On shortness of time

Neera

“I don’t have time.”

“I want to read so many books but I don’t get any free time.”

“I want to write a book but I am so busy, I don’t know whether I will ever get time to write it.”

“Life is too short.”

“Life sucks and then you die.”

Chances are you have heard all of these excuses some stage and it is quite likely that you have yourself made them now and then.

Do you want to know where your time goes? Watch this short film based on a tale from David Eagleman’s book Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives.

Surprised to find out that you spend two months driving the street in front of your house, thirty years without opening your eyes, five months flipping magazines while sitting on a toilet… And then you wonder where the time has gone.

We are the only generation that is time-poor. Right?

Wrong.

Even 2000 years ago when there was no TV, no mobile phones, no social media, people were complaining about not having enough time. One Roman philosopher Seneca got so sick of hearing people complain about life being short that he lashed out with an essay On the Shortness of Life.

He first summarized their complaints:

The majority of mortals, Paulinus, complain bitterly of the spitefulness of Nature, because we are born for a brief span of life, because even this space that has been granted to us rushes by so speedily and so swiftly that all save a very few find life at an end just when they are getting ready to live.

It was this that made the greatest of physicians exclaim that “life is short, art is long;” it was this that led Aristotle, while expostulating with Nature, to enter an indictment most unbecoming to a wise man—that, in point of age, she has shown such favour to animals that they drag out five or ten lifetimes, but that a much shorter limit is fixed for man, though he is born for so many and such great achievements.

Then he responds:

It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.

Seneca was forthright. He didn’t sugarcoat, he didn’t use politeness, he told people bluntly that they don’t have enough time because they are wasting too much of it. But how did the people who had no TV, no mobile phones, no social media wasted time? Seneca listed that too in his essay in case people don’t realize:

… one man is possessed by an avarice that is insatiable, another by a toilsome devotion to tasks that are useless; one man is besotted with wine, another is paralyzed by sloth; one man is exhausted by an ambition that always hangs upon the decision of others, another, driven on by the greed of the trader, is led over all lands and all seas by the hope of gain; some are tormented by a passion for war and are always either bent upon inflicting danger upon others or concerned about their own; some there are who are worn out by voluntary servitude in a thankless attendance upon the great; many are kept busy either in the pursuit of other men’s fortune or in complaining of their own; many, following no fixed aim, shifting and inconstant and dissatisfied, are plunged by their fickleness into plans that are ever new; some have no fixed principle by which to direct their course, but Fate takes them unawares while they loll and yawn—so surely does it happen that I cannot doubt the truth of that utterance which the greatest of poets delivered with all the seeming of an oracle: “The part of life we really live is small. For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time.

You get the picture. People were wasting time then and people are wasting time now, not only at the personal level but at the working level too through Bullshit Jobs. Seneca’s essay On the Shortness of Life is a poignant reminder for introspection that never gets around to do. Seneca lashes out:

“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.”

He then compares our time spending spree with the only thing we understand, money.

“In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most extravagant.”

Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life is something you must spend your time on. Penguin’s pocket-size book and easy read. If you don’t have even that much of time see the five minutes video below and you will get the message.

Writing in the moment

Neera

I was going through my old journals and discovered that my best writing was when I was writing ‘in the moment.’ I was more aware of the my surroundings, was using the senses to feel and was expressing what was going through my mind at the moment. As a result, my writing was much more engaging.

“The water of the lake is reflecting the blue of the sky. A boat with orange mast is creating ripples on the surface which are travelling all the way to the shore. I am sitting in the back seat of my car which is my sanctuary for the week. I have taken a week off from work to rejuvenate after a very busy winter months both at home and at work. Parked at a secluded spot, I am soaking the sun and taking in the silent beauty of the Black Mountain and Lake Burley Griffin. In front of me is a bare tree with an occasional leave at the branchends. Its trunk is divided into several branches and I have been tracing its curves and bends for some time now. I can draw it in the sketchbook I have brought with me, I should, but I don’t. I feel tired and exhausted. Not physically, but mentally. Emotional roller-coaster ride has taken its toll. Everything demands my time. Work, home, my own hobbies. Drawing a tree will take time, even if it doesn’t have any leaves. And time is something I don’t have. Even though I have five days off work, I have so much to fit in them. A raven comes and sit on a branch making the picture complete. I reach for the pencil.”

‘Writing in the moment’ is like practicing mindfulness. It is a way of being intensely aware of what you’re sensing and feeling, without interpretation or judgment. You can start with simple words like ‘I am…” and off you go. You will not feel stuck because you are writing what you are seeing and feeling at that very moment. Add to it your sense of smell, sound, and touch and your writing will bring your readers into the moment with you.

“I am in heaven, surrounded by rows and rows of old books, music and soft chatter of people in the coffee shop. A friend reminded me of it last week and I decided to spend the day here, writing. Beyond Q is a second-hand bookshop, tucked in a local shopping center. You can easily miss it as it is one flight of stairs down from ground level. As soon as you enter you are hit with the smell of books, the kind which is faintly mixed with dirt. The front counter has a number of tiny-trinkets, you know the painted bookmarks, small boxes, things I like to hold in my hands just to feel their rich texture. I have been here once before, to buy books, but didn’t think of it as a potential place to write. I wonder why. The place has everything – old table and chairs tucked away in corners that can hide you from the view of the lady at the counter and also the new customers, all kind of books for constant inspiration and sweet aroma of coffee. I should come here regularly.”

You can turn a simple excursion into a writing exercise, and when you do that you will enjoy simple things much more and remember them more vividly than you would have.

“It is half-passed two on a balmy Sunday afternoon and we walk from Fiona’s place to the Murrumbidgee river to see the tiny waterfall about 400 meters away. Of all the days, I choose sandals to wear to come to a country property. I borrow a hat from Fiona but there is no way I can borrow her shoes. No one has as small feet as I. The stones and pine-needles at the riverbed looked threatening but there is no way I am going to miss the opportunity to see the waterfall. So off I went.

The grass on the front lawn is soft and cushioning but as soon as we pass the side gate the ground becomes brittle and broken. We slide through the wires of a fence, which is apparently erected to keep the sheep away from the river. It doesn’t seems to be working because we find the riverbed littered with sheep pooh. Walking carefully between the rocks I yell to Fiona who is way ahead of me walking comfortably in her gum shoes, “At some point the river must have been up to here?” “Oh yes, every year, water comes up to here when it rains.” We pass the stones of all shapes and sizes and even colours, soft pink ones with red line and tough grey ones with white liens.

The air started getting heavier, smelling of mist and pine. We hear the waterfall before we see it. Theresa reached there first followed by Moira and for a while we stand still, each one of us poised on a different rock, taking in the little miracle of nature. Gushing muddy Murrumbidgee river falling down just a meter and half, yet so mesmerizing, so beautiful, so loud, drowning every other sound. If you look at running water it always seems like one continuous thing yet it is new water each time. The shape it makes against the rock is always the same. Yet it is new water. It is continuously hammering down, endlessly. If I come here tomorrow, it will still be here, going exactly like this. Even in a month, a year, may be several year.

Each one of us find spot to get comfortable and to write in the moment. The sun is shining through the pine needles which are not able to provide much of a shade, but the dried bulk of them on the floor definitely provides the cushion to sit on. I pick one and break it between my fingers. Dry and brittle, it breaks easily. The river water looked darker and colder when clouds covered the sun, now it looks lighter and little warmer. Little black ants are walking on my bag. Some have even gone inside in search of food. I should have zipped it. They are so fast. A white bird swoops down the river for a drink.

When I finish, I take off my sandals and dip my aching feet in the water. The warm liquid touches the sore bits and takes way the weariness. For a moment I am one with the nature.”

Recently I started using the technique to write about my day in my daily journal. It has made my journal come alive.

I suggest you give it a go. Any time you feel procrastinating or feel stuck, try writing ‘in the moment.’ Just jot down “I am…” or “It is half passed…” and describe where you are and what is going through your mind. And when you are done, share some of your writing here. I would love to hear from you.

Story of a tribal artist

Neera

I found Bhajju Shyam sitting quietly on a shelf of the Airbnb accommodation at my recent trip to Edinburgh. Of course not in person but in a book. If there is one thing I like about Airbnb, it is the unexpected discoveries I am going to make there, particularly of books.

Normally I wouldn’t have picked up this book in a bookstore. It was too thin for a coffee book, too simple as an art book and too scanty as a memoir. Yet it had something going for it that I read it in a single sitting, took photographs of it, researched the artist and writing a post about it a month later.

What was so special about it?

To start with, it’s the title, The London Jungle Book, based on Rudyard Kipling’s famous The Jungle Book it invites you to the adventures of a jungle boy in a different jungle. Then it’s the cover of the book, where a rooster is merged with Big Ben. The freshness of the story is the hook the alerts the reader to a new perspective on the things we take for granted. The beautiful narration by two polished writers (Gita Wolf and Sirish Rao) is also praiseworthy, which captures Bhajju’s voice perfectly, never overpowering it with their own. And finally Bhajju’s unique creativity and use of his traditional art form to express it. The book is a delight.

Bhajju Shyam is an artist from the Gond tribal village of Patangarh, in the forests of central India. “I never set out to be an artist,” he says in the book, “My mother painted the walls of our home, as is our tradition, and she would ask me to paint the parts she couldn’t reach.” The family sent their three children to school but were too poor to put them all through the full term. “One of us would have books, the other would have a uniform and the third would have a bag. If we were all one child, we would have made it through. But we were three and there wasn’t enough to go around.”

But Bhajju had something going for him. He had the opportunity to work for his uncle as an apprentice. His uncle happened to be Jangarh Singh Shyam, the most brilliant Gond artist of the time, and the one who brought Gond art from the wall of the village into the public eye. Bhajju started by filling in the fine patterns on Jangarh’s large canvases, but when his talent became apparent, Jangarh told him one day that the time had come to strike out on his own.

When Bhajju came to London his creativity got ignited through the cultural shock he experienced. Everything was different. He was feeling so many emotions at the same time. He expressed them in the only way he knew, his art.

“I have drawn my own face with 50-50 expression and all the thoughts tangled in the strands of my hair. I am thinking of everything I will leave behind, and I show these things using Gond symbols. The radio: the music I like to listen to when I work; the porcupine: our symbol to ward off danger; the cow: prosperity; the cart: contain all the necessities of life; the plough; the land that feeds us; the mango: my food; the rooster; the keeper of my time; the cot the palace of rest; the tree: the forest; the mouth (with the word language written in Hindi): my language; the other images are my children, my parents and my home.”

His naivety about the common things, things we take for granted, is a breath of fresh air. At one place he says,

“I had never been on a plane before, so I kept trying to get a glimpse of the machine that would carry me to London… The way it happened was like this. It was night and I couldn’t see anything outside. Inside there were only queues and lines of people. So it was queue up, get a stamp on a document, sit down on a row of seats, wait. Then queue up again, another stamp, another row of seats. After this had gone on for a while and we had sat down in one more row of seat in a sort of long waiting room, I asked the man sitting next to me, “When are they finally going to let us get on the plane?” He looked at me strangely and said, “My friend, we’re inside it!”

His fresh perspective about everything is enchanting: viewing England from air for the first time and seeing it like a green sari surrounded by sea creatures; perceiving Big Ben as the timekeeper of London and comparing it to rooster, the timekeeper in his village; thinking of Bus number 30 as a dog, a loyal friend; the London Underground a giant earthworm, and English people as bats that come out to play at night.

So impressed was I with Bhajju’s work and his story that I decided to visit the restaurant where he had done the work. His work has a beautiful mix of innocence and sophistication.

Bhajju’s work began to be known throughout India, and his first international exposure cam in 1998 when he was part of a group exhibition at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. Since then his work has been shown in the UK, Germany, Holland, and Russia. In 2001, he received a state award for Best Indigenous Artist.

Since then Bhajju art is captured in many books The Night Life of Trees, The Flight of the Mermaid, Alone in the Jungle, Creations, That’s How I See Things.

If you get a chance do get one of his books. Also read Maria Popova’s post The London Jungle Book: What an Indian Tribal Artist Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Capacity for Everyday Wonder.

The World Exists To Be Put On a Postcard

Neera

That is the name of exhibition running at The British Museum.

Postcard? When was the last time you heard the word?

Have you received one lately?

Even more so have you sent one lately?

Have you ever thought of postcards as work of art?

Some of the well-known artists did. At least for a period of time. During the 1960s and 1970s postcards were used as artistic medium to highlight political and social issues, such as feminism, anti-war protest and the fight against AIDS.

The World Exists To Be Put On A Postcard highlights a selection of 300 works from more than 1,000 artists’ postcards recently gifted to The British Museum by the novelist and former art dealer, Jeremy Cooper.

I happened to be in the museum to witness this exhibition and was blown away by what could be achieved through humble postcards.

The exhibition has works ranging from feminist artists such as Lynda Benglis and Hannah Wilke, to Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s anti-Vietnam War is Over postcard.

Yoko Ono and John Lennon, War is Over!, 1969–1970. © Yoko Ono and John Lennon 1969.

According to The British Museum blog the artists’ postcard began as a child of the Conceptual and Fluxus movements of the 1960s.

Artists connected with the Fluxus movement often used postcards or ‘mail art’ as part of their artistic practice. In the 1960s and 1970s, the postcard embodied the movement’s engagement with experimental art forms and expressed a disenchantment with the elitism of the art world. The experimental Fluxus artist Ben Vautier created what must be one of the most confusing postcards ever made. It reveals a space on both sides of the card for the address, enabling the writer to send the card to two people at once. When it arrives at the post office, the question is, ‘who should it be posted to’? This dilemma is reflected in the title of the card, The Postman’s Choice.

The British Museum
Ben Vautier, The Postman’s Choice, 1965–1967.

The writer Jeremy Cooper started collecting them in 2008 after an illness because he wanted to reconnect with art without spending huge sums of money. Through dealers and eBay, Cooper has steadily built a vast collection of more than 8,000 works examples, a reflection of the surprising number of artists who have engaged with the medium since the 1960s.

The Guardian

I particularly liked the a postcard by Guerrilla Girls which outlines the benefits of being a woman artist such as working without the pressure of success and not having to be in shows with men.

There were many which had provocative slogans such as “Beethoven was a lesbian” and “I don’t give a shit what your house is worth.”

Certainly the most shocking one was of a man suspended from hooks while photographers took pictures. The British Museum blog has artist approved picture on the site. The artist’s name is Stelarc. He was born in Cyprus and grew up in Melbourne. He specialises in self-inflicting performances. His preferred method of documenting and promoting his work was through postcards.

Overall an engaging exhibition. I am so glad I happen to be in London at the right time.

Words are better than 1000 pictures

Neera

On my recent trip to the UK and Paris, I took thousands of pictures but whenever I think about the trip none of those come to mind. What comes to mind are the moments that were not captured in any of the pictures.

Photos are wonderful and we take so many of them when traveling but there is something about the written word that evokes a stronger sense of place and person. The little entries I made in my diary transport me to those places instantly.

Here is one:

“It is six thirty in the evening, I am walking back from Stonehenge. Sun is still bright. White clouds against the blue sky look magical. Sky is so low here. I feel if I keep walking I will be able to touch it just at the edge of earth. There is something special about this place and it is not the sky. Not even the landscape. It is the silence. Even though the place is full of tourists it is still very quiet here. May be it is the silence of the dead.”

And this one:

“It is five in the evening and I have made it to the top of the Arthur Seat in Edinburgh. The wind is so strong that both my husband and daughter decided not to climb the top rock. It is hard to find footing on the pointed and irregularly shaped volcanic rocks. I haven’t come so far to give it up now. Before they can stop me I start climbing, inch by inch, carefully balancing on almost vertical rock. Rock was not that dangerous, it was the wind. I get to the top and get the photo taken. I do not climb for the photo. I climb to test my resolve.”

But the accompanying photo does not capture any of that.

Neither do any of the photos capture the smell of the highland air, the taste of the Scotland water, the thrust of the Oxford Street crowd or the music at the Paris pub. I couldn’t take photos of my aching feet which made me regret every day that I didn’t pack my hiking shoes with ankle support.

I was not fast enough to take pictures of the double rainbow I saw from the train while going to Paris, neither was I ready to capture the fireworks which started unexpectedly when we were at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Those pictures are itched in my memory forever without the aid of the camera.

You can’t taste a snapshot.

“I am in the Selfridge, sitting in a cupcake eatery, order a cookies and cream cheesecake which my husband are going to share. I take the first spoonful; the creamy sweetness melts in my mouth. I get up declaring ‘I want one all for myself.'”

Bang! the memory floods back and I am back in the eatery tasting the cheesecake once again.

Did I take any pictures of the rude guy who double-parked his car just behind ours making us wait for half an hour, in rain, at Glenfinnan where we stopped to see the Harry Potter bridge? Even if I did, it wouldn’t have told the story.

Or these stories:

“We are walking back from a local pub in rain, hoodies on, umbrellas up, and between my daughter’s constant moaning that we didn’t let her call an Uber for a ten minute walk back home. My son-in-law is warning us not to step on dog-pooh and next moment he steps on one. The drama that followed afterwards was fun to watch. “There is one thing I ask you each time we go out, not to walk on dog-pooh, and you can’t even do that,” goes my daughter. At home, my son-in-law thrusts the shoe under her nose, “Would you like to smell it to make sure it’s dog-pooh and not just mud.” His action starts another row. Half an hour later, husband wife team is still on balcony trying to clean the shoe with wet-ones and earbuds.”

Or this one which will be told in dinner parties for years to come.

“I am standing in a line to go to toilet at Louvre museum. The line is so long that it is flowing out of the female toilets, into the corridor, way past the men’s toilet to the outside lobby while men are in-and-out within minutes. A young guy is trying to persuade his female companions to used men’s toilets. “What are the danger’s of exposure?” asks one of his lady friend. “Try using the first two cubicles,” he advises. Next minute a number of women raid the men’s toilet including me. Once you are inside there is no going back. Only empty cubicle was number 4. So I dash to it, praying all the time that when I get out there is no one using the urinal.”

I remember once reading about a kindergarten teacher who taught her class of five-years-olds how to take mental pictures at a beach excursion. “Take a good look at the sea… and the sky… and the clouds. Notice the color. Now close your eyes and try to see them with your mind’s eye. Take a deep breath and smell in the salty air, feel the wind on your cheeks, hear the sound of the waves. Lock all these in your memory. You will never forget it.”

I think this is the way to take pictures on holiday. With the ease of mobile phones, we spend all our time taking pictures rather than taking in. Maybe in your next travel, we can use the kindergarten teacher’s technique to take a mental picture and enjoy our holidays even more.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Twentieth anniversary of ‘blogs’

Neera

The year 2019 marks the twentieth anniversary when the word ‘blog’ was officially accepted in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Even if you consider the history of the internet, it is not so long ago. Then again, it’s only in the past five to ten years that they have really taken off and have become an important part of the online landscape.

That got me intrigued, so I went digging. A Brief History of Blogging post has lots of interesting information:

“It’s generally recognized that the first blog was Links.net, created by Justin Hall, while he was a Swarthmore College student in 1994. Of course, at that time they weren’t called blogs, and he just referred to it as his personal homepage.

It wasn’t until 1997 that the term “weblog” was coined. The word’s creation has been attributed to Jorn Barger, of the influential early blog Robot Wisdom. The term was created to reflect the process of “logging the web” as he browsed.

1998 marks the first known instance of a blog on a traditional news site when Jonathan Dube blogged Hurricane Bonnie for The Charlotte Observer.

“Weblog” was shortened to “blog” in 1999 by programmer Peter Merholz. It’s not until five years later that Merriam-Webster declares the word their word of the year.

The original blogs were updated manually, often linked from a central home page or archive. This wasn’t very efficient, but unless you were a programmer who could create your own custom blogging platform, there weren’t any other options, to begin with.

During these early years, a few different “blogging” platforms cropped up. LiveJournal is probably the most recognizable of the early sites.

And then in 1999, the platform that would later become Blogger was started by Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan at Pyra Labs. Blogger is largely responsible for bringing blogging to the mainstream.”

It’s 20 years since the birth of the word blog, if not of the act. During these twenty years technologies, kept coming and going. It was all about the web first, then AOL, then “push,” then Web 2.0, then the email was “dead.” Then came social media, newsletters, Slacks, and podcasts.

“Throughout, blogs just stayed quietly in the background. Self-publishing is at the heart of the healthy internet. It’s truly self-publishing when the URL and the means of production are your own,” wrote Marc Weidenbaum in his blog Disquiet.

Marc Weidenbaum urges, “If you garden, blog it (please). If you have a pet monkey, blog it. If you are the repository of some dwindling or otherwise threatened culture, blog it. If you harbor considered thoughts about your profession, blog it.”

Blogs are gardens for ideas. Like a gardener, you plant ideas in a blog and then watch which one grows to become a healthy plant and which one never germinate. You learn how to prepare the ground, which makes them grow, and how to protect them from predators.

Blogging is a must for aspiring writers. You will grow and refine as a writer much quicker than you would write in your journals and diaries. You can still be writing for yourself but only better. The act of hitting the publish button at the end of the day’s writing improves your writing many times. Get a small blog growing in a corner somewhere in the vast land of the Internet and write. Don’t worry about page views, don’t bother with SEOs, or social media promotions, just write.

Blogs are thinking place for artists, somewhere to try out their half-baked thoughts and work on them till they are fully formed. Austin Kleon writes in his book Keep Going:

A blog is the ideal machine for turning flow into stock: One little blog post is nothing on its own, but publish a thousand blog posts over a decade, and it turns into your life’s work. My blog has been my sketchbook, my studio, my gallery, my storefront and my salon. Absolutely everything good that has happened in my career can be traced back to my blog. My books, my art shows, my speaking gigs, some of my best friendships – they all exists because I have my own little piece of turf on the Internet.

Don’t think of your website as a self-promotion machine, think of it as a self-invention machine. Online, you can become the person you really want to be. Fill your website with your work, your ideas and the stuff you care about. Stick with it, maintain it and let it change with you over time.

The beauty of owning your own turf is that you can do whatever you want with it.

Have you been blogging? What are your thoughts about blogging? I would like to know about your blogging journey. Share it with me through the comments section below.

Photo by Francesco Gallarotti on Unsplash