Out Bad Habits

November 22, 2021

 I started following blog post on November 17…

I’m trying to change bad pandemic habits. One of the worst ones is lolling around in my pj’s until 4 pm, then training and showering. 

I wrote two lines and gave up. I had no energy to explore anything in a post. My mind felt tired and incoherent and journaling was preferable.

 

I’ve been busy, and my writing time, but even more my reading time, has expanded, and time binging ‘netflix’ reduced. But my mind has been constantly tired. It is perhaps this needing to change bad habits and the resistance by the habits to the desired changes that has been one of the reasons. 

 

I’m writing about the habits as if they are interlopers, outsiders, not me, but for a while they completely took over my body and mind. They were me, my life and I sunk, slipped, lulled, nested, into them through the pandemic. Until one day I woke so sick of them and who I had become that I needed to oust them immediately. By then of course they were comfortable occupiers of my inner home, squatters who did not care for it but were hard to dislodge. The daily struggle to topple them, I felt in my body as a deep lethargy, gastric troubles and difficulty sleeping. Now some days I train in the morning, shower, and put on decent clothes even if I am working at home. Today though it is past noon and I’m still in my pj’s. Not yet successful, this war on bad habits. 

 

I’ve been working on Boiling Frogs slowly, too slowly. Most days, and today more than ever, I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. But some days I’ve made it to a chapter, and I’ve got a glimpse of what needs to happen, and for a few hours I’ve been happily immersed in the world of my novel. 

 

Today though I feel more panicky than ever. I’ve been watching writers talk about their books and processes both on the Singapore Writers Fest and then at Tata Lit Fest, and I’ve been feeling, Stop, you don’t have a clue, do you?

 

Today I’m feeling, I can’t do this. I can’t do it alone, I haven’t a clue.

 

So, I think I need to pull out of the chapters and spend some time with the bigger picture? Maybe, perhaps, who knows?

 

One of the things about listening to some of the writers is the reassuring sense that they too had long moments of feeling, I don’t have a clue. 

 

But today I really, really feel like I can’t or don’t want to work on this alone. Yet a writer’s work is solitary. Yes, there are editors and book coaches, but I don’t feel ready to surrender to one yet. 

 

Besides this, three of our Singy karatekas will be doing dan exams in a few months and I’ve been occupied trying to arrange an online test and figure out how to assist their training. 

 

Modi in a dramatic turnaround, in a dramatic speech, announced that the farm laws would be repealed. Farmers have been sitting at the borders of Delhi in silent protest for more than a year, and about 700 have died. His speech had no mention of those dead, and those maligned with words, or with false court cases. There is a lot to unpack around all this. Most say it is an election move and it likely is, though it is being spun by Modi media as the act of a sensitive leader. The bhakts who aggressively supported the laws are confused and slightly betrayed, small farmers and those who would benefit from these laws are let down. But it is a victory for democratic process and it felt great watching the farmers distribute jalebis. Whether the laws were brought in good faith or not, the process by which they were rushed through parliament was spectacularly undemocratic and hopefully the BJP Government’s bad parliamentary process habits have taken a hit. 

 

More VTL flights to India opening soon and I am watching and waiting to plan a trip. It will be two years in January.