There’s a pleasure involved in watching movies with Jason Statham and the other ‘superhuman’ action stars. Unfiltered action with lots of violence, bullets, blood, spilt guts, and unnecessary noise. As a boy I was surrounded by other boys who further encouraged that behavior. That definitely seeped into all vestiges of my brain.

I find myself resorting to baser instincts as a reaction to something that is unconventional and challenges any ossified approach I still consider valid. I attribute this tendency to the ‘tough’ idea of masculinity.

It would have made a huge difference if we were told that we could define our masculinity for ourselves, and that our lives could be testament to that definition. Instead my time was spent unlearning a lot of behaviors and then finding appropriate reactions to adopt. There was a hurdle; I couldn’t exactly copy ‘appropriate behavior’, I had to make it my own. That took time which meant that there was a gap. One of the hardest tasks to do is to put one’s self under a microscope, list out all faults and then rebuild.

Just for kicks though I will end with an inappropriate lyric from a hardcore rap track.

Still ridin’ clean, making cheese and gettin’ my dick sucked.

-Tanmay

This is that blog that I want to offer to the world (yes the five of you who’ll read it). It’s been a long journey replete with surreal experiences that I think deserve a separate place to be written down and be lost in the web of codes and information. I don’t have much idea where this will go and that’s how I like it. Morph as it feels like. I’ll tap till my fingers bleed.

I’ve put some faith in me to see this to fruition, and faith in the self is hard to come by, I’ve howled outside temples, mosques and churches alike for salvation, but that soul feeder doesn’t come by so easily. Breathing and walking is more important. Let the faith heat up in the hearth that is in the furthest depth of your bowel, growling and hungry and dangerous.

Don’t kill it.

–Tanmay