Well except that this time there is no one bullying me into anything! Jill knows I can't write under pressure, and I hope I have driven the point sufficiently straightly home by obstinately refusing to add even a single byte of my written voice to this blog, over a period spanning approximately two years, without having felt even the slightest twinge of shame. I have held out against everything ranging from minor threats to major bouts of unconcern, never wavering. But today things change. Starting today I am going to write 500-ish words a day-ish and at the bidding of my own free will.
Wow, that's 118 words already till the dot at the end of this line.
Today I shall introduce myself, remaining as superficial as possible. No Sir! No soul searching for me! What I write will, I hope, set the pace of things to come.
Mahesh was astounded. Mahesh was stunned. Mahesh brandished a Tommy Gun - Ed. Twenty seven shots were fired into the silent night, as four of the five bulky torsos, attached to swaying, knife wielding limbs, making threatening gestures, were neatly chopped into quarts. It was dark and quite. Mahesh was shocked. Mahesh dropped the gun and it fell to the ground making disagreeing noises. Mahesh began to run. It was time for dinner.
Dinner begins at half past eight. The house is clean and brightly lit. Soft music is floating in the air. Mahesh is seated at the head of the table. The little kid sits directly opposite him but does not look at Mahesh. He is looking over his right shoulder at a Television screen. There is soup and peas mixed together on the table. The little kid gets up and changes the channel on the television. The bright lights suddenly change character. Dark rock music engulfs the room. The lights dance around the room in rapidly changing hues. There is no peace on earth, even inside of a man’s house. There is a shotgun on the table - Dark, solid and comforting. Mahesh squeezes his arms around the shotgun and it goes off. There is silence once more. The infernal music is still playing.
The little kid was stunned. There was blood in his soup and there was blood on the Television screen. He ran out of the room screaming for help. Two strong bulky hands descended on him at the door and the screaming stopped almost immediately. The fifth had found him. Things were never easy for Mahesh. He always had to fight for his life, but he had always won. Mahesh was invincible and things would remain the same today. He grabbed the right hand of the fifth and spun him around. There was no gun, none was needed. He pushed a knee into his guts. Then twisted his right wrist with an extended palm while simultaneously head butting him into the jaw, breaking it. As the fifth fell, he grabbed his neck and rotated it easily, almost effortlessly.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Monday, September 27, 2004
The Trajectory of Thought - 26/09/2004
The Trajectory of Thought
26th September 2004
Anupam Jain
As I write I often tend to question my own motives.
Maybe the need to critically analyse everything has
become embedded in me. Free writing, which is an
essential precursor to original writing, is hard
because I tend to analyse everything, myself included.
Even though spontaneity is required to make sure that
my writing reflects my true feelings so that my intent
is clear to the reader, thought and analysis is
required in order to write. I need to know my intent
when I write so that I don't waste time. I need to know
that I'm not over-reaching myself and I cannot say
things I don't understand or don't have the authority
or capacity to write about. Virtually nothing passes
unscathed through this fiery set of tests but even
those that finally do are then sacrificed at the altar
of Occam's razor, the final condition that proclaims -
"Remove the unnecessary". I need to make sure that
whatever I'm writing is important and new enough to be
written down and does not contribute to the ever
growing cess pool of ignored writing.
So I don't write much. I think a lot but don't write. I
consider my thoughts a bit arbitrary and lacking
coherence and hesitate to leave documentary evidence of
the same. Whatever little that I do write is done and
over in a moment. A moment of "inspiration". It's a
temporary period of insanity when I put aside
rationality and simply write in a flow. It's a head
rush and it's the only way I can get anything on paper.
It's hard and also very rare. I'll probably never be a
good writer. Or if I do, the number of books that I
write won't be enough to ensure a steady income. It's
not for the want of talent, mind you, but because my
mind refuses to follow the winning track.
So what drives me to over analyse things? There is no
one correct answer. Curiosity seems like a good
explanation in part. But as the whole explanation it's
inadequate. Curiosity always drives one to gather as
much information as possible. When I'm writing I tend
not to gather more information, rather, I analyse as
specific a strand of information as possible. The
process is to explore the depth rather than the breadth
of information. I start with a broad theme on which to
write upon. Think about it a little and filter out the
overall scheme on how to go about writing it. So far so
good. The trouble begins with the actual writing
process. Every thing that I write about seems to demand
elaboration, explanation. Sections require subsections,
subsections sub-subsections. Every line seems to pose a
new question and the quest for answers veer my thoughts
far away from my original itinerary of mental
checkpoints. Thus curiosity is only one facet of the answer.
The remaining explanation is best summed up as
anti-curiosity. These days there is no consistency and
everything is dynamic and temporal. Everyday I glance
at the newspaper to look up the "headlines of the day".
Whatever happened to the headlines of yesterday? Have
the issues raked up in them become less relevant?
Rarely anything commands the attention span of more
than a few minutes. With the media taking up the
already thin layer of "new" events and spreading them
even thinner across thirty pages of two bit research,
only to be forgotten tomorrow, our perception of
reality is never static. I am a strong believer in the
concept of one truth. I fantasize about the wearing the
one super-equation, governing all scientific laws, on
my tee-shirt. The Sanskrit doctrine "Tat tvam asi", "thou
art that", says that everything you think you are and
everything you perceive are undivided. By exploring all
possibilities without fully researching the existing
ones, science is not moving closer to the truth, it is
moving away from it. As curious as I am about the other
possibilities, my sub-conscience does not let me part
with the current thought without proper attention
because that is not the way to understand reality. I
need to have a handle on reality, I need to find the
one universal truth. Thus I need to follow the one
trajectory of thought.
26th September 2004
Anupam Jain
As I write I often tend to question my own motives.
Maybe the need to critically analyse everything has
become embedded in me. Free writing, which is an
essential precursor to original writing, is hard
because I tend to analyse everything, myself included.
Even though spontaneity is required to make sure that
my writing reflects my true feelings so that my intent
is clear to the reader, thought and analysis is
required in order to write. I need to know my intent
when I write so that I don't waste time. I need to know
that I'm not over-reaching myself and I cannot say
things I don't understand or don't have the authority
or capacity to write about. Virtually nothing passes
unscathed through this fiery set of tests but even
those that finally do are then sacrificed at the altar
of Occam's razor, the final condition that proclaims -
"Remove the unnecessary". I need to make sure that
whatever I'm writing is important and new enough to be
written down and does not contribute to the ever
growing cess pool of ignored writing.
So I don't write much. I think a lot but don't write. I
consider my thoughts a bit arbitrary and lacking
coherence and hesitate to leave documentary evidence of
the same. Whatever little that I do write is done and
over in a moment. A moment of "inspiration". It's a
temporary period of insanity when I put aside
rationality and simply write in a flow. It's a head
rush and it's the only way I can get anything on paper.
It's hard and also very rare. I'll probably never be a
good writer. Or if I do, the number of books that I
write won't be enough to ensure a steady income. It's
not for the want of talent, mind you, but because my
mind refuses to follow the winning track.
So what drives me to over analyse things? There is no
one correct answer. Curiosity seems like a good
explanation in part. But as the whole explanation it's
inadequate. Curiosity always drives one to gather as
much information as possible. When I'm writing I tend
not to gather more information, rather, I analyse as
specific a strand of information as possible. The
process is to explore the depth rather than the breadth
of information. I start with a broad theme on which to
write upon. Think about it a little and filter out the
overall scheme on how to go about writing it. So far so
good. The trouble begins with the actual writing
process. Every thing that I write about seems to demand
elaboration, explanation. Sections require subsections,
subsections sub-subsections. Every line seems to pose a
new question and the quest for answers veer my thoughts
far away from my original itinerary of mental
checkpoints. Thus curiosity is only one facet of the answer.
The remaining explanation is best summed up as
anti-curiosity. These days there is no consistency and
everything is dynamic and temporal. Everyday I glance
at the newspaper to look up the "headlines of the day".
Whatever happened to the headlines of yesterday? Have
the issues raked up in them become less relevant?
Rarely anything commands the attention span of more
than a few minutes. With the media taking up the
already thin layer of "new" events and spreading them
even thinner across thirty pages of two bit research,
only to be forgotten tomorrow, our perception of
reality is never static. I am a strong believer in the
concept of one truth. I fantasize about the wearing the
one super-equation, governing all scientific laws, on
my tee-shirt. The Sanskrit doctrine "Tat tvam asi", "thou
art that", says that everything you think you are and
everything you perceive are undivided. By exploring all
possibilities without fully researching the existing
ones, science is not moving closer to the truth, it is
moving away from it. As curious as I am about the other
possibilities, my sub-conscience does not let me part
with the current thought without proper attention
because that is not the way to understand reality. I
need to have a handle on reality, I need to find the
one universal truth. Thus I need to follow the one
trajectory of thought.
500 Words A Day
For some reason, which I won't elaborate upon, I am being bullied into writing atleast 500 words a day to improve my writing skills.
I think that a public blog is the perfect place to store such writings. Thus from now on I'll be posting whatever I write to this blog.
Stay tuned.
- AJ
I think that a public blog is the perfect place to store such writings. Thus from now on I'll be posting whatever I write to this blog.
Stay tuned.
- AJ
Saturday, May 15, 2004
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