Plants

 

The aloe plant sits quietly in the corner.
It needs sun, and water,
only periodically, the latter.
Sun as much as possible. Sure.
The corner it sits in only gets about half an hour of sunlight each day.
But it survives.
Sometimes without water for a week; even two.
The pot is large enough. Just about.
The soil was changed thrice.
First it was too hard. The roots couldn't even grow and settle in.
Second, too soft; the plant toppled.
Third, done right; gravel below, some sand, and then soil.
The plant lives.
It exists. Not dying.
It's got just enough to survive.
But it looks unhealthy,
like it will not thrive there.
The leaves appear smaller, thinner
not thick and juicy as is ideal for an aloe.
But it doesn't complain.
The roots haven't developed enough to grow and strengthen its base.
But they exist. Short. Functional. Enough.
The aloe stays there,
ready to move
to somewhere it can grow and thrive.
That's the dream, isn't it always?
Plants are like people.
They draw their energy from their surroundings.
The energy of the home affects the plant, too.

The Wait

Like thoughts over our good judgement,
clouds graze over the sky so blue
For only a moment, we lose focus of the truth,
as it steals from us the glance of its hue

Oh, may the day never come
when I don't watch on your face the sun rise
Spreading with it a joy for me so true,
it's outdone only when I drown in your eyes

Winter comes and spreads its touch so cold
through darker eve and longer night
Summer may blaze the days away
but your presence through it all brings respite

I've waited long, through heartache's downpour
wondering ever so often time and again
If it's time to give up? To let go and fall free
Or it is just another passing spell of rain

Yet that waiting, the times gone by,
have all seemingly, now, finally borne fruit
For till my last breath of my time here,
in this brief life, I wish to live in truth

Thus I say through all the glory of creation,
and through all the mesmerising detail so fine
Nothing hath bested the warmth of your touch,
and the feeling of your hand in mine

Reality?

There is not just one love.
There are many others.

Not only do we never experience them.
But some we do not even see.

There is the internet.
But it is one among many global networks.

There is the universe as we know it
and countless parallel realities.

There is no single reality.

And we best learn to see
and accept that.

War is Coming

The war is not between left and right
nor between right and wrong.

The battle will rage not between realms
but within this very one.

There are two sides of the same coin
with their differences, their beliefs, their choice of atrocities.
The battle is based on alignment. 

Don't bite the forbidden fruit.
Don't think different.

The battle will rage
between those who use hazard lights when parked on the side
and those who use their hazards going through the tunnel.

between those who seek equality
and those who seek justice.

between those starved of love
and those starved of everything else.

The battle is between intelligence and herd stupidity.

2020 is only the battlecry.

Memory

'Twas a weird day. I didn't feel like doing anything and rather than delving into memories, I decided to look up what was new in memory. Wow! GDDR6 and the move to DDR5 soon. What I noticed was clear. There is no point going faster if it cannot be sustained. "Sustainable" is the new key word and, while many may seem to deny that fact or choose to ignore it entirely, there is no way we're making our way out alive. Everyone's going to die some day. But why accelerate the process? After all we, like memory, seem to have sped up everything to its potential anyway.

Like I said, we have reached immense speeds and now it's pointless going faster. The key is increasing bandwidth and sustaining speed.

For instance, take the Bugatti Chiron. There's no point making a car that goes 500 km/h in a straight line but has to slow down to 200 km/h to take a corner. It's the same with everything. Getting up to speed is good, getting there quickly is better, but sustaining it is the challenge. The key now is to make something that can do 500, but can also corner at 400-450 or more without losing control or having external forces push it off course. It's the same with memory, cars, everything. Personally, in the real world, of course, I'd rather have a car that seats 2+2 and can go from 20-60 in a brief second while consuming zero fuel. I don't mind a top speed of 99 as well...

The thing is, though, we are living unsustainable lifestyle. It's never about cooperation. Rarely is it about sustainability. It's more about competition and one-upmanship. Motor racing is a waste of time, fuel and effort. It created a whole system of wasteful procedures that had people looking at it as a career. Burning fuel to go faster than the next person. Entertaining? At some point it was. Pushing the envelope? In hindsight, that seems completely irrelevant. 

My job had me testing and driving and speeding and, basically, enjoying the sights, sounds and thrills of combustion. Many close to me think I've gone insane. "But you're doing what you always wanted to do!" True. I am doing what I wanted to do. I don't want that now. A V12 is wasteful. A V8 is just as wasteful, as is a V6 or a straight-five. What do we need? Motive force? A 1.0L three working two jobs as engine and generator to two or three electric motors, or a clean-fuel stack doing that job would be just as effective in a 1.8-tonne luxury car as what goes in them now. Oil companies spend millions if not billions sponsoring motor sport at the expense of the Earth and its resources. What am I on about? Go figure. I don't enjoy this life anymore. There's a huge change coming and we best prepare for it.

 

The point is expanding simplicity. Doing more with less will always be enough, if we choose to see it that way. There's no reason to stretch and stockpile if it can be helped. Natural disasters will come and go, but human disasters seem to be getting worse, evolving into potentially apocalyptic forms at times.

We need to be responsible. Humans shed responsibility like a weekly skin. Everything would work, pandemic or not, if people only took responsibility for themselves. But, no. Even that seems too much to ask. If you're ill. Stay home. If you're happy, smile. If you're sad, share. If you have something to say, speak up. Stand your ground, but give other people their space. Freedom for one does not mean overstepping the boundaries for another. Life is short. And soon it won't even be a memory.

Accepting the Inevitable

A very strange world this is. It spits you up. Slams you down. Picks you up. Tries to bury you. Then throws you a lifeline. And then after that glance of shimmering hope, it pulls the plug.

Then again, what works for one isn't a rule. There are no rules. There's no timeline. Anything can happen. Yet, it may not seem as strange at the time, if you're ready. Some people say, "Know what you want!" If you tell yourself you want it, the universe conspires to bring it to you. But, then again, whether you're aware or not, it comes at a price. And this is something you (probably) become aware of as the time of payment arrives.

Empaths are a rare breed. Every life is connected. They know that. They love the world. They love everything on it. Every life matters. They know that. When a forest burns, when animals are roasted alive, when millions of lives are lost, there is an energy that is disturbed within everyone. Whether they pay heed or dismiss the thought is what sets empaths apart from the rest of the human animals. In Star Wars, when the planet Alderaan was destroyed by the Death Star on Darth Vader's command, Obi Wan Kenobi was busy and suddenly stopped, and said, "I felt a great disturbance in the force. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened." It's the same with climate change. The Australian bush-fires. Amazon rainforest fires. The deteriorating polar ice-caps and melting glaciers. They're all tests. If you aren't disturbed by any of it. If your heart doesn't skip a beat or feel assaulted, then you just don't get it. You do not deserve it. We do not deserve it.

We all know the direction the world is headed in. We know what we're making for ourselves: slowly digging our own grave. Well, some activities are speeding that up! And we can't do anything. Or, perhaps, won't do anything. The writing's been on the wall for decades. We just didn't take any heed. Rather than watch the people of the world go exactly where they've been threatening to take themselves, some would rather not see it through. Let life be taken away. Some fight. Some eventually give in. It remains disputed. The truth is, or at least it seems to be, that if you really want something, the universe conspires to give it to you. Whether you wanted to fight. Or whether you wanted to give in, and be laid to rest.

These are theories. The truth takes the form of perspectives. Perspectives skewed by everyone and the next. Yet, the real truth is out there. Sometimes laid bare. Yet, we choose to ignore it.

I've lost a friend. One of the best. A good friend. An artist. A musician. A chef. A psychologist. A shrink. A sister. A brother. A guide. A counsel. A blanket. A shelter. An empath. A soul. And one that echoed the same frequency as mine. Nat. You will be missed.

One day, I may or may not see that lucky someone who was gifted the joy of sight. "You've got her eyes", I'll say.

Image credit: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/3/3d/Alderaanexplosion.jpg

Happy Realisation?

So I heard Lewis Hamilton is depressed and the team folk are getting him help. Recently he went public saying how being vegan is the only sustainable way to the future. He, of course, meant to talk about climate change and the natural balance. Responses came in many forms. Someone said "the guy who drives a Formula 1 car and has a private jet is asking me to eat cabbage!" Someone else said he's trying to get his massive following to think greener and we need to look at the message and the larger picture. I see his point. Until now, I didn't like the guy. I believe he came in a strong car and went to another team where he happened to suffer for a little while before the engine regulations worked in his favour.

But that's beside the point. After the whole #ClimateStrike initiative by Greta Thunberg went viral, I realised one thing. One person CAN make a difference. Again, people, like they always do, hit back saying, "She's a kid!", "What does she really want?", "Go back to school!". But, she was right, wasn't she? Even if she's touring the world (on a sailboat, I might add!) and even if she's "not speaking of other great scientists who have developed world-saving tech" she did do one thing. She made some people aware about the scale of the mess we're in; about the depth of the hole we've dug for ourselves. She spoke at a point where it's getting even deeper and soon we won't be able to come back out. A few others have realised, too. Of course they have. However, the world's population is over 7 billion. People consider "1%" a small number. One per cent of 7 billion is 70,000,000. That's 70 million, or 7 crore in local speak.

Many of those have access to water, some don't. Food, even less so. The point is, we need more people to wake up to the scale of the problem.

Now, another topic is transport. Or, cars, in my case of reference. Yes, we've enjoyed racing, and driving some fine examples. I know I enjoyed my share. However, one thing is clear. The world is running on oil and money. And something is going to give very soon. Particularly the environmental balance. What we did then, doesn't work now. Times have changed. Priorities need reassessment.

Schools don't function as they did before. Traffic doesn't have the same share of space as before. Consideration is taking a back seat, because people seems to have become seemingly expendable. There are so many, if one can't do something right, someone else will? Is that so? The very idea of a co-operative world is being drowned by desire. Individual desire. Worse, individual need to be better than the next? It's not a competition. Or, is it? Is it truly survival of the fittest? Surely seems like it now. But I digress.

Back to Hamilton. It is depressing. Yes. When one realises something about the world and about themselves doesn't fit any more. We've been conditioned over the years to believe certain things, do things a certain way and expect certain things in advance because "that's just how the world works". Get up, take a bath, change, make the bed, get on the bike or in the car, ride/drive to school/college/work/whatever. People took things for granted. They wasted water, electricity, trees, forests and now, there's a price to pay. You may wonder why this is relevant. You know all this. But, as I've always believed, understanding is one thing and acceptance is another. Do you accept that an entire established life needs to change? No, it's not a lie. It's just a change that must be brought on. If not by us, the world will fight back. It's an old planet, it's been through a lot and it can take care of itself. We're not killing the planet with our doings, we're only killing our future, and ourselves.

People asked me what I'm on about. What's with all the posts? After seeing what Greta had to say, I feel I've woken up from a bad dream and have to live a nightmare. It's true, what some said. What she said is scary. And it is. Our future is inevitable if we don't change today!

What's hard is to accept it. I love cars. I love motor-racing. I love going fast. However, I also realised that has to stop. I can't enjoy those things any more. They're coming at a terrible price. The sound of combustion, of big engines and the roar from the exhaust – things that used to make me smile and make my heart flutter – have become sins. Not to the world at large, but to me. I cringe. It's a painful feeling of mixed emotions that I fight every day. That is what is depressing. Realising that what you enjoy, and have enjoyed all along, is something that needs to stop. The world is built on that platform. How can it be?

A change so big would mean a new system. A new normal. Jobs will be lost. Skills will be redundant. Yet, new ones will surface. They have to. With so many mouths to feed there is no question. The thing is, we need to realise and start adapting now, or the world will simply leave us behind. What's worse is that the Earth will fight back anyway.

I'm not asking anyone to go vegan. I know I won't. Yet, turn off your bike/car at signals. Long or short. I started doing that. Ride/drive easy. The more you're on the accelerator and back on the brakes hard, the more fuel you're burning. The key is to cut down on carbon emissions - specifically carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide among other more deadly unburned hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen. Save water. Don't waste electricity. You may be paying a fixed amount but it isn't yours to throw away. We're still using coal-fired thermal power plants. That's not clean. The reality is that renewable sources aren't enough to cater to us all. That's why the need to use all forms of energy sparingly. Also, electric cars are only as clean as the source of electricity powering them. If your electricity is coming from coal, your electric car is pretty much just as harmful to the environment. Battery material mining and their life cycle and supply chain is another matter altogether, so look deeper into things that don't make sense. Hybrids are the best way forward until clean, hydrogen-powered transport solutions become mainstream. Research. Find out for yourself. Don't take mine or anyone else's word for it. Go ahead and take that step.

The time to make a choice is now. We can't give up everything. That's not right. But we can try to change slowly and tell others to do so as well. It's about time. Wake up. Realise. Speak your mind. Be heard. Listen. Understand. Be considerate. We all want to get out of this alive. It's still not too late...