Sweating the Small Stuff

If you are an over-thinker like I do, you may have a tendency to sweat the small stuff. Ascribe too much importance to events and people that are trivial to your existence in the longer scheme of things. Which is why I admire people who can bury themselves in their work or passions without effort. But, if you are not such a person, you need to consciously make the effort not to sweat the small stuff without beating yourself up for sweating the small stuff. I remember an email a friend forwarded from a professor. He was replying to her email about how she would have loved to pursue a PhD supervised by him but couldn't because of a stormy personal life. He was sympathetic in his response but suggested that only starting a PhD once all her ducks were in order might not be the best course of action. Maybe her PhD would help her get her ducks in order. I say Amen to that.

Angry Youngish Man

I feel like I am turning into a grumpy uncle. At dinner today, my nephew was reading the ridiculously lame message on the cover of a mineral water bottle, and that was my cue to launch into a tirade about the use of plastic. My nephews looked a little puzzled.

My anger goes up a few notches when I am around people who (I think) are apolitical or on the wrong (right) side of the political spectrum. Back in Bristol, I would feel it rise when I was with a particular colleague. Someone with a personality like mine doesn't do outbursts. Instead, my anger manifests itself as mean humour. I am careful enough to make my intentions seem ambigous but if I am being honest with myself, it comes from a place of anger. Anger often stems from frustration at one's own sense of helplessness, I realize. Its not like I am doing anything for the earth or for society so what expectations am I allowed to have of others? And, even if I was doing something, would I have to the right to have expectations of others?

Maybe that's the wrong way of looking at it. From a purely pragmatic point of view, I can have as high expectations as I like if I don't mind being perpetually disappointed. But, that is not very healthy. So, projecting your own expectations on others and coming across as a sanctimonious prick is not conducive to one's own mental well-being.  

Yes, the world is one fire, and yes, anger, helplessness and frustration are understandable reactions. But, one's first reactions need not be permanent reactions. It is possible to observe own's reactions and take a conscious step back. And the key to mental well-being is knowing when to step forward and when to step back.

Aptitude Test

I was going through some old papers in my desk today, and I stumbled upon my aptitude results from 16 years ago. I had taken the test after high school as I was confused about what to do next. The counselors' recommendation was I should take up engineering because I had scored high on mechanical comprehension and numerical ability even though my interest inventory said Arts. I am guessing the counselor was swayed by what she thought my parents wanted to here. Maybe she thought her job was to be the neutral authority figure to rubber-stamp parents' chosen vocation for their kid. And, it may have been a fair assumption on her part that an engineering graduate and a Physics PhD might want their son to take up a career in engineering.
I don't feel anger towards the counselor, only disdain for the education system in this country. Very few kids at 17 know what they want to do with their lives. The system should allow them to change course with much ado, not feel like abject failures. But, I am just relieved that I don't have to go through the agonizing experience of higher education in India again.
And as far as my meandering career trajectory is concerned, I have zero regrets. Every loop taught me something--about the specific field, about the wider world or about myself. But, if I could go back to when I was 17, I would definitely not choose engineering school again. 

Being Challenged

One of the disadvantages of writing for yourself is that it is a bit of an echo-chamber. And if you are more prone to over-confidence than diffidence like I am, it is easy to fall in love with you words and feel like you are full of sagely wisdom. I saw my counselor today and she challenged my beliefs about the way I was using writing. What I thought was a form of therapeutic writing was, in fact, plain old venting which might bring some relief, but was unlikely to aid in personal growth. I had felt quite smart and innovative when I had hit upon that particular form of writing, so that was a chastening moment. But, that is one of the purposes of counselling--to have your beliefs about yourself challenged, especially those that come in the way of you being the best possible version of yourself. Most people resist being challenged on their beliefs about themselves, and that is not a wholly bad thing. It keeps us from being quivering heaps of perpetual self-doubt. Only people whose intelligence and wisdom we respect can challenge us without triggering our defense mechanisms. The meeting with my counselor was intense, and I will be chewing over the stuff that came up for weeks or even months to come. 

Many Worlds

I have often ruminated on the idea that the world is changing in drastic ways and at a stomach-wrenching pace. But, to nitpick a bit, it would be more faithful to my feelings to say that some worlds are changing more than others. Acknowledging that these are points of deep philosophical debates and accepting that I might be treating them somewhat flippantly, we all have personal worlds that overlap with the external world and with the worlds of others. But, the overlap is not complete and that is the basis for the individual experience of life. Overlaps happen by choice or destiny, and I don't mean just the people who come into our lives. I am talking about an individual's experience of life which can never be identical to another's but can nonetheless overlap to differing extents. The world of a poor, Dalit woman has perhaps not changed as much as mine or possibly has changed more but in a different way. When one gets too exercised about the dismal state of the world and the ignorance and apathy towards it, one must remember that our experience is our experience alone. If someone experiences the world in a fundamentally different way, they can't be expected to react to it in the same way. Processes at work that seem blindingly obvious to us might not be to another person of similar  intelligence. This is not a cop-out in the fashion of trying to be compassionate towards right-wingers. It is a tool for survival and a  palliative for rage, which can galvanize one into action but can also throw one off balance. 

Convincing Others

It is amazing how arguments that seem as irrefutable as slam dunks in your head can wither before a  skeptical audience. Which makes me even more skeptical of logic, which relies on a scaffolding of beliefs to prove a point. I stumbled into a long argument with my parents which swiftly reached a topic that we don't see eye to eye, haven't seen eye to eye on for years and which I don't see the point of debating. My simple point was that the choice to have kids is an emotional choice rather than a pragmatic or logical choice and definitely not a biological imperative. And, I said when middle-class people have children they unintentionally perpetuate inequality in society by passing on their privileges to their children. Child-bearing perpetuates gate-keeping and impedes social mobility. I don't why I though that was an uncontroversial argument and my parents thought it was controversial as hell. Whenever an argument collides with one's world view or one's beliefs about themselves, one rejects it. Especially, if the point being made is unflattering to oneself such as about one's complicity in exploitative structures. For instance, I would reject that people who don't have kids are likely to be more self-centered than people who do. It clashes fundamentally about my believes about myself. My beliefs may change but not because someone hits me with a really convincing argument. The process of belief change is a slow grinding and often traumatic process predicated on an openness to challenge one's beliefs. 

Airport Blog

I am sitting in the departure lounge at Heathrow, waiting for my  flight to Mumbai via  Dubai. Dubai airport is apparently consumerist heaven, so I expect to be shocked by excess and crass consumerism. But, hopefully they will have more toilets per passenger than Baharain's airport, which was my stopover on the previous trip to India.
Last trip was a chance to celebrate all the progress I had made since returning to my research in England. Also, I was returning home after a year, which added to the  sweetness. This time, my homecoming is less sentimental as I am returning after just five months. I am also in the final year of my PhD so I have to get on with it. I am less prepared for my research than I had hoped I would be. I haven't got any meetings set up, for instance, so its going to be like the previous trip when I land on the ground and get a feel of the place and then decide what to do. I remember being frustrated for most of Round 1, as I will refer to my previous trip hereon. It was only in the last few weeks of Round 1 that I felt I had achieved something. This time I need to write as well as prepared for my interviews, so I will  have to operate with a much higher level of intensity.
On the personal front, there is also some uncertainty. I have decided to move to a new place shortly after I return to England. I don't know whom I will be moving with and I have decided not to speculate. Almost all my colleagues seem to live similar transient lives with no permanent abode. I want to move out of this circuit of people with temporary jobs or short-term assignments who ar here today and gone in a few weeks. I have seen enough of that in my AirBnB and its amazing that I have lasted there as long as I did.
This has turned into a lament about my less-than-perfect life instead of a reflection on the state of being between two places, which is what an airport lounge represents to me. But, it is what it is.