Tag: confidence

unread stuff

~ Tanmay ~ Leave a comment

I bought a hardcover box set of The Lord of The Rings, with the whole series divided into 7 small books. The set looks extremely sexy, it’s inviting and the blue and gold colours exude a sense of peace.

All that said I haven’t actually gotten to reading more than 80 pages of the first book. Tolkien is a genius but man he definitely takes his time to get to the point. It seems he’s screaming and laughing at us: “I have the goddamn luxury of time!”

What’s also awesome is the fact that he was friend with the writer of The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis. It is said they both wanted to write fantasy and encouraged each other.

But I’ll get around to reading it, I’m sure. It is one of those books that should be read before your life is over.

-Tanmay

buried alive; logic; reasons

~ Tanmay ~ Leave a comment

Music and loneliness have a symbiotic relationship. Music doesn’t cut away the loneliness but it sure numbs the pain that arises out of it. I remember in my second semester at univeristy I had my earphones resting on my ears constantly, no matter where I went. In February 2018 I was introduced to Logic’s Under Pressure by a fellow music enthusiast and music producer. I fell in love with Logic instantly. He is revered by a lot of people for his honest take on anxiety and depression, almost as if an older brother is listening to you and your fears. I remember sitting alone for breakfast eating quickly whilst listening to Buried Alive, the memory is etched so clearly that listening to the song again now brings back images from that time and a thump in my body because of the physiological changes that anxiety brought forth were sometimes more pronounced while listening to relatable music. It was mostly a wrenching of the gut- up and down so strong that it would force my hip up if I was on my bed.

There was a dependence that I fostered on certain types of music that helped channel some of my confusion with life into energy to get up and do shit. I owe a lot to the artists whose music I listened to then. The desperation of loneliness demands prompt attachment to anything constant. People couldn’t be there in the way I needed them to be, so an only child was still the only child at steel tables, with two hundred of his peers ten meters away. It was almost necessary, the way my life unfolded then; it made me impervious.

Everything happens for a reason and the reason is made clear after the happening; almost always.

-Tanmay

screaming subconscious

~ Tanmay ~ 2 Comments

Sometimes I don’t understand the origin of the pain that seeps into my poems. The knowledge that there have been terrible experiences is not enough to explain why there is pain still. Why is there hurt hidden beneath, or is it in the air around me?

I attribute it to a subconscious that is still screaming. It is still reeling from the jolts that erupted years ago. The subconscious is screaming because it has no one to talk to- but only me to talk through. Manifesting its active pain into my passive actions. The silence that I prefer hides the screams of the void within.

The pain is too romantic to go away. It’ll cling for as long as it can. It’s a struggle to get it off and whether you like it or not there’s going to be a lot of self correction and learning then unlearning and learning again. But it’s a harder struggle per se, so I resorted to numbing myself, and making myself immune to the world, keeping my pain guarded closely in my arms, feeding its ego and nurturing it further. Till life itself became unsustainable and I was on the brink of losing a lot of what wasn’t mine to lose. I had to take charge of myself through the loneliness and the tough nights and work on my mind.

Taming the mind is a long process requiring practice and discipline, repeated a million times only to reach a point much below any semblance of excellence. Life itself is that process. The way you navigate your life is your process, and that navigation is in your hands only when you’re aware of yourself. Deciphering the meaning of the world and the purpose of existence is nothing but an attempt to understand your own life. The process requires many attributes- such as controlling impulses. I react too quickly to impulses rather than analysing how they might affect my time ahead. Reactions might trigger a fall of a long chain dominos that is nothing but a recipe for disaster. Analysing choices offers insight that will add to better judgment in the future. It sounds easy to say all of this, but the truth is we as human beings falter too much for our own good. Sometimes it’s not under our control either; but if you adopt an attitude of servitude to yourself you might lessen the negatives.

Your mind should work for you.

-Tanmay

the time ahead; the worries; the now

~ Tanmay ~ Leave a comment

There is no point in thinking about the future or results. They’re a manifestation of the ‘now’ and if you do ‘now’ well then the results will speak for it (in some rare cases they may not). But more or less it is contingent upon the ‘now’.

I’m optimistic about my time ahead with university/life and at the same time I dread setbacks or failures, although I performed really well this semester. I have exciting things to look forward to and have tonnes of shit to do to accomplish them and I’m pretty sure that I’ll probably fail in a lot of stuff, but that’s okay, cause I also have the confidence to keep putting in maximum effort and that eventually one highly desirable opportunity will fall in my lap.

What are you doing now?

-Tanmay