All grown up

I've recently begun to understand the structure of the process that people call 'growing up'. It's quite simple. The vitriolic resistance for your shortcomings is replaced by a smug delight sauteed in their familiarity. Your vices are glorified, projected on a slick high definition screen of moral ambiguity. And all that you ever held as outdated and moribund becomes inheritance. Family feuds, food preferences, social beliefs and Fareeda Khanum ghazals. Amelia Airheart said she flew because 'it released her mind from the tyranny of petty things'. With all due respect to her passion, it's why any of us work. To grow up. To re-prioritize so as to label 'comfort' as 'no.1'. Comfort has the capability of killing off the strongest of passions. Put money and sex in one basket and love and tedious hardwork in the other, and you'll see basket 'a' knock basket 'b' out of the park. The whole point of working is to lose sight of what is important so as to resent your life when it's beyond the point of redemption. It's part of a larger process called 'death'. Ash ridden, liquor soaked evenings of little relevance become anchors of a ship sailing to a place that no one wants to go to. And you even find a woman to love and a house to live in along the way. And you find joy in little things. And when you lie down in bed alone listening the magical concept of music put to poetry (ghazals) you wonder what makes you happy. What you want to do. What you want to be. You wonder what you want from life. You wonder where you came from, where you came to and where you want to go. And the only real answer that comes back to you is your annual tax liability. Growing up isn't anything like it should be. It is a self indulgent moment where you pride yourself on saving money on grocery by buying the family pack of maggie. It has ironed clothes and corporate cards instead of the grand illusion. Growing up is cowering, depending and losing and being ok with it. Growing up is folding a handkerchief with a dexterity that was up till now absent from your sleeves. As Eliot put it: "This is the way the world ends: Not with a bang but a whimper"

Words with a wordsmith

1: Do we consider ourselves intelligent? Or are we actually? 2: I always defined intelligence as a profound realization of one's lack of wisdom and relevant knowledge.

Revolving Paths

I move like a Knight moves on a chess board. 2 and a half steps whatever way, and never in the same direction. It always has been my favorite piece on the chess board. It can leap over lesser pieces. It can move odd directions. It can deviate paths. It can go 4 places or more at once, even when surrounded by a bunch of pieces. It can check and mate a king. A well fortified king. A king surrounded and entrapped in his own people. It can lead the van and stale advances. It can travel great distances in but a few moves. Oh, and ofcourse there's the romance well attached with the notion. The Knight, the self employed fool. The taker of risks. The paragon of justice. The protector of the poor. The keeper of courtesies. But what is the bane of the Knight? It is a slave to it's own ways. It's ill designed for simpler tasks. Meaningless tales. Deeds unworthy of song. Battles short on glory. Taking a shit in gilded steel. Even on an empty chess board, with a straight path to follow, it must resign to 2 and a half steps, whatever way, and never in the same direction.

End of disc 1. Insert disc 2. Or don't and watch disc 1 all over again. Analyze the good and the bad parts. Learn up the lines and obsess over it. Do you know the intertia you feel when the fucking dvd makes you get up so you can watch the second part of a movie. It's these little movements that irritate me. And what's worse is when you make all the effort and actually do change the disc, to find disc 2 scratched. That it doesn't play smooth. That it doesn't go beyond a point. I don't know shit of what I'm saying. I've been reading too much Bukowski. And I'm drunk. Good night.

A Clash Of Kings

"These are Knights of summer" said Lady Catelyn "they will start shedding at the first sign of winter".

A Storm Of Swords

“But I am not certain it was in Rhaegar to be happy.” “You make him sound so sour,” Dany protested. “Not sour, no, but... there was a melancholy to Prince Rhaegar, a sense...” The old man hesitated again. “Say it,” she urged. “A sense... ?” “... of doom. He was born in grief, my queen, and that shadow hung over him all his days.” Viserys had spoken of Rhaegar’s birth only once. Perhaps the tale saddened him too much. “It was the shadow of Summerhall that haunted him, was it not?” “Yes. And yet Summerhall was the place the prince loved best. He would go there from time to time, with only his harp for company. Even the knights of the Kingsguard did not attend him there. He liked to sleep in the ruined hall, beneath the moon and stars, and whenever he came back he would bring a song. When you heard him play his high harp with the silver strings and sing of twilights and tears and the death of kings, you could not but feel that he was singing of himself and those he loved.”

Game of Thrones II

"And why do you show this kindness to my brother, Imp?", Tyrion seemed to take no notice of the slight and said, "I have a soft corner in my heart for bastards, cripples and broken things."