251220 – Morning Pages

7:41 AM

The promise I made yesterday? About eating better and all that? Well, here’s a report on what all I had yesterday.
A sandwich
A green salad (yay!)
4 black coffees
2 Diet Cokes
2 large servings of Hummus, one with some veggies and some roti
1 medium pizza

I guess I did ok.

BULL SHIT!

Plus, as I write this, I have this lingering headache and my body does not seem to be moving. I guess this is what a hangover feels like. No no, I haven’t had alcohol in a while, except rubbing it on my hands. But everything is sore. Am I catching colf?

So anyhow.

Continuing for the day. I want to spend today planning and plotting for 2021. I am big on these yearly plans and I spend a lot of time doing these yearly planning exercises. Here is the plan I made for 2020 (and for 2019, 2018 and 2017).

Most years I tend to make decisions on the basis of these plans. And every year since I started doing these, I have sort of failed to achieveve things that I have listed in these plans. I aim so high so high that even if I get to a fraction of a percentage of these, I am happy. This time around it would be the same. I would So that’s on agenda for the day.

Ok. What else to talk about?

I got myself a hair cut yesterday. I mean the amount of hair I have, it was more of a shave than a cut. I entered a salon after I think 10 months and I quite enjoyed the experience. Each thing reinforces that I am not meant for a life where I do things by myself. I am more of asking others to do things. Even if they are personal ones.

I can see Goa getting crowded. There was a traffic jam on the road yesterday. The kinds that you normally associate with Goa’s most populous street (Tito’s Lane). While I enjoyed the melee, I was also worried about COVID. I now have had way too many close ones that have suffered and recovered. And some haven’t. And it doesn’t seem to be going away. And it’s impacting the work I do and the money I make and how I live. I was talking to a senior from MDI yesterday and I realized that I miss all the travel that I was forced to when I ran those events. I like being in new places, seeing new things, experiencing new things. One way to think about it is that I chase the new. The other way to talk about the same thing is that I don’t want to think about things deeply and thus I continue to chase newer experiences and get buried in novelty.

Oh, the food bit I talked about? I will try to get into OMAD today. I do have a Christmas dinner that I have been invited to by Nupura and friends. I am half tempted to not go there – for some reason, not in the mood to socialize. I tried a bit of it last night and I failed miserably at it. I am inept at holding conversations with or the attention of strangers. The other half is imploring me to go meet new people. I am on the fence about it. Let’s see. I shall come back tomorrow and report.

With that, over and out.

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PS: This one was a struggle to write.

PPS: While editing this, I realized that this post is so inane, so useless, so mundane, so meaningless that no one would probably want to read this. Not even the ones that I send these updates to on a daily basis.

The idea of writing this was to get into the habit of writing three pages of text first thing in the morning. This was supposed to help creativity. I am not sure if this has been of any help so far. But I do know that I am writing regularly. At least for 10-12 days now. That in itself is a big win!

What was supposed to be an unfiltered stream of thoughts has sort of become a journal where I write what comes to my head. Of course, even though this is in the public domain, I redact personally identifiable information wherever I think I need to. Apart from that, I have started to sort of “live in public”. Similar to the building in public movement, I think living in public is a good thing. It will keep me accountable and grounded.

So, I may have digressed from what JC wanted me to do. But I am not complaining. The idea is to find my own rhythm, my own style, my own way of working.

So, while I am at it, there are a few ways to go from here on.

A, I can stop sending this to people. And send only the ones where I have something significant to say.

B, Continue sending these. And expand the set of people that I send these to. People that I think care about me but I don’t get to talk on a daily basis, you know, say Vanita. I can ask those people if they would want to read a daily update from me even if they are as inane as this one. This way, I can stay in touch with people?

In fact, since I have been working on that autobiography, I am learning that what probably matters at the end of life is the relationships that you create. Everything else is a byproduct. This is a far cry from what I would think in terms of spreading impact and cheer at scale. I must say, I am not sure yet. The thesis is still nascent.

C, Or may be a weekly round-up of what I’ve done in the week? That could go to these people that care?

Also, I could make this an opt-in thing, like a newsletter. But with my experience of newsletters that get delivered on emails, hardly anyone reads those. Even if they are from Bill Gates. So, it has to be delivered over WA and that too to people that really want to read.

D, Any other ideas?

So that.

What do you think? Should I send these mundane updates to people that I think love me? Help me decide? I am a message away.