Paul Graham's "How to Do What You Love"

Wonderful writing on the subject of finding one's self.

There are several gems here which you can most certainly start implementing at once!...
 
For me, the one thing I did immediately is - start producing constantly, no matter how crappy it might turn out to be!!

http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html

Films on Food

Today I searched for good documentaries to watch. I found 100s. Next find the time to watch at least 10 of them every month. Here are 2 that look at food and consumption but from opposite ends of the spectrum -

1. Food Inc. - honey, I flunked the chicks?

2. Gleaners and I - is this the one with a philosophy professor rummaging garbage cans in downtown Paris for some breakfast?

The Things I Loved

Read about Roger Waters again today after a long long time... never thought a time like this would ever come when I did absolutely nothing about the things I loved. Do I still love them?

Fence

Last night I dreamt of you, Bul... you were walking on water in your pink pyjamas.

I was on the other side of the fence, reaching out for the glass you were so excitedly offering me.
Behind us airbus planes hung precariously over the coast, while white country houses shuddered in the dinghy winds.

Detective dreams

There's something about John Densmore’s book: Riders on the Storm. My Life With The Doors. This man claims he knows Densmore, or is Densmore; he tells me about those heady days, way back in the ‘60s. We’re smoking a great deal, hallucinating, sitting in the garden outside the old chemistry lab.

I run over to RN’s place (the place among the stars) to get the book – only that, not the ones on astronomy and pathology. I don’t want to part with it, but he says he’ll be careful, and be back in a day or two. He disappears down the garden path – amid all those mantras and incense.

But the book is really gone. I have a mystery in my hands. I call on Mr. Sherlock Holmes (* As played by Jeremy Brett, who died in his sleep). Mr Holmes is his usual self – betraying not the slightest emotion, yet understanding everything, then extrapolating at every word I utter. But soon, somehow, I become his accomplice in a novel, dangerous game.

We descend from his rooms on an extraordinary mission. This is the 20th century in a great eastern city. As we cross the street, carrying our precious load, a constable in khakhi greets us with a grin – but before there can be any questions, Mr. Holmes hands him his 4 pieces of silver. A car draws up to the sidewalk. We sit in the rear with the machine between us. Up front, there sit two flaxen-haired twins – our guards, and the driver.

Driving down the autobahn suddenly the minarets of an airport. However, we are not destined to escape – flagged down by a team of weapons inspectors on the tree-lined avenue, I get out of the car to explain. They are not impressed – we must be searched! As the silver cars whiz by, I open the boot for inspection.

Cradled in soft quilts are nuts and a sheaf of papers. The leader – a Dr. – something – extracts the carbons. The rest of them all crowd around him – we’re a prize catch. One of them, a fat boffin with a briefcase held close to his chest, disagrees, thinks it’s a sheer waste of time; he’s fed-up and wants to go home.

I get back to the car to ask for permission, but Monsieur Holmes is gone and so are the Twins and so is the Reactor. (31.10.1995)

Edi in the Shoe Store

When we finally reached the plateau, after scaling the muddy walls, I discovered that my shoes were all worn out and when the water from the slipstream spilled out between my feet, the cold gravel, rough sand sailed through the holes in my shoes.

Inside i knew my feet would be bleached white from the salt, and exhaustion soon would give me those wretched cramps. But we'd have to soldier on as our grey leader had once pronounced.

To my right was the Bata shop with the soles and the leather shoes all laid out. I entered the parched store with my companions about me... but there were hardly any shoes to be had in the dusty interiors. Through the door beyond the cashier's desk were Hopper-like automobiles, the salon, and the sedan, the red Alfa Romeos with their bonnets pointing in parallel to other shores - like Mama Joe’s 70's garage.

I picked up a brown pair and kneeled to try them on, but then took them away deeper into the private depths of the shoe store-vault. Now grown more used to the light, as I peered into the dark heavy shelves, I discovered to my amazement that heaven help the poor soul who soldiered to this plateau to be shod to his heart's delight - no weathered leather decorates the teak and the deadwood.

Books! I cried hoarsely as the dust came away in clouds choking me... Chaucer’s England, The Revolt of the Humphries Catalysmied, Ploughshares of the Sixteenth Century, Emile, The Degenerate's Quandrum, Poker, Pigs and Pans. In tatters lay the moth eaten yellow pages of the chroniclers of the past; dispatched to dust were the words gathering weight while the wood sagged to contain the edification of the continents. That blew my mind, my soul flagged weary as I pushed out of the dreary darkness to rush towards gilded morning bells.

[24.02.2006]

The History Bus

This time, I'm inside this weird ancient bus. Robin, the driver, is at the controls; like always, dressed in his immaculate suit, he has the time of departure confirmed to him from ole weepy eyed.

Then he rises majestically - one measured step at a time on the wooden board from the passenger side then up to the driver's seat.

Yes, it’s the lovely blue bus again (on the outside). On the inside above the windshield, as it should seem after all these desperate years, the mast is burnished battered steel - wires dangle from above and the flaps hang loose.

Robin sets the gears in motion. With a flourish, like in a movie, we begin our eternal journey.... only to find that he's set us moving in reverse. We sit enchanted staring right ahead; Robin steers us through the marvelous forests of light and shade.

Our history unfolds, bachsheena as they make us say - secret lovers revealed like hoary haloed saints on the precipice of the trees. Blue sheets of sky and showered light, twirling leaves as footfalls are heard - my sleeping childhood friends awake now as the history bus rides back through the forests of my time...
[21.12.2005]