I write about stuff that interests me

Ni**as in Paris was released in 2011 A verse by Jay-Z goes, “What's 50 grand to a motherfucker like me? Can you please remind me?” In 2011, he had a net worth of $450 million 50 grand was a measly 0.01% of his wealth The Arab Spring happened during the same time; the Middle East and North Africa were struck with instability and violence 50 grand could mean food in the table of hundreds of families there 50 grand could be enough for many to escape the sounds of guns and bombs to start a new life where even the bare minimum seems to be a far fetched dream   Instead 100s of grands were exchanged for fancy watches and designer clothes But what’s 100 grand to a mofo like Jay-Z? I’m not criticizing Jay-Z here Because what is $20 to a mofo like me? Maybe a kid whose parents were bombed out of existence in Gaza could live for one more day with $20 $20 could also mean mosquito nets for many of the thousands of people still dying due to Malaria Instead, I used that $20 to buy...

When I was a 9-year-old kid, my front tooth had started moving- I would have to bid farewell to him soon. After some intense exchange of words, it was decided that my mom was to wrap a thread around my tooth and force it out. The experience was painful, tears rolled down my eyes, mucus soon followed- rendering my face wet. But there was a glimmer of hope waiting for me. While sleeping, I would put my tooth under the pillow to summon the tooth fairy. The next morning, I was to be rewarded with money. However, things did not play out like that. I was greeted by my musty tooth instead of money the next morning.  This betrayal could not diminish my faith in the tooth fairy. I kept putting my teeth under the pillow and got the same results. My rational adult brain is tempted to look at this memory with a sense of superiority. How foolish of me to believe in such fairy tales. Of course, beliefs should be informed by facts and logic and not by fabricated stories.  But how far can we ...

I saw a butter fly earlier and he look like he don’t bite. I tease him so he got anger and slap me with his wings. I chase the naughty slapper to take the revenge but he fly up the tree. Sadly, I human cannot do the fly up the tree. He won the fight and make my healthy bad cause my head pain, making me feel not amaze.  A wise man from America of the states once told me to keep the focus on positives. It make me wanna talk about myself. I like to do the talk with my brother and lovely sisters. I think speaking make me what I am. If I cannot speak, I will become like the naughty slapper butter fly. My teacher always told me to mind my tongue and my language. I do not think that is good.  Language determines our thoughts, opinions, and actions. It’s a reflection of our culture and values. The Nepali language is hierarchical- we use distinct verbs for our elders and friends. This facilitates respecting our elders and treating them differently like how we would treat our peers. The...

 I need to think of a reasonable way to die. A story can’t start with me being in the afterlife, just feels weird. Hmm… let me Google the most common cause of death among young people. Oh, it’s heart disease. I woke up one day. As usual, I didn’t want to get out of bed and had a strong urge to start my day by mindlessly browsing through my phone. But the resistance was particularly heavy this day. There was a numbing pain throughout my body and I could only feel the tightness of my chest. I had to be somewhere in half an hour, so lying in bed wasn’t an option. Exhausting every ounce of my willpower, I got out of bed. I entered the bathroom, squeezed some paste into my brush, made it wet and united it to my teeth. For some reason, my arm had lost all its strength, even lifting the brush proved to be an arduous task. It felt as if my legs weren’t strong enough to support my weight, like my bones had forgotten that they’re meant to keep to upright. I collapsed to the floor.   ...

I close my eyes and sit upright. No matter how hot it is, the air entering through my nose carries a cool freshness. Breathe in, my stomach bulges out like someone is blowing a balloon. Breathe out, the muscles on my face loosen up and my body feels lighter. This goes on for maybe 5 seconds. I have been escorted to the past now; time has lost its meaning. An hour long conversation I had is reduced to a single instance. That moment, with whispers and vague imagery, is powerful enough to convince me of anything. Time and rationality continue to stay irrelevant for a while. A voice breaks free and calls out to me, it reminds me of why I have closed my eyes. The sensations of air mingling with by body return, although they had never left.  I have no control over this switch inside my head. I don’t know where it will take me. It’s like the process of falling asleep- you never know the exact moment you slip into oblivion. But just like dreams, the switch takes me to a place that is ins...

  I feel like doing poetry today Words are ringing inside They must see the light Because a screen told me You can bargain with God The same God that sings That made Agnes melancholic But power is paradoxical with the future This is the present There is no God Only me and my demons So I feel like poetry today

No one wants to suffer in their life- yet no one gets to not suffer. It is reasonable to believe that suffering makes life unappealing. I’m here to argue the opposite. An idea constantly echoed in books related to happiness and meaning in life is that one cannot grow in comfort. Watching TV all day or engaging in activities that don’t require much effort won’t transform you into a more complex individual with a richer understanding and experience. You become complex and grow as a person by engaging in activities that require your attention and challenge you.  According to Flow – the psychology of optimal experience – horrific events in life often lead to people finding their purpose. This transformational effect has more to do with the reaction than the experience itself. The first step is to recognize that other people suffer due to the same cause (poverty, let’s say). Then, focus your effort on solving the problem for everyone. Someone being raised in poverty developing an intere...

I’m running. Every time I step on the ground, a jolt of pain from my knee spreads itself to my thigh. If I don’t stop immediately, it feels like an internal organ inside my lower ribs is going to burst. The cool wind gently brushing on my body is the only delight, so I focus on that. The pain is still there. I look ahead at the trees slow dancing with the wind. “It’s impossible to go ahead without a rest”, emerges an inner voice, but I ignore that and keep going. After a while, something strange happens. I no longer feel pain, but just feel incredibly grateful to be alive. A sense of bliss washes over my body. I feel energized, so I run faster. My brain was lying to me. Had I listened to it, I wouldn’t have felt the runner’s high. The storm before the calm isn’t limited to running. Whenever we have to take action, our first instinct is to put it off. An inner voice convinces us that it’s going to be boring, that it can be done any other time but now. If we don’t succumb to this voice...

After playing “relaxing music” on YouTube, I sit down - cross-legged - and close my eyes. I have one objective: focus on the rhythm of my breath. For maybe 10 seconds, I succeed. Inevitably, my mind wanders off by conjuring memories from the past or making up scenarios for the future. For the mind to do that, we don’t need to close our eyes. Think about how many times you didn’t notice something happening in the present because you were lost in thought. It’s a common experience to be looking at someone speaking to us, but only listen to the voice inside our head.  Our thoughts mostly contain instances that are blurry and lack details, but we get the gist of it. Dreams aren’t that different. One way to know if you are dreaming is by counting your fingers. If you look at your hand in your dream, it certainly won’t have 5 fingers. It seems as if the fingers were placed on the palm by a lousy architect.   We cannot predict our thoughts and they tend to bounce from one context...

As human beings, we are exceptionally capable of finding the faults or mistakes of other people. However, when it comes to ourselves, that capability seems to vanish. Sometimes, we even do the same things we criticize others for doing. Hence, the word hypocrisy exists. Our elevated positioning of the self – or ego – might be the culprit here. We don’t want to be wrong or be lesser than anyone else. Irrationality, like the one described above, aids the fulfilment of such desire.  When we look at thoughts that bother us, most aren’t rational. They stem from events that we cannot control (what other people think, what if XYZ happens in the future), or negative emotions like anger, jealousy, and possessiveness. This voice is within the confinement of ego as it resides within us, hence our judgement is impaired- although you don’t want to be angry or jealous, your thoughts make you that. But, we’re not powerless to our thoughts. Simply writing our thoughts down on a piece of paper/scree...

  I remember the small back camera my first phone had. It was a 1.3-megapixel camera. That was enough to excite my adolescent brain, and I took loads of pictures with it. Now, a typical phone has two back cameras and a front camera, all with double-digit megapixels. Feature by feature, phones have evolved- they’re larger, faster, and can do more things. Phones or any other products aren’t alone in this. From a microbe invisible to the naked eye, we evolved into the being we are today. Every subsequent generation of the microbe brought change. For organisms, the evolutionary process was driven by the conditions of nature at that time i.e. if the change was suitable to the conditions, it persisted. For products, it’s driven by human behaviour. What new features of a product persist depends on our preferences. In a way, we are to products what nature is to organisms. With time, the might of nature upon us has diminished. We were meant to live inside caves, to hunt. But, human civi...