I'm Arjun. This is my digital garden.

 Sep 27, 2021 In 2018, I started experiencing frequent bursts of anger. I would get angry about the most trivial things. I’d get angry when someone didn’t reply to an email. I’d get angry at a company if I got rejected for a job that I applied for. I’d get angry at the waiter if the restaurant didn’t have a dish that was on its menu. In such times, my anger would shoot up very quickly and I would immediately have a meltdown without any apparent provocation. It was affecting my friendships; it was harming my relationship with my family; and it was making me unlikable, even to myself. This kept on for about a year until I decided to do something about it.  I decided that one of my personal goals for 2019 was to be more mindful in my interactions with people. I started reading about rage and in parallel, I also started reading about meditation. I started observing myself when I would have these rage episodes: what happened prior to them, what was happening during them, and what happened a

One morning in 2001, as I was getting ready for school, I heard a commotion in our community in Bhopal. Lo and behold, my father was right in the middle of it. One Krishnamurthy uncle had took some panga with a taxi driver and the taxi driver brought his friends et al to beat Krishnamurthy up. My papa somehow thought it was the right place for him to, well, interfere.  For context, papa was 6’2”, weighed about a hundred kilos, and the legend in Holkar college Indore went that on an average, it took him about 2.5 seconds to break that other guy’s jaw.  But that day was different. As the drama unfolded from our balcony. I saw my father trying to talk things out with these folks. Of course, that didn’t work. After a few seconds, I heard a loud “Happ!”. That’s it. That’s all he said and then there was silence all around. Papa then took Rs. 1000 from his wallet, gave it to the leader of the driver union and asked him to eff off. They did.  Awestruck, I told papa how proud I was of him for b

(written as a series of 'note to self' messages) I was thinking about empathy today. I have been trying to do my best to be empathetic and kind to people in the last few months, and despite that, I get frustrated often, like I did again this morning with a security guard, or with my mother last evening over something silly. And maybe its because I realise that being empathetic to others does not conform their empathy towards me. For some, its how they are and I dont worry about such people. I filter them out. But the kind of people who frustrate me are the ones who know that I am an empathetic person and who try to take advantage of me for being who I am. There have been quite a few who have tried to use me as a doormat. So, just a thought here — maybe all the dots are not connecting with this empathy equation. You need a counterbalance to prevent yourself from becoming a doormat frequently. And, I think, that counterbalance is not mental or emotional strength. It has to be phy