Permeable boundaries

 

Cat-ch

 

Say the magic word

 

Fuzzy fuzzy

 

Siddhartha Mukherjee writes in 'The gene': The two theories of heredity may have been spectacularly opposite - the Nazis were as obsessed with the fixity of identity as the Soviets were with its complete pliability but the language of genes and inheritance was central to statehood and progress: it is as difficult to imagine Nazism without a belief in the indelibility of inheritance as it is to conceive of a Soviet state without a belief in its perfect erasure.

It's utterly fascinating to me how much large-scale evil actually has its origins in arguably well-intentioned, (even seemingly noble!) attempts at establishing large-scale good. Grandiose visions of obliterating pesky evil and restoring unambiguous good, nuance be damned. Toooo bad things are often messy, random and don't yield to neat categorization.

It's humbling to see extreme attempts at self-reform as a microcosm of these grander schemes; just as disastrous. Jekyll stay, Hyde go.

No Batman to save us from ourselves, ughhh 😵

Beforelife

 

D(evil)

 

LabelMart

 

'Don't pigeonhole me. I want to do it myself'

Killjoy

 

No 

- loud noises

- bright lights

- strong smells

- air-conditioner

- conflict

Lots of 

- monologues that begin with 'Ideally...'

- pausing movies to spew ideas and take notes

- 'But that's too frivolous'

- cuddles in the thick of summer

Love

 

Update - 9Jun21

Been regretting the second venn. Specifically, if I had to do it over again, I'd scratch 'my mom' and write 'some folks in my life' in a way that a part of it falls in the second circle and a part in the intersection. 

On a related note, there's this interesting model called the Johari window - a couple mental notes on bridging the gulf in understanding: 

- When there are things you know about yourself that others don't and you'd like them to, self-disclose/make self-deprecating jokes

- When there are things you know about yourself that others don't and you'd like them not to, what kind of shady shit are you up to?

- To learn things about yourself you don't know, but others might, ask questions/overhear their gossip/pay attention to their jokes about you

- To unearth some great and some appalling stuff about yourself, explore the zone 'stuff about yourself neither you nor others know' (Psychology, art and introspection are great places to start)

- While encountering the above in other people, listen and empathize (I try 🤭)

Bottomless pit

 

Also, lovvve these lines by Zadie Smith:

One day this pandemic will be in the past tense. We will look at this time with distance, and sadness, and relief. We will suffer from other things then. [...]

Rookie mistake

 

So many thoughts on punitive/retributive justice, outrage and institutions, all reeking of disillusionment, but here's a wry laugh.

Crown heights, Virumandi, Just mercy, The Mauritanian - all good but enraging watches.

Here's an incredible, powerful poem: https://poets.org/poem/crime-and-punishment

To know all is to forgive all

 

The circle of life

 

Outbursts

 

A love life (or lack thereof)

 

Happy Valentine's

The map is not the territory

 

I've been thinking: while fascination for the sublime, the abstract and the romantic (in the widest sense of the word) makes for a rich and exhilarating inner life, an insane superpower to cultivate would be to experience the thing itself, so to speak, and not feel like it pales miserably in comparison to all the heady stuff.

For a start, it must be nice to be picking up groceries and for the mind to not immediately go to, 'okay so what is all this about anyway?'

Prevention is better than cure

 

Whom to petition?

The human condition

 

In 'Sapiens', Yuval Noah Harari writes that unlike Gilgamesh, who goes on a quest for immortality and in the end realizes it's not for man to live forever, science is currently "busy investigating the physiological, hormonal and genetic systems responsible for disease and old age. They are developing new medicines, revolutionary treatments and artificial organs that will lengthen our lives and might one day vanquish the Grim Reaper himself.

[...]

Even if killing death seems a distant goal, we have already achieved things that were inconceivable a few centuries ago.

[...]

In the two centuries since the battle of Waterloo (1815) (when limbs were sawn off even in case of minor limb injuries, fearing gangrene), things have changed beyond recognition. Pills, injections and sophisticated operations save us from a spate of illnesses and injuries that once dealt an inescapable death sentence."

I find this very fascinating: looking at death not as an inevitable end but rather as another condition that might turn out to be preventable after all. And it's amusing to me how this pursuit of immortality as a desirable thing stands in contrast with how Ashwathhama (in the Mahabharata) was cursed (not blessed) to be immortal 😆

Other implications aside, on a personal level, if you could, would you want to live forever? (I'm currently in camp Hell no, unless I get to have a permanently still, serene mind)