12 things I learned in 2019
Many years ago, while reading Dr. APJ Kalam’s striking book called Wings of Fire, I almost convinced myself that India is going to be a superpower by 2020. Back then, for better or worse, optimism was in the air. Apparently, a new world order was under production and the East was going to take its rightful place in the global denomination. Anyway, long story short, very little of those premonitions proved accurate for India. As of now, smaller nations like Bangladesh and Vietnam seem more promising than the biggies from the Asian bloc. There is a reason why we look towards the vexing future while our past appears straight like an arrow. On this sour note, I must confess that 2019 has been an exceptionally profound year for me, and I guess it was a starkly memorable one for a lot of us. There is an unmistakable stench of despair in the air today and by all measures, this too shall pass.
Although it’s quite lame to list out annual learnings — especially when the sole purpose of this blog is to share contemporary as well as random lessons continuously — I am keen on putting forth some observations that can mask around as coins of wisdom.
1. You can only know when it’s your turn to know. Despite enormous efforts to be ahead of time and the so-called learning curve, it became heavily obvious to me that I can only learn something when it’s my time to learn it. All the koans and the wistful quotes from the great souls who walked before us won’t really make a difference. Similarly, no matter how many pages I read beforehand or stories I listen to, I will pick up the correct thread of knowledge, and most importantly, apply it, only when nothing else would work for me.
2. Changing your habits doesn’t mean you change as a person. At the beginning of 2019, I sounded enthusiastic about altering certain aspects of my behaviour. But as the months progressed, I acknowledged that I am not the same as my habits. And if I work on myself, I can live just fine without imposing myself on my past habits. Be it waking up at 6am for no reason or adhering to strange social conventions. If habits can form your personality, then you can form yourself too. Takes 13 ounces of practice with 10 ounces of determination.
3. Your parents are getting old at a rate faster than your assumption. Since parents have no idea what it’s like to not be parents, it gets awkward for the children. This happens because children lead a rather selfish existence where their identity as somebody’s children doesn’t always come in the way of their individuality. Parents, at least in our country, don’t get to enjoy this separation of identities. As a result, kids seldom understand the timeline of their parents’ old age. One day, you are coming back home from playing cricket with your neighbourhood friends and then the next day, you see your father struggling with getting up from his bed.
4. Having a dream doesn’t add meaning to your life as much as a purpose does. I might have disdain for mighty establishments like Nobel, Booker and Pulitzer but my dream would be to be recognized by them for my body of work. Even if it means rejecting the honour altogether and/or not showing up at the awards ceremony. But these dreams don’t mean much because they are dependent on others, people you don’t know or care about. Your life turns meaningful when you water it with healthy doses of daily purposes. One tiny goal at a moment please.
5. Broken heart leaves an artist fuller than a buffet. One of the main excuses why I haven’t been able to come up with a stocky manuscript yet is I haven’t witnessed a heartbreak yet. This could sound like a harsh conclusion but there is a grain of truth in it. The fact is I’ve been sad as insincerely as I have been happy. Yes, I’ve cried often throughout the year but it’d be unfair to suggest that I cried from the depth of my abyss. No, on the contrary, I cried because that evening, Louis Armstrong’s Wonderful World song felt like a warm slap on my mundane existence or because I could feel exactly what Joker felt like on being constantly denied by the society. I’ll have to rise above other’s art to seek my art and once I do that, a book won’t be far away from a publishing house.
6. Money comes to those who understand it. Compared to 2018, I’ve given fewer advice this year as it was a part of my resolutions to be conservative with the dispensation of my opinions. However, I fired all cannons as far as money advice is concerned. From my younger team members to people who reached out to me on social media, I asked everyone to focus on savings. Nobody told me when I was 25 the significance of time in terms of money. It’s only after you start respecting the machinations of our economy, you’ll see why the haves continue to be haves in our country. Being unreasonable leaves you broke, not rebellious.
7. Be open to learning new things, and not just verbal stuff. If you’ve read me for more than a month, you’d agree that I am high on trivia and low on practicals. Ask me which sectors lie next to Sector-50 and I wouldn’t know. Ask me why Tamil was considered the second official language in Haryana and I’d give you a lecture. Sadly, this chasm between useless theories and useful information needs to go. With this spirit, I tried to work on my attitude towards the very art of learning. For example, I was big on botany so ended up learning about plants and their nomenclature but 2019 taught me the importance of knowing how to be more useful in our balcony garden. Similarly, I am not afraid of kitchen anymore. And some more.
8. Be healthy but keep your teeth super-tidy. I don’t care whether you can do 30 push-ups at a go if your teeth is plagued with cavities and related acts of terrorism. This year drilled into my psyche — sharper than the dentist who dealt with three of my wisdom teeth — the non-negotiable nature of dental hygiene. Having a clean set of teeth should be an existential contract, not something relegated to the gamble of brushing teeth in the morning. Do everything necessary to enhance the longevity of your natural set: floss, rinse with brine solution, consume a lot of water, have fruits, etc. Just make sure that within a year or two, dentist becomes someone you visit out of courtesy, not out of fear.
9. Plan less and travel more. Almost all the happy people I know travel a lot and that too to places I already know more about — thanks to my bookish gyan — but I tend to avoid traveling as much as possible, citing all the health problems that I have as well as the ones I presume to have. This year was no different. Yet, compared to 2018, I traveled more. Each trip filled me with realizations that would have been amiss otherwise. From the friends I met after 14 years to parents and in-laws I met after two years, to strangers I spoke to during the trips, all of them made me nod to the unique spot traveling enjoys in our overall development as a person.
10. Be kind and leave your judgement to others. If you ask my wife, she’ll say that I am a kind person but in absolute reality, I am not. Inside my head, I’d saute the most unkind of thoughts about people I disagree with. Something I worked on changing this year. End result: Failed miserably. Mental misanthropes like me function at a scale physical misanthrope seldom reach. Why? Well, there is no limit to imagination. I can think of the worst about anyone for the sake of a joke but the only difference is I won’t share the joke. I’d be pleased with my wordplay and that would be it. But the greater fight is to rise above judging others and accepting them for who they are, not who you want them to be.
11. Nothing about right and wrong is as distinct it seems. On my Twitter profile cover, you’ll notice a rather cheeky take on “read between the lines” but there’s much more to it. Turns out our pursuit of truth doesn’t end with the location of the truth. It carries on longer because there are layers to truth and our growing impatience —this generation concludes from the headline what our father’s couldn’t from the entire article — doesn’t help our case. So our present dilemma is beyond consolation; we need to dig deeper and not get carried away by the summit of moral grounds. After all, if our goal is to feel better about ourselves, then there is no point in seeking the truth.
12. Don’t overexplain what doesn’t need explaining in the first place. Some of us explain. Some of us don’t explain at all. And then there are those like me who overexplain. This happens, according to my experiences, due to two severe afflictions: confusion of thoughts and certainty of words. Stuck between these two extremes, you are bound to sound like a parrot who has no hold over its tune. In all fairness, sincerity comes to those who don’t feel the need to come across as sincere. This year, I tried too hard and as usual, failed. For what they are worth, thoughts are overrated but not as much as words. And when you overexplain, you are breaching a territory of no return.
On this bitter note, good luck with the year ahead.
