ER Visit

I had abdominal pain come on last morning and get worse over the day. After much internal debate and some prodding from chatgpt I decided to go to the ER. I knew enough about abdominal pain that appendicitis is a risk, and because it was in my lower right quadrant, I knew it was a concern. I was nervous, since it was my first time seeking emergency medical help anywhere in the world. Unplanned visits to the doctor anywhere in the world involve a lot of waiting, unless you are dying and in some places even if you are dying. A chatgpt query told me that I should prepare for a 4-6 hours visit as a best case. If I had appendicitis, it could be as long as 24 hours. I mulled whether to get an Uber but decided to drive myself. If it was a short visit, I didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of a snowy night waiting for an Uber. When I reached there, the waiting room was so sparsely occupied that I had double-check if it was the ER. No chaos, no patients waiting on stretchers, nothing that would make for good drama on a TV show. All the medical staff I encountered were friendly and solicitous and I didn’t have to “advocate” for myself. I knew that they would do a blood test, physical examination and a CAT scan and this exactly what they did. No appendicitis, but I did have an inflation of the colon. I was free to go, and the only treatment would be a dose of antibiotics. So, I did have something, but it did not serious, which, to me, sounded like the best possible outcome. As I told my friend, its nothing serious AND I do not feel like an idiot for going to the ER. It was not the end of the story though. My decision to go to the ER was vindicated because my pain got worse after I got home and ate something. I was able to sleep but this was definitely enough pain to make an ER visit a no-brainer, especially if appendicitis hadn’t be ruled out. This morning, I woke up feeling sore and groggy, with the pain level unchanged from the previous night. But, I was not feeling anxious. I felt like this was a chance to take a break from matters of the head and the heart—career uncertainty and my dating life. In good health, few people are able to switch of from these worries without feeling guilt, especially career problems. But poor health is a good justification to take a break without guilt. I am not out of the woods yet and maybe the illness will take an unexpected turn. But, for now at least, I am grateful for being able to hit the pause button on these problems.

Working ThroughVs Expressing Feelings

Which feelings should one “work through” and which feelings should one express? I am conflict-averse by nature so received wisdom holds that I should get better at asserting my boundaries. But in at least two instances in recent weeks, I swallowed my feelings and decided to digest them instead of expressing them, and thanked myself later for it. My feelings have been so volatile lately that I can’t trust them to stay in place long enough for me to act on them and not regret it. So what is to be done? Firstly, I might be using the terms feelings wrongly, at least according to some people. Emotions are mental states (sadness, jealousy, etc) while thoughts are interpretations of these mental states, and feelings are physical manifestations of those mental states. There is a lot of work out there urging people to pay attention to their “physical” feelings instead of getting swept up in emotions and thoughts. I read a book not that long ago titled Radical Acceptance, which has a central message of accepting every feeling without resistance and observing it instead of judging it. To pay attention to the parts of the body that feelings manifest as physical sensations. My problem is all my feelings seem to emanate from the  right lower abdomen. And, I am not sure how that knowledge helps.

Resisting Fascism

I had ambitious plans of working yesterday but then I checked the news and those plans went out the window. An ICE thug shot a protester dead in Minneapolis. She was a white female US citizen, widely considered the least threatening demographic and most deserving of protection from violence. Yes, this is not the first person ICE has killed and ICE has been brutalizing immigrants for months. But, if ICE can shoot a white woman in public, with a clear recording of the incident, with impunity, who knows what they can get away with. I have written before about how fascism is unfolding differently in the US and in India. In India, the fascist regime has slowly suffocated democratic institutions, taking them apart brick by brick. No need for shock-and-awe if you have a right-wing population that is broadly supportive of your agenda. And, fascism has to be resisted in the streets because given enough time, fascists neutralize the courts and make sure they don’t lose elections. When fascists control the state, resisting fascism becomes an extraordinarily risky business. But people have always done extraordinarily risky things for love and faith (not necessarily the religious kind). In India, not many days go by without reports of so-called “honour” killings, which is when members of an upper-caste family kill their daughter and her low-caste husband/lover as they believe their romance sullies their family’s “honour”. I read a statistic somewhere that, around the world, women are most at risk of being killed by intimate partners. But, I don’t imagine there are many places where they are at risk of being killed by their fathers and brothers. Honour killings are not a widespread phenomena in India but the very fact that they still happen is an abomination. However, news reports of honour killings fill me with both revulsion and hope and admiration. Hope and admiration for the young lovers who know that they could pay with their lives for loving the wrong person but still do. Humans have always done things that any rational risk assessment would rule out.

On Sad Boys

 I recently read a provocative piece that claimed that distressed boys were at the root of most of what is wrong with the world, and have always been. Disgruntled maladjusted boys are uniquely vulnerable to so-called extremist ideologies of the left and the right, which, the piece claims are two poles of the same magnet. One sought a perfect utopia, while the other sought to cleanse society of pollution. It cited a quote that I agree with: ’A faith is not acquired by reasoning. One does not fall in love with a woman, or enter the womb of a church, as a result of logical persuasion. Reason may defend an act of faith — but only after the act has been committed, and the man committed to the act. Persuasion may play a part in a man's conversion; but only the part of bringing to it full and conscious climax a process that has been maturing in regions where no persuasion can penetrate.’ I have lived in proximity to activists long enough to know that political ideologies are grounded more in faith than in reason. The moral fervour that animates political activists is fuelled by faith. How else do people persist with fringe groups for years, if not decades? I would even grant that such zeal makes one susceptible to conspiracy theories that support one’s cause. But, I was not comfortable with the article’s claim that extreme left and extreme right causes are equally intolerant and prone to authoritarianism. Firstly, I am sure there are different shades among the far-right, but all of them support outright violence against marginalized peoples. I am not sure that is the case on the left. The article gives some examples of their run-ins with people of the far-left and far-right. Comparing privileged participants of Occupy Wall Street with the Sandy Hook shooter, as the article does, is laughably disingenuous. Secondly, of the far-left and far-right, only one is compatible with capitalism. In a world where capital is seemingly all-powerful and mobile, how an ideology positions itself in relation to capital matters in terms of its capacity to do damage. As recent events have shown, centrists who claim to be equally repelled by the far-left and the far-right are far more tolerant of right-wing governments if they don’t gum up the wheels of capitalism too much.  

Transactionality

I was going to write a post about transactionality, but it turns out most of what I was about to write, I had already written in a post on reciprocity (note to self to read my own blog more). So, this post is going to be shorter than I had anticipated. Keeping a mental tally of how much you and the opposite person are contributing to a platonic or romantic relationship sounds like a cheerless and even petty exercise. But, reciprocity is important in any relationship. Men are not socialised in reciprocity and my previous post talks about this at more length. I feel like many people are concerned about not taking the opposite person in a relationship for granted. We should also be concerned about not being taking for granted because in the long run, that is unhealthy for everyone involved. Expressing boundaries in a relationship can either salvage a relationship or end a potentially lopsided relationship. Of course, different people have different abilities and capacities to contribute to a relationship. And, if we feel value and cherished in a relationship the mental tallies fade into the background. We only bring them out when we feel taken for granted. And, those mental tallies are useful to assess whether our feelings are justified or without reason. Because sometimes we can simply forgot what the other person has done for us.

Back to Blogging

 I haven’t blogged in more than two months, ever since I turned 40. This has been my longs break from blogging, and the reason is I have started journaling. I read a book called “A Life of One’s Own” by Marion Millner. I felt like this British woman writing a hundred years ago was describing my feelings about my life. The sense that life was passing me by, the desire to connect with others but feeling underwhelmed by the experience of interacting with others, broadly, that I was not living life to the fullest. Millner took up journalling to observe her own thought processes and hopefully distil some wisdom from the observations. So, she started recording what made her happy. With the journalling, there is the temptation to only journal when you are feeling sad or anxious, and I realised I have been doing that. So, this is a reminder to follow Millner’s and (also?) blog about happy moments.

But, I miss blogging and I think I am going to continue to blog intermittently. I have written about why I blog several times before, for example, here, here and here. I think there is something to be said for contemplating your thoughts and feelings with some amount of dispassion, as one must if one is writing for a readership of more than oneself.

Turning 40

I have never been big on marking birthdays, but this is a big one. So, I went back to previous posts about birthdays and it turns out that there are just two—for Nos 35 and 36. I turned 35 during the first year of Covid, and my post was mostly about how that year had been nothing like what I had thought or hoped for. I was surprisingly compassionate to myself, marvelling at how well I had coped with the pandemic and the various tribulations it had brought. It also expressed relief at having something to say when people would ask how I was celebrating. I am happy to report that having nothing to say to that question is no more a cause of embarrassment. Maybe its because I am older, maybe the pandemic has made social introversion more acceptable. But, a friend of mine who turned 40 last year told me to mark the occasion, else I might regret it. I bought a car a few months ago, and wrote about how it felt like something I needed to do before I turned 40.

Turning 40 is a time to reflect not just on the previous year but on the previous decade. My 30s were stormier than my 20s, which included the two best years of my life—journalism school in Chenna and the masters in Holland. It was also the decade that I discovered journalism, worked as a journalist for more than half a decade and eventually tired of it. My 30s were off to a turbulent start, being stricken with dengue in my 31^st year and the sleeping demons that it roused in me. But, I managed to life myself out of that morass and put my life back on track, which is, and may always be, my biggest achievement. And, then pandemic struck bang in the middle of my 30s. It make years to understand and reckon with the impact of the pandemic, even though neither I or my lived ones suffered grave misfortune. And, any scorecard must consider the fact that the world has become a far angrier place over the last decade or so. And, surviving in it and trying to thrive in it is no mean feat. And, while my 30s had some turbulent times, they were also a period of tremendous self-growth and accumulation of self-knowledge.

Planning for futures

The other day, I came cross a tweet that said "People are still planning for futures that are connected to a world that doesn't exist anymore". My first reaction was "My feelings exactly!" and my next reaction was "What are they supposed to do instead?". The Gramsci quote about the monster-filled interregnum between the dying old world and not-yet-born new world rings true, but until the new world is born one can only plan keeping the old world in mind. It is easy to slip into despair at the state of the world, and it is also easy to romanticize despair. One can continually come up more creative ways to express despair and feel very smart for doing it. I know because I have done quite a bit of it in the past. My favourite line, that I would trot out to anyone who would listen was “I am smart enough to realise that most social science research is bull-shit, but not smart enough to make original contributions. It has features in my blog here and here in the past. I felt smart saying it, and I felt that it conveyed humility, wit and self-awareness. On this blog, I have talked about it here and here. Now, I think it is time to retire that line. It serves no purpose now, if it ever did in the past. It is also a cop-out because it justifies inaction. If the world is uncertain, if you are not too smart or too dumb, maybe the best thing is to do nothing? I don’t mean to sound self-righteous. Expressing despair can be cathartic and sometimes one needs to take a brake from action. But those should be explicitly stated choices 

Cobalt Blue

For the longest time, I have had a mental block against novels written by Indian writers in English. One of my complaints was that Indians writing in English appeared to feel the need to prove that they knew the language well. The result was stilted and overwrought prose. This might be still true of some Indian writers writing in English. But, it is certainly not true of the best writing, if it ever was. Indians have made English their own and, as the protests against Hindi hegemony show, it is the only language that is widely spoken and acceptable to people across the length and breadth of India. I don’t want to paint an overly optimistic picture of English’s place in Indian society—fluency in English is a marker of class (and, hence, caste) status. But, that is a discussion for another blog post. Despite all this, I haven’t managed to overcome my reluctance towards reading Indian novels in English. The novels feel like they are set in a foreign land, and I struggle to conjure up the sights and sounds of the India I know from the writing. I say this as someone who is much more fluent in English than in the two Indian languages I know, so it’s a good thing I have no ambitions of writing a novel. Today, I just finished a novel titled Cobalt Blue, originally written in Marathi, which is the Indian language I am less fluent, even though it is my “mother tongue” (I am one of the few Indians of my generation who has a different mother and father tongue). I would have struggled to read the original, and I would have given up before I realized what an amazing novel it is. I read the English translation, and found myself translating some sentences back into imperfect Marathi.  It is a searing story about love, loneliness and loss set in Pune, my favourite Indian city. It spoke to me in a way that no book has in a long time, and I can’t recommend it enough, especially to people familiar with Pune and/or Maharashtrians. It has also spurred to seek out more translated works from India.

Professions for the end of world

Since I am at a professional crossroads, I spend a lot of time thinking (and fretting) about what I should do next. This is an interesting time to be at a professional crossroads, to say the least. I have nothing to add about the state of the job market due to economic headwinds, a rogue US presidency and the advent of AI. There is, of course, the question of whether one will be able to find a job of one’s liking, given these various problems. But, before that, there is the question of what types of jobs should one aim for that i) make a positive contribution to society and the environment ii) do not require you to be tight-lipped about genocide. iii) are unlikely to be gobbled up by AI. Jobs that are likely to be relevant right up to the fast-approaching end of the world. I can think of only three broad sectors: art, care and political organizing (food-, clothing- and housing-related professions have moved far beyond sustenance needs into wasteful and unequal consumption). I don’t think these need any further explanation. Much more brilliant and eloquent minds than me have written about why artistic expression is a human imperative. Care, in all its forms (medical, social, mental), is a noble profession; and even a cynic like me believes  that we need to strive for a better world right up to the end of the world. These are the only broad professions that feel meaningful to me to pursue at this moment. I wish I could add academia to this list, but I cannot, in good faith, do that. A lot of academic social science is vacuous, tediously self-referential and status-quoist. We cannot rely on academic social scientists to make sense of, much less foretell, the changes in our physical and social worlds.

 

 

 

Work For The Sake of Working (or Bullshit Jobs)

//this is a post that I wrote in May 2015 when I was doing my Master's in Holland///

In another life, when I was gainfully employed, I often wondered whether it would make any difference to the rest of the world if my job profile simply disappeared. As a financial markets reporter, I spent a lot of time calling up traders and asking them why a particular bond, stock or currency pair had risen or fallen in price. Usually, they had no idea themselves and would trot out one of the many hackneyed market phrases that essentially say nothing—profit booking, value buying, various kinds of fears or expectations of investors. Often, a trader would read from a competing news publication’s story to give me a reason. (How did I know? Because every half-decent journalist keeps a close tab on the competition).

But, mine is hardly the only job of questionable social or economic value (how to define value is one of those grand questions that social scientists have been grappling with for ages, but bear with me if you can). As advances in technology have reduced the demand for employment in manufacturing, especially in the developed world, an overabundance of new jobs has emerged in the services sector. Not just internet-related jobs, such as GIF specialist or content curator, but also PR consultant, life coach, corporate lobbyist, telemarketer, many jobs in finance, administration and human resources etc. This is not just a rich-world phenomenon--it is also seen in developing country metropolises such as Mumbai, where I used to work.

How did this situation come about? In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that by the early 21^st century, gains in productivity due to technological advances would reduce the duration of the work week in advanced countries to 15 hours. But, instead of enjoying the fruits of automation, we have invented entire new categories of what anthropologist David Graeber calls “bullshit jobs”. Peter Fleming, an economist, says most jobs in rich countries have moved away from “the baseline of biological self-preservation”.  He says it's “this growing disconnect between labour as a biological/social requirement versus work as a cultural artefact that has seen it take on a life of its own…”. In other words, work for the sake of working. Yes, many jobs have been outsourced to poor countries, but increased automation is reducing the total number of manufacturing jobs in the world, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek column citing the Boston Consulting Group. We are working far more hours than are required to produce the world’s total output of goods and useful services (assuming that all goods produced are useful).

As Graeber points out, the contradiction here is jarring. Capitalism thrives by cutting costs and trimming flab, not by adding layers upon layers of excess fat. Are bullshit jobs an innovative way of putting money in the hands of people so that they can buy the products manufactured by machines and keep the capitalist system running? Is this a variation of Keynes’ idea that governments should pay people to dig holes and fill them up again during downturns to stimulate demand? Since many of these jobs exist in or feed off the financial sector, is there a link between the growth of such jobs and the ascent of financial capital after the Gold Standard was abolished?

Whatever the reasons for the existence of bullshit jobs, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for them. Today, the biggest problem of the rich world is a lack of demand—most people are unable or unwilling to buy enough products to keep their economies growing. Wave upon wave of quantitative easing has done little else than inflate stocks and bond prices. The obvious solution is to raise government spending or to increase wages of workers so they have more money to spend, as some countries such as Germany, Japan and the U.S. are doing. But, will the number of bullshit jobs also increase in the process?

Choosing the Right Therapist

Is it a wonder that an overthinker would overthink the task of finding a therapist to help them with overthinking (among other things)? Before this year, I had had therapy on two occasions. On the more recent one, it was because it was free (though not particularly useful). The first time was when I was at the lowest I had ever been, a period I call the Watershed year. That therapist was the second one I tried after having swiftly rejected the first one for being like a shiny automaton. With the second therapist, I instantly knew she was the right one for me, and, indeed, she was. Call it chemistry, call it intuition, call it a sixth sense, but I have never had that feeling about any therapist I have met since. However, a lack of chemistry may be a good enough reason to turn down a potential romantic interest, but one has to be more concrete if rejecting a therapist. Not just because the therapist deserves a better explanation, but because you owe it to yourself to think your reasons through. I questioned the approach of looking for chemistry in a therapist, which I deconstructed (in my case) to mean someone who vows with me with their intelligence and who is very articulate. I had decided that such an approach was shallow. But, in the end, I decided to change therapists, even though during our last session, the therapist dropped some intriguing insights about me. I realise that there is no perfect therapist, and one simply needs to find someone who is competent and compatible. But, I can’t help thinking that whatever choice I made, I would feel like it was the wrong one.

Man Flu

 I have had a cold for the last week or so, and I suspect it is man flu. 'Man flu' is a derisive term for the phenomenon of men over-reacting to minor illness. Apparently, there may be physiological reasons for why men appear to exaggerate the symptoms of a minor illness like a cold or a flu. Apparently, men have weaker immune symptoms than women. I am certain that I am susceptible to man flu, because when I get a cold, it puts me in a horrible mood, much worse than the symptoms warrant. And, I have written before about how colds are particularly annoying because you are indisposed but well enough to feel the full weight of your symptoms. I have never had a cold and not thought, at least for a brief while, that it would never go away. On more than a few occasions, the cold was brought on by me doing vigorous exercise despite feeling under the weather. It has happened often enough that I should know better than to exercise when I am feeling a bit iffy. But, it is amazing what lengths people go to when faced with restlessness. And, the inevitable self-flagellation that follows the onset of sickness is par for the course.

Post-Vacation Doldrums

 I have realised that solitude is a necessary condition for blogging. Solitude was in short supply in the past three weeks—hence my blogging hiatus—as my parents were visiting me from India. Now, I am having a case of post-vacation doldrums. I felt a bit cramped during their visit as my apartment is not large enough for more than two people, especially when they don’t have independent lives. This thread of thought got me thinking about journalism college, when I was staying with four other men in a two bed-room apartment, which was only slightly bigger than my current one bedroom apartment. We also had two female friends who would spend most of their time at my place. I don’t remember feeling very cramped then. But, that was almost twenty years ago and I hadn’t had a bedroom to myself in years. I also didn’t know that bad company is worse than no company (to be clear, the company during journo school was great). But, cramped I did feel during my parents’ visit and I am relieved to have my space back. So, now I am in the past-vacation doldrums (blues is too strong a word). I am relieved that the holiday, as enjoyable as it was, is over, but I am not ready to go back to life. This feels like one of the ‘vacation from the vacation’ kind of things.

Driving Test

 I was going to write a blog post last evening or this morning about my attempts to calm myself before my driving test today. I was going to write about an expression in Marathi that means “do not hurry”, which is an oblique way of saying “do not panic”. But do not panic is useless advice to someone prone to panicking, so the useful advice is not to hurry. Slow down, and you will panic less. I remember my coach saying it during an interschool badminton sports meet when I was 13. For racquet games especially it is eminently reasonable advice as the haste to finish the point by forcing a winner can lead to what they call in tennis parlance as “unforced errors”. But, because I was running short on time, I decided to do an anxiety mediation instead.

I managed to keep my nerve in the test and passed. One of my aims before I turned 40 was to get a car and a license to feel more like an adult. That aim has now been achieved and it feels like an anti-climax. There is no jubilation, no huge surge of relief. If I had failed I could have kept driving on my Indian license. Yes, it is not advisable to do so in the current political climate, but a couple of months ago I was dead against getting a car of fear of being deported for traffic violations. But, that bridge I had already crossed, inspired by the chutzpah of some first-year PhD students in my department. I had decided that until I am in the US, I will try to live as full a life as possible. Or else I might as well go back voluntarily. And, it feels good that my driving skills have been validated by a representative of the commonwealth of Massachusetts.

First Night in 114 King Street

 Yesterday, was brutal because it was a double move. My colleague and his partner were moving to the same town as me, so we first moved their stuff and then came back for my stuff in the same truck. My first impressions of my new place were not great either. It was very hot--the flipside of having a bright cheerful apartment with a lot of windows. And, the traffic was much louder than I remembered it from the viewing. Not to mention that the bedroom door was hanging from the top hinge. From a functional perspective, my previous apartment was better. Lots of storage and kitchen counter space, and modern fittings. It was also a 10-minute cycle ride from the university. It is tempting to keep the status quo if it is bearable, especially if the future is laden with uncertainty. But, I had decided that functionality is over-rated and I should aspire to a better quality of life. So, here I am, in the town that I call a mini-Bristol.

Last Night at 16 Brandywine Drive

One always has more stuff than one realizes, and one only realizes when it is time to pack. I spent the day packing and I am tired and stressed about whether all my stuff will fit into the U-Haul tomorrow. But, as per tradition, I am going to write a short post as it is my last night in a house. It just occurred to me that this is the first time I am moving out of choice. My last move was because I was leaving the UK, the one before that was because I couldn’t wait to move out after finishing my PhD to escape house mates from hell. Which is a choice, I suppose. The two moves before that were because my live-in landlords soured on  me. This apartment is quite comfortable and my only major grouch is that its floorboards are very creaky, and my upstairs neighbour has a heavy tread. If they had agreed to move me to a top-floor pond-facing apartment I might well have renewed my lease. My job is only for another year, so there were perfectly reasonable reasons to stay put. But, I went with my gut and decided not to move out of this perfectly decent apartment to a city that I keep telling everyone is a mini Bristol. New car, new apartment, lots of changes happening in life.

A New Car and Adulting

I went and picked up my new car today. There are obvious reasons for getting a car in the US if you can afford one. Except in a handful of large cities like NYC, Boston or San Francisco, one’s quality of life is severely curtailed without one. But, one of my reasons is that I am turning 40 this year, and it felt like something I need to do before that happens. The traditional trappings of success—well-paying job, home, car, wife and kids—have never been a draw for me, and I am fine with the fact that I have not hit any of these markers. But, a couple of months ago, I suddenly started feeling like navigating the process of buying a car and owning a car would be good for not just for the quality of my life but also for my self-confidence. I remember years ago in Holland when I was sitting at a dinner table with my housemates. Everyone else was talking about what pets they had as a kid, and when someone asked me, I told them I never had any pets. “Then what did you take care of?”. That is when I realised that children are encouraged to have pets—ranging from dogs to something as low maintenance as a hamster—to teach them to be responsible. This is a trite example, but I feel like owning a car would be the grown-up version of owning a hamster. I have lived in three different countries other than the one I grew up in and I set myself up without knowing anyone locally in two of them. But, I still feel like I need this adulting experience. The process of buying a  car and all the hassles that come with it can be tedious especially if you don’t have a partner to accompany you in the process (or hinder you, who can tell?). And, in a world engulfed in flames it is easy to fall into fatalism and lament about the pointlessness of earthly pursuits. But, long-term singletons owe it to themselves to not let the absence of a partner stop them from living a full life.

I am not a natural at driving, just like I am not a natural at swimming. I am taking my time getting used to the speeds, the rules and driving on the other side of the road. Things that didn’t used to bother me while driving in India, such as staying at the center of the lane, have been an issue. And, I suck at any manouvere that involves reversing the car. But a least I have my own car, which I have fully insured, so I don’t have to worry about wrecking someone else’s car.

Men, Reciprocity and Care

In recent memory, there are two instances where I showed care towards male friends and was miffed by their lack of reciprocity and/or gratitude. I find it particularly annoying that some men are bad at taking care of themselves, but when someone offers them care, they lap it up without much thought. It might be the case that my expectations of care/gratitude are unreasonably high. And, one often, if not always, has the option of withdrawing care if one is not satisfied by how it is received. But, it is not secret that cishet men are bad at care/reciprocity. Many south Asian men, in particular, go from being pampered by their mothers or sisters to being pampered by their wives or girlfriends, or at least expecting to be. That said, I have nothing to say about why men are bad at care/reciprocity that hasn’t been said by wiser people before.

Obviously, one doesn’t want to keep excel spreadsheets of who did what in platonic and romantic relationships because then there is no difference between those interactions and business transactions. Care can come in many forms—physical, emotional, material. People may have differing abilities as well as inclinations to offer care and that is fine. Relationships can also fail over differing expectations of reciprocity and care, and that is fine too. But, I do feel one should be conscious of both the balance of acts of care and the ability of the other person to reciprocate, at least in the early stages of a friendship/relationship. And, especially if one is a man as most men are socialized to take others for granted. Else, it is easy for relationships to become lop-sided and/or wither.

Values vs Rules

Apologies if this post seems like it is all over the place. Ideally, one should live according to one's values, if nothing else, to stave of conscience troubles and according to rules to stave off practical troubles. But, this assumes that values are fully determined and unchanging. Even if we believe that values are unchanging, we might not even be aware of our values until confronted by situations that bring them into question. “Do what feels right/listen to your gut and if you are breaking rules, don’t get caught” seems like reasonable advice. Instinct lies at the intersection of mind and body, and can be a useful guide for action. “Our bodies leak truths all the time” as I read recently in a brilliant book. For instance, we feel uncomfortable in some people’s presence, even if there is nothing problematic in the words they use and their expressions are not hostile. Its our guts telling us to be wary of this person. But, a) our gut can be wrong  b) “what feels right, is right” seems like an inadequate moral code. We should allow for our gut to be overruled by our thinking mind, just as we allow the opposite. And, there should be some values that are beyond the influence of how we are felling on a particular day.