I'm proud of myself. After a long time, I'm proud of something I did. My 100th post here was one of those times. Getting featured on the Maadhyam page as the first featured blog was another. These times come rarely and that's what makes them all the more special.

Now you might wonder what made today one of those moments.

I flipped pancakes today. For the first time ever, I tried flipping a pancake, without a spatula like those chefs I admire on TV. And it wasn't just one. It was three :)

It's a small, insignificant thing. But it makes me feel very good. To be standing in my kitchen, flipping a pancake made me feel very important.

It's something I'll remember. It's filed away in that space in my mind reserved for such memories. One among so many others. But just as important.

Plans

When you make plans you expect them to work out. And the key word here is expect. Which more often than not means disappointment.

Because plans usually involve factors other than just yourself. They involve places, inanimate objects maybe but never just yourself in isolation. So when you plan to read, the book could be horrible. When you plan to listen to music, your earphones could stop working. When you plan to use the internet, it would refuse to work. When you plan to go someplace, it could start raining or you could not have transport. Etc etc etc.

And then there are those that involve other people. These are plans which are most likely to, and 99% of the time always do, disappoint. These plans would require a mind other than your own, which means that you can't control it. Thus making it, you guessed it, fail. Because when you make these plans, you expect the other person/s to also think the same way. You expect her/him/them to do a certain thing or be at a certain place or stick to a certain time. Which further compounds the likelihood of said plans failing.

Solution to problem - Don't make plans and don't depend on others thus avoiding disappointment.

Reality - Learn to deal with the disappointment.

You know the thing about being an idiot... The only one you hurt is yourself.

A lack of space is a really bad thing for a hoarder like me. I find it very hard to let go of things, throw things away. Both literally and figuratively.

I collect odd and ends. Tickets, stones, shells, bills. Memories, pictures, movies, books, tv shows. I hoard. And store. Because I find meaning in these things. The bill saved from dinner. The passes to plays and concerts I've been to. The movies I love watching over and over again. Quotes saved as drafts on my phone. A stone which looks just right in the sunlight. Shells from beach visits when we were kids. I keep all these. And attach importance to these inanimate objects. And I'm scared that letting any of these things go would mean that I'll forget.

I'll forget that really amazing concert. I'll never find that pretty stone again. That I won't remember that really nice dinner. That I won't remember that one really bad day. That I'll forget... That if I let go of one thing, that'll mean it's gone forever.

So then I start running out of boxes to keep these things. My table gets cluttered. And my hard drive acts up because there is too much on it.

And I have to start clearing things out. And throwing things away. With every paper i throw away, I feel like I'm forgetting.

But I guess there are some things you just must throw away. Some conversations you shouldn't remember. Some things you should just let go of.

Doesn't make it any simpler knowing that...

Sometimes realization can hit you so hard that you get the breath knocked out of you.

With all the force of a wrecking ball, it slams into the walls of your mind. And before you can even blink, the ideas you once had lie in smithereens around your feet.

That your carefully guarded moat had sleeping crocodiles. That those high walls had weak foundations. That the secrets you held locked up are now everyone's to know. That the diary has been read. That you have changed, irrevocably and irreversibly. That everything you warned yourself against crept up on you.

Worse than all of this, is the realisation that maybe you let it happen. That maybe you wanted it to happen. And that maybe you allowed it to happen.

So what do you do after being sucker-punched right between the eyes?

Make sure no one sees the black eye of course.

Fear

Fear is a crushing emotion. It grips your heart, twists your mind. Worse than the fear of the tangible is the fear of the intangible. The fear of dependency. The fear of loss. The fear of pain. The fear of embarrassment. The fear of ridicule. The fear of fear itself.

When you know what your fear is, you can recognise it, you can deal with it. But when the fear creeps up on you, when it was never there but suddenly is, that's the hardest to cope with. Because then, you didn't know how it happened, and you didn't know when. But it did happen. That thing which you never even bothered about now has it's teeth sunk in you. That fear which was once something you scoffed at, jeered at, now has come back to take revenge.

Fear, dear reader, is something you must protect against. Because fear, can kill. Slowly and painfully.

Man is a greedy creature. Always hungry for more. Always wanting, desiring, asking, needing. Never satisfied. Never happy.

He is a fickle creature. Impressionable. The grass is always greener on the other side after all. So he wants what the other one has, not seeing the wonders he already possesses.

And he will do anything to have it. Keep it. Possess it.

And before he knows it, what he had and saved, is lost to him too. Forever.

Because man isn't just greedy. He is also foolish.