25 Wise Life-Learnings

I recently found read some pretty cool 'Life Learnings' that made me smile, smirk, and sad in equal measures. I found myself nodding and agreeing with most everything, but here are the ones that hit home hard. 

Btw, I found this from a really cool website. Some of the stuff in there is worth the read. Especially if, like me, you're one of those introspective (read over-analy-zy) types!

1. It is a hundred times more difficult to burn calories than to refrain from consuming them in the first place.
2. The cheapest and most expensive models are usually both bad deals.
3. A good nine out of ten bad things I’ve worried about never happened. A good nine out of ten bad things that did happen never occurred to me to worry about.
4. When you break promises to yourself, you feel terrible. When you make a habit of it, you begin to hate yourself.
5. You can’t change other people, and it’s rude to try.
6. If everyone in the TV show you’re watching is good-looking, it’s not worth watching.
7. Whenever you’re worried about what others will think of you, you’re really just worried about what you’ll think of you.
8. If you never doubt your beliefs, then you’re wrong a lot.
9. Nobody has it all figured out.
10. Whenever you hate something, it hates you back: people, situations and inanimate objects alike.
11. People embellish everything, as a rule.
12. Putting something off makes it instantly harder and scarier.
13. Nobody knows more than a minuscule fraction of what’s going on in the world. It’s just way too big for any one person to know it well.
14. Everyone you meet is better than you at something.
15. Knowledge is belief, nothing more.
16. There are not enough women in positions of power. The world has suffered from this deficit for a long time.
17. What makes human beings different from animals is that animals can be themselves with ease.
18. If you aren’t happy single, you won’t be happy in a relationship.
19. “Gut feeling” is not just a euphemism. Tension in the abdomen speaks volumes about how you truly feel about something, beyond all arguments and rationales.
20. It’s easy to make someone’s day just by being uncommonly pleasant to them
21. Nothing — ever — happens exactly like you pictured it.
22. It is worth re-trying foods that you didn’t like at first.
23. Anyone can be calmed in an instant by looking at the ocean or the stars.
24.  Life is a solo trip, but you’ll have lots of visitors. Some of them are long-term, most aren’t.

And one of my absolute favourites:

25. When you’re sick of your own life, that’s a good time to pick up a book.

When we find each other.

We throw these curve balls at each other
At incredible speed
Daring each other to catch
Or miss on purpose,

Like its a challenge
An impossible dream,
Thrown into reality.

The reality of you and me
The reality of us
The reality that flows like a river into the ocean,

That stops right before it meets
Only to be thrown back in,
Far far back

Into the memories of time
When immemorial people lived
And craved and died

A hundred deaths just like us
When we cried that day
When we cried that we had found each other that day.

Who?

Who does Money scream to
When it's passed around like a whore
From hand to hand?

Who does the Sun pray to
When its cup runneth over
And it needs advice?

Who does Smile grumble to
When its cheeks are red and jaws are burning
From a job overdone?

Who does Love complain to
When all it needs
Is someone to hold on to tonight?

You and I.

o baby

aren't you tired 

of the games we play,

You and I?

don't call me now

because I don't want to do

that tom and jerry thing,

not with You and I.

we speak in riddles

we don't speak at all

why do we do this,

You and I?

then we say too much

and hide it with too little

two little freaks we are,

You and I.

some days are great

some days so crap

i want to hit someone when i think 

of You and I.

we want to be together

we want to be alone

but confused is all we have,

You and I.

we push each other away

we pull a lot faster

but can we make it work,

You and I?

we don't have a name
and we're both just the same

maybe we're worth talking about,

You and I.

Headcase- potentially.

You know that thing when you can't concentrate, no matter how hard you try or what activity you pick? I've been wondering why that happens. 

I'm sure there are several factors in play, but one of the most significant things I've noticed is a faint tick tick tick at the back of my head. Almost like those annoying carpenters in your head when you have a hangover, but not quite painful. Not physically anyway. 

I think I've finally understand what the noise is. It's like a puzzle is going on in my head and there's a timer that's tick-tick-ticking. The funny thing is, most times I don't know what the puzzle is- could it be Unscramble or Chess or Angry Birds? I can't really tell- it's a hazy picture, as if it's a puzzle within a puzzle. First phase: figure out what kind of a game it is, and Phase Two- Then figure out how to solve it before that tick tick tick becomes a large TONG! and time's up. 

This is a TASK and really, I have no more to say on this subject, except that being this state makes me one of the most unproductive people I know. I'm literally useless during these times. It's like I'm sleep walking through my day/s.

Just wondering if someone else out there feels the same way, or if I'm just a potential headcase. 

How to love music today

Note: this is again an article from a writing course I recently did. Since I've laboured over it, I figured I might as well post it! It's a tad long, but that's because it's a researched paper, so don't hold your breath while reading :)

How to Love Music today.

“Music is the fastest shortcut we know to the heart. Nothing builds emotion like music.”

Kevin Roberts, Saatchi & Saatchi.

It’s safe to assume that love for music is eternal and universal, right? If that’s true, why is music piracy such a big issue in the world we live in today (it may shock you to know that the average teen’s iPod has $800 of pirated music*)?

So should music be free or paid? If music should be free, what happens to the artist? Do we (the consumer) know what we’re doing when we participate in piracy, by ‘stealing’ the artist’s music when we illegally download their work?

I work in media, where music is indirectly, but surely, related to my bread and butter. So these are questions I have often asked several people – from friends to industry heads- and the answer varies all the way from a “NO WAY if you’re a true music lover, you’ll pay for the artist’s work” to “hello, it’s already free- just go online and you’ll have what you want in a minute!”. Every time I ask the question, I’m left feeling puzzled and even more perplexed about what the right answer might be.

Do a quick Google search and you’ll find the same confusion and debate reflected on the page. There are people on either sides of the line. In fact, according to a recent article in the New York Times, a campaign in Manhattan had a bill board screaming out, calling for artists to make a tough choice: Artists For Piracy or Artists Against Piracy. The idea came up through a low-profile two-man Brooklyn band that was given this billboard space as part of one of their music deals with American Eagle. “When we were offered the space on the billboard, we were perplexed about what to do with it,” said Josh Ocean, 27, the band’s lead singer. “Since we started we’ve given away all our music for free, so just telling people to purchase our music somewhere didn’t seem natural for us. So we said, ‘What if we take advantage of this and open up a discussion about the new music industry?”

Still, from the likes of Bon Jovi to Pink Floyd, major record labels like Warner and Sony, to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), there are people shouting out from the rooftops for the piracy to stop. Iconic British band, The Beatles, even launched a video campaign in 2011 especially to communicate these sentiments.

However, in the ongoing debate, there are musicians like Norah Jones, Shakira, or Lady Gaga, who claim to not mind it. “"If people hear it, I'm happy. I'm not going to say go steal my album, but I think it's great that young people who don't have a lot of money can listen to music and be exposed to new things," said Norah Jones in an interview to Sky News.

Many artists even feel that the advent of digital music and the Internet have actually benefitted them. Whether it’s the spreading of previously unknown artists and genres through virals like Psy’s Gangnam Style or making cover bands like Walk off the Earth shoot to fame with their cover of Somebody, the Internet seems to have helped musicians greatly by liberating them from the chains of traditional recording companies. Some musicians, like FatBoy Slim even argue this from an artist’s wages point of view. In an interview, he says, “Artists get controlled by record labels. They make all the money. And today, we don’t need them anymore- to put it in simple terms, we can record the music, put it up on MySpace and it spreads like wildfire. That’s why most artists aren’t as worried about piracy as much as the big labels are.” It may be surprising to some of us to know that on a CD that costs around $16, the artist only makes an approximate of only $1.60**.

Still, some people think that it’s about choice- the choice that the artist has to release their music out in the open so it reaches lots of people quickly but not have it remunerated, OR charge for your music and possibly limit your audience. In an article by the New York Times, David Lowery of the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker exaclaims, “Piracy is eliminating your rights as artists! Whereas, if you are for copyright, you have the choice to sell your work or give it away.”

But see, here’s the thing- I think we’re way off when it comes to the sides we’re choosing on this debate. Human nature is simple: we see something lying around, we claim it. If something is available for free, we almost never want to pay for it. The way I see it, the only way to battle that, is to work around it, not against it.

What I mean to say is, there is a step in between the extremes of paid and free, and we need to discover that. It may be important to note that for hundreds of years before the copyright law was invented we were doing just fine. We have a whole body of ridiculously beautiful art (be it music, paintings, sculpture) to show for it. So the answer really lies in understanding what art means to the artists and to their audience, and applying that understanding to today’s world.

As John Perry Barlow (lyricist for the hugely famous band, Grateful Dead, that defied all rules by letting people tape their gigs way back in a time when it was unheard of) puts it, “Art is a relationship. It’s not about property. It’s about the intention of your audience. There are a lot of ways to create value around that relationship.”

Today, more than ever, you’ll notice that this relationship is a two way street. Gone are the days when simply throwing out a piece of music at the consumer is satisfactory to them. Today, engaging your audience whether it’s through a live gig, innovative merchandise, collaborative music videos such as Miley Cyrus’s, and even twitter activity (don’t you love it when you can interact it with your favourite artists on social media!) seems to be an important step to building and maintaining a relationship with them. The idea is to make a fan out of an audience that is evolving, and to let your audience feel like they have a part of themselves invested in you and your art.

Once we have begun to understand the value of this peculiar and dynamic relationship between the artists and the consumer, we can begin to start looking for solutions to apply to this problem of music piracy. One such way of looking for a solution is to look for solutions based on access and ownership. According to a study done in 2012 by YouGov, almost 55% of young people (16-24yrs) today are satisfied with just accessing music and they aren’t really worried about owning it. This is less true for older people (only 12% prefer access to ownership), but then older people are also not so much the people who are downloading illegally anyway.

So keeping that in mind, solutions that allow for convenience and accessibility, such as 8tracks.com (an online radio of sorts) and Pandora or Spotify (a peer to peer music sharing service) seem to be a step toward bridging that gap between legal and illegally consumed music. Says Sean Parker of the Napster fame (now on the board of Spotify), “The distribution model for music is broken. You have to accept that the war on piracy is a failure. Spotify allows for unlimited streaming on your device while the content is still locked- it can’t be moved to another mobile device. Still, you’re listening to a music library that you choose and love, and maybe even addicted to, so soon enough, you’ll want to keep some of it or all of it. That’s when you realize that if you want to own it, you’ll have to subscribe and pay for it, or buy it.”

So really, unlike solutions that say pay, pay, pay, ideas like Spotify allow the user now to choose between what they want to access and what they want to own by paying for it.

My point overall is simple. Music, now more than ever before is one of the most important parts of our lives (especially given the kind of access and exposure that we now have to it), and music consumption is also at an all time high. There is no need to convince people to have music in their lives- it’s almost a default setting within most of us. The love and need for music is already there, so it’s not really a case of the music lover (one who pays) vs. the music non-supporter (the pirate). In fact, the 'pirates' probably download as much as they do, because they love music much more than the average music consumer.

So there is no need for a war between free and paid. What is necessary is for the world to wake up and smell the coffee and realize that the way music is consumed today has changed. So really, the solution is to understand what people want, how they want it, and giving it to them in a way that is most fair to both the artists and the audience. If we, as a society, work toward opening conversations about how to make and spread music without imposing hard-bent rules on people, there might actually be no debate on how to love music the right way.

*Source: technology/timesonline.co.uk **Source: Almighty Institute of Music Retail

Relationship Power Play

Remember that song Quit Playing Games With My Heart? Yes, the Back Street boys one- don't pretend to not know it- you know you know it. In fact, like the rest of us teens who grew up in the 90s, you probably know every lyric and every ummm baby, nanannaa... oh yeaaah! Besides how could you ever forget that cute-as-hell Nick Carter (I don't know how I thought that- now I feel like taking a scissor to his hair and asking him to grow a pair)?

Yeah, so the first time I heard that song it meant something completely different than it means now, more than a decade later. Then (I was probably 13/14), it was just a song with someone else's heartbreak and the song and it's tune, and the band of boys were cooler than the lyrics. A few years later, with a real heartbreak up my sleeve, it meant relating to it a little more (although it was still too a peppy pop song to really feel it, and a ballad-like one like the whiny Alllll By Myseeeeeeeeeelfffff was more effective with the water works more than a BB song).

Anyway, coming to the Now- that song, or at least that line means a whole different thing- it's feels like they should sing Quit Playing Games with my Mind. 

It's all about Power Play these days, isn't it? I don't know if it's just me (and my fabulous and infamous bad luck with men), or if it's the age (late 20s and you're more jaded), or if it's the place I live in (Bombay with it's really screwed up artists and actors and what not), or if it's a combination of all three. But the thing is, these days I seem to be running into people who just want to get into a relationship to make themselves feel like they're in control.

Which, by the way, is such a retarded concept. If you're not in control of yourself and your life from the start, then how the hell do you expect to be in control when you've added another whole human being to the mix? In this kind of relationship, one of two kind of mind games happen (or god forbid, both- in which case you must really have it bad)- 

a) the guy is completely into you, and he is fully and absolutely involved and invested in your life (which you love- who doesn't love the attention?), and then suddenly, BAM! the guy expects to mind control you. He will tell you what to do and what you can't/ shouldn't do and then next thing you know (slowly but surely), he thinks he owns you and your mind, and it leaves you wondering if it's he's completely lost the plot and/or if this is his way of validating his painful existence. 

b) the guy is into you- sometimes SO much and sometimes it's all meh, not so much. Aloof be-th his middle name-th, and he's cat-and-mousing you all over the place. This kind of guy will give a little, take a lot more, and then disappear for a bit. Sometimes he'll give a lot and before it even fully reached your hand, he'll snatch it right back. He'll be more inconsistent and undependable than the weather in New York. He'll have you guessing alllll the time, and this way he'll be on your mind all the time. The idea is that he has all the power. He'll be nice when wants to, and highly ambiguous when he wants to. Mind you, he'll very rarely be mean directly, so you can't point any fingers at him, but he'll make sure he's playing those games with your brain all the time, because you see like the other guy above, he too needs to do this to feel powerful, in control and good about himself. 

Why is power such an important part of a relationship? Don't get me wrong- the above two examples of men, they could just as easily be women (although I've honestly heard of rarer cases with women)- greed for power and being in control is gender neutral. But I realllly wonder- why is the world so hungry for power- whether it's politics, at work or in bed? Doesn't real power come from within yourself? Do you have to make someone else feel small in order to feel like the more powerful one? 

All I can do is roll my eyes, and stay as far away from these power plays as possible.