Happiness Is A Warm Gun.

It's been a while hasn't it ? Well, apart from unemployment and basic do-nothing shenanigans I've been uninspired. Uninspired to write, uninspired to create, basically just Bland.

Until last night of course when I watched this movie called "Shrink" released in 2009 starring Kevin Spacey. A brilliant and simple movie that tries to bring to the forefront the complexities of everyday life. The movie starts with the quote that reads,

Happiness. Happiness is a word for a feeling. Feelings are rarely understood; in a moment they are quickly forgotten and misremembered.

How do you even know what happiness really feels like ? I'm not saying I'm not happy. I don't know what it is to know if I'm it or not. I wish someone could come up to me and say "Tag! You're It ! You're now happy!" and I would get an overwhelming sense of euphoria and hence would know I'm happy. But that doesn't happen in the real world does it ? I travel along my path of life in a comatose state of mind. Numb. Life's tragedies they say try to make you hard and your goal in life is to not let it. Well I guess I've succeeded since I can't feel anything.

I miss the days when I would wake up to a world full of hope and opportunity. Everything was within my grasp. I was unconquerable. 21 and so cynical they call me. They fail to see that I know all the answers, I'm just waiting to formulate the questions.

In 21 years of my life, I have realized that it's a comfort for seekers to know that no matter how much strange water they may venture, there are always pilots within call. But yet the sufferer must help himself as the pilot usually in the moment of crisis probably has to walk his dog, smoke a spliff or go buy himself a new tux for his wedding. The best help is self help.

Happiness is a warm gun the Beatles claimed and like every other verse, complicated chord or brilliant harmony ever written, this summarizes my post. Happiness is the same gun that you use to create a Pulp Fiction of your brain until you realize that happiness is a choice. An invisible line but extremely tangible. You choose to be happy or you choose to be sad, either way, it's your own doing.

Material Girl.

They say money can't buy happiness. The only people who say this are people who don't have it.

In my new purple shoes, I stand above the world and watch an angry man who's heavy on his girl.

In my new purple shoes, I am strong again from that convincing smile that was once a friend.

Nobody knows how it's all going to go though everybody hopes that she's finally going to win...this time around.

In my new black dress, I can steal away from an angry man who has nothing nice to say,

In my new black dress, people look at me and see all the things that you hated me to be.

Nobody knows how it's all going to go though everybody hopes that she's finally going to win...this time around.

I can cry on my own shoulder, I don't need your help to pull through.

Cause I got new purple shoes and my cute hair cut and a new black dress....And I look real good.

Nobody knows how it's all going to go, Everybody hopes that she's finally going to win...this time around.

Human.

Pay my respects to grace and virtue, send my condolences to good
Give my regards to soul and romance, they always did the best they could
And so long to devotion you taught me everything I know
Wave good bye, wish me well, you gotta let me go
- The Killers.

I think everyone now a days is bidding a fond farewell to old friends we used to know named loyalty and morality. We're human after all are we not ? Instinct taking over judgment. Look at how animals live, it's in our genome. Makes you sometimes wonder when humanity is just going to be lying in a gutter somewhere with no-one to pick us up.

"All you girls don't deserve anyone to be loyal to you. You'll just go and screw around either way", he claims to me on the phone. Extremely miffed I retort " Well it's not like you men have an extremely high loyalty rate yourself and please stop generalizing, you sound more ignorant than a dead dodo who WERE the dumbest animals on the planet". He is waiting for me to go on with my whole feminist talk but I'm tired. Not tonight.
" All us nice guys finish last. We're either too boring and nice or we're so caring you make us brothers. It's like a lose-lose situation for us ".

I sigh, " I think you're reading too much into this. It's not even our business. It's not our situation. Let it go".

I can feel him getting edgy and he breathes heavily into the mouthpiece, " I need you to give me a logical answer or I'm probably going to go nuts thinking about how people act. You're a shrink, isn't this your area of expertise ?".

Snap ! That's the sound of my patience being cracked.

"Fine ! You want to know why women fall for the bad ones ? Because, you know, when you're staring at that semi porno type slutty girl thinking you'd love to bury your face in her ass, women are the same. We seek the thrill and spontaneity that the boring guys don't deliver. Of course, I know girls with absolutely brilliant adorable boyfriends who do everything from the textbook right but you know what? Those women are lying. They would rather have the asshole, egoistic, drug injecting, philanderer, lecherous man but are too smart to do it. They trade the adventure for security. Let's make this very clear. Women Love Bastards. You know why I do it? Because at the end of the day I don't need a man to make me feel secure. I have my thrill and leave. I've been through 3 men in my existence which is not enough to base a judgment but is enough to tell me that men are only good for multiple orgasms and nothing else. Once women find that elsewhere, their going to leave. Everybody leaves in the end. So if you think for one second that you're the only one out there facing these problems. Stop kidding yourself. There is no morality left in this world. Love is on speed dial if there is anything known as love to begin with and the fact that you still believe it exists obviously means you haven't been burned bad enough. Once you're willing to step out of your "pull doors open for women, walk behind her" world, you'll do better for yourself. This isn't medieval times. Us damsels LOVE our distress".

Close your eyes, clear your heart... and cut the cord

My Unwritten Life.

As a writer my job is to bring to the surface all of the thoughts that a common average person thinks but cannot express. I formulate the sentences that would relate to what someone is experiencing but cannot find the words to lay them out on a platter for the world to see. I do that. I write roles for people, I write situations, I write the problem and I write the solution.

My life is a set of well orchestrated words. My blogs aren’t filled with my shenanigans on how much pot I smoke or how often I do it. It’s more the thoughts that run through my head when I’m at that high. Sometimes even when I’m not.

I wonder why I’m still blogging here. I haven’t in sometime because I don’t usually just blog for the sake of me having to say something. I just do it when I have something to say. I’m writing now because I think I can say in the past one month I’ve lived more on the edge than I ever have in my entire life and I love it.

I’ve always been the kind of person who needs to know what is happening, where it’s leading to, have a backup plan in case my initial plan fails and then go one step further to have a backup plan in case my backup plan fails to work. In another term you could call me a “Control Freak”. But I’ve finally learned what “letting go of your inhibitions” actually means. I’ve lived in a bubble wrapped world my entire life. Shielding myself away from people, not wanting to get too close, not wanting to give them the power to hurt you but if there’s one thing I’ve learned is when you build walls you not only shut people out, you also fence yourself in. Sitting alone in a fenced world is a lonely place to be.

Sometimes you meet people who are nothing you’ve ever wanted but everything you ever need. People who are your tug out of the lurch. People go through life making plans. At 25 I will be married. At 30 I shall have my dream job. At 40 I will join an exclusive club. People are always trying to write out their own destinies. It’s my job to write and after a whole lot of trial and test methods I have realized that there is nothing known as a perfect story. Just badly written ones. The ones you don’t write about are the ones worth remembering. It’s a tad hypocritical since I document close to everything but now I’m not going to document what I want, just what makes me happy. All I needed was the tug out of the lurch to realize that I am special, precious and don’t let anyone make you believe otherwise.

Yes I was burned but I called it a lesson learned
Mistake overturned
So I call it a lesson learned
My soul has returned
So I call it a lesson learned
Another lesson learned.
- Alicia Keys.

Heart Of Life.

6.40 pm and I'm walking out of office in the dreadful rains. November rain. Freak rain. I look down at my new purple suede shoes. Ruined. There is chaos all around me. People aren't prepared for the sudden showers of blessings so they scamper like little puppets to the nearest dry spot they can find. People hop into buses, cabs, trains and any other kind of transport.

While I stand there transfixed wondering how to get home, it suddenly dawns onto me that I'm in big trouble. I don't travel by train, there are no buses to take me home and all the cabs are full. CRAP. So, I contemplate about taking my shoes off and walking barefoot but I would rather not risk me getting some plague disease that would require me to amputate my foot later.

I stood on the street aimlessly looking around hoping to catch sight of a stray cab. In vain. I continued walking on and suddenly spotted a familiar face. We made small talk, decided to cab it back together and continued waiting aimlessly. In the course of time we started talking to this Muslim lady who seemed so full of life that I aimed to be just like her 10 mins into our conversation.

In my normal world, I would have never cabbed it home with complete strangers but desperate times call for desperate measures so when we finally got a cab, there was no second thought about it.

"Where do you work my girl ?" she asked me continuing the small talk.

"Oh I'm a content writer for this media company. I write movie synopsis and reviews and stuff for their newly launched channel".

"That's nice even my children work in the media". Her face brightened as soon as she thought of her children which immediately made me wonder if my mum's face lit up like that if she ever spoke about me..."one writes for the technology section in the Times and my daughter is a photographer " she continued..

While the distance was being covered so were the basic pleasantries about where I lived, what my aspirations were, future plans. Things that when my mother asks me annoys me to no end but I had no issue discussing it with a total stranger.

Silence.

I stared out the window at the concrete city before me. Street urchins running around playing and kicking water, mums trailing their children and covering them from head to foot, vegetable vendors covering themselves in bubblewrap. The fate of my purple shoes seem like such a tiny problem as compared to the children running around barefoot and completely happy oblivious to the fact that things like suede shoes exist.

"You remind me so much of a firecracker" she suddenly claims staring very intently right into my eye which takes me completely by surprise and breaks my thread of thought.

"Firecracker ?!?" I muse at that one.. I've never been called a firecracker before but I'll take it. I like the sound to it.

" You have that spark. Don't ever lose it ".

I smile. " I'll try not too Aunty, but I'm making no promises ".

She was quick to retort "Darling, you're young. My daughter did photography for 12 years. Life is exactly like that. Use the negatives to develop".

A complete stranger. A random compliment. An amusing conversation.

Even strangers surprise you sometimes....if you let them.

Pain throws your heart to the ground,
Love turns the whole thing around,
No it won't all go the way it should,
But I know the heart of life is good.

Grace Kelly.

Today something online caught my eye. Teens go for makeup tutorials. Seriously ? Like we're talking about girls who are about 14 and 15 years old. When asked why a 13 yr old replies "The boys love when you can put your makeup and look good with them in their Facebook profile pictures". This reminds me of that Grace Kelly song. I can be brown I can be blue I can be violet sky... I can be anything you like. Even if it means changing everything you are to be something else for someone else. What they don't realize is their so busy being someone else for somebody else they forget who they are.

P. S : If you're someone like this reading this ( though the chances are slim ) you don't need to change just because someone else has a problem with it.

I'm a single girl. Not really unattractive. I get my decent share of attention ( and some other people's share of attention as well ). Quite comfortable in walking on the streets in pyjamas and not an ounce of makeup on. Well above legal age limit and the main question people ask me once they realize I'm single is "How are you going to get into a relationship when you don't date ?".

I think dating is just Trial and Error and I love myself way too much to put myself through that awful mess. I see my friends hop from one man wagon to the next without a clue. I refuse to be clueless. It's just a forced awkward conversation where you can't blame anyone but yourself. You sit there and wonder :

Do I have food on my face ?

Am I boring him ? Am I talking too much ? Is he really interested ?

Do I think I look okay enough to be seen with him ?

Mind - games is what people love to play. That's why they do this whole date thing anyway. It's the thrill of the chase. The need for validation.

So I apologize if I don't care how you think I look or if I have food on my face ( if it's there for less than 5 secs I will eat it.. 5 second golden rule ) or if my dress isn't up to your standards. If you don't look like Brad Pitt don't expect me to be an Aniston ( Ye I know old school but i prefer Aniston ) or if my ass sticks out because I don't want to get too close while hugging you. I apologize if i value my time too much and would rather spend it with people I can be myself with rather than someone who's sitting there judging if my teeth are in direct propotion to my forehead.

" You complete me ". That line from Jerry Mcguire makes everyone go weak in the knees. But not me. You see, I don't need completion. I'm extremely complete all by myself and if you took the trouble to look beneath all that fruity make-up so are you.

Be yourself. The ones that matter don't mind and the ones that mind..... don't matter.

An Apple A Day !

When the tears are slowly melting down
And your heart's stuck on a merry-go-round
Praying you could find a sign for when 
This game will end

Someday I'll find you
And I'll catch you
When you look my way
Someday you won't be afraid
And find the words to say
They were always there anyway
And I will be waiting

Sometimes it's the hardest thing in the world to be happy for someone else. I know that probably makes me the worst friend on earth and on paper when something good happens for one of your best friends you're supposed to be jubilant and happy and I am but I'm feeling cynical. Not angry or jealous or bitter. Just plain ole familiar cynical. We're a set of 5. Each one in a different world of her own. Each one WITH the someone who is their world.

I'd like to think of myself as a good person. Okay I may have stepped out of line a wee bit but I'm better than the average woman you get now-a-days. Fairly decent boyfriend records. Very faithful boyfriend records ( not them... me ! I was the faithful one ! ). Played the doting girlfriend part to the hilt and beyond. When I was younger my mother told me this story about an apple tree. Something to the effect that how the best apples are right at the top of the tree and only the boy who takes the trouble to climb all the way to the top gets the best apple. She always wanted me to be the best apple right at the pinnacle of the tree. Top of the apple pyramid. All my life, I did try. While my friends were out clubbing every other weekday and weekend, I concentrated on music, literature and basically staying at home. Of course, I went out but I never drank so much I passed out or blamed alcohol for all my shenanigans. I was called Boring for the longest time but I didn't care too much. In my head I was the best apple and I knew my athletic Tarzan would come along soon.

How wrong was I !

I soon realized that in this technology-stricken world where love is on speed dial, people pick the apples they can reach for the quickest and dispose off the fastest. I'm perched on the top and watch the mayhem, missing all the fun, torn between what's in my head and what's in my heart. Those two are never in sync so most of the time I find my system shutting down and having to reboot again. It's a tiring process.

I watch them, so happy ! We all sit in the same room and laugh and joke and cuddle but I guess that's when you truly know how alone you are. When you're in a room filled with people and still feel alone.

John Donne once thought we were never ever truly alone. Obviously, in his fancy language he said "No man is an island entire unto himself". When you sit and bisect all this fancy smanchy talk, all he ever said was everyone needs someone to step in to let us know we're not alone.

And I'm soon starting to realize that by sitting perched pretty, the top is a fricken' lonely place to be.