Tag Archives: thoughts

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist by Adrian Tomine

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A book review after a loooong time!

The cover of this book seemed a bit unusual. Except for the tiny illustration in the form of a nametag, the cover looks exactly like someone’s Moleskin diary. On top of it is the fact that the story inside is also written and illustrated in the form of short diary entries. Which honestly, makes us connect with the book a bit more personally. Overall, this is a mediocre comic-book story of an American-Japanese cartoonist, who talks about his loneliness and introspection – mostly embarrassing stories that he encountered during various book events, signings, Comic Cons, etc.

There is some strange comforting feeling about the fact that even an accomplished Cartoonists like Adrian Tomine can have and experience such loneliness and have fears of being unaccomplished and unsuccessful in their career. Makes me wonder how critical we can be of ourselves, at times.

This is a warm book for someone who would be interested in reading about the passing thoughts of authors/illustrators when they aren’t busy building up a story or plot for their upcoming novel.

– Suri

My Heavy Cart

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It’s still a fleeting thought, but it seldom fails to return

For when I pause and reflect, I see you, basking in the rays of sun.

You dance without a sign of worry, your jaws clenched into a wide smile

With a pang of envy, I watch you from afar.

The sun is shimmering, as though rejoicing in your dance

And the leaves keep twirling in this windy space of love

My cart is full, overflowing through the brim

And you don’t even seem to own a cart?

I’m tired of dragging, some things do tend to fall,

But I care less, as I’ve already lost it all.

Your charisma is strong, you notice me not

I try to push my cart away; but it stays, it stays, it stays…

I stretch my arms to you, to reach closer I try,

I touch your arm, then at last, my cart slowly fades, it fades, it fades…

– Suri

Little Deep Breaths

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Sometimes life brings you to a standstill. A complete, terrible standstill. You eat, to survive and not because you love to. You try to read and write and draw because you want to come of the loop. The thinking loop that you are continually stuck onto, like it’s the only song on your playlist that plays on repeat. Slowly, your heart starts pounding, faster than usual. Closing your eyes at night is a task in itself, for when those eyes shut – your thoughts amplify, speaking louder than it does during the day. Someone sneezes mid sleep and you wake up wide eyed. Someone else gets up for a little pee in the middle of night, and you rush to them, asking if everything is fine.

That is what anxiety does to you. It creeps up to you without you knowing how far up it has reached already. By the time the realization finally dawns on you, panic has hijacked your mind. It has crept up to the point wherein you do not feel in control of your own body or thoughts. You start to feel helpless, like the world around you is crumbling, along with your hopes and dreams. Your first urge is to give up, and why wouldn’t it be? Isn’t that the easier option? But that is your real test, it is at that exact moment when you need to take a step back and focus on the feeble voice far off towards the end of your vision that tells you to keep going. Well, it might sound unreal at first. For a while let’s just pretend it is real, and take some deep breaths. Those deep breaths wouldn’t make any difference immediately, but it will help you pause, few minutes at a time. It’ll allow you to reconsider your thoughts and help you in breaking their flow. One deep breath at a time.

Heyyaa people! How are you all doing? I’ve missed you loads and I have missed blogging. Hopefully I am back here now. I don’t have a plan yet on what my future posts would be about, but I am happy to be back. It’s much more peaceful than the buzz on other social media platforms.

– Suri

Indecisiveness

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Sometimes, a blank page is all you see. You hold a pen in your hand, thinking about things to say, things to write, things to do; but nothing clicks. Or maybe it does click at times, but your hand doesn’t consider it worthy enough to let the thought flow in the form of ink through your pen.

You have in your hand scores of pressing issues to be solved as soon as possible, personal issues, issues requiring only your personal opinion. Yet, you somehow manage to find silly excuses to postpone it, you rely on other so-called important tasks at hand, to ignore the really important issues.

But procrastination isn’t the solution. Sooner or later, we have to face it, we need to face it, before it’s too late to act upon. But when? But how?

– Suri

Stories

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We all have different stories. No two people living on this planet can have the exact same story. Each one of us has a different set of the past, the present and the future. We can have similar stories, and sometimes that’s how people connect. But at other times we have our stories so entirely different than those around us that we may find it very difficult to connect. There are no connecting dots or no parallel lines or – if geometry interests you that much then, I’d say – no concentric circles!
Yet, we – as social beings – have to find ways to connect through those differences.

Every day is a new day. Each day brings us new hope, new opportunities, new experiences. Some days are good, while some are not as good. But they are part of our story, aren’t they? The good days, the bad ones, the ones where we cried for a small bar of chocolate and also the ones where we cried out of joy at the birth of our child. They all help in creating an outline of our story – the particularly major ones.

I believe that our stories create us as an individual, as a human. Yes, our decisions mould us into an individual. But what are those decisions based upon? – our experiences! And what are those experiences? – our stories!! So take wise decisions and make your story the best one of all, let it reverberate throughout the histories of the future.

Good luck. Have a nice day!

– Suri

Thunderstorms

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Monsoon is Coming.. (now read it again the same way Jon Snow would say, ‘Winter is Coming‘.) *

Scary, eh?

The arrival and departure of monsoon are the two times of the year that I find the scariest. The rains comes and goes all with it’s musical thunder and the eerie lightning.

To tell you the truth, it’s not the lightning that bothers me. It’s the seconds after the lightning… the long seconds of anticipation and dread of how loud or how long the thunder would last. Sometimes the thunder would even act as a timid friend, staring sheepishly from behind it’s curtains of clouds but making as little gurgling (yes, ew!) noise as possible. And at other times – when we least expect it – it will come out as a sly and cunning enemy and roar as high as it could.

Ah, how I hate the thunder! The enmity goes back a long way down the memory lane. Maybe someday I would talk about it. But not today. Today I want to face it. It’s thundering even now, even as I write this blog post. It’s just a shy, gurgling though, but I’m sure the volume will increase. Monsoons are arriving here in Mumbai (India) and scaring me as always, each year, on it’s onset and while it leaves.

To make myself feel better in such a situation, I try to make up funny stories. I imagine the Gods up there fighting over petty issues like, ‘WHO ATE MY CANDY??!!’, and then getting pissed out about it so just shoving or bumping things here and there, like sometimes when we’re angry we slam the door too loudly or push the chair or table harshly around, the same way. I try to imagine that it’s nothing more than that. Just the shoving of some chairs, no big deal.

But this is so ridiculous and it sounds so funny, even in my head. I know even a third grader won’t be assured by this story.

It’s 3:00 a.m. and I know that I must sleep, but I can’t. I’m thinking about the thunder, the lightning and the monsoons. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate them all. I love monsoon when it’s quiet, when it’s quietly raining. It’s a very lovely, romantic season. I kind of like the lightning too. But speaking of thunder, I only have a hate – hate relationship with it.

Well, I’ll try to sleep now, before the thundering gets any worse. Off I go…

Good night! 😀

Do you guys have similar fears about thunder? If yes, how do you face them? Let me know. 🙂

– Suri

* a Game Of Thrones reference

Adulting

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When I was younger, I always wanted to grow up. To grow up so I could be in charge, so I could make my own decisions. I had no say in any of the major decisions that my family took, because I was a child. I hated it.

Now that I’m elder though, I realize how hard it is, to be in charge. I get a say in those decisions, but I never say the say. I mean, today, when I get the chance to speak up, I don’t. I worry instead. I start thinking. I start thinking about the pros and cons. I start thinking about my past mistakes. I start worrying about the future.

As a child, when I looked at any adult I envied them for their independence, their freedom. Now as an adult in my early 20s when I get the same freedom and voice which I so long desired for, I do absolutely nothing about it. It’s only lying rotting day by day in some unseen, dark and damp corner of a long forgotten room.

– Suri

Why Do I Care?

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I sometimes wonder why do I care so much. There are people who absolutely give no shit about others and yet they are doing all fine. Of course they do. The life of an individual doesn’t depend on another. Everyone makes their own destiny. Humans create their path to success alone. Yet they are social animals. They can’t be completely alone. They need to have friends, family, someone to love, someone to trust. Also it’s a very risky job to trust someone in today’s world. There are just too many complications involved. You can never tell the true intentions of a fellow human. Trusting animals is way better.

— Suri

thinking

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Thinking.

Still thinking..

Always thinking…

Do you ever feel like you’re thinking just too much and want to stop thinking? Like completely want to stop thinking? No thoughts at all? I don’t know about you, but I’m surely in one of those phases where I want to stop thinking. I would be happy even if I’m granted this wish for an hour. The cluttering of hundreds and thousands of thoughts and feelings inside me sometimes feels like a burden. A huge burden that weighs me down. And as I age more and more each year, I can feel my burden weighing more and more. I wonder when it’ll become so heavy that I’ll tumble and fall down with it. I hope it doesn’t end that way.

I’m searching for a way to control these thoughts. Meditation is the usual suggestion but I’m not really sure that I can be that patient to try it. Some suggest that instead of wanting to stop the thoughts, why not give it a proper outlet? By speaking it out or by writing it down, you’ll feel better. Well, I don’t know.. Let’s see. 
What do you bloggers suggest? 😀
– Suri