21 Thoughts from 2021

I wanted to write this post on 25th December, but the beauty called procrastination! It stings, and oh how it pains not in the present but precisely in the future.

Here are 21 thoughts I’ve experienced, read, or come across in some medium, from quotes, writing realizations to caring for cats in 2021. Numbered not in any particular order.

1. Reading is hard work, laborious, and time-consuming, but just as fulfilling. When I can’t decide what to do, I reach out for the nearest book.
2. The things that you think are going to make you happy don’t actually make you happy. — The Science of Well-Being, Yale University
3. Ironic as it may be, could it be that the virus is a reminder that each one of us matters, and that is how the chain is formed? If we weren’t a part of the whole, if we didn’t matter, the virus would not travel. (This line is taken from a longer piece I wrote. You can find it here.)
4. Good universities may not be the destinations I once thought they were, but instead might be transit points leading to bigger goals. The difficult part is finding that goal. (I often treated university as a destination, someplace I had to go to find what I was searching, but as time turns, I see that they might be portals. If I can clarify where I want to go, I can find many paths to lead me there.)
5. Writing gets better when reading and analysis get better. (A little backstory: Recently, a short story I wrote placed 3rd in Writing Nepal — a well-known writing contest that I’ve been following for years. I had dropped by submission in an earlier edition and wasn’t even shortlisted. What changed, I asked myself, to which I realized I spent a year reading, analyzing literature in theory and practice, and most importantly, growing as a person.)
6. If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new. — George Eliot, Middlemarch. (Find more quotes from this classic masterpiece here and my reading experience ploughing through almost 700 pages of the book here.)
7. Exercise is wonderful — yoga, Taichi, walking. Anything will look fantastic if you can track it over time and see how you showed up most of the time.
8. We spend most of our lives as adults and yet romanticize childhood. Strange, eh?
9. Coloring is one of the most time-consuming aspects of digital illustration. (I’m finishing my first full-fledged comic project as I type this.)
10. On quotes: I knew things in the past, but I didn’t necessarily feel them. I do now. And there’s a difference in knowing, understanding, and being able to use the knowledge.
11. I will face my fear.
    I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
    — Frank Herbert, Dune
12. I can never truly own a cat — the same for people. But I can still admire and appreciate them both. (My family has been rescuing, feeding, and caring for feral and stray cats for almost 15 years. And yet it was only in 2021 when I realized that it’s impossible to own a cat.)
13. We must remember: we were rejected because we tried; because we were brave; because we were reaching towards something we desired. — Sarah Stroh
14. Growing up may be hard, but it can be just as beautiful. Five years ago, I couldn’t write what I can write today — the words, the prose, the verse. What will I be able to write five years later?
15. Always believe in yourself. Do this, and no matter where you are, you will have nothing to fear. — Hayao Miyazaki, The Cat Returns (A charming animated story about Baron, the cat who teaches a girl to trust herself. Watch the trailer here.)
16. While theories have their limits, understanding them is useful — philosophy, economics, statistics. It helps us see how things work, spot patterns, helps us both arrive at a decision and question a decision.
17. A privilege isn’t something to be ashamed of, it is something to be aware of. — Hank Green
18. Fear will not go away, but a system to help tackle it might help.
19. Asking for help is difficult but sometimes absolutely necessary.
20. It’s okay to not be okay. (There’s a Korean drama on Netflix by the same name, which is superb. It might not make sense at first, but by the end, it will fit in like a puzzle. Watch the trailer here.)
21. I am not special, but I am different. There are other people like me too. I need to find them more often.

2021 hasn’t been kind to either of us. Here’s to hoping 2022 will be kinder.