Happy 2024!
- Trinity Auditorium
- Dec 30, 2023
- 3 min read
One of the best things I did in 2023 is get off the Internet. These days, I post my stuff/video links and get out of there. I did it to see if I would really “gain” more time, as many people said — and I did. I have been writing an oddball, pulpy, non-socially responsible screenplay for a director, and at least I think it’s chugging along nicely. (I think you could call it a “very bloody love story”.) The script doctoring — that side-gig is coming along nicely, too, though I wish people would really write multiple drafts and go back and forth with it, rather than just take one set of suggestions and say “thank you”. But hey, as long as I get paid… Yeah?
That’s the other thing getting off social media has given me, a huge sense of positivity, looking at the bright side of things, etc. It sounds like I am biting the hand that feeds me — social media, after all, is how my posts/videos reach across to other people. (Not everyone subscribes to the blog.) But the place is really… if not exactly toxic, the negative. And I have ventured out there only to see weather reports etc. (like in the case of the recent rains). My show producer is not happy. He says, I will “engage with fans” more if I reply to their comments or retweet (re-x?) them. Yeah, sure — but the negative comments are dispiriting, and if someone IS going to give me grief about something, I’d rather it be on the blog, where I can at least put forth my POV with unrestricted words and actually construct an argument. That way is far less “negative” because the commenters on the blog actually engage with you, as opposed to saying something quickly and getting outta there.
I love this quote: Life is short. Make sure you spend as much time as possible arguing with strangers on the Internet. I’s like to take this forward into 2024…
Speaking of…
I begin the new year with a cataract surgery. I know we usually think of this as something that’s done to those above 60 etc., but apparently, post-COVID, people in their 40s and 50s have begun developing cataracts.
WTF, right? Well, it is a simple procedure, but still… a reminder (along with my beard) that I have more years behind me than ahead of me. So I am going to join Ramakrishna Math and… JUST KIDDING! But yeah, I am going to be more careful about what I am going to spend my time on.
I started this blog as a repository for my articles / reviews / (and later) videos. I never expected it to keep going after 20-odd years (older readers will remember the number of times I changed platforms until I landed on WordPress), and it almost feels like a college, with newer “batches” of people coming in, staying a while, and then leaving. So thanks all, and happy 2024!
Ending with a dad joke:
Last night, I dreamt I was in Old MacDonald’s farm.
You know the drill. There were cows going moo-moo, pigs going oink-oink, lambs going baa-baa, chickens going cluck-cluck. There was a horse as well – here a neigh, there a neigh, everywhere a neigh-neigh. It was bedlam, really.
Still, there was something missing – I felt there should have been another sound in this mix. And then it hit me. Quack-quack. That’s what was missing. There were no ducks.
I asked Old MacDonald about this, and he nodded gravely and said the ducks wouldn’t arrive until the first of January. I asked him why, and he said they were… puthaandu vaathukkal.
Again, happy new year, all.
Comments