In 2017 I had decided to buy a Graphic tablet, so that I could create my little Ahiru digitally. It was just a dream back then, a stubborn & naive dream to ‘create’. I would like to mention here that 2017 was the only year when I had finally given my self-created cartoon character the name ‘Ahiru’.
(Note: A Graphic tablet/ pen-tab is an input device, used by graphic designers and illustrators to design or create artworks digitally. Needs to be plugged into the laptop/pc with USB)
I remember asking my dad stubbornly, that I wanted him to buy me a graphic tablet. I used to keep coming up with new reasons everyday stating why I really needed the Tablet and how it would really help me in accomplishing my dreams. At that time the graphic tablet I was demanding was priced around 10k and I was not even a graphic designing student. I was in 2nd year of my B.Sc. Genetics and I was so full of dreams and enthusiasm, enough to make me want to run away on a totally different path than that of my current education field. Finally, after few days of pleading and acting cranky in the house, my family agreed to buy me the tablet.
The day my first graphic tablet arrived I cried, not because I was overwhelmed with joy. I cried because I had zero experience and knowledge for being able to operate a tablet. Forget about the whole Ahiru character, I was not even able to write my own name with it. I cried for the whole day and felt like I had made a big mistake by making my dad buy it for me. I avoided using this Pen-tab for few days but later on I finally decided to channelize my stubbornness towards learning it.
Today, after 3 years of being in this game of my own, I am finally able to create artworks digitally. Not only that, I am a verified artist on two different startup platforms: ‘FranklyWearing’ and ‘FandomRealm’, and the owner of my own startup AADOODLES with my little Ahiru Shop on ‘Instamojo’.
All along this journey I learnt one thing, ‘I challenged myself’!
I challenged myself to learn more, to learn something on my own by visualizing a teacher in everyone I met and every new opportunity I came across.
Today, I have challenged myself with yet another difficulty level in this game of my own. I still have sparkling dreams in my eyes which seem rather impossible at the moment. But, buying a graphic tablet and learning it also used to be one of the ‘impossibilities’ back then.
Remember, no matter how tough the situation seems to be, no matter how many people around you try to hold you back; If you believe in something, it is going to come along your way one way or the other. Don’t give up on yourself and don’t quit this game of your own. A difficulty level is nothing but something that came along your way to make you a better person, to make you a better player.
“It’s funny how some distance makes everything seem small, and the fear that once controlled me can’t get to me at all” – Idina Menzel
Remember to take a step back and appreciate your achievements, no matter how small they might be. You are your own motivator and you ‘Can’ be the creator of your own journey. All you have to do is keep Levelling up!
Vanity
Today I would like to share ‘the legend of Narcissus’ with you all.
Narcissus was a youth who knelt daily beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called the narcissus.
But this was not how the author of the book ended the story.
He said that when Narcissus died, the goddesses of the forest appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.
“Why do you weep?” the goddesses asked.
“I weep for Narcissus,” the lake replied.
“Ah it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus,” they said, “for though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand.”
“But… was Narcissus beautiful?” the lake asked.
“Who better than you to know that?” the goddesses said in wonder.” After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself!”
The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said: “I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eye, my own beauty reflected.”
(Story excerpt from ‘The Alchemist’)
The story of Narcissus is a symbol of how self-praises and self-flattering can consume a being from the inside.
Both, the lake and Narcissus were so indulged in loving themselves that they never took a moment of contemplation to reflect on the beauty of each other. Vanity is when someone is so consumed with his/her beauty and self-importance that he/her cannot appreciate the beauty in others.
It also depicts how a person can stay with another person just because they feel empowered and valuable to themselves; just for their own selfish fulfillment of pride. Unfortunately, many relationships today are established on this fragile basis.
“The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated” – William James
Every human being deserves appreciation and so is what they crave. Be it in our office work/ Individual life/ appearance. It is not wrong in seeking appreciation from the outside world. Neither is it wrong if we are our own extoller. The soul starts getting corroded once we can’t visualize the beauty that surrounds us anymore. Thus, leading to Vanity.
Goethe once said, “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and help them become what they’re capable of being”.
We are all beings connected to each other in some or the other way, and we do unknowingly play a part in each other’s life. What better way to purify the soul and getting rewarded with appreciation; than appreciating the good in each other? What would you choose? Vanity on sanity?
How to do what you want to do
We have all seen those motivational videos, telling us that “We can achieve it, if we believe it”. We have even stayed motivated after watching these videos for a while or a day or maybe even a month. But the reality is, with passage of time the motivation also fades away and all that we are left with is another white flag waiting to be dropped down on the floor.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”
• Planning a day, before going to bed.
• Scribbling in your journal what you want to achieve.
• Using post-its/ pins/ white boards to make a blue print of your future.
These are just few tactics which are usually used by many of us for overcoming the ‘sinking of our motivation ship’. What most of us fail to realize is, that even if we write things down and plan a lot ahead, we still will be faced with the uncertain challenges around us happening every single day. And most of these challenges are created by our ‘self-doubt and laziness’.
There is an insightful concept shared by Mr. Robin Sharma in his “The 5AM Club book”. He says that, if we want to get things actually done, then we need to strengthen our ‘Will power muscle’. Each time that you are faced with a lack of motivation to do something that you wanted to do; you just need to get past this feeling of postponing the task needed to be done. (Paraphrased)
A will power muscle, like all the other muscles in our body, needs to be trained. Only practicing it can make it stronger than it was the day before.
Say, you want to start waking up early in the morning. You set your alarm and slept cozy in your bed. The next morning, you turned off the alarm and went back to sleep because your hard-wired brain was habited to act like that. The whole day after that feels unsettling because you failed to achieve a task early in the morning, which you had promised yourself to be done. This results into lack of motivation for executing this same task again the next day. This lack of motivation and interest damages your willpower slowly. You start things but then don’t get them done completely all the way through. It keeps getting complicated, and we definitely don’t need a piled-up stack of ‘not done things’ at the end of the day.
So, the question is, how do you simplify this?
By ‘Rewarding yourself’ for each task done or set a motivation trap!
A motivation trap is something I arrange for myself to get my things done in time. We have all arranged motivation traps for us in our childhood. Most of us used to ‘Keep a chocolate aside for each chapter learned’, during examinations. Same concept applies on ‘putting your favorite food/object in front of your treadmill’, to complete that workout session.
These little rewards are highly helpful in keeping us motivated all along. Planning out your day along with planning to achieve what you have planned is important. What matters here is that you start your day with a little win, ‘waking up early, getting that first workout done as planned, completing your walk or even completing your meditation’.
This practice can actually help strengthen your will-power muscle and you get rewarded with extended motivation plus positivity. Also, the rise in self-confidence occurs naturally once you become committed to your tasks. It is said that ‘One healthy choice leads to another’. So, make a healthy choice today by strengthening your Will- Power muscle and getting things done.
Magic burn-out
I came across the term ‘Magic Burn-out’ in a Netflix originated series called “The Worst witch”.
I couldn’t help but relate this Magical burn-out concept with the art blocks that I occasionally get.
An art block (also known as a creative block) is a period of time when an artist cannot access their creativity and/or they cannot bring themselves to create a new piece of work.
Being in a creative journey as an artist, I often encountered days when I didn’t feel like doing anything at all. The things which used to get me up and running with high levels of dopamine started to seem like a source for draining out all of the energy left. Comes with this the feeling of not being good enough to create something new and thus leading to a mental breakdown at times.
In an era where creating more is valued over the ‘Creating best’, we start becoming the rabbits in a race which no one told us to get enrolled into. Such habits often lead us into the black hole of a toxic burn-out. An art-block can get worse if we are creating more art forcefully just to be in the race and keep seeking approval from people about ‘if the art is good or not’.
I follow these five steps for overcoming this magic burn-out:
- Take a stroll around the neighborhood/ garden or any place you like where you can resonate a little more with yourself.
- Avoid social media for a particular duration.
- Explore new songs and genres.
- Write a daily journal/ make notes.
- Read a new book/ old books which you loved.
Resonating with yourself is a must when going through a magic burn-out. We often lose our magic/ our creative processing because of the overclouded judgements and opinions of others. A place where you can be a little more yourself, can help a lot.
Remember, “location has Energy and Time has Memory”- Jay Shetty
Reverberate with the energy from such locations where you can feel peaceful. Don’t let your magic burn-out. But if it does, do believe that you can ignite it back again by following the above simple steps or even by creating your own.
(PS: The above steps are just to help you get an idea of how easily we can overcome an art-block by just being ourselves.)
The Soap Bubble Concept
Soap bubbles are extremely thin film of soapy water enclosing air that forms a hollow sphere with an iridescent surface. Soap bubbles usually last for only a few seconds before bursting, either on their own or on contact with another object.
Our fleeting thoughts are exactly like these soap bubbles.
In a single day we come across multiple thoughts, and our adapted Human brain generates impulses and response to each one of them. What is truly fascinating here is that, out of those multiple thoughts that you encounter, most of them are the same ones from the day before!
That means, whatever you are thinking about right now, was on your mind a day before too and the same thought a day before that!
Unlike soap bubbles, our stubborn thoughts are not as transient as we assume them to be. Our thoughts don’t usually go away on their own, they are either replaced by another reoccurring thought or they gradually evolve into becoming a larger expanded thought bubble with added complexities.
To avoid such kind of a soap bubbly situation, the most preferred and scientifically proven method is ‘Meditation’.
Meditating acts as an external force on each soap bubble, where in the bubble stops getting responses from our adapted brain. Instead, during meditation, the brain decides to quietly just watch this soap bubble until it fades away.
Meditation is a slow and gradual process of strengthening your brain muscles. It takes time and patience.
The beautiful impact of meditation is seen when you encounter the same bubble again the next day, and your ‘learner brain’ now refuses to feed this particular bubble anymore energy. Eventually, this particular bubble now left powerless fades away on its own.
The brain can be strengthened, sculpted and optimized if we chose to make it so.
The choice is ours, either surrendering to the massive chaos of expanding thought bubbles everywhere or strengthening our brain and teaching it how to control these bubbles or make them go away.
Nirvana
We have all heard about reclaiming the inherent power that we have. Each individual is always more than just a body with a soul. What we do have to understand is that, we are souls carrying this body.
It is said that when received in abundance, beautiful things become invisible to the eye even if they are right in front of you. ‘When each day is the same as the next, it’s because People fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives, every day that the sun rises.’ (Excerpt- The Alchemist)
We all want ultimately to be happy, to live life to the fullest. But what we do forget amidst all this chaotic humdrum is that our days make our months, and months our years. If you are not living your day fully up to your expectations, you will in return be left with a month which was unsatisfactory and unpleasant. To create the pleasant years, you need to stack up your days into a pleasant month.
After all, ‘Nirvana’ is not a place, it’s a state of mind. There is Nirvana all around you if you are willing to see it.
You are in Nirvana if you are appreciating the little squirrels climbing up and down the trees. You are in Nirvana if you are observing the tiniest beautiful things around you. You are in Nirvana, when you pause and breathe. With each breathe, we breathe in new life, a new hope and with each breathe out we let go of the thoughts that are toxic to us.
So just go outside, have a walk, appreciate what was already there before but never noticed by the eye.
Talk to yourself and keep a gratitude diary, for each time when you’ll get back to this diary, you’ll be back in Nirvana again.
Today’s Motivation
7 New Habits To Encode To Make 2021 Wow
- Write in a journal before you sleep.
- Own your mornings=transform your life.
- Leave everyone you meet better.
- Speak like a leader not a victim.
- Read for at least 60 minutes every day
- Radiate positivity even when it’s hard
- Plan your week every Sunday morning
(by Robin Sharma)
(taken from twitter)
गाडी बुला रही है …
बचपन से ही मुझे रेलगाडी के प्रति एक ज़बर्दस्त आकर्षण भी है और वो मेरी भावनाओं के साथ भी जुडी है. अपनी नौकरी के कारण मुझे भारत में कई जगह घूमने का मौका मिला और मैंने रेल से कई भार यात्रा की है और आगे भी करता रहूँगा.
हिंदी सिनेमा में रेलगाड़ी पर हमेशा कई दृश्य फिल्माए गए है. कई बार नायक और नायिका रेल गाडी पर गाना गाते हुए, तो कई बार मिलने बिछड़े के दृश्य, तो कई बार फिल्म के किरदार रेल कि यात्रा करते हुए, या अपना घर-बार छोड़ कर जाते हुए दिखाए गए हैं.
मैं ऐसी फिल्मों कि सूची बनाना चाहता हूँ, और उन फिल्मों में रेलगाड़ी का कैसे उपयोग किया गया यह भी साथ में जोड़ना चाहता हूँ. इसमें समय लगेगा और आप के सुझाव भी चाहिए होंगे.
मेरी सबसे गुज़ारिश है कि आप अगर यह लेख पढ़ लेतें हैं तो इस पर अपनी कमेन्ट में ज़रूर ऐसी फिल्म का नाम भी लिखें, या आपने जिस फिल्म में ऐसे दृश्यों को पसंद किया हो उस फिल्म का नाम या गाना जो भी हों उसे ज़रूर लिखें.
आज के लिए मैं मेरे सबसे पसंदीदा रेल गीत के कुछ अंश यहाँ पुनःपेश करता हूँ जो सन १९७४ में बनी फिल्म ‘दोस्त’ का गीत है. इसे आनंद बक्षी ने लिखा है और सुरों में ढाला है लक्ष्मीकांत-प्यारेलाल ने …
गाडी बुला रही है
सीटी बजा रही है
चलना ही ज़िन्दगी है
चलती ही जा रही है
देखो वो रेल
बच्चों का खेल
सीखो सबक जवानों
सर पे है बोझ
सीने में आग
लब पे धुँआ है जानों
फिर भी ये जा रही है
नगमें सुना रही है
गाडी बुला रही है
सीटी बजा रही है …
(इस पूरे गीत का आनंद आप इस कड़ी पर जाकर ले सकतें हैं )
एक लम्बे अंतराल के बाद …
सभी को नव-वर्ष २०२१ कि हार्दिक शुभकामनाएं !! आशा करतें हैं कि यह नया साल सबके लिए सुख, शान्ति, और खुशहाली लेकर आयें …
एक लम्बे अंतराल के बाद ब्लॉग पर वापसी कर रहा हूँ. और आशा करता हूँ कि अब नियमित रूप से ब्लॉग पर आप से मिलने आऊँगा. ऐसा नहीं है कि जो समय गुज़रा और जो सामाजिक घटनाएं हुयी, और राजनीती कि उठा पटक चलती रही, उससे आहत होकर या प्रेरित होकर लिखने का मन तो हुआ, पर फिर सोचा कि कुछ समय तक सिर्फ प्रेक्षक बन कर रहें और मंथन करते रहें.
खैर, आज सभी विषयों को यहाँ पर न लिखते हुए भविष्य के लिए छोड़ देतें हैं.
और आज के लिए साहिर लुधियानवी कि लिखी हुयी इन पंक्तियों को याद करते हैं;
अपने अन्दर ज़रा झाँक मेरे वतन
अपने ऐबों को मत ढांक मेरे वतन
रंग और नस्ल के दायरों से निकल
गिर चूका है बहोत देर अब तो संभल
तू द्राविड़ है या आर्य नस्ल है
जो भी है अब इसी खाक कि फसल है
तेरे दिल सो जो नफरत न मिट पाएगी
तेरे घर में घुलामी पलट आएगी
तेरी बरबादियों का तुझे वास्ता
ढूंढ अपने लिए अब नया रास्ता …
***
ME … ‘A POLYBAG’
Today 5th June 2018 is the Tenth birth anniversary of this blog. On this day in 2009 this blog was launched, and since then, albeit slowly, this blog has been progressing and continuing with the support of all who have been associated and visited this blog time to time.
This year the World Environment Day theme is ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’!!
And this year our own country India is the host for celebration of this day World-wide.
Few years back I had penned a poem as a ‘self-narrative’ by a ‘polybag (Panni)’.
The poem was in Hindi and for today’s presentation I have got its translation into English done by my daughter Ashwini.
Keeping my write up simple and limited to this much only and once again Thanking all, I present this translation, as a post for today’s occasion here;
ME … ‘A POLYBAG’
I am a ‘polybag’ wandering places,
Wandering just like the other members of my species are,
Spreading throughout and travelling into the unknown,
Getting ignored with no hopes of getting cared and cured
Yet I keep wishing, for someone to pick me up in their loving arms,
I wish someone would take me to my rightful ‘disposal’, the place where I belong.
I wonder where my siblings are,
Maybe they’re wretched just like me,
Maybe they too have a gruesome story to tell
Like PVC had to tell this other day;
“Oh! the ignorant Humans!
Why aren’t you saving yourselves from me?
Don’t you care about your future?
The future of you and your progeny…”
I wish you would have kept us away from your surroundings
Instead of letting I and my specie get all messed up with each other.
I myself have been through a lot,
Be it getting trapped in cluster of spikes
Or being wrapped up around the branch of a tree!
I’ve floated in the drains, muffled over cans and ducts
Just to become the culprit of everything filthy!
I am that tramp, who keeps wandering constantly,
Rotting through rivers and pools,
Ending up spreading pollution everywhere,
You ask me where I’ll be found,
I am Omnipresent I say!
Flying, crashing through nowhere
Hoping for some day ‘someone’ will come,
And take me to my ‘appropriate disposal’
Please embrace me, love me, care me
Help me to reach – ‘my final destination’
Take me where I belong and save your Habitat,
Save your mother, Oh human,
Save your nature, Save ‘mother earth’