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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 changing choices can be made. Life can surprise it through its own doing but our choices matter less as a whole .


The former is an active approach to life and allows for living life more intensely as one questions every aspect of the choices one (or the others around them) makes. It allows for possibilities in oneself to change the outcome of their life.The latter is a passive approach that limits the choices one has and awaits for miracles to take one into a better state of being.


As always, the problem lies when we are on the extreme end of any of those beliefs. Our choices can define our life but not always. The factors that we are born in cannot always be bypassed by intelligent choices. On the other hand if we only rely on our life to define our choices, those very choices will reaffirm and imprison the definition of life we have for ourselves.


Believing in a healthy amount of both is the key. Adapting our own agency as per the situation and allowing the situations to take their own course when required.



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 protect our initial joy and expand on it. Disallow others to judge your connect with your crafts and passions. Don’t allow them to pitch you against a ’pro’ or anyone doing a better job. Don’t even allow anyone to make you feel better from someone they consider doing a lesser job. Just focus on the joy your craft brings you. The dialogues you have with your tools are the ones that allow you to understand yourself more deeply, and through yourself, the whole of humanity. Don’t let these voices be polluted by other’s concerns of where they should place you in their value spectrum.

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 a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity. - Haruki Murakami

Rhythm and repetition in daily life while in the act of creation allows for the input that our mind has taken to find a quiet room to be analyzed, processed and consolidated. Rhythm and repetition, shunts out novelty. Novelty threatens to overpopulate and overstimulate the brain, disallowing the mind to digest what it has swallowed. Discipline is like fasting that allows the brain to empty itself out and form nutrients. As in fasting, where a few healthy ingredients are carefully chosen to be ingested, its important that we choose healthy habits while processing our minds of its food.

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