Theres a huge emphasis on ‘Never Giving Up’. But it is more important to give up on the things that don’t serve the larger goals in life. Time and resources are finite and beckon to be used on meaningful things. Not giving up should be reserved to only the most important endeavors. To find abundant time and resources for them to thrive. We carve out and consume time for it to be never available again. Does it serve our goal to lasting happiness or does it serve the status quo

We go through our daily life not knowing we are governed by the possibilities allowed by our systems. A few things we choose to include in our lives dictate the rest of what is possible. Cities promote haste Jobs - competitiveness Capitalism - short sightedness Social media- low self-worth Schools - servility …and so on. It is not that these systems have total control over us, but its always going to gravitate more towards one possibility and not being affected by it is an en

One of the lines that Adriene from her online Yoga class says is to ‘Shine a light on the dark crevices’ and she means this for the physical body where many of the organs or muscles of the body are in dormancy and havn’t found much use to feel alive. Similarly for the mind. We are used to sticking to our regular patterns in our daily lives and there are many dormant areas of our mind that would do well with some exercise. how easy it is to spend a day getting stuff done…with

There are two ways of animating in 2D. The pose to pose method and the straight-ahead method. The pose to pose method is blocking in all the actions that are going to happen overtime, like checkpoints through the over-arching action. Straight-ahead is going one frame at a time just relying on the earlier frame for animation, largely not knowing the direction one is going in. The method that is most used by animators is a hybrid one. Where checkpoints (keys) are made but are n

Theres a great difference in knowing what is right and doing what is right. There are incredible amount of books with beneficial wisdom, films that can change lives and advice from well-meaning and well-informed friends that go to deaf ears when it comes to actual implementation. We value learning but are terribly skeptical of applying learnings to our own lives. The rigidness of our identity becomes our true weakness. Applying a new learning to our lives is a risk worth taki

Being busy is considered being of value by many. Having no time to enjoy the gifts of life is merely a sign of being disorganized. In the culture we live in, having time is something to be looked down upon. We are used to denigrating people who seem to be having time for themselves and for others. As a result, we are more likely to hide behind our screens or our files or whatever it is we work on, for much longer than is required. Not only to show outwardly importance but to

For a bunch of musicians to be able to jam together, the most important thing is to be able to stick to the beat. Almost all kinds of freedom is rewarded otherwise, if one can stick to the beat. Everyone sticking to the beat keeps the band tight and brings the various hands and minds playing different instruments to form a single, cohesive, piece. If one is not sticking to the beat, they create a parallel noise that threatens the music. This is true of every collaborative pro

On a day that is scarce on time the little things you do for yourself matter. Showing up on the yoga mat even if its for 5 mins, catching up on a page or two of reading a book, taking a tiny pause to pet your cat, making a small scribble as the coffee brews, etc. The stuff you do against all odds for yourself not only gets you a tiny bit ahead on your tasks but reminds your inner self that it is not ignored or given up on when things get hard.

The one thing that we do in abundance in daily life is thinking. Thinking about ourselves, about others, about life around us, about life away from us…..we almost never ever stop thinking. What if instead of forcing our thoughts to stop, we start looking for good homes for them. A thought can find a home in a personal diary, a blog, a story or an article. A thought can also find a home in a piece of architecture, a film, a dress, an automobile or a painting. What we need is t

At the core of many of us we have decided to believe in one of the two 1- Our choices define our life - We like to believe that the choices that we make, makes up for the life we live. We question our choices and understand its potential of cause and effect on our quality and direction of life. 2- Our life defines our choices - We like to believe that our life has been pre-defined to be a certain way and our choices can only be in the realm of this pre-defined life. No life c

So much of what we do is walled into pigeonholes by societal expectations. We start our creative journeys for the joy they bring to us and slowly realize there are many more that are doing the same thing. The way we are trained in our military based, authoritarian education, is then, to not find happiness and company in our interest sharing kins and learning from them but feeling competitive and constantly lacking in our abilities. Its not easy, but also very important to pro

When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. But to hold to such repetition for so long — six months to a year — requires

One can find happiness in the most debilitating situations and sadness in the best of situations. Most situations are neutral and our feelings of happiness or sadness a choice. We choose to be cynical at the cost of genuine happiness. pessimism holds a special place in our hearts. Pessimism isn’t just more common than optimism. It also sounds smarter. It’s intellectually captivating, and it’s paid more attention than optimism, which is often viewed as being oblivious to risk

An artist I knew sometime back would always work on multiple artworks simultaneously. He would tell me that in his break from one painting he would work on the other, allow it to physically dry and perceptually harden in his mind. When we work on a particular task there is a set amount of neuronal activity that is taking place and a bunch of neurons lighting up in our brains. Our feeling of getting stuck is probably our need and inability to move beyond this set bunch. Thats

Any tool that provides limitless possibilities provides an ability to create art. There can be millions of combinations of notes on a guitar or a piano, words can be combined almost infinitely to make some sort of sense, code can be written for computers in countless ways, a line can be bent in limitless possibilities and colours can be combined in infinite unique combinations. Approaching any such tool can also feel daunting for the same reason. In front of it we can come ac

Thinking can be good at the start of any project. It helps set direction and allows to plan out the tools needed on the journey. But by standing on the starting line and hoping to plan out everything that might go right or wrong on the relay ahead doesn’t take things forward. Setting a direction has its own purpose and actually running has its own. One needs to end for the other to start. To overcome the attachment to thinking, a resolution has to be made. To start with the b

The Habit loop (from Atomic Habits) CUE - CRAVING - RESPONSE - REWARD Everyday life, physically and virtually is littered with cues. Many of the cues that one has in their physical and virtual environment get consumed almost instantly and create cravings that create a discomfort until they are responded upon. But since there are a million cues not everything can be acted upon and thus they generate a feeling of inadequacy in us. Unmet cravings, conscious and sub-conscious, dr