The Life of an Ambivert

 I had to buy a cheap game on Steam just to make time pass by. And when that didn't work too well, I started a podcast of myself speaking drivel in my native tongue. Maybe I am playing the wrong game, I mean, instead of a fun light hearted game, I bought 2018 hit-sensation Getting Over It. So most of my time was spent stressing and cursing in Marathi.  It has a slight effect, I guess. I realized that my vocabulary is rubbish in Marathi. I need to switch to Marathi novels once I'm done with Amish.

This post is about a stranger I befriended. Let's called him M. I met him the day I travelled with my friend to get his vaccine. It was a town forty minutes away, on the outskirts of the city. While my friend was busy waiting for his turn, I went to a nearby coffee shop. I don't usually frequent coffee shops because they are quite exorbitant with their prices but I was hungry and tired so I did.  M was the barista that served me that day. I didn't know what to get so I asked for his opinion. He said he had only started working there for the past three works and was still quite inexperienced with his skills. So I asked him to make the best drink he knew. Off he went to making it.  It was good coffee. He even did the thing where you wave the milk around while pouring it to make it look all nice. I praised him. That day was quite slow for him, because two minutes later he came over to sit. He'd made himself a drink as well. We talked about his job. Desperation led him to b...

Here I sit. Waiting.  Waiting for the brownies to be done. Waiting for the silence to resume. Waiting for my patience to run out.  Like a statue I wait, unabated by my surroundings, completely absorbed into the tippy-tappy of my phone keyboard.  I don't want to walk over and turn on the air conditioning, so I sweat it out. Sitting on the couch, hunched over, like a gargoyle. But unlike the winged statue, I am not made of granite. I have to move.  Only question remains, to where and how? (the brownies are not metaphorical)

I built my own pyre, I sat on it and lit it. I feel like I'm drowning and choking. The pyre was created unintentionally, in the shadows. It waited for me, like a patient ill omen.  It has been many months since I built it. I don't remember when I got on. I don't remember when I struck the match. All I felt was this immense heat, eating away at my being.  I can't get off, my legs betray me. I am the fuel that keeps it ablaze.  I am a fool. A gambler. The worst kind. The kind who have it good, but throw it away knowing the risks anyway.  I shouldn't be drowning, yet there exists a bowl full of fluid attached to a vise around my neck.  I can't use the liquid to douse the flames, it's like oil. Viscous and tarry, it reaches for my nose.  The lies are all that keep me sane. I tell myself I can't feel the pain. The flames lick away at my skin.  How do I escape this here predicament? 

 Something I learnt recently. I apologize too much. I apologize for my mistakes, my shortcomings, and my general self. Somehow, I began to apologize for everything else too. For others' misfortunes, unruly circumstances and generally, bad luck. I thought I was being empathetic. Maybe I was, in the beginning. Now it has morphed into a mechanism. It seems selfish now, almost benign. I have to stop saying sorry for things that are out of my control.  Fortunate for me, I learnt to do that recently. Unfortunately, it was too late when I did. 

 I just spent the last ten hours sleeping, dreaming up the most absurd thing ever. Cannot categorize it under a dream because it was too horrorcore, like 80's experimental horror, except taken to its maximum. I mean real fringe stuff. Stuff they make separate websites for since its too mature even for adults.  Cannot categorize it under nightmare because it was too cinematic, what with its wide angles, overhead shots, forced perspectives and locked on frames.  I keep coming back to Freud's popular quote," dreams are wish fulfillments." (obviously paraphrased).  And this is what bothers me. I don't watch a lot of movies with gore or ultra-violence, apart from those that are used to drive the plot, like A Clockwork Orange. This means that anything I dreamt of the previous night, I didn't draw from experience, it was completely original.  At first glance it felt similar to the 2000 hit 'Battle Royale'. All the contestants battling it out, in this living r...

 I had never travelled through train in the rain before. I have begun to understand how meaningful white noise can be. I never heard pitter-patters like this back home. The slow droning of the engine, the metallic glance of the wheels on the train tracks and the strong droplets all joined together in harmony to produce wonderful sound.  There is too much going on for me right now. Too many variables in the everchanging equation that is life. It's enjoyable to say the least. The only things that keep me grounded are the constants I've secured throughout my time here. Sure, some have to be removed but that is a cost I am willing to pay, as I have paid so many times before.  I am also thinking of a business opportunity. I don't have the skills necessary to initiate my plan, but I am waiting patiently for the right person to fall in my lap, so to speak.  It's been a while since I've written anything on here. It's good to see you again. 

 A lot of change has occurred in these past four days. I recently shifted out of my hostel accommodation and into another place. The landlord is adequate in terms of compliance and compromise. We like him. He's hip and cool, if you like. That's the first big change.  I have reset my sleeping schedule. For some reason I have been waking up at 5:30 every morning and going to sleep at 11 pm like a normal person. I am also getting tired and not using my phone before bed. This early to bed and early to rise routine has allowed me to exercise at the break of dawn, shower, eat and study at a normal time. It is comforting. That's a good second change. The third change is a bit ridiculous. Its more of a spectacle than anything else. I shaved my head. Just for the heck of it. Last night, my friends took turns trimming and shaving my head. Surprisingly, I didn't receive a single cut. One friend had a heart ache at the end, another one was crying laughing, the third had a look of b...

 I took a five hour nap five hours ago to compensate for last night, one I just woke up from. Now usually I wouldn't think of jumping on this blog to write, but today was different. I woke up laughing. Now, the dreams I've had, although seldom, are usually intense. Without going into detail I can say they are usually serious, few are thrilling and the rest are fun. Today, I laughed in my dream. It made me laugh waking up. Once again, the most ridiculous scenario to ever take place. Quite dramatic at that, and it ended not with tears of joy like it should have, but with laughter.  The joke was I was with a close friend and his mother. This friend was a boxer and known for quickly knocking his opponents out. Him and his mother were in a loud argument about marriage, when she suddenly falls silent. I walk up to her, an old woman now clad in a black hoodie and sunglasses.  I ask the guy if he knocked her out. It takes a full twenty seconds of silence for her to answer adamant...

 I have started to find staying up late at night less tedious than ever. It started out of compulsion when I went to a party a week ago, and now it has stuck its hooks in me like a parasite. Apart from lazing about and Reddit surfing (often go hand in hand), I have begun to branch out a bit like practicing a few chords on my friend's guitar, reading different novels, cleaning up after the night's events and sharpening every single knife I can get my hands on. I feel like I've done a solid job on this batch, if I'm being modest. Each edge, although not mirror-clean, is wicked sharp. I removed the teeth off of one, and and gave a new edge to another. The rest, I refined to a razor finish. Again, I am quite far away from giving them an aesthetic look, but currently I'm happy with putting functionality first.  Apparently talking about knives doesn't make for good conversation... or so I've heard. Fortunately, I have an outlet for this kind of talk. Thank you, st...

 I just spent ninety minutes watching a virtual game show, waiting for an upcoming game trailer. That was the second best thing to happen to me at three o'clock in the morning. I made some cinnamon tea to celebrate, and cleaned around the kitchen and dining room after taking a shower.  And now, two hours later, I sit here, typing away while Motley Crue plays in the background, as I wait for a shitty online mock test. I miss paper tests. 

 I got exams coming in four weeks., so obviously it's time to get back into my extra-curriculars again. I started to sway away from TV to reading books and novels. Apart from my studies, I hadn't touched a single book since the past three years or so. I got around to reading a fiction novel (Airframe by Michael Crichton) but gave up half way for no reason. Now I began my expedition into non-fiction, starting with The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. My father recommended it a while back.  As I suspected, it is a self-help-ish guide for people who want to attain and maintain power. It's not a bad read. Each law draws lots of inspiration from historical anecdotes, whether talking about revenge, conquests of love and war, or the intricacies of human relationships. Quite glad I picked this book to revive my dead habit. Airframe was so technical with its story-telling, although it does get interesting at times (this is M. Crichton we are talking about), it feels heavy on the ...

 Just finished an assignment and I am waiting to go to the gym. It's early in the morn'. I have begun the horrible tradition of destroying my circadian rhythm by staying up the entire night and then working out for two hours on zero energy. I don't care whether it's self destructive or life-threatening because god forbid I want to bring some relief to my daily routine. (I don't think I used the 'god forbid' phrase accurately, I mean to say that I really want to  keep things fresh and reduce the mundanity of everything right now.)  It seems like common sense gets regularly thrown out of the window, especially when it comes to religion. Not even the scary four-digit statistics are enough to get the government to close down those festive bazaars that have been open for the past month. The people don't care, regulation is amateur and in some places found non-existent. India is already a cesspit for this 'syndrome', it seems that Malaysia is following...

 Its not that I am not consistent. I am just not interesting enough to have anything to report or write about currently. I played tennis today, for the first time in a long time. I want to feel that way again. That never-ending rush of energy. Maybe my gym routine has something to do with it, maybe its an attempt at impressing that new American girl I met. I am so dry it hurts these days. I am so dry I can't get any sleep, my thoughts keep invading the ocean waves I have playing on repeat on my phone.  I really need to get a grip. I need to think about the right things. How can I rid my mind of all this nonsense? The nonsense I am pertaining to, its a girl. It's boring how obvious it is. I don't want to keep up with all the lies I keep hearing, leaving the mouths of them both, oblivious of the fact that I get my information from other sources and can see through their pretense. I am probably not worth being told the truth to. What a horrible realization to have.