Autumn in Hall in Tirol

  It smells of earth that has recently had it's surface kissed by transparent pellets falling from the sky. The streets in Hall in Tirol protested Fall with their vibrant flowers to always keep one company. A gentle breeze caused the beautiful, parched leaves, clinging to their trees by nothing more than mere will, to fall and the already Fallen, strewn on the ground, to find a new home away from their former one.

  In my three ripe years spent in Europe, this was the first year when I appreciated the simple grace of Autumn. There was the faint chirping of a single bird, which seemed to originate from the tree in front of the olive green park bench, where my coffee and me were perched in our solitude. More brown leaves succumbed to the loving wind, while the healthy ones danced, as the church bells chimed. It was four o'clock. A window on my left reflected the vivid blue sky with no wisps of white to diminish it's vastness.

  I heard the siren of an ambulance in the distance, but, here, in my oasis, surrounded by the murmuring trees and the quiet of idle cobblestone streets of a small town, I feel partitioned from the plights of my fellow humans. It looks like more birds have joined; the chirping has increased in both - its frequency and its urgency.

  This town is a luxury for eyes that have been subjected to everything city: traffic signals, traffic, students, monotonous days and never-ending concrete. Hall in Tirol reminded me of Italy - Treviso, in particular. As I sat there, finally having sipped the last of my coffee - only the foam remained - the sun played Hide n Seek with the leaves, often procreating newer, darker patterns on them.

  I felt exhausted, despite having slept for a decent amount of time. Needless to say that the coffee had not done it's job. I'm going to stop writing now, I wrote in my journal. 

Until next time.
Love,
Anmol

Caring Is Human

  

Bödele, Dornbirn, Austria, 2015. 

  I have been wondering, no matter how blasé or uncaring we believe or portray ourselves to be, there is always a part of us that concerns itself with how others perceive us. Needless to say, this happens in many variations; maybe, you care about what your parents say, or maybe it's your peers you care about. For me, it happens to be a certain set of people. No matter how unconcerned I am by everyone else's opinion, I always - and I mean, always - care about what they think. This tendency often irks/annoys me. I don't know why, because this is human.  
  
  We care. We try not to, but when all is said and done, we care. That's the truth. In today's world, it's almost blasphemous to admit that aloud. I think, it's alright to care as long as we keep reminding ourselves that someone else's opinion - regardless of how important he/she might be - does not dictate what we do and who we are. That is for us to decide. 

The Love Behind The Work

Napoli, Italy, 2017

  Happy Saturday, lovely people!
  We'll forget the corniness of it all. I've been reading On The Road by Jack Kerouac and to be honest, it just isn't my kind of a book. I appreciate the free-flowing, musical writing style that he has adopted, but the story, in itself, is lacking something - a certain depth. While reading I don't find myself rooting for any of the characters and that, I think, is a problem. A good book should make you root for someone; you should be invested in their lives, in their wins, in their losses. It should make you feel. This is what I've learned over the past decade or so of reading: the only books which are imprinted in our memories are the ones which made us feel the most; the characters were our very own friends. 
  I have also been quite conflicted about my love for Harry Potter. There is a certain reverence that J.K. Rowling has inspired in me; I mean, good God, a woman constructed all that - an entire world - in her mind, and then had craftily enough introduced us to her world. She did it with so much dexterity that it has become absurd to even imagine someone not knowing who Dumbledore or Snape is. I have an immense admiration for her, but recently while reading the books, it occurred to me that the writing in itself isn't that proficient, rather it is the movies and the fact that millions of us grew up with the books - with the characters - that has instilled this curious nostalgia in us about this enchanting world.  
  Regardless, what really strikes a chord within one is watching her interviews and one can clearly see that Harry is her baby, her life's constant - perhaps, her best friend in many ways. One sees the passion and the love when she speaks about the books. That is how everyone should feel about their life's work, no matter what it is. There has to be love behind the work; the work has to be the baby. 

A Part Of The Human Experience

St Gallen, Switzerland, 2017

  Recently, I started reading again. For a good year, I'd say, I had almost completely stopped reading. Every time I picked up a book, I immediately placed it back on the shelf because I realised that I no longer wanted to read all these stories that kept on getting repeated in one form or another. They almost always ended the same way, and then it hit me, human life can only end in so many ways. What's important is what comes before the end. This in itself is no great epiphany but I feel as though we all need to be reminded of the fact that there will, at some given point, be an end. We need to be reminded of our acute mortality.

  Death can induce two very extreme reactions in most of us: It is either a very nebulously distant thing or it is something that influences most of actions on a daily basis. I have been on both ends of this spectrum. Both of these things have allowed me certain luxuries. While I was keenly aware of death, I noticed, I did things that I normally would never do with the mantra "Who the fuck cares?"
Then, recently, when "the end" became this thing that only ever came up in deeply profound conversations, when although aware of this concept of death, it didn't really register that I might one day die (sooner or later, hopefully later), I was confronted with this sense of having time, which in itself is rare.

  There has been a very short period, if ever, when I have been able to balance these antithesis, and I'm guessing, I am not the only one. We, as a race, need to be able to accept our mortality in a way that is healthy. We need to stop being so scared of death. Here, too, are two contrasting people: One, who are absolutely terrified of death, and two, who either romanticise death or constantly use it as an excuse. Again, an equipoise needs to be attained. You must be thinking, "Easier said than done," and it is true. It is hard.

  Human beings wouldn't have survived for so long if not for their perpetual fear of going extinct. I mean, there is a reason that mating is the most primal instinct of ours. Yes, love, but people constantly cheat on people they love with others. I'm not saying it is alright, but monogamy was never part of our lives until some society in the past decided it was. So, yes, the thought of death scares the living lights out of most of us and that is okay, as long as a voice in the back of our minds keeps reminding us that it is part of the entire human experience.