Fortune Smiles

Nothing lifts my mood than to get word that I will be receiving money that I wasn't expecting. I don't see myself as particularly money-minded but I do check my bank balance more than is required. Watching the money just sitting there gives me some satisfaction, which makes me an extra mild Uncle Scrooge, I suppose. I have a frugal lifestyle and am careful with my spending but over the years I have learnt to look with amusement rather than judgement at those with extravagant tastes. 

But, word that I will be  receiving this money came sooner than expected, which made the surprise even more pleasant. When fortune smiles you try and run with it, so I decided to channel my good mood into writing my PhD thesis. And it worked. I didn't write reams and reams, but at least I managed to dig myself out of the rut I was in. Hopefully, I will be able to keep up the momentum in coming days. Having a separate keyboard which makes that extremely satisfying clackety-clack also helps I suppose. 

Outdoor Yoga

I can't believe it has taken me this long to discover the joy of outdoor yoga. I did yoga session in my back-garden a few weeks ago, but thought it would only be enjoyable on sunny days. Today, I decided to do it on a cloudy but warm day and it was better than the first time because there was no glare from the sun. I have decided to do yoga outdoors as much as I can for the rest of summer.
As it always happens, one discovers simple pleasures too late. I discovered the joy of night walks around the beach after the summer had passed in Holland. It was the same with walks on the downs behind my house. I prefer to walk when there aren't too many people around, which is only after sunset, but only started walking when the days were so long that people were about till 9:30 pm. In any case, better late than never.

When Life Looks worse than it feels

Sometimes one's life feels worse than it looks and at other times, it looks worse than it feels. What I mean is how we think our life appears to others can I have a bearing on our mood. Thinking about how the world sees our shortcomings or misfortunes can often make us feel worse than the shortcomings and misfortunes themselves do. This is not a call to banish judgement, even if that were possible. Being able to judge situations and circumstances relatively dispassionately is an invaluable human skill. For instance, it often tells us when someone is in need of help, even if they are not asking for it. But, we tend to judge ourselves and our own circumstances too harshly. so, it might be useful to reflect on whether at a given point, life feels worse than it looks, or looks worse than it feels. If it is the latter, it means we are judging ourselves through the lens of the outside world and self-sabotaging our mood. Being aware when we are doing so can itself be a mood-booster. When life feels worse than it looks, it gets more complicated. It is easy to berate oneself for feeling low when there are others in much worse situations. On the other hand. life feeling worse than it looks could also be a warning to seek help for one's mental health, especially if the feeling persists. 

Ripe Tomatoes

Yesterday, I made chicken curry which turned out better than usual. No credit to me, the masala I use is smashing, and this time tomatoes that perfectly ripe made the difference. I have learnt that the "use by" dates on tomato packs are extremely conservative. Perhaps this is because  most people use tomatoes, etc. in salads and not curries. So, I have started leaving tomatoes out for a few days before using them in cooking. Yes, they are more difficult to chop when they are ripe but its worth the extra effort. 

Ghost Campus

Today, I went in to uni to pick up my chair and a few books. The last time I was there was in March to pick up some stuff before the inevitable lockdown. I was more pessimistic than other then, but even I didn't imagine the campus would be locked down for so long. My guess was it would reopen in June, and here we are in July. The campus resembled a ghost town. Before Covid, whenever I was on campus, I would always see students milling around, even on New Year's Eve. Today, there was no one except a few construction workers. The local students must have gone home before lockdown, and the foreign students must have taken repatriation flights home. The building felt like the people had just dropped what they were doing and left to escape from an invading army which never arrived. Plants wilting from months of neglect, coffee cups, books, papers left on desks, biscuits on cupboard tops--all signs that people left in a hurry and didn't expect to be away for long.
The room that had been my home for most of my waking hours in the past three years felt like the soul had been drained out of it. The circular table where I had spent many an hour indulging in my favourite hobby of gazing out of windows, the whiteboards I used for brain-storming as I paced the length of the PhD room were all still there. I used to believe that these were key to my productivity. Today, the sight of them stirred nothing in me. I didn't even notice the whiteboard. My place of work is my bedroom now. I suspect I will only go to the PhD room again to get stuff I need, and to move out when I finish my PhD. I was extremely attached to that space and some of my fellow inhabitants. I was dreading the prospect of working from home when lockdown struck. Now, it feels like the most natural thing to do. It feels like an era passed without me even realizing.

Advice or Venting

I read a post on Facebook which went something like "It took me forty years of living to realize the first question to a friend should be do you want to vent or do you want my advice?". It has taken me a long time to understand that too, and I have written about how I try to avoid slipping into advice-giving mode when a friend calls me with a problem, unless their problem is whether I should do A or B. Giving advice in response to a "What should I do?" can also be tricky because sometimes there are no straightforward solutions and the person seeking help is aware of every single one of them. But, I don't feel powerless either. Let me make it clear that I am no oasis of calm and equanimity, and I am sometimes able to offer support only  because I am very fortunate to not be burdened with the problems that some of my friends have. I have the utmost admiration for them for carrying on in some pretty lousy situations. But coming back to the subject at hand, I don't feel powerless for two reasons. One, because when someone vents to you, they are not just vomiting out their problems, but trying to make sense of them anew. Or at least in some cases they are. Writing and speaking can put thoughts in motion, and  a person may gain a new perspective on their problem just by talking abut it to you. The other reason is it is usually possible to make someone feel better about themselves, unless they are in the depths of depression. By telling them that you don't have any answers to their shitty predicament, but are amazed by their courage and fortitude in the face of it. Make them feel at least a bit better about  themselves by the end of the conversation.

The Chase

Its a trope that heterosexual men enjoy the thrill of a romantic chase, and if there is no chase their interest wanes. The trope paints this preference as grounded in biology, and it is essentializing and slightly misogynistic. But, I wonder if men are socialized to desire women who don't yield easily to their advances. A female comedian tweeted a few weeks ago that heterosexual relationships don't work unless the man is more invested in it than the woman, because if its the other way around, the man loses interest. I wonder if  there is some truth in this. Of course, in some cases, the man might be too shy to make the first move, and if the woman is more outgoing, she might do so. But, this is a question of shyness not of a lack of desire. Anecdotally, I know of a few cases where it was apparent that the woman wasn't interested in the man initially, but the man pursued her doggedly and they ended up together. I wonder if its common to have the  opposite case--woman pursuing a man determinedly and them ending up together. Are men put off by women expressing interest in them unless they are as keen on the woman? A woman they would have considered partnering if she hadn't expressed a clear interest in them?I doubt it.