Gone

Posted on January 27, 2013 by The Nameless One

A place from your past or childhood, one that you’re fond of, is destroyed. How do you feel?

There were many places where I have memories associated with my childhood, but none of them I’m attached to feel very sentimental about. That’s the way I’m, and have always been, I do get bit attached to things but they don’t tend to last much longer so I doubt I can call them that in the first place. That being the reason why I don’t actually recollect such a place ceasing to exist now. My most favourite childhood place well, is my home where I still live in. Now wouldn’t want that to be ‘destroyed’ and me ending up on the road, you know.

How Music Matters (to me)

Posted on January 26, 2013 by The Nameless One

Universally accepted addiction, healing medicine, entertainment or simply for passing time – Music. What would have life been without it?

What role does music play in my life? I should say quite a big one. Although I don’t actively ~~blast~~ listen to much music now due to so many things happening, or simply I prefer the quiet more (dam am I growing too old already?) music had a big impact on my life, more than I care to admit.

Anyone who knows me in person/virtually or simply judging by looking at the image above, Linkin Park is my most all time favourite band of all time. Not only they are great musicians but also great human beings. Their music was one of the first I heard when I started listening to music when I was a kid in school, I didn’t have a computer back then and it was limited to tv, radio, CDs, and computers of cousins and my uncle. Not to forget my school. I was very much into the developing internet and doing various crap, learning stuff like HTML, Flash, Photoshop and other minor stuff along the way while at it. Everything changed in ’05 when I got my very own computer at home. The TV slowly became a long lost friend, as I was no longer ‘needed it; for movies, music, and hell since then till today, all ‘TV shows’ are seen by me on my laptop.

Coming to music here, from Linkin Park and very few other classic artists like The Beatles, Eagles, Nirvana (I remember back then the first time I thought they were an Indian band because of the name), Led Zeppelin and some others. I was never into Hindi music or any of the Indian pop simply because most of them were either crap while others I simply couldn’t understand (Hindi) properly.

Music, especially Linkin Park, changed my life completely. I was always the lone-wolf on my own, so that was my salvation (in a manner of speaking). Listening to good music and lyrics calmed the mind and made me think (that happens only when you listen to the good ones and not today’s crap mostly in the name of music). Coming to LP, because of them my interest broadened widely, and contrary to my appearance which looks like I’m the kind into rock and metal, I enjoy listening to many artists from almost all genres of music ranging from rock, metal to even classic, orchestra and especially soundtracks from video games, anime, movies and shows. Anything which sounds good to my ears and head.

Heck, Linkin Park has become a part of my identity today, some even introduce me to others as ‘the Linkin Park guy’ here. I have done a lot in my life directly or indirectly inspired by them. Apart from my 2 blogs, I also co-run Linkin Park India Unlimited, India’s #1 Linkin Park fansite, and have met many amazing people here and around the world all thanks to them. I wasn’t always the awesome person I’m now 😛 and I felt shit about myself hell lot of times before, and these powerful words made me stronger and better person. Or I’d like to think that way.

It saddens me a bit as I’m a member of the official fan club Linkin Park Underground and waiting for over 9 years to see them live now, and probably I’m one of the oldest fans/LPUers who haven’t seen them yet. I wish I was (filthy) rich at such times so that I could fly overseas. Well atleast I got all the online privileges and even shout outs by Mike Shinoda himself.

When we started the band, it was because we were waiting for a sound that never happened. We got tired of waiting, and we decided to just do it ourselves.

– Mike Shinoda

This quote by Mike has inspired me a lot personally to do things in my life, and many of my fellow mates at LPIU where we are trying to implement it, in this case most importantly to make our favourite band perform in our country. So far we have managed to achieve some good milestones, small but still important and hopefully will get to see them live here in India soon in the future.

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”

– Bob Marley

My Eulogy for Myself

Posted on January 25, 2013 by The Nameless One

Writing my eulogy. This is a whole new level of talking to myself and about myself, and here both of them put together! Quite naturally I don’t know where on earth (?) I’ll be when I kick the bucket, I have this paradoxical feeling of ‘worrying’ of dying alone, and at the same time ~~much preferring~~ wanting that. So here it goes, sort of:

The beast is no more, and has gone to ride beyond this world, if such a thing exists that is. Mere words won’t do justice to him, or more honestly there are no words for that matter. I would have like to have called him my friend, but I doubt anyone of us could honestly say so. He wasn’t the greatest out there, nor the most attractive, but what made him special was he was always himself and always tried to be true to himself and ones around him. He was\ the bravest, and craziest person I ever knew. I wonder what all he managed to accomplish before he kicked the bucket, but I sincerely hope he was personally satisfied in the end, which he wasn’t at all at any given time. He would have not have believed someone would say this as he was always the lone-wolf, but in all sincerity I will miss that son of a gun. I hope he found some measure of peace in the end.

Well that would be about it, although as I already mentioned above, I would rather have and most likely will as I think now that I’ll be on my own. The idea of laying dead on the bed with hundreds (number depends on how famous/rich you are) around you mourning (depends, many of which is just obligatory) doesn’t much appeal to me. If I have one wish, someone play a Linkin Park song on my passing, or a good tune. Well I won’t be hearing that when I kick the bucket, so that won’t matter either way.

Play it, baby!

Posted on January 25, 2013 by The Nameless One

As if by magic, you can now play the guitar with great skill. What’s the first song you will play?

Hotel California by the Eagles. Unless you are not from this planet, no chance you might have not heard it, even if you don’t listen to music. While I would dig into many other great songs out there, Linkin Park being my most favourite band of all time, and lot of great music out there today (amidst the more crappy ones in the name of music) that is one of the first song which actually made me want to learn to play the guitar when I was a kid in school. That didn’t go so well though, as I’m more interested in drums and in the technical aspect, and till date ~~didn’t get the opportunity~~ haven’t learned a dam thing. Someday for sure.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Beyond

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Beyond

This is a photo taken back in late 2007 or early 2008 exactly which I can’t remember right now. It is a view from the top of my school from one of the buildings, and since my home is about 5 minutes away this is more or less a view from my home too.

What strikes me in this picture as it has the natural beauty in it, the slums and the fancy big buildings all around together in one place. I live in quite the mixed neighborhood. It shows me that the world is out there to be faced. Well the sky looks good too. While there many photos which I could have put up here which reflected beyond to me, for this reason this image struck me the most here.

Understand your limitations and capitalize on them

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Click to enlarge

courtesy of Bruce Lee facebook page

10 minutes of nothingness?

Posted on January 24, 2013 by The Nameless One

Set a timer for ten minutes. Open a new post. Start the timer, and start writing. When the timer goes off, publish.

So this is another interesting daily prompt. Like those impromptu extempore speeches one might have asked to give at a or multiple points of time in one’s life. Now just a difference I have absolutely no clue what to write about, and expected to write down something within 10 minutes trying to make some sort of sense at the very least (who am I kidding?).

I’m the kind who either writes pages all together within some minutes or unable to write nothing at all, and sadly I feel this is one of those latter moments. So let me start or rather I should say continue with one of those topics which intrigue me: Nothingness.

Instead of blabbering some shit, just here I’m typing it down, at the same time combating the chaos happening around me. For me here (Bombay, India) the daily prompt comes around 6:30-7:00 PM, when I usually go out for a walk if not doing something else, and the time approximately when the rest of the family members come back home. So right around the time when my peaceful quota of the day ends. It’s like a challenge for me to write the daily posts here everyday. Today I started with figuring out how the timer in my apparently-not-so-smart phone works (more of a computer guy, quite literally and not much into phones)

This exercise showed me just another day for spending time with myself really, and in a way testing my typing speed/skill perhaps. Atleast I’m good at something. Just shows it’s difficult to think of something out of the blue, nothingness being the issue I was trying to speak about here. Here I have absolutely nothing in my mind right now and I find it hard to believe myself. Maybe I need to spend more time with myself, or actually I’m doing that in abundance, just not in the ‘right way’. Spending time with yourself is very important, and I surprised I managed to come up with all this without thinking. Okay, barely. Still some seconds left on the timer so before it’s up, and whoever is reading this, ought to try it this yourself, not necessary if you are a blogger. Or maybe I’m just talking to myself, which I always do and have no idea why. Or maybe I know. Ah fuck it.

Live and die on this day

Posted on January 23, 2013 by The Nameless One

Looking at today’s daily prompt, I find it quite astounding that just in one of my previous posts I had wrote pertaining to survival, which inspired me to give this title and this being a continuation of sorts. So after reading R v Dudley and Stephens I like most have mixed feelings about this.

So firstly, long story short, if you didn’t bother reading the wiki article which is still small, four crewmen of an English yacht, the Mignonette, who were cast away in a storm some 1,600 miles from the Cape of Good Hope, were stranded in a life boat. They were Tom Dudley, the captain; Edwin Stephens; Edmund Brooks; and Richard Parker, the cabin boy. Parker was 17 years old and an inexperienced seaman. After a weeks of survival with no food or water, facing a storm, fighting a shark and resorting to drink their own urine for surviving. Parker fell ill and subsequently in coma due to a combination of famine and drinking sea water. After several discussions of sacrificing one so that the other three may live, Dudley with the aid of Stephens killed Parker (killing him before his natural death would make it possible for them to drink his blood) and the three lived on eating his flesh. They were rescued four days later.

After their rescue, this sparked quite a controversy among law makers, seamen, and the public, which developed a crucial ruling on necessity on modern law. The main question however here: Is what Dudley did defensible?

This is not a simple yes or no answerable question, it has certain multiple sides to it. The question is not about whether what he did was right or wrong, but more of necessity and subsequently survival. Firstly Dudley was the captain, and wasn’t it that the captain goes down with the ship? He was the one who ultimately decided that one down is better than four. Was it justified? Not necessarily. Was it practical? Yes. In that situation that was the only practical thing which could have been done, the other option was to wait it out with the possibility of dying. And the instinct of survival is in all living creatures. Who wants to die? (unless you life is a complete mess and you think of kill yourself)

What I find very frustrating was the fact that the reason that Dudley and Stephens were family men so ‘their lives were more important’. What makes their lives more important than the other(s)? And wasn’t the Custom of the Sea that the captain goes down with the ship?

Coming to me, What would I have done? Well I’m not in that situation so I can’t answer honestly. But if it would arise, then I would take the practical route as always and would have gone that course just like them. And if I were in the place of Parker, I would prefer a swift death than suffering (saying purely in such a context only). I’m not going to see how I’m feasted upon after I’m dead right? But in all reality, I would honestly prefer to live it out, and die fighting for survival, if there was any hope of no one getting killed. But again, we can’t say for certain without being the situation itself, and while each life is valuable, who decides that? Like I said in my previous post, live and die on this day.

And lastly, I again found it bit funny that the recent very hit and a moving movie on survival, Life of Pi, the tiger’s name is also Richard Parker. And it has the exact same context as here, you would have realized that if you have seen it, if not I recommend that you do. Looking at my posts, I should perhaps recommend a movie/book in each of my posts now right?

Phases of any moment in life

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Phases of any moment in life

The Grey

Posted on January 22, 2013 by The Nameless One

I have a lot of favourite poems, had a very keen interest in them before (and even used to write myself). For now I could think of only this small four lined one:

Once more into the fray…
Into the last good fight I’ll ever know.
Live and die on this day…
Live and die on this day…

This is from the movie The Grey (2011). It conveys a powerful meaning in just few lines, not only in the movie itself, but when you think about it, in our very lives of survival. As subtle as it says ‘once more into the fray, into the last good fight I’ll ever know’, every moment in our lives is a fight we must face, and that may define our very life. Many are generally mistaken that one is at their own best when they have nothing to lose, but the truth is having something to lose, something worth fighting for is what makes one go ahead. It should be noted that it goes live and die on this day and not or (contrary to the popular saying ‘live/do or die’ or the modern iteration ‘do it before you die’) which signifies continuing from the previous line ‘…Into the last good fight I’ll ever know.’ that this is the moment and we must live it, and die with it, the next will play on itself depending on our actions.