actuality.log

Stuff has happened in my life that’s made me want to get a personal-trainer-person in my life tomorrow; as in tomorrow.

Don’t trust me? perhaps, a back-story is in order.

One of the many nice things about travelling is the opportunity it presents one to splurge. You know, the chance to live the good life; complete with staying in luxurious places and stuffing your face with fancy (and not-so) foods.

Here’s a small sampling from just last week’s trip to L.A. Mouse-over the images for tidbits.

What’s the word I am looking for?

Hedonism. Yeah, that’s the one.

People who know Jack think they know a lot about Jack’s life. For instance, they’d have assumed that he’d never get into a circumstance where he was lying half-naked on a woman’s bed, lazily listening to her talk to her husband as he called.

People who think they know Jack, don’t.

I have probably not harped about this often enough on my journal, but I am musically inclined. I’m a highly-trained classical vocalist, and I can play a bunch of instruments. None of this is at some sing-in-the-shower scale either, I’ve performed several times to a variety of large audiences, sung on national radio and have gathered numerous accolades. If I weren’t a science geek, I probably would have landed up in a career involving music; be it creating, performing or critiquing.

But today’s post isn’t about any of that. That prelude was just me stroking myself; stroking my ego, that is.

I’ve had thoughts of composing (music) for a very long time, but I’ve lacked the inspiration to be earnest enough to come up with anything (good). This sort of sensation—and the accompanying sense of under-achievement for not doing anything about it—surfaces and saddens me from time to time. In an amazing turn of events, all that changed last evening as I was lying pressed-up to Crayola as we were taking a breather; awaiting sleep.

With her slight shuffles and turns, and her laboured breathing, it was apparent that her mind was restless and she was unable to fall asleep. Actually, the signs weren’t as apparent as I make them out to be, and I am uncertain how I knew, or how things progressed, but before long, I was wrapping her tighter to me, and rocking her softly as I began to hum. It started-off vaguely similar to a tune my father would hum to me as I rested on his lap as a child, but soon blossomed to something else.

Something new, something delightful, something elaborate and rich. A tune, my tune, my tune for her, began to form in my mind and I proceeded to spontaneously compose it and hum it to her over hours and hours, calming her. I have sung to her normally in the past of course, but the response there had been more admiration than anything else. Now, almost instantly, I could sense that she was elevated to a state of tranquility and bliss. Her breathing was soon calmer; her face more serene as a stream of (happy, I suspect) tears began to trickle. I watched them travel lower and dry on her cheeks as she drifted-off to sleep.

I didn’t go to sleep; I ended up holding her and gazing at her instead.

… mind having their picture taken.

… really mind having their picture taken.

… don’t mind posing for a picture.

… love to pose for a picture.

… don’t know their picture is being taken.

What about you?

What were the geniuses who formulate aviation policy smoking?

On the first leg of my journey to LA, there was a frickin’ light-bulb that was out on the plane, and they freaked out and refused to take-off until it was rectified. And it wasn’t even some semi-important bulb either, like the plane’s headlights(?), but the little thing that illuminates the row number. It turned out that 21 was the offending row.

I remember because it was my row.

This pushed departure by some half an hour. Apparently, “federal regulations” make taking-off with this sort of life-threatening problem a strict nono.

And then, on the second leg of my journey, one of the plane’s ENGINES refused to start, and they had to hook it up to some external life-support doohickey even to barely get it up. In the meanwhile, we got to hear the pilot tell us such reassuring things as, “Now you’re going to hear noises—like a dog whine—for just a bit, but I assure you it’s normal.” Normal?

This flight was in no way delayed.

Excellent.

You did read my earlier take on things, didn’t you?

Now: I’m writing this on a many-hour-long flight to LA. I can’t believe that the sight of Crayola lazing there, half-asleep, half-dressed on my bed watching over my rushed packing made me reconsider leaving for this trip in the first place. Even though I waited until she was nearly asleep, kissing her tired, saddened eyes and forehead before I hurried out the door was so much harder than I imagined it would be—for I knew it was the last time I would be with her until Friday.

Oh, but I digress. What of our topic of the day?

She’s as complimentary to me as complimentary can be, and being with her these past few weeks has opened my eyes to a simple truth I’d conveniently ignored earlier—people aren’t uni-faceted, they’re multi-dimensional. Earlier, I claimed that some people are “cooler than you,” and “you’re cooler than” everyone else, but it turns out that things are a lot more complicated than that.

In actuality, once you begin to look into these aspects, your “finest attributes” or “core strengths” are so different from the next person, it’s not about who’s more cool or who’s less cool, but about who’s more cool or who’s less cool, in what context; if you can find common criteria to gauge this in the first place. More often than not, there is very little to compare yourselves with, and when you do, you’ll realise that the two of you are better in different regards; there is no clear “winner.”

Actually, I have to say that there is no clear loser, for you both have realised that it is better to be together and make each other very happy than to compare stats.

Crayola, for instance, is hotter than I am (as in, well out of my league), more creative and talented than I am, more graceful and sophisticated than I am, more expressive than I am, is a woman, leads a far more exciting life than I do, … but still fancies me because I have my own pluses.

What are they? I don’t know, you must ask her.

But the point is, rather than thinking of people as “too cool for you” and sitting alone, or thinking of yourself as “too cool for them” and sitting alone, all you need to do is to realise that people are different. Appreciate and learn from their complimentary characteristics; which is important if you plan to grow and evolve as a human being.

Or get laid.

This style of post is an interesting first for me. Actually, it’s more of a first than it is interesting, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.

If you don’t already know, many of my posts first spawn on scrap bits of paper, fester there for a while and only occasionally do they evolve to posts on my web log. While this process takes some time, the emphatically static nature of my life ensures that my world-view doesn’t change in this interim.

Usually.

Today, I present to you something I scribbled a few weeks ago, and tomorrow, I’ll present my current take on things—a starkly different conclusion. Maybe you’ll see how much my life has changed in this period.

Then: You come across a variety of people everyday, and you know how different they can be. Some people you meet, you judge yourself to be “cooler than,” so you feel that you can “do better than them.” In the sense of selecting a life partner, this roughly means that you’ll pass on them because you’ve decided you can “do so much better.”

And then, you have the other half of the crowd who you feel are just out of your league; intelligence, finesse, grace, … whatever the criteria. In the sense that, there is no way you could possibly be with them even if you wanted to. Which, of course, could just as well be paraphrased as “they couldn’t possibly want to be with you, for they realise they can do better than you.”

Since no two people are equal—however well-matched they seem, you can still find the most subtle (and possibly trivial) thing and toss them into one or the other of the preceding two categories—the set of people you can’t (or won’t want to) be with covers just about everybody.

And “everybody” is a superset of all women.

Essentially, I’ve just shown that there is an extremely good chance you’re ending up all alone, or with someone who leaves you unsatisfied and unhappy.

And that’s something to think about; or not, if you’re the kinds who doesn’t like giving up hope on “eventual perpetual happiness.”

Stay tuned for an updated take on things.

Like I was trying to say, once you begin to explore, you’ll realise that there is a lot to see around here. These next few pictures are from the area abutting Pearl street, which is cordoned off to prevent automobiles from using it.

Any place that allows kiddies to run around fearlessly and do their own thing is awesome. There also exist numerous interesting (to say the least) stores and stalls.

I mean, really quirky. And, in case you were wondering (from the first half of this post) whether metallic, “industrial” sorts of themes and textures were the only things I cared about, you would be wrong.

I quite enjoy the cuddly-wuddly kinds too.

With my talks done, I decided to trek up the mountains for a bit with a bunch of smart people. It was quite a drive to get there, but the drive and the view was gorgeous.

During this trek, we also came across some tranquil lakes.

And some more wonderful textures.

There was some creepy wildlife as well.

Creepy as hell.

This sequence of posts has been quite a bit delayed. Of late, you must know that I have been sidetracked. And that’s putting it mildly.

When I was last in Colorado, I was at this (beautiful?) skiing town called Vail. That, of course, didn’t mean much because the time I spent there was in the peak of summer. This time, I spent some time in a college town called Boulder. Being situated somewhere in the middle of the country—as in not the East or West coasts—I expected it to suck. But guess who was very pleasantly surprised?

We’re going to move over to pictures now. Brace yourself.

Here’s me in my sucky hotel room “prepping for my talk.” If it weren’t for the molestable shower-head, the hotel would have been worse; as in sucky sucky.

Did I say me? I meant, “here’s my camera in the sucky hotel room.” If you were to ask me why I hated the hotel so much (apart from flaky interweb), it was the crap decor. I mean, seriously people.

Moving over to the university, here is the all-industrial texture of the wall in the room I gave my first talk. This is the talk that went-off well. The other one? Well, not so.

And the town as a whole had a sort of quirky charm. Consider a canonical home, for instance.

Yes, a totem pole sort of thing made out of shoes. And then, we have this!

OK, I was kidding about it being a “canonical home.” But things didn’t stop there. Oh no, not even close.

Stay tuned for more.