The life of shims

It is 2pm in the afternoon, you have just had your lunch and are faced with the monumental task of pulling the scattered parts of your mind from different locations in the world. There are some disoriented pieces still at home, racing through and mostly regretting the answers for the 'what ifs' that plague our (at least mine) everyday morning's. "What if I had woken up early and exercised? What if I had woken up early and worked on something more useful to me? What if..." There is a sneaky piece that has gained a speed greater than light based on the answer to one of those questions and escaped to another country, another forest and some other mountain.

You bring all those pieces together after a mental tug of war between what you are doing right now and what you want to do right now, to face your work, which, if you are lucky, is stimulating enough to make you pass the rest of the day without your head hitting the desk very often. But, lets face it, if all of us were lucky, then the word luck would not exist. So, more often than not you end up working on something so monotonous that you concurrently think of super-superlatives for the word monotonous to describe your situation.

I found myself in team 'unlucky' today and the culprit for it was a thin metallic pole that stood on a  cement base and had a sensor for a hat. I had to make it horizontal using shims. I know some mechanical engineers (or the one who will probably read this post) will claim shimming is an art that require complete concentration. I was concentrating, initially, but by the end of it, I could say that I had attained a metaphorical black belt in the secret martial art of horizontalite, shimmingte? (Too much?)

I was nearing the end of the shimming process when I realised the perfect metaphor that my situation was, to life. *clears throat and goes into saint mode* If the sensor and the thin metallic pole on the concrete base represent you, your aim in life is to attain equilibrium, or in the case of the sensor, become horizontal. Your quest to attain the equilibrium is spoilt by rooftop winds and the slanted surface, which are the problems that you face in your life. The shims that support the sensor's journey are similar to the supports in your life. Your friends, your family or even the sly cat in the MRT that checks you out everyday when you cross it to reach the platform. 

So to sum up, your objective in life is to not to look for equilibrium by yourself, you just need to look for the right shim's that can support your goals. Why don't we all take a moment and ponder on the perfect shims for our life? :D

PS- If I was graded based on the ability of getting to the point, I would probably fail.

Black and White

A very very long time ago and in a seemingly far off land - at least in terms of my memory - that was my university, I made a deal with a good friend of mine. The deal was to make one post everyday, and if I remember correctly, we continued for at least, ten to fifteen posts that year. At that time, it was she, who (re)kindled the dormant interest for writing in me and made me want to record the random rants from my mind everyday.

Knowing her, she probably had no idea. As time progressed, I fell prey to stresses of my final year and the apprehensions about my uncertain future. The constantly distracted recesses of my mind stopped thinking about the things that I find interesting around me and decided to worry about making myself look interesting to others. Once I got a job, those recesses decided to rename themselves into 'worry about money' and 'be a grown up'. Finally, I managed to drag the remaining cells in my brain to day dream about short stories and publishing a novel, which meant I stopped having things to rant about.

Funnily, yesterday, I did the opposite to the same friend to make her start writing again after a brief - no, too long - a period of hiatus. Compared to her, I always know when I am having a positive effect on someone. In fact, I radiate positivity to everyone around me more often than not and also boast about it later. (Too much?)

I have always been amazed by the bipolarity of many things in nature. Two types of charges, action-reaction, head-tail... Four years back, she made me really think about my feelings for writing and I made her perfect her writing skill. Yesterday, I made her start writing again and she made me start ranting again.

PS (PSMS?) - I have decided to make my blog as more of a free writing exercise medium, where I can type and not bother about grammar or punctuation. So, forgive any errors.