BrainSurged

I remember the first post on this blog. I was high on steroids and bubbling with Joie de vivre after a simple corrective surgery after years of wondering. Then the posts turned dark as my thoughts went darker, and that reflected in my every day. This time around, I'm struggling not to look for darkness everywhere. I am afraid to hope, to have an optimistic prognosis when something positive happens. Perspective is still required.  "Perspective still required!" Anybody who's ever stepped foot in a gym; is self-aware and/or not a narcissist, like me, can attest to the feeling of insufficiency I describe. In Neuro-rehab for the whole month, I see both terribly hurt and recovering patients and disgustingly fit people. As I sit panting after fifteen or so minutes of biking, I see my instructor lifting weights. The muscles I had no idea exist in a human body on his body make me avoid his half of the gym. In my peripheral vision, I immediately recognize other never-me-level f...

       It's been longer than a month since I blogged. It started in a funk - I was depressed and my writing was making everybody else depressed. I stopped my musing online since I didn't want a legacy like Goethe's - and end up with a future Wikipedia entry that reads: "good enough writer, but people died by suicide after reading her blog!". I also stopped writing because I felt like nothing was worth it. Depression is just a symptom and one cannot put a plaster on a seeping wound by not addressing the cause. In my case, my shunt was broken and has been probably for the past year. Thought you had a bad 2020? I have you beat there!      Anyway, one more drilling and now I am back where I was a year ago- corrective brain surgery is done and waiting for the rest of my life to begin- albeit a more subdued, less optimistic, more realistic me now. If you had wondered why I wouldn't shut up about my little brain surgery from a year ago, this was why. It wasn'...

Nope, not another article about any idiot Trump . It's all about me, as usual. In that way, I'm indeed like Trump. At least in my blog. Me and my feelings and my thoughts and my blog- it's all I seem to write about. In the past silent while, my shunt has been its mercurial self, and hence, I haven't been myself. Ideas galore, fatigue, and bone-weary from the ineptitude that I think I show. Also, I constantly ask myself what difference my writing or painting or singing or reading or coding or parenting or my life itself- makes. If I am to be Hemingway, I'd already been one, won't I? In my rational moments I know it's not for others that I write, but my self. In my other moments that seems selfish. On the other hand, without serving my purposes, am I some other kind of unnatural being that is completely altruistic? Not even plants are that. Surely, not my kind of living thing called humankind. So there! My brain not-withstanding, I am a writer and I shall writ...

I show you the Pulitzer Photo A dying child and a waiting vulture A man behind the lens of the image He died, as they did too, two unnaturally. When you won't eat your dinner- I remind you of that little child bent of hunger, aged by strife But your bit of leftover get to another bent child before another vulture? How? You ask- and I'm a thesaurus of 'Not knowing!' I cry about a child killed on a picnic I watch his dad look for a new bag, Find it and destroy himself in grief And I look at you and cannot be glad that you are here and I am me We watch them die because of luck of birth I have you and live now by chance God might be a palatable reason But I have none, and so you don't Why? You ask- and I tell you 'Not Always!' Execution in daylight Armed girl demanding justice, and not vengeance and I don't know why not! What other justice can there be A life for all those lives, is against law of the jungle that is human One predator decides how the prey lo...

       Blinkist and Balance are two useful things on my phone - which is normally used as an e-reader. I woke up this morning to an audiobook Winners take all by Anand Giridharadas . I won't elaborate on the book, beyond that it is well-written and emotive.  Just had a revelation that I am better off meditating whilst in bed, rather than reading about the current state of the world or any coming apocalypse, aka the news. So, after the usual morning necessities for the kids, I sat down to my writing. As described above, my mood already was pretty down in the dumps. Then I read the news, as I am a creature of habit- once, years ago I felt good reading the news, so now I read it every few hours even if it makes me miserable. The first iteration was the usual nonsense about idiots, idiots in power, depressing things about things I care about, and topics falling under the 'who gives a fig' category. My brain collapsed later this morning though, after readi...

When I started blogging just about three months ago, I  intended it to be a form of therapy, a solitary odyssey of understanding myself. I most definitely didn't expect the rest of the world to join my quarantine and obsessively self-reflect all over the internet. As with every other activity, I wanted this period to be mine and mine alone. Oh, well! Ironically, my view of humanity is infinitely more positive, while under house arrest. If this goes on, I will soon be a Humanitarian and be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, like Aung San Suu Ki. (And taken back soon after, like hers deservedly should be!) ...that trajectory probably would be to someplace beautiful. And that makes all the difference! I had lived most of my mature years expecting normal behavior from myself and failing, and flogging myself for failing to meet my baseline for "normal". Normal is synonymous with Average in my mind, and Average is the minimum acceptable. So, now I wonder why would I expect myse...

Until late last year, I was no fan of Doctors; I was practically on the other end of the scale. I'm sure all of us, doctors included, have suffered from medical incompetence in one form or another. But, like me, unless you get sick, you don't see the beauty of the competence and dedication of medical professionals.  Nobody, especially me, starts out in a profession solely to help others. I am sure all the doctors and surgeons and nursing staff carefully evaluated their strengths before deciding on their career paths. It simply is imperative that one has to fundamentally care for people, more than the rest of us do, in order to arrive at this trajectory of careers. I have always been a very good student, a good artist and curious about Biology and the sciences. Translated, I was a prime candidate for medical school. Luckily for me, I was self-aware enough even as a teenager to realize that I cannot interact with people that much, and pretend to like them for extended periods. No...

The rousing words on Twitter, Quora and other useless social places for the unsociable and/or quarantined, spurred me into action. Made a brain-damage friendly to-do list app, for personal use, obviously. It looks absolutely unremarkable thus far, and will be updated on GitHub if it ever gets remarkable. In the meantime, what to do about the At-home monsters? In all the articles about the age of social distancing/Covid-19, nobody is complaining about too much socializing. I used to have a minimum of eight hours alone every single day and today is the day 14 of my socializing with three people, minimum, every day. That's three too many! Fun fact: Viricide is the act of killing a virus- also the word for killing one's husband! Ha! I was looking for the word for the latter. I'm not entirely sure this is a real definition or other wives' wishful addition to the English language. Covid-19 doesn't pose that much immediate threat, by comparison. My descriptive idiom is s...

     Two prisoners were infected with a biological virus. They had the option of going out in the world and then dying while making a lot of other people sick. They had the option of staying in prison until they got better, after a month or so. There was also the option of staying just with each other and not going out at all. The last two choices are ours. What are we accomplishing out with other people anyway, besides making them sick? This is a rather obvious and easier Prisoner's Dilemma and with more win-win options. Never saw the point to talking with a lot of people anyway! So, quarantined me is not in any dilemma. Life as I prefer it usually, except less alone than I like it. Covid-19 enforced seclusion time for everybody almost everywhere. No complaints about that. I think about the three-year-old daughter of my friend on remission whenever my daughter complains about no school or no play-dates. It is for kids like her that we should all distance ou...

I discovered the purpose of this blog. I am not writing to any audience. I am not even addressing any change. I believe something, yet nothing I believe is changing anything in me. It is my truth of the moment that I am elucidating. To what purpose? I didn't know until recently. I am voicing the thoughts of one of my personalities. One of my characters of one of my first books. Sometime down the years, I shall read this post again and realize this to be a turning point in my life. Or perhaps smile at my bombastic pronouncements. But, why not? If we can't even dream flamboyantly, what good is all this excess? I am not a romantic like Rousseau. Rousseau himself admired Voltaire who critiqued his Julie, as "silly, philistine, shameless and boring". Most popular literature, social media and indeed culture itself today, is "silly, mindless, shameless and boring". Voltaire, Sartre and Nietzsche mostly make sense to me. Classical music makes sense. Some m...

I woke up this morning because my eyelashes rubbed against my bed sheets, noisily. I have heard the term "deafening silence", but I have no notion what silence sounds like. Nothing is ever silent - to me. Perhaps if it were, I wouldn't have this extreme insomnia. I was once suggested ASMR videos to cure my insomnia. Sort of like suggesting having a rope on your neck while you sit on the electric chair! My extreme sensitivity to sounds is socially crippling me (along with my other neuroses). I love my daughter's voice from another room. But when we are in closer proximity, her sweet voice grates my nerves. Feels like she is shredding my scalp like cheese. My son has quite a loud volume for so little a person. I don't even want to think about my husband's voice. He laughs quite a lot - lucky for him, but his laughter makes me want to jump around like crazy frog! He also sings, as a stress-relieving exercise- badly by any damn standard. Which sets o...

I have a bookshelf. And books on shelves. And everywhere else. I also have eBooks on three laptops, at least three phones, e-tablets and an external hard disk. In just one of my devices, I realized I have about 531 GB of books. This realization gave me such profound joy. Of all my maladies, Tsundoku is the only one I have no intention of addressing or ameliorating. I will, for now and ever, happily collect all the books I like and go to my grave with at least a half of them unread- and be happy with that part of my legacy. The reason this came up today was because I saw something unappetizing. Loving books and having a voracious appetite for reading and collecting books makes me economize by getting free books however possible. I am pretty sure I am not averse to stealing them when tempted enough. Luckily, I am so far honest, for want of opportunity! Thanks to almost free eBook websites like leanpub.com! So, imagine a book like this, at a place one goes to download free boo...

The Germ magnets we cultivate at home, aka our children, both together gave me the flu. Quite the listless two weeks past. Or may be it was three weeks and I lost count! Add on the Corona Virus hysteria online, flu and sick kids = I was a complete hermit. As usual! As my head heals everyday, I find reasons to be more and more optimistic. And this was yesterday's silver-lining - to all those people asking me to socialize! A few years ago, on a particularly miserable fourteen hour flight to San Diego from Frankfurt, en route every miserable, unnecessary stop to cut costs, I sneezed, may be three times, in quick succession. Three times, which, given my dust allergy and the number of smokers aboard my different flights, was laughably few. However, those three sneezes made my neighbor to harangue me with questions about where I am coming from- Africa, Asia, eastern Europe? Have I some kind of illness that can be transmitted? I should have said I have A...

I have decided to alternate between taking myself seriously and laughing at myself. It is not in my nature to do it all at the same time. One bad thing is all it takes for a day of great happenings to change complexion in  my memory. Which needs to change, yes, but while it does, I can think whatever I feel like that day. And today is about the girl next door having greater expectations! Or about being a girl next door to anyone with greater expectations! In a Coursera Course about Success, Wharton Professor G. Richard Shell asks his students to rate four people in order of most success. One does the ranking after reading about the summary of the lives of the four individuals. Then the Professor talks some more about his own life and how he failed to meet his own definitions of success. Now, we are asked to rate the same individuals on success if they were our children. My ranking methods changed significantly. I want all that is flashy and loud and rich for myself, and I am ve...