Friends of Words

Author: Swati

  • You Don’t Drown by Falling in Water; You Drown by Staying There: E.L Cole

    You Don’t Drown by Falling in Water; You Drown by Staying There: E.L Cole

    If the same analogy is to apply to the situation that the world finds itself in, what’s the next step?

    COVID-19 has affected everyday lives of people around the world. We are all drowning in the news coming from all directions. We are drowning in depressing news of people dying, doctors having to make choices on who to prioritize caring for, people being skeptical of the world ever being able to recover from the aftermath.

    Certainly not a nice place to be for anyone.

    But there’s good news.

    Whether we drown or not is totally up to us. Regardless of where we are, and what we like, there is something that this pandemic-enforced confinement can do for us.

    Here are 5 things that we can do to fight this battle against this pandemic.

    Let’s start with a no brainer….

    1 – Stay home

    Regardless of how much faith you have in your immunity or your ultra-pristine neighborhood, this is something that you need to do; for yourself, your family and your community. This brings you guilt-free sleep and the satisfaction that you did your part to reduce the length of this battle.

    2 – Stay sane

    With the abundance of negativity all around, it’s perfectly normal to feel low, every once in a while. All we have to do is to make sure that we keep it limited to just that – once in a while.

    There are things we all like, things that make us happy, things that make us laugh, and this is the time those things are going to be our best friends. Finding time to listen to the music that we really love, watch movies that make us pee our pants, and hold our little kid for just one extra minute.

    Love and humor will sustain us through this.

    3 – Stay fit

    With this sudden remote work arrangement this Pandemic has brought us, every routine that we had went straight out of the window. Fitness, unfortunately, being one of them.

    We all have heard the old adage – Sound mind lives in a sound body.Exercises do more than just keep our bodies healthy- they keep our mind healthy too. There is plenty of research that supports that.

    It boosts the production of serotonin- the happiness hormone. So, in addition to ensuring that you get your little spurt of happiness, you are also ensuring to show off a slim you at the end of it all.

    4 – Stay helpful

    You might know Edward de Bono for his powerful technique: Six Thinking Hats. Another equally important thought of his, albeit lesser known is H+ (plus). In his book, he provides a thought-framework for achievement in life through daily acts of help and contribution.

    It has been scientifically proven that people feel good about themselves when they help someone in need. Volunteers have lesser aches; kind people live longer and happier lives.

    Come to think of it, helping others does make us happy!

    This will not come as a surprise when you reflect on your own life: making a child giggle, helping a colleague solve that one problem they were stuck at for weeks, consoling a spouse when they feel bogged down, all of these things make us happy, don’t they?

    Luckily, our willingness to help people is still under our control, despite in these challenging times.

    5 – Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

    Having a clear goal keeps us on our toes.

    I’m sure you can remember that one time when you were so immersed in your work that you didn’t care if you ate or slept.

    Having a clear target in front of our eyes keeps us focused and driven. And if that target is related to our passion (or something that we absolutely love doing, like a hobby, vocation), then it’s like hitting the jackpot! Not only it motivates us, but it also fills us with immeasurable positivity.

    A clear vision has a number of advantages: we are less likely to be distracted, we are more engaged, we live in the moment and we enjoy it!

    Having a vision in life does not just make our life better in the future but it also makes the journey worthwhile.

    “You Don’t Drown by Falling in Water; You Drown by Staying There”

    We are in the water now. Yes?

    We better not stay there long enough to drown.

  • Wound Is The Place Where Light Enters You – Rumi

    Wound Is The Place Where Light Enters You – Rumi

    Sadness, disappointment, anguish, hopelessness…

    We, being humans, are prone to feeling these emotions more frequently than we would like to admit. The triggers that could lead us to this pit are too many to count.

    Loss of a loved one, struggle with a chronic illness, a crippling disability, lack of financial resources, one or many toxic relationships in life, the list just goes on. It’s very difficult to see the light at the bottom of that pit. And humanly so.

    But, like they say, darkness and light cannot co-exist. And thankfully the words of the wise bring much needed respite in our hours of struggle.

    “Wound is the place where the light enters you.”

    There are examples scattered all throughout the history of the world – where amid abject misfortunes, people not only came out victorious in their own life struggles beating all imaginable odds, but inspired thousands of others to look beyond the limitations of their present circumstances – emotional or material.

    Imagine a world where Hellen Keller resigned to her disability, Oprah Winfrey gave in to the negativity of her early childhood and adolescence, JK Rowling gave up on her writing dreams on receiving a flurry of rejections, Steve jobs gave up on his dreams of creating exemplary tech that the world would eventually come to adore.

    The pain they experienced going through those unfortunate circumstances would have been excruciating, but thankfully they braved the odds stacked against them and showed the world that if it’s imaginable, it is possible.

    And this victory was not just theirs. Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that they touched and inspired. The world certainly is a better place following their triumph. A world that now has sign language, Macs, iPads and Harry Potter!

    That’s the power of a wound. It can pivot our lives towards exemplary achievement or a depressing abyss.

    The direction that our life goes in, post-misfortune, depends on our own resilience in face of hardships.

    Light can enter our wounds and heal them.

    The catch is for us to see it and let it do its work.

  • I Like Work; It Fascinates Me. I Can Sit and Look At It For Hours: Meaning and My Take

    I Like Work; It Fascinates Me. I Can Sit and Look At It For Hours: Meaning and My Take

    Jerome K Jerome is known for a lot of things. And being funny is right on top.

    I was surfing the web randomly one fine day – I chanced upon this quote by Jerome K Jerome:

    “I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”

    Mind you, this was one of those days where I started off searching for a newly-launched flavor of ice-cream, only to see myself desperately looking for life advice from Epicurus precisely five minutes later.

    The journey from ice-cream to Epicurus was of the speed-of-light type, and I would certainly not bore you with the chain of search terms that led me there.

    Anyway, coming back to the topic, when I read this quote by Jerome this time, it did more than just make me smile. Of course, I relate to the quote, I do find myself staring at the huge pile of work, frozen, from time to time.

    But the “staring at the amount of work that I need to do” thing does not happen frequently enough for me to take a spiritual trip to rethink my life.

    Then I started to wonder: what’s the frequency that would actually raise red flags?

    I wanted answers. So naturally, the place I went to is Google.

    Turns out there is no definite answer to this complex question. The answers that I found on the internet were more like “42” to the “ultimate question of life, the universe and everything” (this is a reference from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy).

    Disheartened, but now with a purpose of the day, I went back to Jerome’s quote, looking for clues that I might have overlooked.

    I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.

    Hmmm…..

    Was he promoting mindfulness? Totally immersing himself in the moment? Enjoying looking at the work, deeply immersed in the moment and deriving inexplicable pleasure in the process?

    I can easily imagine why doing that would be fascinating. And somewhere in the world, Thich Nhat Hanh, would take pride in having another illustrious figure (Jerome of course!) join his Mindfulness movement.

    Was he a ninja planner? One of those ‘Type A’ personality people that absolutely love breaking down their work in a series of measurable milestones, so that they can derive immense satisfaction when they check them off upon completion?

    You and I both know many people like that.

    This definitely makes sense.

    So, he was a mindful planner. He derived immense pleasure staring at his huge pile of work.

    Darn! Now we have even more reasons to look up to him.

    He can make us smile.
    He can make us laugh.
    He can make us laugh very hard (trust me , I have come close to peeing my pants reading Three Men in a Boat)
    He was mindful and enjoyed every moment.
    He was a Ninja Planner!

    Phew! Too much inspiration from one person for a day. We need a reward. We need an ice-cream.. right this moment!

    By the way what’s the latest flavor of ice-cream that Ben & Jerry launched recently?

    I know whom to ask.

    *picks up the smartphone

    “OK Google”

  • What Does Not Kill You, Makes You Stronger: Meaning and My Take

    What Does Not Kill You, Makes You Stronger: Meaning and My Take

    These words from Friedrich Nietzsche have inspired many of us over the years – and like a perfectly-aged whiskey, they have only gotten better.

    The times that we find ourselves in today amid the COVID-19 crisis, these words are more powerful than ever before : What does not kill you, makes you stronger.

    Here, let me ask you a question: what did your life  look like just two weeks ago? And what does it look like right now?

    Maybe a couple of weeks ago, you went for dinner at a fancy restaurant, attended a work party or were out there vacationing with no care in the world.

    Today’s picture is not that, regardless of where you are in the world.

    If you do not live under a rock, you probably are constantly hooked to news channels, looking at statistics, gleaning off every little piece of information about Coronavirus that you can find, pretty much like a trader hooked to a Bloomberg screen.

    You want to know how the situation is going to evolve so you can make decisions. You want to be in the know. Knowledge is power. Isn’t it?

    You want to be able to control, and there is nothing wrong in that. After all, it has been scientifically proven through numerous studies that humans that feel they are in control are happier than those that are not (I humbly invite you to read Stumbling upon Happiness).

    And the loss of control on your life right now is unsettling. It is scary. It is okay to feel scared, angry or sad (and one of those bad days, all of those three things at once).

    However, the key is to NOT dwell on those emotions.

    After all, how much worse could it have been that it’s not already?

    You might think that you have hit absolute rock bottom. But think again.

    You are still breathing.

    You still have people in your life that you love and can count on. You can still listen to your favorite music, read your favorite books and continue on with your Netflix marathons.

    If anything, technology has ensured that you can still keep in touch with them. You have an entire planet with people experiencing almost the same scary emotions as you. This you can be absolutely sure of. There are millions of people out there feeling the same emotions.

    You are not alone.

    Yes, life could have been better. And it will be. But we have time from now until then and the quality of this time that we spend is directly proportional to our willingness to put a positive spin to our circumstances right now.

    Yes, we are on house arrest, longer than we would want to be.

    But, I want to draw your attention to the perks it brings – wearing pyjamas to work EVERYDAY, not having to take a bath everyday (how awesome is that!), watch two movies a day, go on a ‘Call of Duty’ mission on your computer, listen to music while working… the list can be as long as we want it to be.

    We are the choices we make.

    And lucky for us, Corona or not, we still call the shots.

  • Drunken Fireworks by Stephen King: Summary, Analysis and Review

    Drunken Fireworks by Stephen King: Summary, Analysis and Review

    Drunken Fireworks is a short story written by Stephen King. It was first released as an audio book in 2015 as one of the stories in a short fiction novel titled The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. 

    Stephen King mentions an anecdote with this short story, wherein an old woman, recognizing him at a grocery store, told him that she does not like horror stories.

    He did clarify that horror was not the only genre that he has written in. He mentions that he loves to read and write stories that are funny and it shouldn’t surprise anybody, because humor and horror are Siamese twins “you write some scary stories and you’re like the girl who lives in the trailer park on the edge of town: you get a reputation.”

    Too bad that he didn’t write humor as much; because going by what this story offers, we can do as much with King’s humor as with horror, if not more.

    Drunken Fireworks: Summary and Plot Analysis

    The story is narrated by Alden McCausland, who has been taken into custody by the Castlecounty police.

    Alden lives with his mother, and they are what he calls themselves – idle rich, having recently acquired a lot of wealth from his father’s demise followed by a lottery win.

    Both Alden and his mother have comfortably settled in a life that usually involves them spending a lot of time idling around and drinking. They spend most of their summers at Lake Abenaki.

    Their neighbors, on the other side of the lake, are an Italian-American family – The Massimo. They are very rich and owe their wealth to a very successful construction business.

    The McCauslands, however, do not think much of them.

    Thanks to them being Italian and operating a business out of Rhode Island, they are obviously connected to the Mafia, in the eyes of McCauslands.

    Starting from one fateful day of 4th of July celebrations, both families engage inadvertently in what came to be called the “4th of July Arms race”.

    What ensues is an insane game of McCauslands and Massimos going to great lengths to one-up their neighbors. Being ‘trumped’ by the Massimos on almost all occasions, Alden and his mother become more and more desperate to win the next showdown.

    Their desperation takes Alden to forge new connections himself – going to the extent of sourcing “Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind” or “GE4” – illegally.

    In the ensuing showdown, completely oblivious to the dry summers that Castle county had that year, Alden launches the GE4, only to witness that the fireworks go further than the intended purpose of showing Massimos who’s the boss.

    A shift of wind sets the pine trees around Massimo’s house on fire. Soon after, flames engulf the house and destroy it.

    Alden is then arrested by the police.

    fireworks in night sky
    The story Drunken Fireworks has a lot to do with fireworks… duh!

    The police, upon receiving a full statement from Alden, lets him know that Massimo will not be pressing charges, considering that they were also accountable for taking the arms race to ridiculous proportions, eventually leading to damage.

    Alden is not convicted but soon comes to know that his cabin is burned down too and the cause was attributed to his carelessness, keeping the fireworks too close to the stove. He is advised that getting along with that story, and having insurance pay for the damages is the best course of action for him.

    Drunken Fireworks: Analysis and Review

    The story has humor written all over it. Be it Alden’s complete insensitivity to other

    Cultures or his mom avoiding ‘alcohol abstinence’ like leprosy.

    The story is not devoid of time-tested wisdom either. Consider the following for an example:

    “I guess a lot of Ma’s weight gain had to do with coffee brandy, they don’t call it fat ass in a glass for no reason. But she said she was never Miss America to begin with.”

    We have all seen someone like that – family or friend – haven’t we? Oh forget all that , how much it reminds me of myself!

    Look here:

    “something’s gonna kill everyone, am I not right? Doctors have a way of forgetting that but Ma knew.”

    I noticed two things in that statement- the way I have seen our dear elderly folks try to brush off requests for making some healthy changes to lifestyle and the creative excuses that they come up with to counter them and Alden’s dog-like devotion to her mom.

    “..but they were Italian, and Massimo construction was based in Providence, Rhode Island, and you’re cops, you can connect the dots. And Ma always used to say if you put two and two together, you never get five.”

    A sharp comment on the number of babies of Massimos:

    “Massimos must have had half a dozen babies, and they wore colors so bright, they burn your eyes if you looked at them too long.”

    The next one here makes me laugh every time I read it:

    “Someone ought to dip that trumpet in olive oil and stick it up his ass. He could fart out ‘God Bless America.’”

    Alden’s blatant disregard towards his Italian neighbors is so disgusting yet hilarious.

    Some motivational quotes from Drunken Fireworks

    There were a few motivational gems referenced in the story as well. Consider the ones listed below:

    “It ain’t the size of the dog in the fight but the size of fight in the dog.”

    Then there’s this:

    “I didn’t bother telling her no made up story, because she always sees through them and has since I was knee-high to a collie.”

    This one did elicit an aww from me. The mother-and-son relationship shown in this is the only glimpse of love that you get, hiding behind all the humor and stupidity of the characters.

    Mr King does not write humor much and I don’t see why.