Baby Steps

Eventually, when you emerge into the world
find your two feet firmly tentative, shuffling
muffledly, Unleash your desire into the world recklessly
"walk", you think. (did you just command me?)


Your body, inexorably, acquiesced to motion,
your shoulders still stiff, ready to slump.
Pinpricks - like needles, accompanying sweat beads,
accumulate, accessorizing your neck hair.

Two hundred and six goodish bones, so many
specialised muscle tissues (find out which, yourself)
Limbs, skin, face hanging in the periphery,
won't let on the secret workings of their machinery.


Yeah you can learn lessons of what lies within
collect stories of how we work, when you observe a
cadaver, getting the royal dug-out treatment.
Innards laid bare, a post-person's ultimate unwitting surrender.

Every House

Every house I ever entered

whether to live in or breathe of -

- awhile, I would keep trying

To find the cornermost corner,

At the angle furthest from

When you enter the door.

And then when I encountered

each such corner, I sat down

in the comfortable darkened edge

yet to see the light of knowledge

-That usually pervaded a house -

of who I was, when I entered it.

Yesterday was different.

I had set myself up to fail,

And found that my last corner

Had in turn, turned upon me.

I turned back from my corner

To face the rest of the room

And I was awash in light.

A Not Unraveling

Let me get to the heart

Of the matter at once;

My deepest darkest secret fear

Is that I will let myself down

And crush those that I love,

Through actions that betray

a pathetic lack of courage.

Not uncommon, I know.

Not even unfounded, it’s true.

But the hole in my stomach -

-the dryness of my mouth -

the derailment of thought;

Confer a unique experience

Each time the penny drops

I realized this some time ago,

And that more out of curiosity

About my own internal process

A wonder at my surrender

At my acceptance of paralysis

Will it always be so easy, so familiar

these patterns of failure

I search for my inner Ivanhoe

propelled by a greater fear, of course;

Of time unaccounted; sunken costs –

Standing still – and yet getting lost.

Will I survive not being constantly gratified?

If I split into two, I might see this through

But I can inhabit the future only when it’s now.

The Business of Theatre in the Attention Economy

Last weekend I watched a Hindi play. Although I’m very interested in theatre activity, my work hours and time management prevent me from watching all the plays I would like to. But last weekend, I watched the same play, twice, Saturday and Sunday.

***

Several years ago, or what feels like it, I could contemplate the world for hours, drifting between incomprehension and acceptance. But it doesn't really bother me that I can hardly sit still without having to resort to using the internet, or a phone to constantly re-engage and connect with other living elements of my world.

***

Somewhere I read, a guy had correctly pointed out that we now live in the attention economy where human attention is a scarce commodity. Our reserves of attention and attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, the further we’re exposed to instant gratification and an assault of data and information every way we turn. So something that holds our attention for really long is what will be prosperous in this economy.

***

So when the internet is where-its-at, when your marriage is validated when you update your facebook status, and most of these public and data-rich activities are performed for the public eye, it behooves one to hold the precious and rare away from the scrutiny of jaded, cynical eyes roving through the cesspit these beholders believe the internet to be.

***

I have been living without a functioning computer at my flat for a few months now, and I find that while I’m sorely missing out on the music I want to listen to, I am getting so many other things done that I would never get the chance to do if I would be glued to my twitter timeline every night, or bouncing off the wikisphere or blogosphere drowning in a flurry of hyperlinks. Cooking, reading, talking to friends on the phone once in a while. Yeah, this is not a bad deal.

***

Perhaps at a time like this, an art form like theatre is the most relevant. For art to exist, for artists to survive and interest in art to sustain, it must adapt. But maybe the inability of an art form like theatre to adapt to this age of easy accessibility, unavailability in a virtual form like an e-book or a music album or a film turned into bits, keeps it real. And pure. Theatre remains something to be experienced, in the moment, and is no less visceral in its approach and execution than it was a thousand years ago on the ancient Grecian podiums.

Within every extrovert, there's an introvert screaming to get out.

I've been an extrovert for far too long. So long that I have little clue what to do when I do find myself alone. <cue jokes about jilling off> More often than not, I spend my time dilating my pupils and retreating into that passive wonder-world which also, apparently, obeys the economic dictum of the law of diminishing marginal utility.
It's getting difficult to shake off this state, where there are always things to do, but then you always have so many choices - and you know, YOU get to make the right choice for yourself, the overwhelming knowledge of the fact that your freedom is your responsibility - that I get stuck with what Stephen Fry called options paralysis. Truly, I need to spend more time just doing my own thing and getting the hang of it. Not that I didn't, in the past, but really developing it, honing it and making it my own. Even 'doing my thing' feels like a borrowed pastime.

But really, the way to get unstuck from options paralysis is to reject everything. The most peaceful place in your mind is where there is nothing. Try as you might, 'nothing' is an exceedingly difficult state of mind to achieve. So, the next best thing follows, one thing. But to really do that one thing right, and do justice to it, you have to die first. Die completely. Leave your half-hopeful ambitions, your distant dreams and your exotic-for-the-sake-of-it choices. Let go over the cliff, as the zen monk says. And then your own fears and lethargy and false hopes will never deceive you. Maybe I should give it a shot.

Oh, and hat-tip to ol' Prufrock for that line in the title. It's true.