Being Jack.

The Importance Problem of Being Jack.

Considering where I left off in my last post, starting off on a dejected note, subsequently finding solace and eventually making peace with a fact of life, I haven’t progressed much.  I am being crude. Nothing more. It is not stagnation, but a plateauing that has become the humdrum of life.  Perhaps, it is in this representation that I find refuge in an attempt to justify my own inaction in being able, or rather trying, to break the shackles.  I seem to be meandering off from what I intend to write about today.

I’m not much for dates, anniversaries, birthdays and other hoopla surrounding special days.  This time of the month, when people are busy forming resolutions, preparing to bring in the new year, I prefer giving it all a pass.  Doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t join in on the fun, just that I’d much rather spend a usual day without much ado.  Grinch! I hear you. I wouldn’t deny it either.  This indifference, today, made me introspect a little (I blame the holiday season setting in and all the ‘reflecting back on the year gone by’ talk doing the rounds).  So here I am, pondering.  When did I become so bitter?  When did my posts lose their comic streak and become a sob session?  Mid-life crisis?  Too much to do and too little time?  I have been desperate for answers, seeking deliverance from this solitude, not as an attempt to gather sympathy, just a long due outcry. 

And in this moment of introspection, it strikes me. 

Life used to be simple.  I liked something, I’d pick it up and just get on with it.  Expectations rose.  Oh, you’re good at this, why don’t you make something of it, they said.  Why, yes surely, I always agreed.   Never a moment’s doubt or hesitation.  It started with writing, thus came into existence this blog, moved on to poetry, a collection of 210 odd which eventually became ashes, photography, a DSLR Nikon D80 became my best friend, a guitar, one of the most heartfelt gifts presented by my friends because that was something my father always associates with my childhood, now lying in its case under my bed gathering cobwebs, driving, riding a bike, because that’s something I should experience, eventually still unable to do either.   They’d tell me, “You’re quite something, once you put your mind to it, there’s no stopping you.” Made me feel very special, that.  I won’t be humble since it would solve no purpose, I really am good at what I put my mind to. 

The problem with my mind is I just have one.

And this is where I failed, the Master of his Trade tried becoming the Jack of All.  People ask me now, professionally and personally, where do you want to be, what do you want to do?  I draw a blank.  I always thought, and actually blamed, my confused education and choice of degrees for my inability to place a finger on that flavour of life I want.  Truth be told, am clueless, and that really is the reason for this muddle, the impossibility of choice.  Somewhere along the way, I lost track of what and who I am, unable to reconcile how far off I have wandered.  Such is the irony that I have not done justice to any of the things I picked up. 

I yearn for singularity of purpose, to have an aim and goal to work towards, to be able to identify what I want to do, and be content with it.  To no longer feel disappointed for not having gone the distance with my indulgences.  It is with this hope and longing that I sign off this crappy 2013 and hope for a rejoicing 2014.

Happy New Year folks!  Watch this space for more muck in the coming 365!

PS: This post comes with a special courtesy to Ludovico Einaudi’s I Giorni for serving as an apt background score.

Branded. For life.

The moratorium has ended.  I wouldn’t call it a rejuvenated resurgence of activity on this blog, because I know better.  Such spurts of action have crept up in the past, only to be extinguished by hopeless subjection.  The good part is that the cobwebs would probably go away this time around and I won’t be dead online two years in a row. So anyway, the blog, yes.

It is rather unjust to underplay the effect an Ivy League stamp has on your resume, and completely irrational, more so, to deny the marked difference an IIM stamp creates on your profile.  Do I feel proud of it? Of course! Do I feel I earned it? Hell yes! But something’s amiss.  I’m probably asking myself the wrong question, and that has manifested itself into a plausible deniability of the aura that surrounds such an “achiever”.  Why is it that the feeling of belonging to a niche group has overtones of arrogance and self-importance?  Why does it not feel right to announce to the world about the two years that shaped my career and made me stronger and resilient in the face of adversity?  A constant stream of a guilty conscience underlines such probing questions.

I hate to advertise, I always have.  Probably being amongst the nerdy bunch in school and being exemplified by all aunts and uncles as role models for their sons and daughters took its toll, as I kept moving further into my shell.  Any feeling of celebration on a personal achievement would inadvertently be subdued by a growing fear of being put up on a pedestal again.  I hoped to be normal, just regular.  Fitting in was always a problem.  Lunch time was spent in the library, for fear of sitting alone at the lunch table with no friends, sports time was a nightmare for fear of messing up the one opportunity to shine and show talent beyond academics.  My classmates were NEVER nasty to me, in fact, I don’t remember a single year of school or college when others deliberately made me miserable.  My misery was my own creation.

This “God complex” to set everything straight, to be larger than life, to not be defined by one aspect of life, has been my nemesis.  Somewhere along the way I lost track of the fact that my indulgence and aptitude also define me, that my actions and achievements are a consequence of my abilities, so it is okay to be happy about them.  Always running away from applause and the tag of an “IIM waala”, the search for true identity and a calling has been a far cry.  Unfortunately, as this realisation dawns upon me, so does the inevitability of most of my future thoughts and actions being attributed to those of an “IIM graduate”.

It is now time to embrace the dark side, to not care if the world says that KayGee had a spark of brilliance because he’s an IIM guy, to no longer hope against hope that some day people would know me for more than “that IIM guy”.  I have found inner peace in the sanctity of my conscience which has shown me that I already am what I am for the ability to have achieved what I have and the promise of more just because of who I am.

It is true, like they say, we are, in the end, “branded, for life”.

Writer's block

the writer's run amok
creativity couldn't give a fuck
am trying hard to pretend
the hand continues to offend

with a million starts
through a billion bends
seems as though
my writing days are coming to an end

yet a hope might remain
even through all this pain
i can come up with this crap
before my fingers go snap

so here's to you
and more for me
what more can i say
except c'est la vie