trivia:
- favorite movie: La meglio gioventù (2003)
- it’s a 6 hours long movie. But it never felt long. It just pulls you in.
- favorite work by Tagore (amongst the small section of his work that I have sampled): মানুষের ধর্ম
- some tv series that I liked:
- Dekalog
- Better Call Saul
- Normal People
- Sons of Anarchy
- The Shield (2002)
- The Young Pope
- the book’s knowledge that I use most for personal reasons: Loving What Is by Byron Katie
so many things have changed. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila (both by Robert Pirsig) used to be my favorite books. They are still good but I don’t feel so attached to them now. Perhaps they have become internalized and thus they have lost the initial charm. They are still good books and a lot of my thought patterns have been influenced by them.
I am at a loss for what I want to say. I mean there are so many things that I can say but I am thinking if those are relevant at all. I am supposed to introduce myself in some way and yet leave enough spirit in my words that they can reach you and thus give you the recognition. Of that I am at a loss.
I don’t want to be all scripty and narrativizing like “ami tomake bole debo ki she eka dirgho raat ami hete gechi biran pothe” type stuff. I have outgrown that. I really don’t need you to act as a balm on my old wounds or something of that sort. That’s not what this is about.
I am remembering the following quote that I read this evening:
Now when you are in a relationship with another, that relationship has only one purpose. It exists as a vehicle for you to decide and to declare, to create and to express, to experience and to fulfill your highest notion of Who You Really Are.
around 2 AM
allow me the joy of sharing some Raga Darbari with you. I was going to bed when a friend of mine sent me a recording of Raga Darbari.
I think I will wait a week. Perhaps with time I will know more about what to say, or aspects of myself I should write.
I mean no matter what I write, the real human being lives only moment to moment. The human being only exists in relation to the other. As much as I create a digital persona (that corresponds to how I think I am), as time flows by, or as I flow through time with you, the persona will evaporate and the real human being will be revealed. I need to get to that point where our paths cross, where we spend time and it is only in that window of time that you can really know me and I you.
When I think of marriage, I do not hold any idealized dreams borrowed from external sources. After all the din and noise is over, after the last guest has gone home after a distracting party, there will only be me, you and the silence. How do we deal with that silence? I feel that is the crux of the question.
I heard this word in a movie about Snowden- mutually assisted destruction. I see around and I see couples engage in mutually assisted distraction.
In all these years, I think I have had 3 to 4 authentic, absolutely personal experiences.
One of them is shikantaza. Shikantaza means just that. Just sitting. You sit facing a wall in lotus position, hold your hands in a mudra and you just sit and sit and sit. There is no point to it, there is no goal to it, and yet it feels very authentic. Very raw, unadulterated experience. And mysteriously, this experience cannot really be communicated. There is this boundary of personalization which another person cannot cross. Buddha held up a flower; only Mahakashyapa understood what it meant. Had they transcended the boundaries of the self? I don’t know.
Have I strown enough aspects of myself in these writings for you to ponder and take up the pen and write back? Have these letters found you yet?
3:12 PM
i bought the domain, the site is up and running. i feel a bit of thrill knowing it will be beamed out there once i start running ads. as I am typing this, a Tagore song is pleasantly holding me. Last winter I discovered some beautiful Tagore songs. I listened to them throughout this year. To my utter delight I discovered one this winter.
আহা তোমার সঙ্গে প্রাণের খেলা, প্রিয় আমার, ওগো প্রিয়—
you know what’s really relieving? to be able to exist in a digital sphere just as I am, to ask for you without reservations or thoughts of “oh I need to compromise this part, oh this part needs sacrificing, oh this I have to give up on.” I am so relieved.
This letter is already too long. I will rest now with a story from Dogen/Shunryu Suzuki: a man was fond of dragons and he used to draw pictures of dragons so one day the dragon paid him a visit. As much as he painted dragons, when the real one arrived he cowered in fear. I hope when the time comes, I am not that man.