Second chance

I envy hermione granger for her brains and her time turner. Even in J K Rowling’s fantastical world, the time turner was a dangerous device only destined for one book. Because it just won’t do to have multiple chances in life – after all, Life is not a movie, not even HP epics.

1> I wanted to record my music ever since I realised that it is fairly easy with basic equipment and basic mixing knowledge and a decent computer. I have been working on my music making skills – from cringeworthy to palatable – my whole conscious life, so that part was covered, I naively thought. Only when I decided to pick up on a software did I realise the steepness of the learning curve. Recording is an art form in its own merit and no matter how hard I tried, even resorting to enlisting the help of clueless friends for their extra hands, I wasn’t able to record a decent song all on my own, in the house. Of course I was frustrated because there was this one Doctor on youtube singing drastically bad renditions of popular western numbers while eating watermelons and spitting out the seeds in sync with the beat AND HE had 10000 views!

#Jealousy? Definitely. That was when things were extremely manageable on the dayjob and those days are behind me. If Tonight lasted a thousand hours, I think I have learned enough from my mistakes to attempt it again. Are those thousand hours my second chance? Or is there a way I can find help in fulfilling my dream and still let it be mine?

#Hope? Definitely.

2> Science fiction is my goal and religion. It is a goal in the sense that true science fiction anticipates real science, like heinlein’s or verne’s. It is also the kind of literature I have come to worship over reading many kinds of books over the years – from thrillers to romance, to fantasy, horror and popular science. I have been fascinated with work on the dna and the implications of epigenetics on future science for some time now and the breathtaking possibilities of modern miniaturisation technologies combined with these advanced genetics provide ample scope for sci-fi speculation. With this in mind, I started writing my book after being nudged by a friend in the summer of 2012, I wrote quite a big chunk of it during the NaNoWriMo 2013 and I finished it last year. Or so I thought. Turns out, a book is not done until it is published. Until then it is a manuscript. I have not had the courage to self-publish yet and I wonder if the few big names in India will even deign to look at an unknown SciFi manuscript from and Unknown Indian. Maybe I should have a pen name like Krishna Parajuli (or something).

#SecondChance? #Hope? Dangerously held.

3>Visit Leh. To go to leh is all about the place and the magic all around it. Maybe a little bit also about the other-wordly photographs, long exposures, star-swirls and what not, but mainly about the human experience of it. Since 2011, I have been planning to go there, every year. Planning is a loose term, mostly reading up, dreaming and sometimes even dreaming more about it. I think the place has a pilgrimage feel in my mind now that I have “meditated” so much on it. I don’t want to just backpack through Leh however, I want to experience the lifestyle of different cultures living at the edge of the plateau on the top of the world and this is also another challenge. Hopefully there is a second chance on the horizon though. #dayjob #holidayLeave

I make many lists, but the ones that truly drive me to keep striving are ones that I keep in my heart. Read more of my poetry to know about issues close to my heart.

This post is a part of the #SecondChance activity at BlogAdda in association with MaxLife Insurance

Success is subjective, relevant to multiple things at once. But failure is objective. It is the non-completion of a target, it is present in only the non-achievement of a goal, a dream or some action. It is often possible to define failure without defining success – If we do not produce X% of energy from renewable sources by 2020, we will have failed in our goal of reducing dependency on middle-east oil. At the same time it is difficult to say what percentage of energy produced from renewable resources (other than more than 100% perhaps) will completely remove dependency on middle-east oil.

That doesn’t mean defining failure makes it easier for us to avoid it. Failure is just a hard reminder of the distance that remains to be covered and sometimes, it is a wake-up call, forcing one to re-evaluate the ground reality and the stratospheric realm where dreams often wander off to. Failure is nature telling you that a correction is needed to bring you on track to success, You may still not get there without further failures, but you will be enroute. Isn’t that life itself? Without failure, without the necessity and experience of finding one’s bearing in life, where is the journey that we call life?

Whether we find success or not is ultimately immaterial, what matters is that we stay true to our dreams. In that pursuit, if we ask ourselves, why dream at all when we can plan it all, we will be notoriously foiled by reality because like a thousand sided dice cannot be loaded easily, we cannot predict what will happen tomorrow. In the pursuit of our dreams, if we learn to recognise chances, and to not let go of every tiny little one at that, then we can hope to catch the swish of fate passing by and carry us aloft down the road.

Every chance you let go is another life passing you by. The fear of this happening to all your dreams is enough to make you jumpy as a rabbit in hunting season, if you think about it. If you grab at half chances, like many indian opening batsmen, you would succumb too often to nicks “down to the slip”.

Success or failure, you should treat both these imposters just the same – paraphrasing Kipling – it means you should only learn from both and keep on the lookout for new and improved chances. Success is as fleeting as failure given time and a second chance, in that they are both alike.

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Check out my post on Things I would love to do Right Now!, if only tomorrow were a few hundred hours away.

1. Get my book published.
2. Travel to Leh
3. Record my first song.

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**This post is a part of the #SecondChance activity at BlogAdda in association with MaxLife Insurance**