13th December, 2013

If this blog were a bookshelf, I would be buried in its dust.
I wonder if it counts as intentional oversight or if my laziness has just transcended to a whole new level.

I spent the whole day revisiting my old PS2 games and Scrabble game with the mother.

I wish I could put into words how lost all this makes me feel. In my never-ending search for meaning in everything, I have only been shown further confusion.

I cannot even think of a title for this post.
100% rant, is all this is.
Perhaps some unease thrown into it.

My reading list on blogger had more than 20 blogs frequently updated. Bursting with stories.
Apart from a couple, the others are defunct.
I blame Twitter, really.
Words have more meaning and power than is felt and expressed by 140 characters.


I have no words left for tonight. Like I said, the bookshelf had to be tidied.





-
V

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Now Reading  :  http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/6/5126856/whats-in-your-bag-katie-drummond
Now Listening : Dreams Money Can Buy - Drake , Feel Good - Emil Berliner
Now Feeling : The onset of a sneeze.

Have Some KitKat

Another update on the phone front. 

I have highly anticipated the release of Android 4.4 KitKat but to my slight frustration, phones like the Moto X got their OTA before my Nexus 4, which I think was a little unfair. 

But all that aside, its here, and it is beautiful. The changes appear to be subtle but are pretty immense once you're trying to settle into the ecosystem. That calm blue colour highlighting associated with Android since ICS all the way to JellyBean 4.3 is replaced with this super cool, straight out of sci-fi white.

The dialler app is one trippy motherfucker right now and its also got its own TrueCaller like implementation, so it searches for business' numbers if you're calling any.

That being said, my favourite feature, by far of the 4.4 update, is how the lockscreen shows full size album art of whatever is playing..

But the main feature of 4.4 that I have been drooling over since the pre-release photo of the Nexus 5 were the transparent navigation an notification bars.

Although, as I learned today, the swipe left on the homescreen to launch Google Now and the transparent bars are exclusive to the Nexus 5. 

I have a feeling this feature will probably roll out on future iterations and even if thats not true its only going to take Nova Prime a little while to get it. (In case you didn't know, you can sign up for a Nova Launcher Beta, install the .apk file over your existing Nova Launcher to take advantage of the transparent bars feature )

Now you may notice that my screen shot shows transparent notification and navigation bars. What is this sorcery, you might ask.


Well, take your lazy fingers to Google and search for an article that Android Police wrote about how they too were disappointed that the transparency is a Nexus 5 exclusive.
So they did something pretty impressive. They took out the Google Experience Laucher (thats what the stock launcher is called on the N5) and basically installed that apk on any other device running KitKat.

So far, the only compatibility issues are a non-centered Google search bar and I think that happens only on Nexus 7s

Feel free to leave a line, if you need some help

-

V

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Now Listening : Retrograde - James Blake
Now Reading : The Design of the UNIX Operating System - Maurice J Bach

Now Feeling : A little annoyed

Cloud Storage

What must it feel like to be a memory?
To be stored somewhere, dormant, impotent for an undisclosed and unimaginably infinite amount of time.
To possess the ability to instill nearly any possible cocktail of emotions in somebody.

Come to think of it, we're all memories in a way, already. Where even digitally captured moments can soon turn us to into old dusty photographs. Where we may soon be referred to as someone's better half, someone's father, someone's dear friend.
We live in a cynical world that allows us to partially but still peacefully exist in oblivion and then catches us by the throat and calls us to do our memory-related duties.
But in the very sense of dualism that only you and I may be able to comprehend, we are also, not, memories now.
All that surrounds us, all that we choose to surround ourselves with, the faces we see, faces we choose to love, the faces we unknowingly and uncontrollably admire, are all happening now.
The memories you call upon now and all the related thought processes are all happening now.
Do you not think of that as a good thing?

Im in that extraordinary place where everything is special, and nothing is.
Where nothing is invisible but not everything is entirely visible.
And yes, that makes perfect sense.

I can only hope, that memory or not, I have a good time.

You can carry on now.
-
V

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Although I wrote this only sometime back, they are collected feelings of late today morning and the after-effects of watching The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, which I liked.
As for the title, keeping in mind the content of the piece, is like my pun on how we store memories now.

Now Reading : Darkly Dreaming Dexter - Jeff Lindsay
Now Listening : Again - Archive
                         Red Dust - Zero 7
Now Feeling: Pretty damn good man.

Of All Things Lively

Hello.

Maybe its been too long since I wrote here. Maybe it hasn't.
But somehow, no matter how much I try, I can't write unless there's that sudden spark of inspiration.
I always imagine an artist can doodle something anytime. And a musician can always make a tune in progress.
Maybe writers pen short fiction and poems in these mid-spaces where inspiration is absent.
But somehow I can't.

Although I do have a pretty radical explanation to it.

What if what I perceive as inspiration isn't it? What if there's more? What if every moment until you realize you're inspired is in some way a small parcel of the overall inspiration?
Reading that sentence makes me shudder at how optimistic I am sometimes. I like being realistic. If you're gonna drown, you're gonna drown. Can't really tell you the water's nice and warm then, can I?
But maybe as humans we're programmed to believe in something? To always hope. To always look up and hope to see something that prolongs this eternal hope.
That line made me a little sad. But sadly enough, it is the truth. 

On unrelated notes, thanks to the unreliability in availability of an Internet connection in India, I've started maintaining a journal. Its probably something I should have done a long while back, but I guess something kept stopping me.

I hope  to find more meaning to life in the emptiness of the pages that will no doubt be filled.

And if you've been reading this all along and somehow within you a voice agrees, that maybe this dude has a point (most of the time), then Im being bold enough to ask you if agreeing with me has indeed affected you?
Its probably the most powerful thing someone can do. Inspire.
Especially unintentionally.
Imagine if someone shaped their lives based on something you once said. Or an action you once did.

But I said I was a realist. And that includes acknowledging the other side of the coin. Its an act of inspiration. Doesnt require that the person continue to be that way all the time. Or even that the particular quality you found interesting about someone is no longer there. That doesn't necessarily make them uninteresting or uninspiring but it sure as hell makes me wonder.

Why stories should have definite endings.
Because more often than not, its enough that we know of one incident and learn to move on from the experience and not let it rule us.
Like how in Asterios Polyp, they choose not to show anything beyond Asterios reuniting with his lover. Somehow its the best ending the book can leave you with. The knowledge that he has gained redemption, meaning and he's reunited with the woman who completes him, however abstract a concept that might be.

Maybe we too should choose the endings for certain moments in our lives. Save on the pain and spread some love, maybe.

Try reading this listening to Dawn at the Deuce and Sail on Soothsayer by Buckethead.

I shall end now, hoping that its adequate to say no more,

V

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Now Reading - Transmetropolitan

Now Listening - Sail on Soothsayer - Buckethead

                              Kaliyuga - Engine Earz Experiment

                              Khoya Khoya Chand - Kala Bazaar

Now Feeling  - Calm?

What's In A Story?

Hello.
My exams near. Any more discussion on that topic is strongly discouraged.


This post is made thinking of one of the most interesting people I know in this world. His identity is kept a secret by choice.

What makes a story memorable?
What makes you remember one story and forget the rest?
Spoiler alert, I dont have the answer. Sorry.


Some people look at their lives as a photograph, some as a film, some as a book, some as a song,  some as a game of tennis and some as an equation. I take these specific examples because I know atleast one in each of the aforementioned categories.
I also know this one person who looks at the world as the women he can love, the women he can't, and the rest.
Its a personal question to ask somebody how they see their lives. But Im assuming we're amongst friends here and Il just skip right to the part where I tell you that I look at my life as a story. A work of fiction. A balance of the elements that make a good, crisp story.
I wonder why storytelling is only a hobby and not an explicit profession?
I like to remember my life as multiple stories that I can tell. Will "I can share" be a better usage, I ask?

My grandfather, every encounter with him, results in atleast 2 stories I wish I could tell as my own. Things as simple as his school routine in the 50's or how he got a job at the age of 16 or how his school fees were Rs. 4 a month. Or his last conversation with his father.
I wonder out of the thousands he's got to tell, the ones he remembers vaguely, the ones that shall forever remain a secret, I've but been told of a mere handful.
Its like squatting one mosquito, knowing how many more are left.

I wish by reading that, you too would want to share as many stories as possible with the people around you. Spread the love, so to speak.
Because the infinite things that you now leave unsaid, the things that you now find embarrassing, and the promises that only you remember, seem so much more human, when you say it with a story.
And does it not excite you by the possibility of gaining knowledge about someone's life ? Knowledge that doesn't necessarily contribute to you academically or technically. But is there really anything more intimate than knowing the colour of someone's toothbrush? (Just an example)


And would we not appreciate a secret more if we knew the story behind it?
The deepest darkest secrets I keep, I keep them for a reason. The reason must never be a secret. Why not incorporate said reason into a story, is my argument.



Speaking of stories, check out "Snow, Glass, Apples" by Neil Gaiman (mind-fucking-blowing author), "Memento Mori" by Jonathan Nolan (Chris Nolan used this as inspiration for Memento) and some O.Henry if you've got the time.



Now once again, it is time I leave you with nothing but your own thoughts. When we become as scary and as loving as we can possibly be.

Good Night,
V






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Hope is never lost, Only forgotten
- Yours truly


"And the secret, of course, to any list is to keep it in a place where you're bound to see it."

- Memento Mori - Jonathon Nolan

Now Reading :  Timeline - Michael Crichton

Now Listening : Pretty Lights - Finally Moving

                         Tor.Ma in Dub - Smile

Now Feeling : Slightly discontent

Freedom Is Just A Word

Hey you.
How are you?

Those 3 words I just typed, I ask them everyday, a million times to everyone I meet in all the languages I know those words in. But I dont know how many of them I actually care about. How many people's replies to those 3 words will actually affect my state of mind. But I still continue asking this question everyday and will continue to do so till I exit. Why? Because I might just start caring.


Now, onto what this post is all about.
What is freedom?
Most people spend an entire life never answering that question. And if you think a 16 year old can answer that in a blog, you should probably go read something else.
I know people in my family, and even teachers from my school who have tried to capture that would get them freedom and failed miserably. One who found that freedom was less freer than what he just escaped and another who found freedom in what he once despised.
Point is freedom is not something we all want. Freedom is an opposite of what one currently has. Freedom is a perspective different from reality. Different as in an altogether 180 of reality. The other side is greener. And most of the times when you cross the road, you get run over by a truck. Most of the time we're like bugs, fascinated by the lamp but unaware that touching it is gonna burn us. Fascinated by the outside but fail to see the glass that stops us from going through.

Freedom is a concept that we have to understand, we may never truly understand.
Freedom is in Manual labour. In driving a convertible car with the wind rushing past your face. Its coming home to a beatiful son/daughter. Its living life on your own terms. Its yourself. Its Literature. Its Music. Its Chocolate.

And while this is freedom to you it may be what I'm trying to free myself from. That is perspective.

All said and done, we all fight for freedom, live for freedom. But how do we know we actually have it? I dont know.


But, as ever, there is a possibility (isn't there always?) that what I've written is all wrong and there is no freedom. For all we know, that may be the truth.
Maybe accepting this truth is freedom.


Think Again. Maybe Freedom is just a word. Another word for life.
So find life. Find life in your life. And you've found freedom.


A Free Man,
V



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Now Listening : Coil-Opeth
Day That Never Comes - Metallica

Now Watching : Traffic. Muscat Traffic.

Just Read : The Blue Nowhere - Jeffery Deaver (Awesome Book)


Now Dreading : The Approach of the Exam