this week’s Thought (singular)
such variety in earphones these days. bud-less. budful. wired. wireless. bluetooth. not bluetooth. with a mic. without a mic. will stop working if you lose it under your bed for a few months for some reason (not good). will not stop working if you lose it under your bed for a few months (good).
a very warm welcome to all new readers. i love new readers so much that whenever i get an email about a new reader, i manifest that they feel the rain on their skin. thank you for joining us. may you let it in. no one else. no one else.
a very warm welcome to old readers as well. may good sense continue to prevail.
hi
hi!! i am like this → :D right now. thodi has seen a massive uptick in subscribers over the last few weeks, so i thought now would be a good time to re-introduce some of my favourite pieces from the newsletter into the cycle. this is only slightly because i’ve been swamped recently (i have a draft that’s shaping up great, i swear), but i truly did want to put out a little thank you for being here⟷you’re welcome introductory post.
if you would allow an old woman (me) her whimsy–whether or not you read any of the editions from this list, i appreciate you being here. thodi is about to turn two years old in june + we’re on the 96th issue right now, and the ageing (affectionate) of the publication has got me thinking about it in extra fond terms. if you’ve been here for a while–thank you for sticking around. if you’ve subscribed recently–thank you for joining us. the community is all the richer for having you in it. onward!
where i use the commonality between Forough Farrokhzad’s poetry and This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone as excuses to discuss longing
i’ve fixated on this concept, this unremovable two-strand braid of the verb ‘to gnaw’ with the noun/adjective/verb ‘longing’. how can you separate the cause and effect? the yearning will eat at you, consume you, become bigger than you until you’re contained in it. longing gnaws at you, until there’s nothing left but a hole.
the 20th edition special, way back when, where i tell you the inspiration behind the name of this newsletter, with carnatic music theory and painfully and embarrassingly earnest sentences like ‘it’s beautiful and intimate - i wanted to create something beautiful and intimate.’ what was she on? (nothing, she was right)
i have named this newsletter something dear, something so genuine that only a beauty with its origins in pure art can embody it. i adore the process involved in writing it.
an exposé of my middle-school obsessions immediately followed by a completely unrelated and denouncement of cringe culture
it is enough to have loved and to love. that is ample justification for living. that is a large enough event to make the past full. that is a hopeful enough reason to make the future promising.
on people leaving and people staying–explained using a hotel lobby metaphor
i’ve been thinking about the people who come in and out of our lives; like i’m alone in a hotel lobby, and the revolving doors are constantly spinning. guests come in ones, twos, threes, larger groups. some stay just for a day - and it could be the most spectacular 24-hours. some enter, look around the place as i feign comfort and do my best to keep the pillows fluffed, and leave after a few years. my favourite kind slip in unnoticed, until i suddenly realise that they’ve always been there, and that they’ve been helping me keep the hotel running without me even requesting assistance.
on life being an accumulation of homes
i think a beautiful way of looking at our time here - in this lifetime, in this circumstance, wherever ‘here’ is for you - is as an accumulation of homes. some are more durable, built with stronger materials, can weather storms inside and out. it’s only natural that some are more fragile, built with playing cards, will unceremoniously topple with a tiny gust of wind. and it’s inevitable that, like most things, there will be in-between houses, upright until they aren’t, destroyed into rubble that could instantly disappear or take years to clear away.
assorted media and prose on the depths and mysteries of people, and what inspires one to look deeper featuring Shrek, Terry Pratchett, and Rilke
this phrase - depths and mysteries - is such a lovely way of describing people. layers that even i don’t know about exist within me. isn’t that the most comforting thing? that there’s more of yourself to explore, to get to know, to slowly coax out? that the feeling of ‘not enough’ can be slightly convoluted into that of ‘not deep enough’? that every interaction, every situation, every small or life-changing event is subtly modifying you to reveal more of that depth?
a very useful and instructive list on how to slow down time (a list for dummies) that i had written as a self-soothing reminder when i missed home too much
lie in bed at the end of the day, and marvel at the fact that it was actually only 16 hours ago that you were eating breakfast at your grandparent’s house. lie in bed at the end of the day and marvel at the fact that you managed to do so much, almost as if time itself ceased to exist and all that mattered was the people, the joy, the exhilaration. lament that the day ended, but marvel at the fact that the ending seemed to take so long to happen.
assorted media and prose on grief that i had put down after the passing of my grandfather. i find myself returning to this one often
the five stages of grief are constantly fluctuating. they do not come in order. they overlap and undercut each other, and sometimes they happen simultaneously. they eventually settle into a routine. some days you can laugh about it, remembering something silly that they did. some days you cry, when you’re especially tired and that emptiness threatens to engulf you whole. some days you don’t remember and feel horrible for it.
on homesickness and recovery, written just before i moved back home for good after spending six months away
i think the homesickness was so magnified that every negative emotion was tainted with it so it was easy to ignore the negative emotion itself. but now, in the imminent absence of homesickness, you can see why it might be daunting to face the things that have been conveniently masked. will it be as good as i remember it? will the excuses that i’ve used in this city for my loneliness hold up in that one? how will it be different, now that i’m different? i desperately missed the home that existed six months ago, but can i even fit in that same home the same way now? what can i expect and what can i predict?
a list of Big Questions that i still do not have the answers to
are your early twenties really the worst? what can you do to ensure that your early twenties are the worst? what can you think now to make the rest of your life not-worse? can you force yourself to think something different than what you’re thinking or are you just burying thoughts under thoughts under thoughts? are you what you think or what you do? are you what you do or what you can do? does potential even exist? is it just something your eighth-grade class teacher wrote in your report card because you didn’t solve enough quadratic equations? does it matter?
two very intriguing and heavily researched phenomena (by me), observed before, during, and after my college graduation ceremony
the something-to-show-for phenomenon occurs when, as things are ending, you feel a deep and gnawing regret-bitterness hybrid about all the things that you didn’t do, combined with the almost deliberate obfuscation/willful blindness of all the things you actually did do, distorting both groups into should-would-could positive + negative extremes.
the it’s-rarely-as-bad-as-you-fear-it’s-going-to-be phenomenon is observed when you spend an extended period of time convincing yourself that something in the future is going to go terribly, concoct outlandish scenarios that you worry about incessantly, and get so good at self-delusion that you can’t even fathom the idea of things being kind of fine, actually; only to realise, after it’s over, that it wasn’t earth-shatteringly awful at all.
on there existing a love that is something in between romantic and platonic and every other -ic–the fluidity of affection
none of these allow for the neat, little squares that we typically try to fit our relationships into. are you not friends with your partner? are you not at least a little bit in love with your friends? there’s so much spillover between categories, so many combinations, so many mixtures, so many angles - whatever your muddled metaphor of choice is, it works.
assorted media and prose on the inevitability, intent, and persistence of hope. i also find myself returning to this one quite often.
i’m not big on new year’s resolutions, but if i did make one, it would be this–
hope is stubborn. so am i. i will let it find me again and again. if it doesn’t, i will be such a menace that it cannot possibly miss me. i will not hide from it, and i will not let it forget that i am waiting to be found. i am willing to wield all of its inevitability, intent, and purpose.
on being in your early twenties, a piece which can also be read in the Museum of Art and Photography’s youth journal, Pulse
Being in your early twenties is like
I recognise that I do not stop at 18 years old. I consider what I will be at 25, 35, 70. I reel under the weight of all my choices that will determine the course of this long life that has suddenly and inexplicably opened up in front of me – in all of its intimidation and all of its glory. I shake in fear, and I shake in excitement, and my body sometimes does not feel like it can fit both.
assorted media and prose on the feeling of awe–‘the idea of it, the feeling of it. of what awe does to a person, of how it heals, how it must be chosen, how it seems necessary, how it stills you to a dead stop that makes you feel so alive.’
it’s not like zoning out. much the opposite, i think. it’s being almost forcibly, violently jerked out of the routine that loops in your brain constantly so you can be more attuned to your senses and surroundings. i detest the growing certainty that our purpose is to be more machine-like, more efficient, more optimised, and that our work determines our worth, but it’s difficult to exist outside of this belief in a world that’s hell-bent on convincing you of it. awe goes against this belief. awe says your humanity and your ability to connect and be moved by the world is a power in itself. how else can you explain its potency? how else can you explain why you stop short at the sight of the sun peeking from behind clouds in an otherwise blue sky?
on the oddness of april this year–the weird liminality, the first and blessed rain, on feeling tender and rooted at once. one of my absolute favourite pieces from this year
i am trying to simply allow. i am trying to channel the gentleness of flower buds towards myself, wrapping my Self in layers of soft petals until even i can’t break through to strike my most vulnerable parts. i am trying to take my hands off the wheel, or, at the very least, unclench my fingers from the leather a little bit. both activities sting, seem unnatural and unintuitive in a way only growth can.
i am about to start a POL (phase of life) that is New and Scary and Exciting, and i’m eager to see what novelty i manage to glean in the thodi staples of home, early adulthood, creativity, art, and growth. and i am always eager to share these (mostly coherent) novelties with you all.
thank you for reading <3
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this week’s Song
Throne by Bring Me The Horizon
find all shared songs here.
thank you for reading, and see you next week <3