I’m still on a long, personal journey to uncover the voice that feels my own. All these years of wandering weren’t wasted; they were preparation. This journey must pass through intense work and exploration; it can’t happen only in the mind, for memory is fragile. I have to create, discard, and create again; until what remains feels true.
Tag: thoughts
Musings raked from personal journal
work
I’ve come to see that deep, focused work gives my life its meaning. To exist is to create; that’s what it means to be human. I’m grateful to be creating something tangible, realizing a vision, instead of drifting in passive consumption or empty theorizing.
good life
Is when you have a productive day doing what matters, and still finding the time to gaze at the sunset.
why write
The act of writing reveals its deeper function: a disciplined way of metabolizing suffering. Stripped of cultural polish, it is a structured, and often solitary method of turning inner chaos into external order. In essence, writing becomes a healthy sublimation of darkness, transforming primitive drives into higher, even noble, expression.
The writer doesn’t escape suffering; they transmute it
The same force that might consume; as self-harm, addiction, or rage is redirected into language, image, and form. The pain doesn’t vanish, it’s recontextualized into meaning.
For me, writing is a healthy response to the absurdity and darkness of life, especially when it transforms. Addiction binds; destruction externalizes; rumination spirals. Writing integrates. It gives chaos a name, a clear boundary.
In that sense, the true writer isn’t escaping pain; they’re performing the psychological plumbing of living consciously. And for me, that remains the most persuasive argument for making art, not for others, but for oneself.
many lives
I carry many lives within me, but I will live them through one phase at a time. With the intensity of a storm, yet the soft transition of seasons that know when to move on. I do not need to do everything to express what matters most.
What matters is not how many forms I touch, but how fully I inhabit the truth I seek.
Let discomfort reveal, not contaminate
Engage challenging art and ideas with discernment, not fear. What unsettles you might also teach you something essential.
#1 Letter to younger self
drowning in theory
Never working on art, finished paintings are not to be seen. Is it fear lurking beneath?
Research spirals into endless ruminations, masquerading as progress. Waiting for the “perfect” conceptual depth; perfectionism masks fear of public judgment.
Hiding behind “multiple paths” to dodge the terror of committing to one signature body of work. Years go by and the mid-life crisis threatens.
colour of pain
Is it purple, like bruises that refuse to heal, burning within. Or red, sharp and alive, gushing from broken heart. Like grey, a heavy cloud of melancholy that fogs the mind.
And when it settles, perhaps it turns to brown, the shade of what remains after, memories etched deeper than the wound itself, traces of what we’ve lived through.
And when it all ends, the tears dry and harden into earth, a dark soil from which a new day arises.
perspective
An artist says “look at this”, gently directing our view to something specific, to see just the way they see; and feel what they feel. In this way they want you to connect on a deeper level, and to converse with you. Art is a means to make the viewer look at familiar things in a different perspective.
Audience of One
Even if my work is understood by just one person in the world, that is enough. What truly matters is someone who connects deeply on a spiritual and emotional level. One gentle soul who feels that connection, not through words but through silence. In that moment, all the effort and purpose of the work is fulfilled.
On freedom and the burden of choice
I value autonomy: the freedom to choose one’s own path, free from coercion or influence. This freedom is integral and forms the core of my values. This comes with a cost; the choices are mine and so is the blame. Some decisions are irreversible.
To choose one’s own path is to carry both the upside and the failures without excuse. It is easier to follow someone else’s path, to direct the blame when things fall apart. But true autonomy offers no such excuse. It asks for vulnerability and courage: to face regrets, failures, and still to say: this life is mine.
Faded
Those friends I once studied, worked with, people I had known so closely, now feel distant – lost in time. I remember those relationships as if they were from another lifetime, faded like a forgotten dream. We drifted apart, our choices have taken us in different directions.
Some connections served their time and dissolved.
As I grow older, I realize it isn’t just distance that separates us, but also our ideologies and values. Perhaps some friendships are not meant to endure, and it’s gentler to let them go; slowly drifting away. Those attempts to revive them didn’t endure.
Like a chapter in a book, perhaps they were meant to last only that long. Some connections served their time and dissolved.
man+machine
I’m grateful to have discovered algorithmic trading. It has given structure and logic to what once felt like a chaotic process. I now see a framework where each step is governed by logic and reason.
That discipline is something I always aspired to embody, but could rarely sustain as a human being. Now I have a partner in the machine, one that reflects back the kind of reasoning I value: precise, methodical, and rational.
The sheer capacity of machines fascinates me: it can perform thousands of calculations, checks and balances every second, every minute, every hour, without pause. They don’t get tired. They don’t lose focus.
For me, there has been a tectonic shift in the decision-making flow. There’s a ruthless precision in every move. It follows logic, uncompromised by moods or emotions that often derail human judgment: fear, greed, frustration, or stress.
All said and done, a machine is only as reliable as the logic it is programmed with. What it offers me is not perfection, but consistency—a steady presence, an assurance that it has my back when my own judgement is clouded by emotion.
Intentional Living
We live in a time where worth is measured by outcome, efficiency, and scale. That erodes the inner dignity of labour. Doing the smallest task with full presence, and thereby imbuing it with dignity and meaning. This shift in mindset—“what I do matters, however small”—restores meaning.
That’s where intensity arises: from a willingness to commit fully to this brushstroke, this canvas, this conversation, rather than diffusing oneself into everything at once.
Intentional living, for me, is about conscious attention. The opposite of being pulled along by speed, distraction, or habit. I have deep respect for the artisan who works with care and devotion, a singular unwavering focus, as if it is the only thing in the world.
Intentionality is less about slowing down for the sake of slowness, and more about living intensely in the moment—with full heart, mind, and spirit. For me, that’s where dignity and purpose live.
obscurity
At the personal level, many painters carry traits that steer them away from publicity. Introversion, perfectionism, or fear of ridicule can make exhibitions feel threatening and interviews unbearable.
This fear of public scrutiny could burrow deep and ruin with self-sabotage. The realisation that intense exposure could distance them from the very thing that keeps it authentic. An ideal scenario would be that an artist works in obscurity but is completely outside the sphere of influence or scrutiny. A feat rarely achieved by artist.
These hesitations are amplified by cultural narratives that equate obscurity with authenticity. Since the nineteenth‑century slogan “art for art’s sake,” bohemian subcultures have elevated the unrecognised artist to heroic status, casting commercial success as moral compromise. Van Gogh’s posthumous image established the modern template: the misunderstood genius who dies poor yet triumphant in integrity.
Artistic reputation is never built alone; it relies on dense networks of curators, critics, peers, and collectors. Painters who juggle care work, battle social marginalisation, or simply lack time for networking miss the informal circuits where opportunities circulate.
Acceptance
The ability to see things as they are: ones age, limitations, regrets, the road behind and the road ahead; without denial, embellishment, or self-deception. “Acceptance” is one of the most powerful forces in a meaningful life, especially when facing moments like a mid-life crisis.
Acceptance isn’t passivity. It’s not resignation. It’s clarity without illusion. To see reality as it is. To free oneself to live this actual life, with all its limitations, beauty, and rawness.
Acceptance is not giving up, it’s growing up. It redefines strength.
It allows grief to do its work. At mid-life, you grieve:
Unlived lives
Past regrets
Faded youth
Failed expectations
The death of certain dreams
Acceptance gives you the permission to grieve what won’t return, and begin building what still can.
Wisdom
The most profound and wise thing to say is “I don’t know”. It requires true humility to realise the fact there are many things beyond our understanding.
Beauty
“Beauty will save the world”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot
What is beauty? And what does it mean?
Dostoyevsky here must be referring to a redeeming quality of beauty that is deeper than mere aesthetics. He must be talking about truth and goodness. What does the world lack that it necessitates saving?
Does he consider the world corrupt and broken from its ways, of God’s original design? He must be referring to men and women than the world they inhabit. He must be referring to the way humans have exploited and driven themselves into corruption.
So, beauty here might be either an innate inscription deep within the hearts or something that pierces us from outside. Beauty might be something or someone outside a human system. Beauty might be a light that illuminates the path, open our eyes to what is true and good. It must have a redemptive nature. Without which, we would spiral into chaos and destruction.
What is true and good must be beautiful. Is it possible for something to be beautiful yet be against truth or goodness? Can something mimic radiance only to lead us astray?
What is a photograph
A photograph is an artefact that is frozen in time. It always represents a moment in the past, beginning from the time it is recorded. It could be yesterday, the last decade or a generation. It becomes a time capsule saved for future.
A photograph is meant to record a life event, a place, a relationship which we want to cherish and reminiscence. It is a window to the past, tethered to a day or place that matters the most. It awakens diverse emotions; nostalgia, longing, joy, heartache, contentment.
A photograph offers solace to this life of constant change and degeneration. That past is always blissful, endearing. We stay young, beautiful and cared for. It takes us back to the times with fewer regrets. We were innocent and unaware of the pain we would go through. A time we wish we could go back to undo the wrongs.
Why I write
To heal a fragmented mind ravaged by the digital age
to embrace the potency of written word,
to start at the root of communication,
to know the mind of the person writing this,
to give shape to those scattered pieces of the subconscious,
a face and a name to those inner demons,
and a stash for those fragile memories
above all to think, feel deeply and live consciously;
a visually inclined man making an acquaintance with the word
What does writing do to the self?
a journey to the essence of thought
for a word as a means of inflicting emotion
in hope that writing will transform oneself from the inside
[[writing]] [[art]]