its a strange thing, lonliness. its the feeling of walking away very fast and realising that no one is following you. or entering an empty room and hearing your own breath echo off the walls. when we were kids, we'd run away and hide in very secret and clever places and if no one came looking, it would hurt. inexplicably.
we drove forever, it seemed. drove miles and miles along winding mountain paths, the van lurching this way and then that. compassion is a universal language, isnt it? at some point i wonder why people dont throw me out of their houses, when i come around in my shapeless grey kurta and surveyor's rude hiking boots and clipboard. because no one ever crossed their thresholds, sat on their charpais, drank their tea and asked them.. so, how's life? so, what do you think? so, how are the kids? how's it going? no, tons of people are in and out every day. why welcome the outsiders? oh, and its not a kashmiri thing. its not a rural-people thing. its not a muslim thing. i don't, i don't understand why they've always been so goddamn nice to me, the outsider.
(the rudest, most reluctant respondents ive ever met, in my years of surveying and interveiwing, are the uncles and aunties of Sector U, Defence.)
so anyway. if you're interested, the WB/ERRA 3000 bucks program was the biggest joke, the most pitiless scam i have ever seen played on poor people. im not even going to start with what they've lost already, between the earthquake of oct 2005, the landslides of jan 2006, and the mudslides of august 2006. on top of everything, we've driven them crazy with roumers instead of just letting them get the hell on with their lives. god alone knows what the designers of this program were thinking. just goes to show that the only people worse than the senseless technocratic assholes that run this country are the senseless technocratic assholes who give them the money to do it.

and...

Green paint

Journalists and wonks treated by the Whitehall PR machine to early drips of Stern have made much of the report's likely impact on the world stage.

That's not surprising, as those journalists and wonks are British, and we just love to see ourselves painting the world green as we once covered it in pink.

On the international stage, getting Stern accepted and acted upon faces four major problems:

* continued resistance within the US to the scientific consensus
* the reluctance of major developing nations to accept any constraints on their economic growth
* the absence of global economic drivers which will make it more profitable, say, to invest in clean coal technology over conventional plant
* in democracies, parties advocating any degree of economic pain typically fare poorly

If those arguments look familiar, that is because they should be; they were major obstacles to climate action even before the Kyoto Protocol was born almost a decade ago.

They are as real today as they ever were; and until we see politicians the world over prepared to campaign on a platform of pain today in exchange for a smaller reduction in jam tomorrow, the jury must be out on whether the Stern report will bring any change to the international climate field.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6098124.stm


clearly, conventional economics doesnt have much room for long term growth at all. only you have to be a Ph D in Economics to be able to say things like that and get heard. and how likely is a PhD economist to say "well, lets face it, everything i've studied so far is mostly bullshit"?

[ mine ]

we forgot to leave
breadcrumbs,
i can't trace
your start, your end
(you are
a non-issue)

[driving back from
the beach, your hand
in mine
in yours.]

do you want to go
a little
crazy, tonight?
ill lose my mind,
and move,
like you've never seen before.

all this,
and i only ever mean to say
the one thing.
between my letters is a place
you know how to get to.
is it lonely where you are?

i'll take
this dance, if you
will.

she sensed, now, that something was wearing thin at the edges, fraying so slowly that it was hard to notice. they rubbed their arms unconciously, walked just a little quicker; the sheets didnt end up as a twisted rope at the foot of the bed but stayed wrapped around their warm limbs. she sensed that if something must be said, now would be the time to say it.
i dont love you anymore, she said to herself in the dark. the words were clumsy, they didnt flow as well as she would have liked. so many places to stumble, so many syllables to trip over. would "i dont love you" be better? no, but that sounded so finite. it obliterated everything else. "anymore" was more.. hopeful. that once, she did.
i am incapable of anything beyond this. my whole life will become about it, and then i will cease to exist. i will be lost, like a face in the crowd, like a group of students chanting at a rally, i will be lost behind leaders, behind ideals. i will never be me.
"i dont think this will work out." but why resort to euphemisms? isnt that the same clearance we give everyone in our lives, like we terminate contracts, like we quit jobs? but really, it is like a job. if it works out, well and good. if it doesn't.. well, thats life, right?
i am never going to be that good. im scared that you might leave me, so im leaving you first. so that it doesnt hurt me, that much. besides, youre not good enough for me, and you never will be. i'm just here because you flatter my ego. you're just here because no one else would want you. we're just here because we're desperate and lonely.
...

Kafka's Metamorphoses is a brilliant example of how meaningless our lives are, how we will always struggle to give them meaning but the world, the people we love, will be the very ones to turn against us and crush us like bugs. we are eternally opressed by society's expectations and will never be able to go beyond those because there is no way out of this trap unless and until we die.
...

i want to take up a sport. i want to narrow my world so that i focus my entire mind and body on a single act and just push it, perfect it, until i am capable of doing things that i was never capable of doing. it doesnt have to affect anyone else, i can do what i want with my life. its my liberty, my freedom, to not care about anyone else.
...

i understand the world. i understand the suffering i cause other people by just being an upper-middle class person whose sole interest is earning enough money to send their kids to school and college and to have a nice house to retire in. i convince myself that by struggling to achieve this i acheive "success", and by being successful i am contributing to society and to the benefit of other people. i didnt change anything, i didnt even stick up for the people who were trying to change anything, but thats ok. my kids went to school and i had a house and really i dont care about anyone else. besides, its too much effort to think about anything else.
...

i love him. and maybe i should get over my own insecurities and believe him when he says he loves me, but its too much effort to change the way i am, its too much effort to think..
...

i'd rather just be safe.
i'd rather not think.
its too much to believe.

----------------------------------------




it's your fundemental human right not to give a fuck about anyone but yourself.
i'm just always going to be on the other side.