100 Days of Positivity

Had a migraine attack. My boys were kind enough to make sure that I rested in a dark room. I am thankful for their kindness.

 

Day 109 : Seeing my husband after 7 days today gave me the much needed boost, energy and positivity.

 

Our elder son made us breakfast. He was so excited about it and I was his Sous Chef. It was simply brilliant to see his way of planning/operating and then to deliver a delicious meal at the end.

 

Finally, I joined Zumba classes in a nearby gym. Happy to see many ladies dancing with the music and to witness their never ending enthusiasm reflected in their pleasant faces, especially very old ones. It made me so happy, made me smile, last but not the least, made me sweat after a long time and had a good sleep. As it was a pleasant experience, I am planning to attend it on a regular basis.

 

Did some extra cleaning for the Thai Pongal festival. It is a great feeling to clear stuff which makes you feel better.

 

Day 110: I was pushing my self to get up n do some work.just lying down kept making me feel sick. Slowly cooking, small small work I have taken up. Finishing that gives a sense of satisfaction .
Day 111: celebrated pongal festival which I thought I cannot .But i pushed myself to make pongal n celebrated in a small Way.

 

Made the pongal way before sun has risen (In Scotland sun will come out only after 7AM). We were waiting for him to appear before we all start the day. Spoke to a friend and discuss few things. Motivating each other without an expectation is a great feeling. I was about to lose my control when my younger one persistently didn’t want to do home work but some
How we both put our ego aside and dealt a situation very well. Before bed, we both had a good discussion.

 

Boys are learning a Scottish poem for upcoming Robert Burns (famous Scottish poet) night. My younger one fears that what will happen if he forgets his lines. Hearing that my older one, repeats the poem for him (which he learned a couple of years ago) so that he can memorize. I was listening to that felt the joy which cannot be explained by words. I pray swami to bless them both abundantly and may their bond grow stronger by day by day.

 

Day 111 : 2 weeks back I started a book and was. To finish it on Wednesday. Until last Tuesday everything went fine . Then I somehow could not finish it on Wednesday. I'm sure God was seeing that. Yesterday he gave me his blessings to finish that book. I felt very blissful finishing it. Next time sure the saptah will be carried on at a stretch with his blessings.
Day 112 : A call from a friend today made me day. Spoke for sometime and felt good about it.

 

Last night as I revised the last lecture of "Introduction to Astrophysics" by Joshua Winn on my subscribed online course, 24-part, each 30-min, course downloaded on my laptop to watch during my sojourn, I felt this diaristic urge to celebrate the 25th course in my self-education portfolio to learn an introductory college-level course a month, probably two years ago starting with Lawrence Cahoone's "Modern Intellectual Tradition: From Descartes to Derrida".

Few months into the initiative, stricken by deviant thoughts, I almost abandoned the whimsical pursuit doubting if such far-fetched desire would build into me learned sensibility or batten me up in delusional pride of undertaking something that was merely self-serving. Also, my goal in itself was hazy ...what was I even chasing in the misty guise of this 'learning'. Around that time, I sighted a passing observation in Kalanithi's "When Breath Becomes Air" which was appropriated into a pressing affirmation to keep me sane if not steady in my wizened prodigality to march upon that turned-back road not taken in my youth.

"You cannot ever reach perfection but you can believe in an asymptote towards which you are ceaselessly striving."​

The asymptote was not an outrider whom I wanted to emulate, though I had impressions by then of criss-crossed influencers in their striking mannerism, but that asymptote was my futuristic self-image, a product of aspiration, what I envisioned in the intensity to reinvent myself consummately.

I could have skipped this irregular month but feared it would break the ingrained pattern resulting in lapse, consequentially lazy and then asymptote widened. Frightened at the wait for another seismic impetus (on lapse) to resume the cultivated learning, I plodded through the spasmodic engagement with the course for continuity if not high regard for Keplar and Schwarzschild.

What bound me to the subscribed program apart from the competency of these accredited tutors is the solidarity of these humanistic scholars to deliver structured and reasonable education to the audience. But who is the audience? When I signed up initially, felt am wispy old for such learning curve. Realized, the audience for such home-release courses constitutes mostly retirees and grown professionals with their awakened stories on why they registered for casual yet inquisitive revival of college-level education. Throughout the science courses, the tutors emphasize the benefits of systematic education and not haphazard education (like: a hoot deflecting empirical science with folk philosophy of fundamental particles exhibiting supernaturality because of misconstrual of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle). I warm to such conscionable educators who time and again nudge and implore the credulous to tune to authentic voices in science and not the luring shamans of pseudo-science.

In these two years, I have swept courses as eclectic as "History of Spain" by Joyce Salisbury to "Fall and Rise of China" by Richard Baum to "Artists of the Renaissance" by William Kloss to "Evolution of Earth and Future of Humans" by Robert Hazen to "Foundations of Organic Chemistry" by Ron Davis to "Nutrition Made Clear" by Roberta Anding to "Biology: The Science of Life" of Stephen Nowicki to "European History from 1789 to 1917" by Robert Weiner to "The Higgs Boson" and "Modern Physics: Time and Einstein" by Sean Carroll to "Life Lessons from the Great Books" by Rufus Fears to "Music as a Mirror of History" by Robert Greenberg and others.

The relevance of this self-absorbed 25th notch-up in the Positive thread or the E & G forum might have boggled the reader by now on why such outlandish fancy bears any testimonial here. When I recall the crudity in me of NOT knowing that a reasonably educated woman is supposed to acquaint herself with New Yorker, NYT, Paris Review, Slate to develop forth good language, and even the insight that how to learn predominates what to learn, up until few years ago, I tend to get nostalgic of that juvenile asymptote which had sprung here amidst the chaos and introspection.

After wrapping up the astrophysics course last night, happened to read an article on the art of decision making in New Yorker citing a peroration from the book "Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming" by Agnes Callard.

"When we are aspiring, inarticulateless isn't a sign of unreasonableness or incapacity. In fact the opposite may be true. If we couldn't aspire to changes that we struggle to describe, we'd be trapped within the ideas that we already have. Our inability to explain our reasons is a measure of how far we wish to travel. It's only after an aspirant has reached her destination Callard writes, that 'she will say, 'This was why'". — The New Yorker referencing Callard's quote. ​

I had no commensurate reasons to hold my wayward aspiration, as Callard warned, as the reasons manifest in retrospection after we transform into our aspiration itself and sense that purposefulness that has eluded us throughout the unfazed charter. I have written similar-worded milestone threads in the past about the intangible wins — nothing to anyone but me. Yet, I delight in the idiosyncratic claims with low-key implications evidenced in the very write-up today having borrowed those verbal expressions from Kalanithi to Callard, evaluated the reason, determined the stretch it takes one to sustain and clamber up from an arbitrary spark induced in this forum to a worthwhile course in astrophysics. Per aspera ad astra!