Explosive Expressions

Writing is like a volcanic explosion that arises from a series of tectonic shifts within the deepest recesses of the soul. It just happens. We can investigate the mechanism, yet the the true inspiration that put the entire chain into motion is unbeknownst to the most awed observer, the most fiery volcano, or even the luscious liquid that lazily oozes out. Trying to force your hands into such an orifice in hopes of capturing the rush of this particular episode results in no more than a brobdingnagian burn and your desi family complaining about your darkening skin tone. But, when you wait, and then wait just a little bit more, you might just get the opportunity to experience something nonpareil, something surreal.

Greasy Friends

Its only when you lose something when you really begin to realize how much it meant to you.  For so long, we were all together--one collective mass, one united group.  The shades of our skins, the grooves of our texture, and even the smell of our flesh, all of it was irrelevant.  No one cared for any of those words they emphasized in kindergarten, not "special," not "unique," not even "individuality."  In essence, not a single one of us mattered.  Never once had anyone cared for one of us individually.  But when we were together, people would love us.  They sacrificed their wealth and even their health to be with us.  Naturally, we learned to consort; from germination to sublimation, we trusted no one except each other.

But now, all that was long gone.  They had left me.  They had reached for the skies and left me in the the pits.  As I rotted away, they were basking in the mysterious wonders of life outside these brown walls.  The beautiful, rhythmic sounds of snapping and cracking coming from the outside world did nothing to extinguish the burning desire I had to join my comrades.  Nevertheless, my cronies had abandoned me and I was losing hope.  I was the last fry in the brown paper bag.

I've always had a soft spot for that last fry that you find at the bottom of the bag.  Somewhere between not being a fan of eating too much unhealthy food and being habitually cheap, you'll find the reason for why I usually end up splitting my fries with my brother.  Regardless of the reason, we invariably end up going to arbitration to decide how to split them evenly.  What I mean by arbitration is that we follow Man-Code (c) Law 38, Section 2: If one dude splits the goods, the other dude gets first dibs.  In the case that neither dude is willing to assume the role of the splitter of stacks, Mom just makes the stacks and assigns them to the appropriate dude.  Now as ingenious as the legends behind Man-Code (c) are, this verdict leaves in question the fate of those elusive fries who strategically hide in between the oily walls of the paper bag and napkins laden with the messy run off of the magical sauces that beatify the burgers.  Those, my friends, are "first come, first serve."

The marathon through our pile of fries is one that is relentless in the toll it takes on  me, my taste-buds (I consider them an independent party because they often take the liberty of making their own decisions), and anyone within close proximity of me.  There are tales of vital condiments such as salt, vinegar, and the quintessential blob of ketchup being passed over in this rush--yes, even the ketchup.  But to the victor go to the spoils of the incomparable, indescribable fry that lingers in solitary confinement at the bottom of the bag.

Its funny if you think about what would happen if that fry fell on the ground as you picked up your order from the counter or as you were setting it on your table.  It probably wouldn't have been a big deal.  I wouldn't have really minded, but now that its the very last one it becomes a treasure worthy of--dare I say it--a straight to cable movie.  If someone asked me to pay for one single fry rather than the entire frypod full of them, I would probably laugh at them.  One fry? Its not worth anything.  Being a part of the larger group is what gives it value.  Without its companions, its friends, it is like a bug without a windshield.

At the time, I was just busy eating my burger and rushing to get to that last fry.  But just like my beloved last fry at the bottom of the bag, I learned that its hard to value appreciate things as they occur.  As you're caught up in the moment, there's too much happening to really understand what is really going on.  Our brains are crazy little things that process so much every millisecond but also filter out so much more.  Hopefully, your's realized that "a bug without a windshield" wasn't supposed to make any sense but that's okay because you still got the point.

Only after the fact can you really comprehend the value of what you had, even of what you still have.  After a great meal, but more importantly, after hours of hearty laughs, spilled drinks, and a ton of those jokes that are only funny when you tell them the first time like the kind "you kinda had to be there to get," after all that, I came to realize how much friends matter.  They laugh with you and they yell at you.  The win with you and they lose with you.  But most importantly, they are there for you.

Slowly but surely, all of us are moving out of the bag.  Some get to go swimming in vat of ketchup while others just get moved into new bags.  Its only a matter of time until this bag is empty but as long as we're in here, let's make the most of it.

Trains with Flat Tires

I wake up every morning and try to have some kind of plan in mind, just some kind of basic outline of what I need to do, what I want to do, and what I plan to do.  More often that not, this plan is obsolete before I finish brushing my teeth.  Tonight, I found myself surrounded by a throng of zonked men, complete with beads of sweats rolling down their foreheads, as they struggled through "Chaiya Chaiya."  Essentially, we were tired from the hard work we'd put in over the last few hours on the basketball court and, in our altered states of mind, a certain someone decided to begin an impromptu karaoke session.  I'll spare you the details.

Not too long after, we found ourselves scurrying around the parking-lot looking like clueless tourists who had lost their maps.  No one knew what to do.  No one knew who to call.  No one saw this one coming.  A throng of young men with deep voices, facial hair, and car keys but not one of us was really sure of how to handle a flat tire--not just flat but "deflated like an grizzled grape turning into a raisin" kinda flat.  After making some startling discoveries--yes, there was a spare; yes, someone found the long rod you needed to unlock the spare tire with hidden behind the backseat between a crusty old jacket with stains from those crazy days where water fell from the skies and a bag of what used to be hot cheetos--we were able to get through it.  Sure it took plenty of time, a nice dose of elbow grease, and an unnecessary bout with lubricated wrenches, but we got through it.

Nevertheless, after that long, unplanned expedition into previously uncharted levels of manliness, I felt the need to drag one last laugh out of our fatuous journey into the realms of 1990s bollywood lore.  I just had to post the music video on my friend's wall.  I could tell he was already expected me to.  I could just tell.  So naturally, I did.  But amongst all that asininity, I actually learned something interesting.  "Chaiya Chaiya" was based on a poem called "Thaiyya Thaiyya" from the Sufi tradition.  After throwing in a little more wikipedia and sprinkling in some google, I found myself on the heels of another poet, one of the most beloved sufi writers of all time, Jalal ad-Din Rumi.  The gem of his that I had come across was as follows:

"Late, by myself, in the boat of myself, no light and no land anywhere, cloud cover thick. I try to stay just above the surface, yet I’m already under and living within the ocean."

After a long day which took me on expeditions and journeys I never saw coming, these words hit home.  We think so much yet we know so little.  We plan so passionately yet we deviate from these plans so regularly.  There's obviously some disconnect, something we keep missing over and over again.  So much of our lives are spent underwater in that we can never see things clearly for what they truly are. Out thoughts and insights are like the rising waves that allow us to ascend above the upper limits of the surface just long enough to feel the impact of coming crashing down. No matter how much we push ourselves, our vision always seems to be impaired.

Being in this state prevents us from being able to undeniably distinguish what the truths are and what the illusions are.  What we can do, what want to do, and what is actually going to happen is just a jumbled mess; we base our plans on assumptions that we struggle to ever be too sure of. It brought back high school English memories of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" in that we never see the true reality.  Like the men chained to the ground in Plato's tale, we spend our entire lives looking at shadows that the truth casts; we look at shadows and illusions as we hopelessly try to make distinctions between what we see and what we want to see, struggling to tell apart dreams, visions, and reality.  The plans we make and the goals we pursue fall somewhere in between but undoubtedly they are based on that same shaky foundation that takes but a small wave to send crashing down.

Just like that flat tire, we usually don't see things coming.  Life tends to creep up on us like that just to keep it interesting. But regardless of how many potholes there are on the road, we just have to keep our eyes on the beautiful horizon hovering overhead.  We may not be sure of where tomorrow is going to take us but I know that I want to make the best sand castle possible before the waves send it crashing back down.

Thank Me Later

Studying is like that that person you invite over to your house for a party just because you "have" to.  You don't really know why, but you just know that you have to.  Its like an unwritten code of ethics for all social gatherings: Regardless of how many people thou chooseth to inviteth, thee must invite enough kill joys to keep everyone from havingeth too much fun.  So this kill joy, I'm going to name him Maxis.  He has a funny accent and you never quite know what he is saying but you know you don't like it.  He also kinda smells funny but that really doesn't matter because he always shows up after the guy with the stinky feet has decided to take his socks off but that's a different story.  The thing with Maxis is that he always shows up late.  So late that you usually forget that you even invited him.  You're having a good time, enjoying yourself, and BAM! Maxis shows up.

Now when Maxis walks in, he always tries to play it cool and does this really pathetic moonwalk entrance where he basically just ends up walking in backwards.  So since he walks in backwards, everyone says his name backwards and calls him "Sixam".... okay, so I've been writing under the false pretense that Marxis backwards would somehow spell "exam."  Obviously, that didn't work out as planned and I've already made the poor guy try to moonwalk through a doorway so there's not turning back now.  So anyways, finals tend to creep up on you.  Undoubtedly, you find yourself stuck with the inescapable "kill joy" called studying.

So inaptly named--there is nothing studly about studying--studying is what gnaws at our precious minutes of sleep, heartlessly carves our schedules into unrecognizable abominations, and eventually massacres our sense of free time until every moment is stained with a sense of guilt that even the strongest bleach won't rinse out.  There's something really perplexing about this beast.  Dare I say it, its paradoxical but more on that later.  This beast has mastered the art of deception.  Just as you get into a natural routine of skipping classes, making up numbers for homework problems, and telling yourself you'll catch up on the reading next week, this naughty little beast raises its disgusting face from the deep canyon that lies between the binding in the middle of every textbook.  If you look at where two pages of a text book meet together, right in the middle, you'll find a bottomless chasm where the binding lies.  Behind layers of bread crumbs and the occasional stray hair, studying lurks, waiting to spring up when least expected.  Although its mastery of choosing bad times is legendary, when it comes at you, you have to face it head-on.  The battle is a tough one but one you must face.

Okay, cut!  Stop the epic music.

Studying is still kind of crazy though.  When you get ready to study for something, you usually sit down with an idea of what you need to do--what concepts you need to go over and when you need to go over them by.  You usually allot a certain amount of time for getting this job done, and, if you're really organized (or you're just looking for another way to waste time before actually picking up a book), you might even plan out when you were going to go over the specific parts of whatever you're studying.  Then you sit down and start actually doing what you planned.  Undoubtedly, there comes a point very early in the process where you realize that its taking you way too long to get through this.

It always happens.  You could give yourself 3 weeks and you'd still find a way to not solve 15 divided by 5.  It might involve breaking a calculator, losing some appendages, and who knows what else but I guarantee you that I could make it happen.  But after all that fun stuff, the really crazy stuff happens.  The longer you spend on something, the less you seem to know.  Once you finally get what's been going on in class all these weeks, you have twice as many questions about the how's, the where's, and the when's.  Its like when you were a kid and decided to run up the wrong side of the escalator.  The faster you tried to run up the wrong way, the faster the elevator seemed to go as it forced you right back to where you started from--ignorance.  Exercise makes us stronger.  Eating makes us fuller.  Everything that we do as people seems to helps us reach the means we hoped for, at least to some extent.  Studying doesn't seem to work that way.

For all those still struggling: 15 / 5 = 3.  In Drake's words, "Thank me later."

But maybe we're looking at it wrong.  Maybe the purpose of studying isn't to simply be able to cram in a bunch of random facts so that you can rub a pencil in the little printed bubble on a multiple choice scantron.  Maybe, just maybe, the purpose of studying is to just come up with more questions.  To be more confused, to recognize how little we know, to become truly lost in the sheer vastness of knowledge... maybe that is what learning is supposed to lead us to.

Now, only if someone could get this to my professors in time.

I'm hoping if enough people leave comments, use the follow blog function, and repost this post on their facebook/twitters/etc, I might have a chance of that happening.

Paratas in the Morning

Maya Angelou once said, "The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart."  Apparently, she's a poet—well, according to wikipedia at least; nevertheless, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that she might know a little something something about what she's talking about.  Her inspiring words really underscore the idea that writing is one of the most critical skills we pick up as children.  We know how to write the words "cat" and "dog"; "family" and "love"; and even "honesty" and "loyalty" long before we know what those words really mean. Okay, maybe a few of you knew what a "cat" or a "dog" was as kids but I'm trying to repress a traumatizing childhood memory of being chased by a tiny poodle in the park so work with me here.


Another word that I remember learning as a kid was "heart."  I didn't know what it meant.  It was supposed to look something like ♥ but with tubes and holes for the blood to go through.  But, it came to mean so much more.  Something about the heart made my Mum wake up extra early to make me paratas for breakfast before I left for school.  Somewhere in the heart I was supposed to dig, dig deep, to play harder on the basketball courts.  Some voice from the heart was supposed to stop me from turning into Pinocchio and teach me right from wrong.  This heart, it was the place I was supposed to reach into when my body was exhausted, when my efforts were met with failure, and when I still needed to keep going.


I've read anatomy books about it.  I've googled it.  I've even google imaged it, albeit with my safesearch settings at "moderate."  I've seen corny movies about it and even seen people cry over it.  I even went as far as taking a picture of my heart at work. And yes, that is actually MY heart's electrical activity you see up there.  At the end of the day, in spite of holding it close to my heart—pun intended—for so many years, I'm still not completely sure of all that a "heart" can do.