The Virtue Of Respect

The thing about virtue is that it is not objective. It is a factor of culture and era, per se the year referring to or under consideration. If it was the 1500s the morality would vary from what it is in 2017. Across the globe, the virtues that people believe in changes. However, in the current age of globalism, the virtue of humans is approaching a saturation point. We more or less have the same kind of morals in society, nowadays. It is not quite a lot segregated as people believe it to be, at least for the younger people. The internet age is helping in ideas come together and irate into an optimal moral code. On a second thought, the current polarity the world makes me think, umm maybe not. Maybe we are more divided than ever. 

Growing up I was often told to, respect my elders. So I obliged and paid my "due" regard to people who were older than me. As a grown up now, I found myself questioning should respect be granted based on age?  Respect: a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. It is not the same as a courtesy or a good behaviour towards someone. One may say it is the same, but then why should it be limited to elders? Isn't that how we should behave by default? In this post, I am digging into the "Respect your elders" virtue that we teach children. Is it the right approach? Do all the people older than me deserve my respect by default? No!

Politeness is a sign of civility. That should be taught to children irrespective of age. I have been "respectful" towards many people who did not deserve my respect. Now, when I look back to such people from the perspective of an adult, I find it obscure to fathom what I was told to do. From my adult judgment, some of those people were plainly grown up bullies to the younger me.  As a matter of fact, I am still in the process of unlearning that my respect is not depending on the fact that someone has spent more years than me on the planet. 

This idea of default respect is a breeding ground to tame people into submission. Children should be taught to behave nicely with everyone, irrespective of age. The underlying idea of taming a child to curb the questioning to authority is unhealthy. We should, on the contrary, make them question the authority. Respect/listen/obey the elders are kind of a classical conditioning, which makes docile adults for the authoritative society. Why would we want that for the future generations? It is dormant, even regressive. 

Respect has to be earned! It shouldn't be a product of relative ages. Everyone has had one of those mean aunt /uncles, a cantankerous old man in the neighbourhood or bully older cousins/siblings. A child should be made aware of the fact that not every older person is to be respected. They should be taught to retaliate and reject the bad authorities. I don't demand the people younger than me to respect me! That would be insanely obnoxious of me. I rather believe in mutual politeness and earned respect.

  

Do you respect people based on age or do you believe, respect has to be earned? Let me know in the comment section below.

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The Period And PMS

I am an extremely sensitive and emotional person. My emotions can very in a fraction of seconds that may land people into thinking what's up with her! Spoiler alert! If you ask me, "Is it that time of the month?" I would punch you right in the face. Well, stereotypes aside. Recently I read a piece about ignorance on the human female body. So I think I should shed some light on a small sect of the same issue. Let us talk about things related to periods and the "perks" of having the ability to make babies in your womb. If you are a woman you would most certainly be interested in knowing what is going on in your body. If you are a man well you probably live in a world you share with women so educate yourself.

PMS is one of those buzz words that everyone is pretty much aware of. It stands for Pre-Menstrual Syndrome. It is a big misconception the PMS is during the period, It is not true. As the name suggests, it is the set of symptoms that occur roughly two weeks before a woman starts menstruating and stops at the time of menstruation. (If the symptoms don't stop it may be some other issue). Medically, a condition is categorized as Syndrome when the symptoms vary from person to person. So every woman has her own set of combination and intensity of these symptoms. For some women, the PMS symptoms are very severe it starts to interfere with their normal daily life. This category of PMS is called PMDD (Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder). 75% of women do experience PMS to some extent and 8% get PMDD. Whether you need medical help or not, really depends on your symptoms and the effects it is causing your everyday life. You may find more information here.

When I started my period, during adolescence, I never paid attention to the symptoms. Adolescence was already too much to deal with. The thing that really got on my nerves was the CRAMPS! The detestable evil menstrual cramps. I got this medicine prescribed to me that would assuage the pain and put me to sleep. So no help if I had an exam to write while dealing with cramps. As I grew older I became more familiar with my body and the patterns of my menstrual cycle became more predictable. With Smartphones and menstruation tracking apps, I can now get a notification and can be ready for what may come.

There are basically three kinds of symptoms related to PMS. Namely Behavioral, Emotional and Physical.

Behavioral Symptoms: This basically deal with food cravings. I personally crave for carbs and chocolates. So a pizza with some chocolate truffle cake is perfect!

Emotional Symptoms: Extreme mood swings. The most versatile combination of all the emotions that you can think off occur. I find myself more sensitive than usual. People around me may find me fluctuating from happy to irritable and angry. This specifically hits the hardest if you are already dealing with anxiety and depression. It becomes the most vulnerable phase as it adds on to the usual consistent depression.

Physical Symptoms: This includes a number of things, Such as a backache, headache, insomnia, hypersomnia, upset stomach, bloating, tenderness in breasts, acne, nausea and muscle pain. The combination of these symptoms varies with person to person. 

So, why is it happening? We don't know exactly what causes it. However, the main reason attributed to PMS is hormonal mainly estrogen and progesterone. The level of hormones starts to crash right before the beginning of the period. This rapid change in the hormonal level leads to instability. Some women are more sensitive to the variation of hormones than others.

This variation in the hormones also affects the neurotransmitter in brains such as dopamine and serotonin. The level drops low and makes one feel depressed. As these neurotransmitters are related to depression and anxiety. Thus, someone who already struggles with depression may get to experience a heavy brunt of it. 

The good news is, it disappears with the start of the period. If it does not subside it may not be just the PMS. As someone who experiences this and started to notice the pattern, I get the sense of satisfaction when I acknowledge the start of my period. Alas, It feels like the dark clouds have lifted and the storm has passed and I get to see the sun shining! Hallelujah! For I survived it and didn't even kill anyone. The younger me would have never thought I would be anticipating and hoping for the cramps to begin because PMSing sucks! 

If you are a woman, do you experience active PMS or PMDD? If you are a man. you may be experiencing 'passive' PMS from your female friends and family? Also, cut them some slack! Be understanding and bring over a pizza or some chocolates. Feel Free to leave your thoughts in the comment section. 

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Memento Mori

When I was a little girl of nine or ten, I was playing on a summer noon on our porch. I clearly remember that afternoon. As that very noon I was a spectator to a tragedy. A little bird crashed into our veranda's fan. It was an instant death. Being present there I felt the agony of death in its last squeak. I couldn't do much for the bird I wanted to save it, of course, but sadly could not bring it back from the "other side". I did the only logical thing one could do. I decided to organize a small funeral and bury it. I selected a spot under the cordial tree and buried it with made-up rituals.

It was a long evening and by the end, while I was covering it with mud and a thought crossed my mind. 'I must mark this exact spot. I should have wrapped the body in a hanky'. Even when the burial was not complete I was thinking about the exquisite skeleton of a house sparrow. The telly those days had a lot of news of finding the bones of dinosaurs. I, being the nerd that I am, wanted my own skeleton of the future generation of dinosaurs. By the end of finishing the bird's grave, I secretly decided I am going to get my skeleton. I marked the spot with a little stick flag. Over the next few days, I enquired the grown-ups about, how long it takes to get a skeleton from a buried body? (Wonder why no one thought it was weird!). Different people gave different answers. I came to a conclusion that for a bird a month was enough. I lost my patience on the twenty-fifth day.

I dug the marked grave and found only a skull and few thin rib bones. I think my digging disturbed the tiny bones and I couldn't find the whole set. I decided to keep the skull only. I prepared a cool spot to place my collection in my private museum. A green plastic basket padded with cotton, on my study table. I kept it and was proud of my possession. It made me remember the last squeak of the bird. My desk resembled one of those old paintings of human skulls on a table. Thinking about the classic painting having pretty much same work desk as I did, made me feel sophisticated and nerdy at the same time. Until my Mum spotted it... sigh!

Those old paintings that inspired me to decorate my workspace, where I use to complete my homework on multiplication assignments from school. Is a specific genre of art called Memento Mori (also vanitas). It depicts the symbolism objects that signify death (namely skull) To remember the infallibility of Death. Such artwork is an artistic expression to remind that death is the objective truth to all and one must spend life wisely.

If you are a Shakespear's fan you must have read The Tragedy of Prince Hamlet, one of my absolute favorites. Shakespear, being the genius that he was, used the symbolism with a skull in the Hamlet.  In the play, Act-5 scene-1, Hamlet holds up the skull of Yorick,  King Hamlet's jester, and remember's his childhood memories with Yorick. It is a brilliant scene ...  I will spare you by not writing the whole scene, but if you are curious you may read the scene here. I think Shakespeares perfected the notion of Memento Mori in that very scene.

So where does this term comes from? In the Roman days, when a general would win a battle, there use to be victory parades with the crowd use to cheer and hail the victor. In all that cheering and hailing there was one appointed servant who would whisper a Latin phase in the general's ear

"Respice post te, hominem te esse memento, 

memento mori - nam mors indecepta"

("Look behind you, remember that you are human, 

remember that you will die—for Death is infallible.")

Its purpose is obvious, to remind the General while he basked in the glory of his victory that his demise is still inevitable. Probably to keep him grounded. Frankly, If I was the General I would be pissed. I mean, let me have my moment of fame and glory. Jeez! what a killjoy!

I know death is a not a topic anyone wants to talk about happily. Heck! I even wrote about Immortality on my previous post. However, Once in a while, it is wise to stop and think about Death. A reminder of death makes you consider what you want to do with the life you have.

What do you want to do with your life, any bucket-list entries you would like to share? let me know in the comment section below.

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L'amour: The Second Hand Emotion

One of the most obscurely used terms for a certain emotion is love.This post is dealing with the special sect of love. The romantic Love. The movie screen, grand and cliched love.  Back in the 90s, most of the movies, in Bollywood, had a central theme of love. The story of the movie was essentially bound around this very emotion. As the trend changed the central theme of movies varied as well. Frankly, that really baffled me as a child because all I had known about movies in India, during my few years on earth, was it had to have a love story. Lacking that would feel like something was missing. #HopelessRomantic from the start.

The basic theme of love as the center of a story is somehow a product of Shakespeare's work and popularity. His play the Romeo and Juliet is the epitome of the given standard of romantic love. There were, of course, many older texts based on love, but none were so swelled with the passion of Love. Romeo and Juliet placed romantic love on a pedestal of emotions.

The inception of the idea of love, as such, with a goal of "lived happily ever after" became a part of our society. Marriages were slowly replaced, from the classic economic and social tool to a fulfillment of one's emotional need of a perfectly suitable partner. Love was no longer a reasonable 'dealing' with families involved. Love broke free from the clutches of idealistic orders to a rebellion of following one's heart.

It was the brilliance of Shakespeare to identify the emotional, psychological and social state of people of that time and bringing it all together in a dynamic manner. During the time of Shakespear people were being diagnosed with the psychological sicknesses. He took that tragedy of the human condition and made something quite profound. Something that is an exhibition of his excel in human behavior.

The behavior of a person towards love is innate. However, the culture of the expression of that love has environmental influences. Shakespear made love, The love as we know it nowadays. The emotion we see expressed so passionately shown in movies and books. What was express the contemporary romantic love is what we learn from the society and culture around us. In a way, the means of expression is handed over to us. It is a second-hand emotion. The feeling is intrinsic, but its execution is culture driven.

Here is an idea that I would like to propose, In a way, this romantic love diminished the idea of 'self'. It occurred to me that my regular catching up with my friends often involved questions on my well being followed by inquiries about my relationship status. These casual queries are pretty common for singles. / Cut to: A soft  nudge on the elbow in a wedding with a whisper "You Are Next!"/ Ugh! Spare me the cringe.

It has become a task, a goal to achieve as basic as graduating high school. It also took away the individualistic identity of a human. People start looking for "soulmates" in order to "complete" themselves. As if something vital for their existence is missing. We already are complete and fully functional beings. Romanticism hijacked love and made it a project. Love is no longer just a feeling like other feelings it is a glorified goal.

Our evolutionary and unconscious goal, as a species, is to carry on the life. Regardless of the romanticization that would have gone on. This idea of romantic love addresses our core question of being. Why are we here? The idea of romantic love also helps us cope with it. We justify it, when we are in love, as the prime source of satisfaction and meaning of life. Our existential crisis of the meaning of life is assuaged by it. This belief gives a grand start to a relationship.  

On the contrary, to make a relationship survive one has to put this idea of love in the backseat. Both parties need to work on the relationship constantly to make it work. It often happens that one person becomes the 'taker' and other becomes the 'giver'. Eventually, such dynamics collapse and the relationship falls apart. For love to last and be truly fulfilling it has to be balanced throughout the duration of its course.

We often hear that the essence of love is trust and compromise. Nothing is idealistic, both people in one way or other need to be compliant to make the ends meet. The trust in not only that your partner will not turn into a jerk and cheat on you. The trust that when you put altruistic efforts into the relationship they will make sure you don't lose yourself in those attempts. They will make sure that it is fair to you. With that thought, I will end the blog with a quote from a book I recently read.

"Against all the evidence of his senses, 

a man who is in love declares that 'I' and 'you' are one, 

and is prepared to behave as if it were a fact.” 

~Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

What Is your opinion on love? Let me know in comment section below.

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Killer's Confession : A Poem

I like to think about things

On the gloomy, dark and stormy day, like today

When I am trapped in the house

This body

Sometimes I don’t recognize my own reflection

Then I remember it is not even me

I fit in this face so perfectly

They think that this person was me

  

The shoe shrunk, and the school belt got ridiculously petit

Acquiescent little obedient creature

Couldn’t understand what this sorcery was

Still, the freckles on her pale skin

Reminds me of her summer's swing

I do not want this frame

I am barely even enjoying their game.

  

I killed a bee too, last Thursday

I don't like the feeling of killing

Look at me, it was not my fault

I was just ...

“You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.”

~ Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

Do you have a favorite poem? Let me know in the comment section below.

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Journey To Mars

During my childhood, while watching an interplanetary Sci-fi movie I asked the adult accompanying me. "So Neil Armstrong was the first man on Moon, but who was the first person on Mars?". The Grown-up nonchalantly replied, "No one, We didn't go to Mars.". On my further questioning, I was told about the sad state of absence of planetary travel.

That was probably one of the saddest reveals to the little me. I had spent the rest of that evening sitting on stairs, pondering to come to terms with the level of regression of humanity. After all, I use to watch shows about the galaxy far far away with the older kids in the family and thought that was pretty much the reality of galaxy far far away. That one information made me feel like we were living in stone age. Now, I find it quite amusing that I had taken the Sci-fi portrait by the entertainment media to be the real world.

However, the world changed since my childhood and the technology upgraded exponentially. Alongside I kept tabs on the expansion of technology. I still have the scrapbook I kept for the newspaper articles on Spirit and Opportunity.  I gained knowledge on the technology through books and internet. I was very excited for the Curiosity Mars rover. It is one of the most monumental projects on planetary science. It provided us abundant information and the with the internet that information super-accessible.

Today we are at a place where we have the technology, to take humans to mars, in its rudimentary form. Nasa estimates to put humans on Mars by 2040s. However, sadly governments are shying away from investing in science. The input of private companies has a very important part to play in the goal of making humans space nomads. One such company (and currently the biggest player in the field of space exploration) is Elon Musk's SpaceX. 

Elon Musk, in a presentation last year, pushed in this time constraint to reach Mars. He had put forward his plan to land human on Mars within a decade. Musk's plan not only plans to make a human visit the planet but also to colonize it. If you know anything about Elon Musk you must also be aware of the fact that he is a man of grand visions. When I first heard about Elon's plan reveal I knew it was going to be promising. Unlike, Mars One which was DOA. So much so that the enthusiasm for Mars One basically infuriated the nerd in me.

Musk's ambitious plan aims to eventually form a self-sustaining colony on Mars. He aims for Mars to support a population of a million humans. The most important and revolutionary aspect of Musk's plan is the reusability of the space ship. The announcement of the project was an hour long video explaining how SpaceX will execute this design. He plans to provide an affordable travel to Mars for anyone who wants to go. Each mission/space flight will eventually be taking 100 passengers on a reusable interplanetary vehicle that Space X aims to employ for the project. You can watch the video here. 

In fact, early this year SpaceX successfully tested the launch and landing of  Falcon 9, The reusable rocket. This is one of most historic achievement in Aerospace. It can cut down the cost of space travel to a great extent. Following is the video of the test.I find it extremely cheerful to watch, It is one of my favorite videos. The sweet adrenalin rush! 

The need for this expansion of our living space is something that is instinctual to human. That is what we human do. The first homo sapiens were limited to Africa, still, over time, we conquered the whole planet. Prehistoric Humans traveled and settled down to the far off locations with a wide range of living conditions. Even Australia and America, despite having ocean restriction, were populated by humans who traveled to those locations from Africa. We have an extraordinary ability to survive in the oddest of the condition and innovative brains to look beyond the horizon.

Thus Living and existing only on this planet is a myopic point of view. Keeping in mind our history, our desire to take the leap is inevitable. The future human will try to push the limits further. Moreover, eventually, our planet will stop supporting us. Being the only species of homo genus it is our existential calling to make sure that out DNA is passed on. It will evolve into something new as the rule of nature. We are aware of this phenomenon, unlike our cousins, have a special responsibility to deliberately make efforts for the long run. It is not an individual human being, but is about the mysterious thing we call "consciousness". We possess the wonderful ability to register our existence in the universe. The attempts to keep it alive is probably the best thing to do. Though, it would be just a small step on the scale of the vast universe it will be the first one. Talking about interstellar world seem too farfetched for us but it is not so on an evolutionary scale. 

If I get a chance to travel to Mars in my lifetime I would hop on board at once. Spoiler alert for my fellow travelers I get grumpy whenI am hungry. So don't forget to carry extra snacks!

Would you travel to Mars If you could? Would you like to move there? Let me know in the comment section. 

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We Are Not Idiots

Ancient Greece, as per me, is second most fascinating classic civilization. The first is, obviously, Roman civilization I can go on and on about Romans, but some other day. Greece in 500 BC had a democratic government. That basically excluded citizenship to slaves and women and the democracy was basically by the able-aged free men of the population. Still, that was the ancient democracy. The land of great thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc. Greeks, back then, talked and debated about the social set up and how should their government run. How to vote... Who can vote and so on.  Being a part of this discussion in politics was an honorable thing.

On the other hand, people who didn't take interest in and contributed to the politics of the land were called Idiots. Idiots didn't have the same meaning as it does in our times. An idiot was someone who was not a part of political democracy. The root of the word originated from the Latin word 'Idios': meaning the self. A private person who didn't get involved in politics was considered to be the default state of being. Opposite of which was basically a citizen. In Athens, the Citizenship was granted by education and involvement, not by birth. Idiots had a lower social status in Athens. However, the current definition of 'Idiot' is a foolish or ignorant person. If you think about the evolution of the word, 'Idiot' it makes sense.

We, the population of the contemporary world, are not 'Idiots' in the ancient sense of the word. In fact, this is the era of political activism. We live in the age of the internet with so much information at our disposal. We get flooded with feeds on our social media. However, those feeds are selectively shown to us by the algorithms of the social media sites. What we get in our feeds depends on our search history and our 'reactions' to the feeds that we come across. This kind of selective partakes lands us in a filter bubble. Due to the iteration of the algorithm, the posts that we receive goes on shifting towards extremes in the spectrum of opinions. Thus, firing up the social and political divide even further.

The result is highly polarized parties. Partially, because of total inability to a casual access to opposing viewpoint. The end is, well, pretty much what we have on political commentary on the internet. Divide, names calling and troll attacks. What I do to not be a part of this Filter bubble is deliberately expose myself to voices from both sides. Listen to what they have to say and form my opinion based on information I receive by my own judgment.

I have my opinion on the political state of the world and I reckon, you have yours. We both come to our conclusions and opinions based on our experiences and lifestyle. I am a classic liberal, and I stress the word classic because I don't agree with some of what contemporary left has to offer.  The range of issues in the political sphere is very large and it is unlikely to fit in two columns. namely right and left.

Furthermore, in present times the divide is pretty much between two options only. The people of one side are expected to be in line with their side on almost all the issues. This is not practical. The effect of this is bitterness amongst people. Yes, It is as ridiculous as it sounds. This election term, be it in India or US people are actually fighting over political opinions. Friendships are turned sour based on whom you support. 

People locked up in their own media bubble, accusing each other of being evil, racist, deluded or even lacking basic intelligence. As my habit of skimming through both sides, I found that each side is dumbing down what other party presents to the discussion. Maybe it is the time we all just give each other a chance to have a different opinion and try to understand each other's viewpoint. Have a civil debate, if you must, or agree to disagree on the grounds that they have all the rights to have their opinions. We can't agree on all the issues and humanity as a whole will never agree on all issues monotonously. If there would be a uniform agreement that would be a very boring world!

On the note of disagreement, currently, in India, a wave of cow vigilantes are bursting in and killing people for possessing "Holy" cow. Such crimes are very much based on religious agenda of Modi's Hindu right-winged political party. The people being lynched by Hindu mob of fanatics are predominantly Muslims. It is a sad state and the government should address it. However, the government is failing to rightly address the issue. No serious efforts are taken to control and punish the criminals. It should be government's priority to protect the people.  

As an adult, I experienced the political situation of/and after Charlie Hebdo terror attack. I remember going on twitter and seeing people (Famous political figures) condemning the cartoons after the attack. Claiming what else to expect if you publish cartoon portraying Muhammad. It was a shocker to me as for the first time in my life I had seen this level of desensitization. I was politically ignorant about the Dutch cartoon aftermath, at that time. But regardless, It is questionable what inspired people to come to the opinion of equating publishing cartoons to inviting death. Ugh! Are they justifying Islamic terror with published satire? If you hold that opinion, I disagree.

In the present time, we have freedom of speech, at least some of us do. I do in my country or do I? (in the light of last year's sedation episode some legal citation needed). I can speak on a range of topics and it will be lawful as long as I am not inciting violence. However, because of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, I do restrain from criticizing things that fall under certain religious texts. Especially after reading holy books I don't rate or review them on public platforms. Not because I don't have a conclusion on such books, (Believe me, I have a lot to talk about) but because I practice self-censorship. No, NOT out of respect, but ... fear for my own well-being. This fear is absolutely legitimate from what I have experienced so far in a socio-political environment. Here is a little vocab lesson I would like to include (for people to read between the lines (wink-wink)) Phobia is an irrational fear. Let us call a spade a spade.

I am a proponent of free speech, I believe everything should be up to analysis and criticisms. That shouldn't pardon the most sacred subject in this domain. I find it absolutely dishonorable when governments try to curb that freedom. I find it even more dishonest when zealots and extremists have the power to make me check my speech. I think we should be able to have the comfort of mental and legal freedom of speech. If you cannot name Voldemort, how can you expect to have the courage to fight him? Many Ideas and Ideologies are not apt for current societies and need reform. The reform can come from open dialogs...

Do you have freedom of speech in your country? Do you speak your mind on every issue? Let me know in the comment section below

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My Happy Places

Sometimes, like everyone else, I feel sad about a certain situation. As the day passes by, the feeling of sadness becomes a persistent emotion. On some of such days, when I finally find time to sit and address the emotion and console myself I find myself asking "So why were we sad for again?". Sometimes it turns out I had forgotten what exactly was the reason for that weary feeling of sorrow. Was is some news on the internet or was it something someone said... The origin of gloominess just slips out of my mind amidst of daily activities, but the cloud of sadness just remains to hover over my head.

I find such days quite ridiculous as the reason for the sorrow is not really significant, regardless my mind just picks up some random trigger and stomps as a stubborn child into the sombreness. On such days my salvage is some random things that by default makes me happy. So here I am sharing a few of such activities.

Ukulele

It all started with when I first thought of including some music theory symbols in my paintings. However, I wanted to include something meaningful some part of classical symphonies that I like. So I started researching and educating myself about music theory. One thing leads to another and I ended up learning about how to play the Ukulele in theory. then on one fine day,  a couple of months back, I got this beauty. I had never actually played the instrument but had acquired all the basics on how to. It took me a while to get used to practically play it and I am still learning. Ever since that day playing uke is one of my favorite activities
.

A post shared by Karnika Kapoor (@karnikakapoor) on Mar 28, 2017 at 10:05am PDT

Coffee
I love coffee! There are about 3-4 different types of coffee sitting on a shelf in my room. Yes! I keep my exotic collection of coffee in my room along with my coffee mugs. I like to think of it as this mini collection, like some people have for their fancy drinks, a mini bar. Well, coffee has the ability to make you happy. Curling up on a cozy couch to read and sip coffee is one of my absolute favorite things. You can find more about coffee on my post here.

Reading
Reading is food for my mind. I cannot imagine how my life would be if I wouldn't read. There is no denying that reading helps you be more informed on a various range of topics. One learns about the universe and its laws, addressing the mere passion of unraveling the quest of human existence. One of the most pressing existential question of humanity gets assuages, maybe just a little bit via reading. It lowers the stress level and increases the focus. However, more than anything it makes one compassionate. It gives one a unique ability to step in someone else's shoes and see the world through their eyes. I like to read a huge range of genres. (You can find more about my reading habits on Goodreads here).

Hamilton
No matter how my mood is, if I play Hamilton- the musical I will somehow turn into an all-in-one cast and will be rapping with diligence. I never get tired of it. I can listen to it, again and again ... The beauty of it is not just the predominantly hip-hop music, but also Lin-Manuel Miranda's brilliant art of storytelling. In telling the story of Alexander Hamilton, one of America's founding father, Lin puts forward all the admirable qualities along with the flaws of the characters, this approach makes historic figures seem more human. The contemporary hip language makes one able to understand them as per today's standards. Last but not the least, it's the most entertaining history lesson.

Painting
I like to create art in many different forms, but oil paints are one of my favorite artistic expression. I can forget the existence of the world when I am lost in my attempt to make that one stroke right. I don't give any care even if it's apocalypses outside my window. It is my personal trance. I dedicated a whole post to painting. Read about it here.

Now, what about you ... Do you feel remorse and forget what it was for? What is your Happy Place? Let me know in the comment section.

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