Notebook - 1

21.11.22

Writing the first chapter, the first 1000 words, of my introduction to philosophy. I’ve been writing about Socrates (without yet naming him, which is kinda cool). And man! It feels so good to create. Just to write, to feel and see and bring that out into the world, to just play … it really is like being God, and it’s so much fun.

I should try to remember this. This is what it’s ultimately about. All the other stuff - the marketing, the business, the planning, the strategising - all of that is in the service of this. Without this, none of that makes any sense.

It’s interesting how after about 500 words, or a scene, I want to distract myself. Even when the words are flowing, even when I’m having fun. Anyway, let’s go have a piss, Pranay, and then get back to it.

The man on the bike (cycle, not motorbike). Cycling up Sarjapur Road, traffic absolutely mental around him, and he was sitting so upright, smiling a little, working his way steadily up the small incline. Entirely unruffled. He made me smile, that upright man with the little belly and the rusty bike and the yellow shoes. I hope he has a nice day.

***

Lying in bed, sick with something like the flu. Maybe it is the flu. Who knows? In ignorance is salvation, innit.

I had therapy today. A choir of angels sang in my chest. And before that I hacked off a head with an axe, over and over again. The same head, and each time I hacked it off it reattached itself. Ravana’s head. A true demon, certainly.

Speaking of therapy, and being sick, I remember my therapist’s hypothesis, or question, about how my long depressive episode began in 2019. I said I had gone to visit Nora and it was fun and then I came back and fell ill. She said falling ill can give you many of the symptoms of depression - tiredness, apathy, a certain gloominess - and that the body can then easily fall back into the old grooves.

I’m not going to become depressed this time. But I have been feeling less strong today - gloomier, more worried, more fearful. Funny how so much mental stuff, all this stuff that is so sophisticated, stuff that requires so much sensitivity and whatnot - so much of it sometimes comes down simply to the blood and guts business of being a creature that eats and shits and breathes. Sometimes I’m just hungry.

23.11

Bellen! Bellen! That’s what Rahi called the waves at Marari Beach. Bellen! And when he saw them his little legs would kick and his body would writhe and contort and he would squeal with excitement, an enormous shit-eating grin on his face. Isn’t this good?!!!!!, the grin seemed to say.

I came across a line about India yesterday: In India you’re eternally a master and eternally a servant. Tis true, tis true.

I’m still ill, man. Throat really sore, nose flooded.