A few years ago I wrote this essay, the shattering news of lost pilgrims in Nepal and Tibet reminded me of this piece…

“Only god could help me now...It was a natural disaster and god’s will. I think of it as a train journey where everyone chats through the journey, but has to get down when the station arrives. Maybe Kedarnath was my wife’s final station…I now spend my time meditating and chanting god’s name to distract myself. If you ask me whether I would go to Kedarnath again, the answer would be an emphatic yes..”

The above reflections are of a particular pilgrim, Ram Karan Beniwal, who barely survived the devastating floods and landslides in Uttarakhand in 2013, in which thousands were swept away and many bodies never recovered. The destination of Beniwal, his wife, two brothers, and their wives was Kedarnath, a very important site of Hindu pilgrimage.

I remember the discussions of this incident in 2013 when my grandfather was reading the newspaper and my brother who was 16 years old questioned Ram Karan Beniwal’s hypocritical stance on thanking god despite his loss. To this my grandfather replied “God is the creator and the destroyer. It is about maintaining faith in his plan, despite not understanding his ways”. To this my brother confronted him by asking “But why keep faith in a God that allows suffering?”. My grandfather, a philosophy enthusiast, said “Faith sees best in the dark,”.

This saying by Søren Kierkegaard recounted by my grandfather means true faith is tested when it meets with uncertainty and suffering. Looking for God and thanking him in adverse conditions is a testament to our faith. It is a form of gratitude symbolizing belief in divine intervention. The act of thanking God according to the Cambridge dictionary is defined as “something you say when you are happy because something bad did not happen”. But, to thank God, it is key to understand the essay’s stance on the idea of God. With a lineage of devout believers of God, the exploration of this theme of theology will be conducted from a theist’s perspective. This distinction is essential, because the lens of interpretation will influence the conclusions drawn and explorations made. This lens will assist in exploring the highly subjective and relative question whether it is reasonable to thank God for protection from some natural harm if He is responsible for causing the harm. In this essay, I understand ‘natural harm’ as solely “natural evil” defined by Saint Augustine as suffering that isn’t directly linked with human intervention such as disease, congenital disorders, death, earthquakes, tsunami, volcanic eruption, flood and storms. In the occurrence of such natural evil, spiritual and religious prayers, rituals, and acts of worship are conducted to acknowledge a God’s benevolence. However, it is also questioned that natural harm stems from God; and this paradox raises the question of whether it is reasonable to thank God under such circumstances. It is a complicated question, however, thanking God is reasonable only to the extent where it does not diminish the responsibility of an individual for their actions affiliated with the harm or protection. This, nonetheless, requires understanding the fundamentals of various beliefs, God’s plan, the root of natural evil, the role of natural harm, relativity of suffering, origin of harm and protection and the responsibility of God in these situations to arrive at this intersection of faith, protection, and suffering.

To illustrate this point, Job’s example from the Bible is perhaps one of the best. In a series of four events, Job’s wealth (material and offsprings) and health are lost as a result of Satan trying to prove a point with God. Job, as a representative of innocent suffering, poses a rhetorical question “Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? (2:10)” after his wife tells him to “Curse God and die” as a response to the agony they were suffering. The loss of their sons and daughters, the fire that wrecked his cattle and Job being burdened with physical affiliations made it challenging for his wife to sustain her faith. But Job’s remarks indicate that good and evil / protection and harm are all essential components of God’s domain. Even though Job becomes bitter towards the end of the book condemning God twice, his faith in God is restored in a personal dialogue with Him. In the end Job’s fortunes and faith are restored in perfect harmony with the living God.

This line of belief that it is reasonable to thank God for protection from … seems to run in Aquinas’ thought, “since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil”(Enchiridion xi). This statement showcases that as God, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being can never harm humans without reasonability. Harm is a direct part of God’s superior plan that is unimaginable to humanity as it extends our immediate circumstances. It is a “leap of faith” as said by Kierkegaard one must perform where we put our trust in God despite the epistemic distance and lack of empirical reasoning and believe that even suffering has a justified unknowable cause

Although the reason for the harm inflicted may be unknown, its outcome can be considered beneficial, and value driven. The concept of karma that derives from Hindu theology gives systematic answers towards the cause of harm. Karma refers to the force that determines a person’s destiny after reincarnation based on the individual’s actions. This perpetuates the idea that everyone is solely responsible for the harm they suffer as it is a direct consequence of their prior wrongdoings. In Vedic scriptures there are three types of suffering, one of them is adhidaivika which is natural harm caused by demigods such as famine, earthquakes, and floods. When an entity (living beings) becomes astray of their dharma (divine duty) they are bound to witness its negative consequences. Misuse of our free will is the root cause of our own suffering, therefore the harm one suffers is not caused only by God. This can be observed, as today’s natural calamities are direct reciprocations of our disregard for natural equilibrium and unethical practices. One can argue that because of a lack of duty towards our environment, we suffer the consequences of global catastrophes such as climate change such as displacement, poverty, health crisis and loss of lives. This would then certainly seem to help understand the unexpected disastrous landslides and floods of 2013.

According to John Hicks “soul-making theodicy” focuses on not looking in the past to uncover the discovery for suffering rather the future. Hick believes suffering construct virtues and are trials that pave the pathways towards spiritual development. Furthermore, author Viktor Frankl (holocaust survivor) in his logotheraphic novel Man Searching For Meaning makes a similar argument about how individuals can find purpose in the face of suffering. Throughout the novel, he observed that those who had to undergo concentration camps were able to strengthen their familiar bonds, reassess priorities and live a more fruitful life. Does this then mean that we feel happiness because sorrow exists, bravery because we have dealt with fear and a purpose of life when we confront suffering? Similarly, survivors or “the protected” from natural harm draw to spirituality to deal with the aftermath of disasters or tragedies, in the form of gratitude. Frankl insight suggests, thanking God amidst suffering is not denial of inconsideration of the pain inflicted rather an opportunity of redemption, growth, and meaningful experiences.

Subsequently, many people believe that in religious preaching Good and Evil originate from separate deities. Such as the duality of Devas (good celestial beings) and Asuras (evil celestial beings) in Hinduism and God and Lucifer, two contrasting forces in Christianity. When the source of evil and harm is not God, rather is of separate origin, why does one still blame God for harm and feel it contradictory to display gratitude for its protection? This is explained by philosophy professor Jordan Peterson in lecture “Is God Really Perfect or is Evil a Separate Entity” who explains that even though it seems God and Devil are separate, they are one. He explains how Lucifer, the embodiment of evil in Christianity is an outgrowth of God. In Milton’s “Paradise Lost’‘ Lucifer is a fallen angel who rebelled against God. Once the embodiment of God, went astray. Similarly, according to Hindu mythology Puranas, the Asuras merge into God. Such as when demon Ravana in the epic “Ramayana ‘’ merges into Lord Rama after his ceremonious defeat. This explains that both “good” - protection and “evil” - harm originate from God. Just like; darkness does not have a definitive existence or substance, other than its correlation to lack of light. Likewise, evil is just the lack of goodness.

This lack of goodness is an essential concept of God’s design. In John Hick, ‘An Irenaean Theodicy’ he believes natural evil exists because of “fall of grace” where angels and humans rebelled against God, corrupting the physical world to suffering. An individual’s pursuit of free will has resulted in disruption of goodness. This is evident by the actions of Adam and Eve as they disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge from the tree of Good and Evil, which forced a punishment to their descendants of co-existing with harm. Henceforth, even though suffering is a component of God’s design and originates from Him, it is human actions that exacerbate this suffering. One can argue that even though the 2013 Kedarnath floods were caused by God, an individual’s actions in the fallen world can determine whether they are protected or harmed. Revisiting Ram Karan Beniwal’s tragic incident he shared “I ran and stood by a large boulder, which protected me from the avalanche of rocks coming from the top.” that protected him from natural harm. This demonstrates that it is not just divine intervention, but human agency that determines the outcome of such dire circumstances.

Ultimately, while this essay considers God as the creator of suffering (harm) and relief (protection) it is still reasonable to thank God. The presence of natural evil and suffering is ingrained in His divine plan, as it is a tool that allows humanity to exercise its free will and development of moral values. By permitting such adversities, God provides scope to develop virtues and evaluate one’s choices. Thus, when God intervenes to protect or save individuals from specific instances of natural harm, it can be seen as an opportunity to maintain faith in His order. However, it is also essential to understand that it isn’t just God’s design but an individual’s use and misuse of free will to some extent determines the result of natural harm. Human agency and Divine intervention are interconnected in shaping the outcome of natural evil.

There is an interesting thought experiment called the Ship of Theseus. The experiment was formally articulated by Thomas Hobbes, but he found its origins in Greco-Roman philosopher Plutarch’s concept. The narrative is, Theseus owned a ship entirely made of timber, but as the wood gradually decayed, every plank, in turn, was supplanted by one of metal. The existential question resides in whether the metal ship is the same ship as before, and if not, then at what juncture did it stop being the original.

Now envision each wooden plank as a memory in your mind. Over time, it rots, forgotten, distorted, changed with a new one. After how many changed and effaced memories do you still remain the same person?

Thus identity, the concept of “I,” is something I find so strange. The idea of selfhood, our consistent belief in ourselves, our values, our thoughts, when the foundation of what makes us, us, is so fallible. The only thing that solidifies one’s identity is the recurrence of the same traits by an individual over time. But we can only re-create or re-do the same trait or action if we possess memory of the first one. Cinema begs to differ. I go back to my absolute favorite film by Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The concept of a “spotless mind,” a mind that is so pure and untouched by pain, agony, or even regret. In the film, two lovers undergo a memory-erasing procedure in hopes that they can erase one another from their lives; however, they find themselves drawn back to one another. An invisible and destined force. It shows that some current of self survives and perseveres. That is why identity is more than a mere archive; it is the residue of the wooden planks that survive. We are all that came before us; it is embedded within us.

But not all films have such a generous take. The Notebook, featuring the passionate Allie and Noah, is met with the unfortunate future of Allie’s Alzheimer’s. Here, unlike Gondry’s film, the memory isn’t wiped in one stroke, but rather corrodes plank by plank, unevenly, until only one partner is left loving a version of the other who can no longer recognize the vessel they spent a lifetime building together. I always seem to question whether the person who forgets is owed the same devotion as the person who remembered. Is love a transaction of recognition, or does it, too, survive independent of memory? Can we truly love someone in sickness or in health, even if our loved one is not the same person we first fell in love with?

And then I feel there is also the matter of consent. While I love Adam Sandler’s 50 First Dates and found it to be such a fun watch, I do have a few bones to pick. The film follows Lucy, a girl with short-term memory loss where her memory resets every night when she sleeps. Henry, who is infatuated with Lucy, tries to win her heart every day. The movie’s ending shows her married to Henry with a child. Now I find this ending to be a nightmare. It is sheer horror. Every single morning, Lucy wakes up to a life she does not remember building, a husband she does not remember choosing, a child she does not remember carrying to term. The film frames this as devotion, as a love so persistent it survives even the erasure of memory itself, but strip away the soundtrack and the sunlit Hawaii shots, and what remains is a woman perpetually re-entering a contract she has no memory of signing. Henry gets to accumulate a marriage. Lucy gets to accumulate nothing; she is handed the same present tense every day, dressed up as if it were new, while he is the only one who carries the weight and knowledge of their shared past. This movie is one person’s memory being made to stand in for two people’s consent.

This is another reason why I really enjoyed Spider-Man: Brand New Day, as while it also stumbled into this same uneasy territory, it perfected consent and letting go. Peter Parker’s love interest in this movie, MJ, has forgotten him because of a spell that made the entire world forget him. So she does not have a memory of his existence. In a scene where Jean Grey manipulates Peter by giving him false hope that MJ remembers, he ends up kissing her, unaware of the reality. In a later scene, Peter apologizes to MJ for his action, understanding that her kiss is something she did not consent to, since she is now not the same person who once loved him. He treats her forgetting not as an obstacle to route around, but as a boundary to respect.

The Ship of Theseus is our identity, and while its sameness and material are questioned, it does not need to be resolved in order to sail. It only needs someone willing to keep boarding it, tending it, choosing it, not because it is identical to what it once was, but because it is what remains, and what remains is still worth loving.

I asked ten people in an online poll to define love, and I got ten different responses:

Unconditional

Choice

Home

Pure

Comfort

Peace

Ineffable

Compromise

Irrationality

Infinite

No two answers are the same. How strange!

We can debate the definitions endlessly, but maybe this is one such word we will always fail to describe.

It is one that can never arrive at a universal meaning. Yet, across time, continents, religions, and languages, Love remains one of the few things almost everyone agrees is worth having.

How can something so universally desired be so impossible to define?

I presume our understanding of words has been set in stone, but definitions of Love have been like water. They take new forms. Sometimes they harden, sometimes they flow, and sometimes they evaporate into thin air.

Similar to my water example, philosophers have always taken the liberty to define Love in abstractions, metaphors, and stories, as associations to Love seem to derive a better understanding of the word. It resides less in a noun and more in actions, acts, and processes.

Love & its Philosophical forms

Did you know that about 2,400 years ago, Plato hosted a drinking party with his scholar friends to discuss eros (romantic love), documenting the discourse in the text Symposium? Greek priestess Diomata brought in the theory of ‘scala amoris,’ the ladder of love. She outlines this ladder as an ascent that begins with attraction to a single beautiful body. An individual rises a rung as they gradually start to love all beautiful bodies, then to beautiful souls, then to institutions and knowledge. Reaching the top cap signifies that an individual has reached their final form: they are in Love with The Form of Beauty. They are in Love with the concept, such that sexual desire and materialistic love eventually dissolve into one’s longing toward philosophical understanding and wonder. It positions this Platonic Love more as a journey of self-discovery, enlightenment, and transformation from singular to universal.

Whereas on the other hand, Aristotle would believe Shah Rukh Khan when he said ‘Pyaar dosti hai’ (translation: Love is Friendship). In Nicomachean Ethics, he argued that the highest form of love (Philia) is friendship, which can be broken down into three properties:

Utility: Loving someone because they provide a practical benefit to you. These bonds are usually transactional and end when the usefulness or the ability to provide stops.

Pleasure: Loving someone because they provide you with a state of satisfaction, enjoyment, and happiness. These bonds also shift as an individual’s desires alter with time.

Virtue: Love that occurs between two people who are at par with their morality and virtue, and love one another for how they are fundamentally. This is also referred to as ‘True Love.’

Aristotle also put a lot of emphasis on topics considered very modern, such as self-love, as he believed one must treat oneself with care and affection in order to truly love a friend. The partner, in some sense, should be considered your ‘another self,’ as you must desire and safeguard their growth as well as their interests with the same purity and intensity as you do your own. The truest form of love, as per Aristotle, leads to the achievement of eudaimonia, collective human flourishing.

Centuries later, a much more Stoic form of Love emerged. Philosophers such as Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius believed that while one should indulge in love, one should not let it make one a slave to a force that blurs, tempts, and hinders one’s judgment or virtues. They give emphasis to the value of interdependence and expose the flaws of possession and dependence. What’s interesting is that they considered love as something that is loaned, something that is ephemeral. Stoic philosophical views of Love essentially are an antidote and counter to the excess Roman Love (Romantics) that drives, intoxicates, and infects lovers into their irrational selves.

Notice how all these philosophies are still unable to define love. They just attach adjectives like Platonic Love, True Love, Virtuous Love, and Romantic Love, similar to the people who answered my poll. None have been able to identify what love actually is, just its role in what it should do.

I try to consider Love as a star that emits small specks of light. Everyone has one, differently shaped, differently distanced, and differently bright. But in the grand scheme of the universe, together they form a connection, binding humanity into a sight of constellations.

Have you ever made fun of your parents for their pronunciation?

It’s surprisingly common in many Indian households.

I did too, until I realized I was wrong.

When I moved to London to study English Literature, I found myself in a seminar filled mostly with native English speakers. During a discussion, I confidently used the word synecdoche, except I pronounced it incorrectly.

The room was filled with funny looks. At that moment, I felt deeply embarrassed. I replayed the moment in my head long after the seminar ended, wondering whether everyone had dismissed what I said simply because of how I said it.

Later, I shared the experience with one of my professors. What she told me completely changed my perspective.

She said that when someone mispronounces a word, it often means they learned it through reading rather than hearing it spoken. In other words, they encountered an unfamiliar word, understood its meaning, and were brave enough to use it in conversation.

That realization made me think about all the people we so casually mock for “saying it wrong.” We often assume that pronunciation is a measure of intelligence or education, when in reality it can be evidence of the exact opposite. It often reveals someone who has been reading beyond their comfort zone, expanding their vocabulary independently, and taking the risk of using a new word in conversation.

It also made me question the very idea of “correct pronunciation.” English is spoken by billions of people across the world, the vast majority of whom are not native speakers. Yet we continue to treat one or two accents as the gold standard, as though every other way of speaking is somehow inferior.

The idea of a single “correct” pronunciation is, to a large extent, a colonial inheritance. During the British Empire, Received Pronunciation became associated with education and prestige while local accents and ways of speaking were often dismissed as improper or uncivilized. Those attitudes travelled across colonies and continue to shape how many of us think about English today. Long after colonial rule ended, many of us still unconsciously equate sounding British or American with sounding educated.

But language has never belonged to one country or one accent. English itself is a global language that has evolved through countless cultures, dialects, and communities. Pronunciation varies across regions, countries, and even cities. Difference is not deficiency.

Mispronunciation is often a sign of learning, curiosity, and linguistic growth.

Without taking those risks, our vocabulary would remain limited, and our ability to express ourselves would never expand. Every fluent speaker has stumbled over unfamiliar words at some point. The only reason some people never mispronounce difficult words is because they never attempt to use them in the first place.

So when we mock someone for mispronouncing a word, we may be doing more than correcting them, we may be discouraging their curiosity and confidence to learn. We create an environment where people choose silence over the possibility of embarrassment, and that is far more damaging than saying a word imperfectly.

The next time you’re tempted to laugh at someone’s pronunciation, remember: every mispronounced word is evidence that someone is trying to grow.

Before changing someone’s pronunciation, consider changing your mindset.

The fantasy of Peter Pan’s Neverland is that you never age. As a kid it fascinated me, to be swept into a place where I would always be a child. Run across the fields, never lose my milk teeth, and stay the same. I always thought that was why the concept of Neverland is so relevant: it’s essentially every kid’s utopia—to continue being a child. I wanted to stupidly cackle, play, and be carefree, and leave once I knew it was time.

Today, Neverland has changed. It has no children. Only a sea of adults trying to reverse the clock. The playgrounds have become clinics, fairy dust has become cosmetic procedures, and painted murals are adverts for anti-ageing cream. But not a single one is running down the hill, tucking flowers behind their ear, or grinning cheek to cheek.

An army of adults marches, demanding that Neverland is a scam, as they still have their fine lines popping, hair greying, and hands wrinkling. But that’s a misunderstanding.

Neverland was never a place that made them young. It was a place that gave them the opportunity to be youthful.

Where are all the kids? Where have they gone?

Most people say they left too early—left because continuing to be youthful meant they still appeared childish and naive. And that is apparently a bad thing. Children have always wanted to grow up. They wore their parents’ shoes, borrowed their mother’s lipstick, and imagined the day they would finally order a cappuccino at the coffee shop. But today, that longing has accelerated. Ten-year-olds have skincare routines that rival dermatologists’, twelve-year-olds debate collagen and retinol in their Sephora Halls, and “anti-ageing” has become a concern before ageing has even begun.

Neverland is seen as place that escapes age. Children leave it to look older. Adults horde in to maintain their youth. Both trade their vitality for vanity, to look like the aspirational age.

When did our measure of time equate with our measure of worth?

And why did we ever allow it to have a peak?

I think it’s time we view our time as constant, and perceive all of our time and all of our years as beautiful, worthy, and without a superficial peak to chase.

I recently went to a seated concert and I couldn’t help noticing the stance of every man and woman in the room. It looked like a predictable, traceable, fixed pattern that repeated in every row. The entire thing reminded me of Timothée Chalamet and Tina Fey at the Knicks game. The tabloids had a field day with these pictures, but beneath the internet’s temporary amusement lies a very mundane and ordinary truth. It shows how a MAN and a WOMAN are meant or taught to occupy space.

The Politics Of Posture

I do not think this can be a men-vs-women problem. It can not fit such neat binaries. From what I have observed gay men, more often than not, don’t manspread in the same way. The behaviour seems to be far more strongly associated with straight men. Does that mean manspreading is less about biological differences between men and women and more to do with the ‘projection of masculinity.’

Neutrality even in posture does not exist. In men, this expansive body type is perceived as an individual who upholds authority, confidence, dominance and leadership. It communicates that the man belongs in the room, but more than that it shows that the man is in charge. But imagine the same stance in a woman, why is she seen as inconsiderate, attention-seeking, promiscuous or intimidating. Cause it appears that she is in some manner breaking the very code of femininity. While the behaviour remains completely identical the way we look at it depends on the body performing it.

Women Have Always Fought For The Seat

Throughout history, women have had to demand space, because unlike men they can not just occupy it. Whether it’s Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus or the women who marched on Versailles in 1789 or the suffragettes who chained themselves to railings and disrupted public life, women have fought hard and long to even get a seat at the table. But to take space? I fear that has not happened.

Girls learn this at an early age, sit with your legs together, do not block the aisle, do not be loud. These invisible expectations are ingrained within us. We think that the ideal woman is one that will minimise herself, physically, socially, emotionally. I can feel it within me too, as they are no longer social norms, they are basic instinct.

Abrasive women are the ones who speak with the same certainty as men. In politics, Kamala Harris has been scrutinised not only for her policies but for her tone (media’s code-switching allegations), facial expressions (critics call her expressions smug) , and body language (people note her posture to be dominating, calculative and untrustworthy) in ways male politicians rarely are.

So I choose to believe that manspreading is not anatomy, instead it’s autonomy.

It teaches some people to expand and others to contract. These small acts accumulate and can instil beliefs of confidence and capability within men and inferiority within women. But it is time to change the script.

It’s time to not only grab the seat, ladies, but to own it fearlessly.

The first thing many people assume that I have dislike for drinking is because of its health risks. But that’s not the case. Others assume it’s religious, but that is not the problem either. Some think I’ve had a traumatic experience with it. I haven’t. It’s not because I hate conformity, nor because I’m uncomfortable socialising. So what is it?

It took me a while to understand why I felt such an intense repulsion to drinking. Eventually, I realised it comes down to two fundamental reasons.

1. My fear of losing control.

2. The purpose with which we drink

The first answer is a deeply personal and individual reason. It is not that I hate the idea of being free, having spontaneity, enjoying without care. What I struggle to understand is the belief that they require alcohol. If I could count the amount of times I have been offered to drink , and refused and people still persisted. I would be a millionaire at this point. What drinking asks of us, at least in part, is a willingness to surrender control. People celebrate that feeling of becoming uninhibited, less self-conscious, less restrained. But to me, there is something unsettling about deliberately stepping away from my own mind. I don’t enjoy the feeling of not being fully in my senses, of my thoughts becoming blurry, of feeling even slightly detached from myself. I want my awkward laughter to be mine. I want my conversations to be mine. I want to remember the night exactly as I lived it, not through broken fragments stitched together the next morning. The version of myself I value most is the one that is fully present. I don’t feel the need to chemically arrive at a state of freedom when I believe that freedom should be something I can create on my own.

The second reason is less personal. It stems more from the social associations with drinking. So many social experiences are catered towards the activity of drinking, whether meeting friends at a pub, pre-drinks before a night out, celebrating milestones with champagne, or discussing poetry over a glass of wine. It keeps on getting framed as an activity where connections are made. It is highly romanticized as well. Alcohol is portrayed as the catalyst for honesty, vulnerability, celebration, heartbreak, creativity, even self-discovery. Whether someone is grieving a loss or toasting a success, popular culture repeatedly places a drink in their hand, as though every emotion is somehow incomplete without its place. Pop culture has made a commendable effort in solidifying this image . James Bond famous dialogue ‘shaken, not stirred’ vodka martini are highly quoted, not because of the drink but because of its association with his badass appeal. The drink becomes part of the persona.

Thus alcohol is rarely just a drink, it is a symbol.

That’s what upsets me.

That we’ve elevated a substance into the core of our cultural language, that even refusing a drink can feel like refusing the occasion itself. I don’t dislike alcohol as much, and I have nothing against people that choose to drink. I dislike the expectation that so many meaningful human experiences are best and can only be accessed through it.

Driving on Delhi roads is no easy task; I find myself performing worse when I have had my back straight, my eyes pierced, and my grip tightened. I thought I was being attentive, but in reality I was tense. Sometimes, in random occurrences, I find myself transported into an altered state where my subconscious runs my course and not my deliberate thought. This establishes that focus and stress are separated by just a fine line. And how our output and efficiency directly correspond to the mindset we opt for.

People assume that writing is an art of precision. A form of artistic experience, presented with attention to minute details, perfectly arranged structures and intentionally chosen words. But, some revered writers believed the words that had to be written were instead instilled within them. John Milton saw his epic Paradise Lost as an attempt for him to communicate God’s order to humanity. He believed that his ‘fevered dream’ allowed him to receive this divine calling, where heavenly muses and the Holy Spirit would dictate the words of God. Whether Milton was talking to God or not is beside the point. But the ‘Heavenly Muse’ he described so vividly does in fact exist. It exists even today. These angels exist in everyone’s subconsciousness.

Now, you might be picturing an angel sitting on your shoulder, a friendly mentor assisting in your tedious writing endeavors. However, what if I tell you this angel appears only when you place your mind to rest. Not in a state of sleep, but instead in a state of comfort. It is not an external entity aiding you like Remy in Ratatouille (alas, how I wish a literary rat dictated my writing); this powerful force of consistent writing originates from within. It is shaped by your memories, your experiences, and your skills. How does one unlock this inner angel?

How does one become a master of writing as if on autopilot?

1. Going analogue: While typewriting comes with its many perks, of reworking, mass-communicating and paper conservation, studies suggest that they share a weaker neural link with our brain as compared to handwriting. A study by the National Library of Medicine found that the mechanics associated with writing, its physicality, movement and our unique typology embedded a rich substrate for our flow of thoughts and self-expression. Handwriting allows flexibility while brainstorming, allows addition of intensity, and is thus generally more prone to be conjoined with our emotions and memories.

Tip 1#: Before typing out your write-up, spend 15 minutes with a pen and paper documenting essential points you want to cover. Focusing on the text’s purpose, the theme, the tone, and the sub-topics.

2. Morning pages: The activity of morning pages is the best method to unleash your stream of consciousness. Popularized by the author Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way, the aim of the activity is to continuously write three pages of longhand content first thing in the morning. This allows all your mental clutter to be disposed of, a tool that helps in expressing thoughts and ideas you were afraid to pen out. But mostly, it creates a stronger relationship between you and the internal monologue.

Tip 2#: Write a morning page first thing in the morning, not as a therapeutic journaling activity, but instead as a mindless (do not stress or try to write perfectly), mindful activity in order to gain confidence and clarity within your flow of thoughts.

3. Write from Personal Experience: I think it’s safe to say that it is universal that you write better on a subject you know about. Who do we know more than we know ourselves? Start there! Writing about your personal experiences, whether victories or grievances, makes the writing process much smoother and less disrupted. As you do not seek external inspiration, instead the driving force comes from lived realities.

Tip 3#: Next essay, article or short story you write, first think about a personal anecdote that might suit the topic and then try to integrate this story within your text. This may take multiple revisions and tries, but interpersonal links result in enriched texts.

4. Removing pressure: Your fear of first-go perfection is limiting you. Allow yourself to fail the first attempt. Your initial aim should always be to produce something; the parts of refinement and correction come at a later stage. Stephen King famously uses the method ‘writing with the door closed’ in which he locks his editing brain away until the first draft is completed. He advocates for writing continuously without fixing mistakes until the manuscript is finished.

Tip 4#: Structure your writing schedule so that each session begins by editing what you wrote the previous day. Once that editing segment is complete, spend the next segment writing new material without editing. Leave any corrections or refinements of that new work for the following day’s editing session.

5.Limit External Distractions: Your gadget notifications, emails, and social media can interrupt your concentration and break your chain of thoughts. Every distraction forces your brain to refocus, making it harder to maintain momentum and increasing the time it takes to complete your work. I am not suggesting you lock yourself into a solitary room for utmost productivity; instead, you should be the one identifying patterns and stimuli that disrupt you the most, and you should be the one restricting their potential to deter your flow.

Tip 5#: Identify the one distraction that interrupts your writing most often and create a simple rule to reduce it. For example, it can be your phone; turning on Do Not Disturb might improve your focus. Every writing session, select one distraction you want to limit and continue the process.

6. Write Every Day at the Same Time: Many authors follow a strict writing schedule. Take, for example, Haruki Murakami. His routine entails waking up at 4:00 a.m. and writing for the next four to six hours. While every individual has their own preferred sleep and work schedule, allocating a designated writing time has its share of benefits. It results in not just more discipline, but also trains your brain to associate a particular time of day with focused creative work. Over time, this consistency reduces the mental effort required to begin writing, making it easier to enter a state of pure concentration.

Tip 6#: Choose a realistic time slot that you can commit to most days, even if it is only 30 minutes. Treat this session like any other important appointment and avoid scheduling other tasks during that period.

Essentially, the aim is never to silence your mind, but to teach it the route so well that it no longer needs constant directions. Once your writing becomes a habit rather than a performance, the subconscious gradually takes the wheel, allowing ideas to arrive with fewer bumps and more speed.

Trust your autopilot, you’ve been training it all along!!

On the surface level, AI generated fruit videos as super silly and nonsensical. We see animated oranges fall in love, banana getting extremely ripped post break up (pun intended) and a rags to riches hustle storyline of a mango. But if you spend a few minutes scrolling, a very specific narrative arc emerges again and again as if all the videos are constructed from the same formulaic storyline.

A typical storyline goes like this:

1. Two fruit characters , a couple or married pair are presented as visually similar and unified: simple clothing, gentle body language, a soft, “good” aesthetic.

2. One partner (usually the woman) is tempted by an outsider which often a fruit character with exaggerated, sexualized features, tight or fetishized clothing, and a more authoritative or alluring presence.

3. The affair unfolds.

4. The result is pregnancy: the “cheater” gives birth to a cross‑breed fruit.

5. The faithful original partner is heartbroken, thrown out of the home or divorced.

6. The final scene often hints at revenge or retaliation. The classic “hook” for future content.

This storyline is not random fluff, and through the repeating pattern reveals something deeply unsettling about how AI constructs human drama when left to imitate patterns without understanding context.

Why is this narrative problematic? These fruit videos may be animated and abstract, but the narrative choices they replicate are far from innocent. As they perpetuate sickening stereotypes about gender, sexuality, morality, and interpersonal relationships.

By consistently portraying the woman as the one who is tempted and the outsider as a hyper‑sexualized female analogue, these videos echo the age‑old Madonna–Whore dichotomy: a term from feminist theory that describes how women are categorized as either pure and virtuous or sexually promiscuous and morally suspect.

Even when the characters are fruits, the symbolic structure reproduces this reductionist binary.

The normalisation of cheating: AI models trained on viral media learn that betrayal equals engagement. But turning infidelity into a predictable narrative punchline contributes to a moral desensitisation where cheating isn’t a complex human experience instead it’s a trope to be recreated for views.

This parallels what social scientists call moral simplification: the process by which complex social phenomena are turned into easily digestible but reductive moral narratives. That reduced the gravity of the incident, making it more socially accepting.

The pregnancy aspect of the narrative is the most telling. It brings in the idea of visual moralisation and the idea that wrongdoing must leave a visible trace. The child which is usually a mutating fruit (banana/ strawberry) combo brings in the idea of biological contamination. It frames it as a form of disgusting unnatural sin, but one the poses a certain intrigue.

Could it perpetuate harmful connotations regarding inter racial couples and mixed children? Is something to reflect upon.

But why does this pattern exist?

Because the online space rewards it!

They are easily understandable. They trigger strong emotions. They support the multiple parts/ sequel narrative techniques to boost engagement. However they also aid in solidifying certain biases:

1. Hyper sexualization of women

2. Normalisation of physical cheating

3. Drives negativity towards interracial relationships

These videos mirror how we already simplify love, blame, and desire into easy stereotypes. When even the most trivial stories default to cheating, punishment, and sexualized roles, it reveals how deeply these ideas are ingrained in our everyday culture. The problem isn’t the fruit, but how these caricatures of human relationships actually expose detrimental prejudices that prevail our society.

I was walking back from Euston Square, with the rain pouring relentlessly on the pavements. My newly bought umbrella flips inside out with a sharp snap, as I wrestle with the wind tugging me towards the opposite direction. In the midst of this struggle, my boots get caught on the worn tile near the station, resulting in my downward descent. My £2 scheme Blank Sheep Coffee was thus soon welcomed by the ground, as splashes of espresso stained my gifted Uggs. My attempts to catch the next bus in the horrid rain were also futile. Frustrated, I stood beside the curb to look for alternate routes back home. Then a white Corsa sped past, slicing through the murky water that pooled beside me. Just then, a wave of opaque water splashed up to my chin, drenching my coat with a godawful tinge of ochre.

God was testing my patience yesterday, as I stood there soaked, coffee lost, bus gone, and entirely aware that no matter how carefully I tried to plan my day, the world didn’t give a shit about my plan.

As humans, it is our instinct to crave order in a world that is frankly downright chaos. Our brains relentlessly scan for meaning in the meaningless, patterns in randomness, and control in circumstances that are inherently uncontrollable. We seek this form of structure because it validates our belief that the world is not entirely indifferent to our presence. Well in reality, it is.

But that is a good thing.

Psychologists call these micro-frustrations “daily hassles” as they have found that their cumulative force on our psyche is far more than occasional major crises. I found these daily hassles to have termite-adjacent capabilities, almost imperceptible at first, but slowly burrowing and infesting our sense of competence and composure. Albert Camus termed this the “absurdity of life,” where “The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world,” urging us to find meaning not in controlling the world but in embracing its defaults.

The Oxford English Dictionary describes frustration as “a feeling of deep dissatisfaction caused by being unable to achieve or change something, or by unfulfilled needs.” Thus, being frustrated means you are on the right track. You are a voluntary participant in the challenge of life, as it is proof that you care enough to want things to unfold according to plan, that you are pushing against the inertia of indifference, and that your mind and body are actively striving and desiring for a higher goal, even if the world actively conspires otherwise.

The triviality of our existence is defining our humanity. As we recognize this familiar struggle in others, we cultivate a shared bond of empathy. We learn to forgive and understand the human condition and its flaws both in ourselves and in those around us. Our individual failures become collective points of relatability, a touchpoint that helps us view the world more generously.

Also, when do you recall reciting someone a story where everything went exactly as per your plan? That is a pretty boring story. The narratives we usually express are rarely about perfect days or smooth success. The frustrations of the mundane help us create an underdog story. As we are built from the aggregate of minor setbacks, where out everyday absurdities reveal our character, resilience, and also gives life a quirky sense of humor.

Minor setbacks do more than just irritate us, they locate us. They validate that we are active forces in the world and not just passive bystanders. So maybe this is why the most meaningless mishaps become the more meaningful markers of our growth. They show us that in this jumble of chaos we were moving, wanting, and always trying.

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