Avid readers of this blog might know that I have a habit of writing a post prior to or on my birthday every year. I have been doing this for quite a while now, and I think I wish to continue this. It seems to be a good way to introspect towards the end of every year, and also forces me to actually write if I have not done so in a while.

As I write this, I am suffering from this horrible flu and sore throat that I have had for the entire week or so. I was hoping it would recover by the time my birthday comes, as I wanted to indulge in some birthday vices. However, it does not seem to be getting better at all. But I do know it will, so it’s all fine.

How do I know it will get better? Because everything always gets better. 

If there is a single word which could describe the entire year of 2018, it would be:

Recovery

This entire year has been a process of recovery and healing in many ways, small and big. This year started off in probably one of the worst ways ever, and I was sitting in one of the deepest and lowest pits in my entire life. 2017 was a vibrant year with many things happening. As much as it burned bright and fiery, it also extinguished as fast. I was doing so much at once, juggling a crazy amount of things in my life. Everything started taking a toll. My mental health, physical health, relationships, energy levels, moods and general purpose of living. Nobody knew the amount of shit that I was dealing with, and nobody would really comprehend it either.

I had burned out, with hardly any energy to do any of the things that made me feel so alive in the past. But this burnout was not only because of 2017. It was an accumulation of all the years before as well. Everything I had put myself through had led to this eventual point of breakdown. And I knew with certainty that there was no easy way around this. If I did not take the time to mend myself and build myself up slowly, I would just deteriorate into one of the countless mindless zombies that society has so successfully bred.

So I got rid of everything that was draining me of even the smallest amounts of energy. And only kept the people and habits that would contribute positively to my energy pool. As simple as this sounds, it is one of the most crushing and debilitating processes ever. To be actively bringing about so much change to an already volatile system is a make or break situation. You need to be extremely careful not to end up in a state of chaos and destruction, despite having intentions to great peace and harmony.

So I carefully withdrew myself from everything: social media, social interactions, random whatsapp groups, mailing threads, my job (twice), and most of my ‘friendships’. I took all that away and focussed only on the things that would provide me with the strength and courage to move on with life.

First on that list was:

Music

Specifically Carnatic music.

Over the last two years or so, since I found my current Guru, I have been increasingly motivated to learn and absorb as much of the wealth of knowledge that Carnatic music had possessed. In the juggling of the hundreds of things that I had in the past, I had never ever truly dedicated myself to pursuing this artform. Many times in the past, most things came easy to me, so I took the same approach with this, not thinking it would be too hard to master this artform. However it started hitting me that this traditional artform required way more than the occasional attention. I needed to devote my entire being into learning this artform.

Most do this while young, practicing and mastering the artform in their schooling days where there was generally more time and energy to do so. However, me being a lazy ass, and never really having any drive or motivation to do so, had spent close to no effort in my younger days towards practice or mastery of anything. Being a working adult, this became an even more impossible task. I rarely had the time or energy to be able to dedicate my “entire being” into this pursuit of knowledge. So I needed to resort to making some tremendous sacrifices to make it happen.

Firstly, I cut off myself from listening to any other genre of music except Carnatic music. This was one of the greatest personal sacrifices, as I have a very vast and expansive taste in music, ranging from rock to hip hop to orchestral cinematic to electronic to jazz to Tamil pop. Having to put a hard stop to all of that, and listen to only core Carnatic music (not even Carnatic fusion) made it very painful for a long while. However I forced myself to stick to it, giving myself the occasional cheat days of listening to Kanye.

While it was very challenging initially, even depressing sometimes, as music often had given me the dopamine needed to keep myself on a high energy level, over time I grew to start appreciating the nuances in Carnatic music. I found myself getting slightly better at recognising ragams, and even be able to sing and replicate sangathis which I had not been explicitly taught before.

On top of this, I made it a point to dedicate myself to practicing almost everyday. Instead of what used to be happening only during class time, I started consciously setting aside time every morning to practice and train my voice and singing. This was also extremely challenging for the first month or so, as vocal practice can get very boring and tiring, especially when you are repeating very fundamental exercises instead of practicing nuanced compositions or improvisations.

This meant a lot of sleep sacrifices, social life sacrifices, and the occasional hits of FOMO. However, there was a greater purpose ahead, in revolutionising Carnatic music, that I have a strong personal belief in. I knew that if I were to want to make any significant impact in the landscape of music, I needed to equip myself with the necessary knowledge and skills to venture into that landscape. Otherwise I might just get swallowed whole and disappear off the grid entirely.

Health

My health, both mental and physical, had also been something that I have always neglected. Due to metabolism of my youth, I always assumed that my health would never really take a big impact if I were to slack off a little. Since I ended university, I had hardly exercised at all, gaining a crazy amount of weight over the years (going from an S to L size). And after all that laziness, trying to get back in shape and lose that weight became another Herculean task. I was also falling sick a lot, having an episode of flu/fever almost every month. This was not at all sustainable, to be taking so much meds and being so inactive at such a young age. My health was clearly deteriorating and I definitely needed to do something about it.

So the first thing I did was to sign up to a gym, that promised to give a complete workout in 20 minutes, using only bodyweight exercises (mostly). This sounded like something that I could use, given I did not want to lift weights and build any more muscle mass or get any bigger. I wanted to really just slim down and lose all the mass that I had gained, and just be in a generally better state of health.

I started hitting this gym around twice to thrice a week, completing 20-30 minute high intensity workouts, hoping to start seeing some difference in body weight. However there really seemed to be barely any different more than a couple of months down the road. I started feeling healthier and more energetic, but my weight had not really dropped by much. I just kept at it, and started introducing the occasional runs. So far there has not been any significant change in weight, but I do see myself slowly getting back into shape.

All I know is that I have to continue prioritising my health otherwise I will just end up a fat fuck.

Finance

Money matters have never really been much of a matter to me ever, as I always have been able to keep within my limits and save reasonably well. However, since I started working, I had been spending excessively on unnecessary things, to accommodate my lazy and docile lifestyle. This meant taking uber more than taking the train, just because I want to sleep in a little more. This meant getting alcohol on a weekly basis, sometimes even more than that. Eating out at expensive places. Online shopping for random things which I probably would not even need or use.

All that started taking a hit on my bank account sometime the mid of this year, and I felt like I have not actually been actively saving or investing. Since then I have been trying to be more conscious in my financial decisions, trying to think twice whether I really really need something before I spend on it. So far this has helped to a certain extent, however I do need to start very seriously looking at either a pay raise, different job, or side hustle in order to keep up with the level of things I want to invest and spend on.

Love and Relationships

I think with my loss of faith, and general trust in people due to many failed relationships, I started withdrawing myself from trusting anyone at all in any kind of relationship. I became extremely sensitive towards even the slightest most unsuspecting negativity in any kind of relationships, with co-workers, friends and family. This made me quite distant from most people, always needing the space for myself.

I don’t think it was bad for me to be withdrawn and introverted. But it went against my personal belief that we are a product of the people around us. And if we are unable to form strong trusting bonds and relationships with the people around us, we are pretty much useless.

However I knew that I had to firstly love and trust myself before I could do so towards others. So a large part of the year was about me finding myself, and finding the trust in myself, that I was capable of executing what I wanted to execute, without the fear of being a fake or a fraud or an imposter. Only then could I trust in others, that they trust in me as well.

So I was okay giving up a good paying software job, to go into teaching. It was a good way of rediscovering myself. There is something about working with children that teaches you a lot about yourself and your nature. They see through your lies and ask you questions that you would never think to ask yourself. And through that process, I got more confident with myself, and also increasingly more confident in the relationships I had with those around me.

I knew that I had always used to pride myself on adding value to those around me, and being “useful”. However, I discovered that this necessity to be useful was the core reason for most of my toxic relationships in the past. It was okay to not be useful. It is okay to just be a person with his or her own needs and wants and just existing in that realm. You don’t need to constantly be productive or to add value to the lives of others. If people support you even when you are “non value-adding”, you know these people are the ones who truly care for you. If they don’t bother, you don’t really need to bother either.

And in those little ways of discovering myself, I rediscovered my ability to love others. And man had I missed that. Loving others is such a beautiful feeling. Not being useful to others but just loving them. Letting them be in their imperfect form and watching them, and feeling happy for them. I never thought I would be able to love again, given everything that crushed my understanding of the concept itself. But now I know that love is the one thing that matters. Pure, unadulterated love. That is what truly matters. It is the fine balance of making sure you care for yourself, and also for others. That is where love is strong, healthy and impactful.

Reborn

So in a way, turning 26 has been a year of recovery, renewal and being reborn. In many ways I have changed to become very different from the person that I was over the past few years. But these changes are not superficial changes, they have been changes that allowed me to find the core of myself, and build myself up from that core.

In knowing that, I have nothing but excitement for the future that lies ahead, for I know that I am capable of facing anything that might come my path, as long as my anchors are strongly and deeply grounded, and my morals are unwavering.