say that there is no such thing as commitment-phobic.

click here if you forgot to forget your password

i've been going through turbulent times with my phones. after i lost the galaxy in a rickshaw out of sheer negligence in december, i've been using phones ranging from my marine, to my friend's motorola w220, back to my marine, and now another friend's samsung j-somethingsomething.

and in the process, i've realized that i've lost my touch when it comes to remembering passwords.

just like my first cellphone led me to remember just 10 vital phone numbers down from my peak of 50, my everything-signed-in galaxy took me from remembering all my various passwords, down to remembering just two (i'm not gonna tell you which).

and now, i'm back to having to remember multiple passwords.

except that over the last year, i've gone from simple, crackable, shared passwords to stronger, unique ones.

bottomline: i can't remember half my passwords anymore.

as a result, i've been (unsuccessfully) trying to log in to twitter for a while now.

i don't want to use the "forgot password" link as it'll sign me out of all the services that are linked to twitter.

so in my spare time, i've been trying all the passwords i remember.

till today, 5 days into my current phone, when i had the brilliant idea of trying the twitter password from back in december.

apparently, i forgot that i haven't forgotten my password.

for the record, my first tweet from this phone was:

Wonder wtf gave me the idea that i changed my twitter password. tried all combinations on this phone for days. my old password worked. #fml

trance

i was just randomly clicking around trance videos on youtube (more like songs with a still image in the video box, actually), when i chanced upon this beautiful track, and a comment below it that summed it all up for me:

ive thought about this alot, and posted comments about it, and the true listeners of trance music, a beautiful bunch, seem to be more in tune with their emotions, more receptive to the emotional quality of trance tracks. if all you hear is bass kick bass kick, of course youre not gonna like it. if you hear the deep, hidden emotional meaning in the subtle melodies and chord progressions, only then can you appreciate trance for what it really is! trance is the ultimate form of emotional expression
- anjundoobies89

that's the thing about trance. it's deeply rhythmic, and its melodies touch the heart and soul, but if you aren't in the mood to appreciate it you will just be carried away by the superficialities like the repetition and beats. i hope you all get to see beyond that someday.

ps: i also agree that like every genre of music, trance has its share of crappy tunes. what makes a song awesome? nobody knows. but there are tracks that take you to another level, and that's the truth.

peace on earth and love to all

on monday afternoon, i was traveling by train to churchgate. one of those super fast trains. it was late afternoon, so the train was pretty empty (i had a comfortable seat from the moment i boarded), but almost all the seats were occupied.

a stop later, i noticed an elderly woman standing in the gangway between two doors. not very well dressed, with a hardy air about her (probably like that of someone who has to live without material comforts) but still, clean.

she stood in the gangway for a few minutes after boarding the train. at some point, she walked towards the seating area where i was.

she laid her right hand on every person's head, one at a time, and mumbled something for a second before moving to the next person.

the guy sitting next to me (a middle aged man) fished out a 2 rupee coin and handed it to her while her palm was on his head.

she spent an extra couple of seconds mumbling over his head before moving on.

once she was done doing this to each of the 15- odd people in the section of the coach i was in, she went back to her place near the door.

she didn't go to the rest of the coach.

she also didn't actually ask for money or anything. or even say anything out loud, for that matter.

and she then alighted at the next stop, a few minutes later.

anatomy of a crash

yesterday ended terribly. not as terribly as it could have ended, but terrible nevertheless.

on my ride home from work, there was this really irritating pizza delivery guy (who somehow had this really dim expression on his face), who was riding stupidly, for i don't know what joy. we were stuck in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam, and he took it rather literally by bumping every other vehicle from behind.

i stayed out of his way, cos i'd rather take a minute more to get home than get bumped (or worse).

turns out he wasn't the only stupid guy i'd encounter that night.

when i had almost reached home, i had to take one right turn off link road.

it's a somewhat busy intersection, so i waited as usual for a clear way across. when i finally did get it, i slowly crossed the road towards home.

only to be surprised by a bright headlight that appeared out of nowhere, bearing down straight at me.

this dumb rider was behind two rickshaws who had almost halted to take a turn from the other side, and waited for the last moment to overtake them from the left. so neither of us could see each other until it was too late.

i didn't get a look at his face. all i could see was his headlight bearing down at me at what must be around 80 or so.

the next thing i knew, i was flat on the road, atleast 10 feet from my bike.

checked my arms and legs for movement, everything seemed okay.

a passerby helped me up to my feet, and i almost stood up but the pain was too intense so i wanted to sit down again. he finally convinced me to sit on the sidewalk.

limped there, took off my helmet, thankfully accepted the bottle of water someone handed me, shook off my daze and looked around to see where the other guy was.

turns out he flew clear over my bike and landed some 30 feet away. head and chest injuries. needless to say, he wasn't wearing a helmet.

i hope he learned his lesson. i wonder what is my lesson to learn from this incident.

ps: damage incurred: scrapes, aching left leg (the bike hit me on my thigh), completely bent bike, trashed phone. too scared to check what's the state of my ipod as it flew a good many feet from the collision.

the polar bear song

to the casual observer of my facebook/twitter, i may appear to be obsessed with polar bears. i'm not.

it's just that a certain track that i really really really love happens to have a sleeping polar bear in my favourite part of its (unofficial) youtube video.

btw, my description of the entire video is:

"trippy lights. polar bear. polar bear. cool sunset."

yesh, arctic wildlife will never be the same again.

people specific

i was having a discussion with a twitter friend a while ago, and she was telling me how she deals with online weirdos.

meanwhile, i was explaining to her how i decide who i want to interact with and who i don't.

it's a topic i'm rather vocal about, since i'm rather picky about people...and i also love to have some sort of rationale behind my behaviour.

but then she said something that got me thinking:

@krist0ph3r To be honest..I'm people specific :) so in your case i won't mind.Its easy to find out of the compliment is genuine or not.

and that's when i realized that all my rules about who i shall and shall not follow, interact with, meet...they're mere rationalizations after the fact.

and that i'm just arbitrarily people specific.

output

i blog, i tweet. i talk.

in desperate situations, i even write my diary.

or tweet into my office notebook, 140 characters at a time.

i don't know when this happened to me, or why. but if i think of something, i have to do something about it. say it, write it, note it down for future reference, email it to myself. and occasionally, act upon it.

the only way i can survive when i have a thought on my mind that i can't express due to lack of a medium, is to sleep. or listen to music.

ps: and i finally realized why this post seems so familiar. i wrote almost the same thing 20 days ago.

every trip has a purpose

shameless plug: i'm doing this cos i joined up for the contest but i hate doing things in half measures. so i wanna win. and so you gotta VOTE FOR ME!!!

so i went on a trip last year. the trip had a purpose.

so...why? "camp in the wilderness!"

where? "kolad"

and who? i, me, myself...of course!

go ahead, click and vote!

alien music

i've already proven to myself beyond doubt that music influences my mood and my behaviour. but there are incidents that have made me realize, the relationship between the two isn't as simple as it would appear to be.

imagine a beach shack in goa after sundown. speakers blaring psychdelic trance at full volume. visions of acid and other illegal hallucinogenics.

and then the only patrons: a family sitting at the shack, enjoying their dinner of steaks and fried fish, smiling away at each other, passing the salt when required to.

they might as well be sitting at a quiet, classy restaurant if it wasn't for the seedy tablecloth.

sometimes music inspires the same reaction in me.

ever tried listening to infected mushroom while in a traffc jam? i have. and when the jam clears, the insane speed of the music feels so alien to me that i still don't feel like riding above 40.

i remember once listening to some slow, western classical music while riding on the highway.

it made me do freaky things on the road that even megadeth hasn't managed to push me to yet.

guess music tends to be part of my grip on reality. and when the music happens to be too far removed from my reality to act like a grip, it behaves like the exact opposite. like a wheel that's locked and is now skidding out of control.

i call it alien music.

i love the feeling, and fear the music.

Excuses to change

Last year was a lot of fun. But some hard decisions that i made in december are going to fall flat unless i adopt an almost extreme brand of austerity, both economic- and lifestyle- wise. And since i'm committing to go halfway there, i might as well do it all, right?

so here's my list. Friends, feel free to remind me whenever you think i'm going off-course :P

- save more (spend less)
- eat out and drink less
- eat healthy
- cycle daily (okay, atleast 5 days a week)
- more time outdoors (camp, trek, bike around: see all the places i always wanted to)
- get back in touch with my loner side

quite an ambitious plan, i must admit. But this time, i have two things on my side: i've already started, and i have friends who share some of these objectives with me. The odds have never been this favourable before :)