Pending Drafts
My rough drafts from 2022-23 which never made it to the final cut. The past, the present and the future!
Mr. Non-Confrontational
Date written: 05/16/2022
I like to avoid fights as much as I can, and it’s not working in my favour. I don’t even confront people if they do any wrong to me. I believe I like to go to the maximum extent I can push myself to just to avoid any argument.
My tolerance is getting lower now. I believe the problem is me just me all me.
Author present comments: I have no idea why I wrote this two years ago.
Is Marriage the endgame?
Date written: 9th Sept ‘22.
I was talking to a friend and they told me how they want to just date people, not get serious with anyone (hopefully) and enjoy life since they’ll have to marry someday. That’s a great way to deal with the relationship block of your life - just stop worrying about it and go with the flow. Though they did make marriage sound like it’s the endgame that’s where their life ends. It’s not them, it’s how most of the people I know think these days; that when they get married it’s all over. Whether it’s people in relationships or single people, everyone has the same opinion. While it could be hard to find the right person, it’s not the end of the world. Marriage is a beautiful thing and while I understand people getting cold feet because it’s such a big thing, what I don’t understand is why people think it’s gonna take all the fun out of their lives. It could probably be the biggest and the best decision ever (could also be the worst at the same time), but I just don’t understand why people think and talk about it like there’ll be no fun left in their lives once they get married. I think you could continue to keep having fun after you get married too. You just need to do the hardest part ever first: finding the right person. If you won’t try, alone you die. I guess you could call me old school but it is what it is.
Author present comment: I have no idea which friend I am talking about.
The Burlington Adventures
I went to Burlington (3 hours away from my home) to help a friend out with moving. They had an amazing cat that I had fun with. Meet Mr Whiskers everyone 😸
Such a handsome young boy but they had to give him away because they couldn’t take care of him themselves. My friend was moving into a new place and they had a no-pet policy. They called a couple of shelters and they told that no room is available to keep a “surrendered” cat.
Then they had an idea. They called and told the same shelter that found a stray cat on the street. The shelter said to bring them over. And that’s how Mr. Whiskers got sent into a new home - I really hope he is doing well there.
Burlington otherwise is a very quiet city, unlike Brampton or Toronto. It also has a nice beach and lakeshore to chill at downtown. Hamilton is just Burlington on steroids. Brampton is just Chandigarh on steroids but let’s not talk about it.
Author present comment: I hope Mr. Whiskers is safe!
What is the ideal city to live in?
Date written: 09/24/2023
The closer I get, the more I see how far I am.
- Maulana Rumi
I recently moved from Brampton because of a new job opportunity. It required me to move to this small town named Sault Ste. Marie and I couldn’t miss it so I made the move. Over the past two years, I got familiar with GTA (Brampton, Mississauga, Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener etc.). These are all pretty well-developed and expensive cities to live in. I loved my comfort in Brampton with Indian food and my community. I could ride the buses and drive my car to most places without using Google Maps, and all my friends lived in GTA.
The thing is life always has different plans for you. So I made the move. Now this is a pretty small town with countable shops to eat and shop at. This city has 3 Indian restaurants with only one being average 6/10 at best. I only have 2 work friends, 10 acquaintances, one housemate and 2 neighbours that I know of.
I went to watch a movie and the theatre was pretty shitty compared to the Brampton or Mississauga movie theatres. It’s the only theatre within 250kms and it sucks I have to live with such a downgrade.
This city also shares borders with the USA, and you can see the USA when we visit the boardwalk.
I wished I had left crime news behind as I moved to a city but that didn’t happen. Murders here are a common occurrence. Well, stabbings were pretty common in Toronto too but this is a small town so the impact scale should be smaller but it feels it isn’t. These murders are not racially motivated and I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not.
So what’s the ideal city to live in? I lived near one of the world’s best cities - Toronto, it has a lot of crime and its dirty. I lived in Delhi for almost all of my life and it’s way better than Toronto in every aspect but again crime is a problem. This small town Sault Ste. Marie has way fewer shops and places to hang out because this is not as developed a city as Toronto.
I believe the best city is where you find happiness. I hope I get to settle somewhere I can call home or the best city ever.
10 Days Off
I moved here on 1st September and the job started on 11th September so I had plenty of time to kill.
I plugged in my PS4 and finished Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022), Last of Us Remastered and another game I forgot about now.
I worked 7 days a week for the past year, and these 10 days off drove me nuts. I should keep working on something else I’ll go insane.
I have to build a friend circle again, which is honestly the worst part of moving into a new city. Everyone is just so busy they don’t have the time to introduce themselves or get introduced to.
La La Why
I opened up my pending movies list and fired up La La Land (2016) which was a beautiful movie. The direction of this movie was so crazy that no one could’ve taken the Oscar from them.
I have a problem: I hate sad endings. I feel they should be there but I didn’t want Ken to lose WayStar Royco, I didn’t want Ted to go to Robin and similarly, Mia and Seb should’ve been together.
But also, these endings are possibly what draws the line for me between reality and imagination & reminding me that things indeed don’t always work out, even for Ryan Gosling.
If you people know of similar movies like La La Land, please let me know so I can watch and have mixed feelings about my existence again.
Bye Embedding Tweets
Elon Musk removed the ability to embed tweets in Substack since he feels this platform is a competition to his platform. I am trying to figure out a better way to post screenshots of tweets.
Author present comment: This city is fine folks. I have successfully blended in.
It now brings us to the present……
2023 - The Year Of Change
I switched 2 homes this year. I moved to a smaller city (Sault Ste. Marie) and it’s fun to see that people are happy over here, without even witnessing the potential Toronto or any well-developed cities have. They are happy in their -15°C bubble - and I believe that’s how life should be.
The city has a serious lack of resources though. Today, I could not get an eye exam appointment because all the test centres are booked (not more than 5 in total). Back in October, I was unable to get a tire change appointment - all the garages had appointments stacked for months. Also, I have learned you cannot get a doctor assigned to your new pet here since all the vets are at full capacity.
It snows a lot here. The snow has now blended into my daily routine - getting up, getting ready, removing the snow off my car, going to work, cleaning the car because have to go home and get home.
20 Days Of GTA
For Christmas, my company gave me WFH for 20 days. The very first I packed my bags and ran off to my friend’s house in Oakville. It’s an 8-hour drive but I pull through alone just fine - fighting the demons in my mind, playing my saddest playlists and just watching the beautiful landscape Northern Ontario has to offer.
I was welcomed by their sweet house cat Misty, who is a sassy bastard always looking to come in between my work.
Living with friends is always fun. I fulfilled my desire for Indian food only to come back to Sault and get the news that Bikanervala has opened its branch in Brampton. I want to go but it’s an 8-hour drive and while I enjoy driving, I am tired of it for now.
I attended lots of parties and did the New Year countdown. I believe in living in the moment, but I am aware that a part of me is always running to get a hit of how it felt like before - nostalgia is my favourite drug of all time.
What’s My Hobby?
I bought an Xbox Series X, the best console money can buy (arguably of course). I finished some of the latest games which had terrific graphics and gameplay. Regardless I used to go back to the PS4 because it is backwards compatible with PS2 games - which was my first ever console. I have this habit of installing emulators on all my consoles to play old games on them. I don’t know - I get a nice hit off this. Back in 4th grade, I remember installing an SNES emulator on an iPod classic - and you could control Mario using the wheel - I should’ve realized it then that this addiction could go out of hand.
Anyway, the whole point of telling you this story was I try to chase the feelings that don’t exist anymore. I just could not get that same nostalgia hit like when I finished Max Payne for the first time or played Left 4 Dead 2 with my brother, or played Counter-Strike with my buddies. All of my consoles are mere machines which do not make me happy anymore, but my consciousness needs an unnecessary “hobby” to relax my anxiety. I am not someone who has zero hobbies, but I am clearly heading in that direction. Life here has sucked my blood enough so I don’t even write anymore. I believe I have come to terms with this
I have talked to some of my friends and yes with increasing age most of us are losing interest in our hobbies. What do I do in my free time then? Just worry about the future and time flies by real quick.
My losing general interest in life has expanded to further domains such as dating. It does not seem worth it. This subject gets me to be the table’s center of attention and it gets harder to dodge questions when you are the 5th wheel. At the same time, I am so tired of life I just cannot run to get someone else’s attention. This is like high school all over again.
I don’t have any worries in general - I am just going into a decline in my interests. I should find new hobbies and interests - I will probably give cooking a go. Google says it’s the beginning of depression, but I don’t buy that theory. I feel am doing pretty well. Not gonna lie but my friends are kind of concerned about me at times - this is just to inform them they shouldn’t be.
At the same time, I am, and maybe we all are losing our ability to be amazed. A baby would be amazed if I do a peek-a-boo with them but at this point even if someone comes in and shows me the latest tech or maybe even northern lights, I don’t have a reaction to anything anymore. I lost my magic of amazement with being an adult and that sucks.
Life Goes On
People may disagree with me, but I believe life is not about celebrating successes rather it is about handling failures. I lost count of how many times I thought it was over, where life was even heading - but I just went with the flow even though it was less of a flow and more like someone opened a damn dam. I am doing just fine, albeit some thoughts stay at the back of my head haunting my future decisions.
I spent almost 3 years thinking that the only way to suppress the thoughts which shouldn’t be lingering in my brain is just to be distracted and keep myself busy. I used to work 10 to 12-hour shifts a day to stop myself from going insane. Now I have a nice desk job and yet I continue to take 12-hour shifts because it is nice to be distracted - not helpful but just nice to have a buffed paycheck once in a while.
Life will never get easier. It will only get harder as time passes - we get smarter and stronger with time. We learn how to handle everything and prepare ourselves for the worst.
The Unpurchased Ticket
It’s been 5 days 10 days whole week since I have been extremely closely following the ticket prices for flights to India. $2000 is the cheapest flight I could get - which I could afford by maximizing my credit cards. After a lot of thinking, I did not proceed with the booking. A trip to India does not only include the airfare, but also rent, car payments, and insurance paid in advance - something I cannot pull off on such short notice. Well honestly, the notice wasn’t short and I had plenty of time to save up money. I decided earlier it would be a great idea to sit this trip out - only to have great FOMO in the days leading up to both of my sisters’ weddings. In short, I did not buy the ticket and it is 100% my fault for not planning earlier. What is this country where getting home is a challenge in itself?
Speaking of tickets, I started buying 2 concert tickets because I want people to tag along but it seems like people only want to go to those concerts where they know the artist - no one wants to try new artists even if it is free. I took a friend with me at Sasha Sloan but I wasted 2 Joji tickets on nothing. Sometimes tickets are not valuable, the company is.
The Circle
I built my friend circles from school, college and work. Now I have moved into a new city with a job and it is hard to make friends. I thought of stealing my friend’s friends but all she knows is 30+ aged people here. I am possibly 2nd youngest guy at my office and my friends are 2 folks who have completely different shifts than me, so any hangout plans are just out of the picture. Most of the time it’s just me and my housemate, but like I said they have friends too so that leaves me with just me most of the time.
I kind of accepted my fate and started balling alone into activities. I go watch movies alone every month (I have a monthly pass). I also went to a video games event where they had all retro consoles plugged in and free to play, where I had to leave 15 minutes into playing Nintendo Gamecube because all I could see were 5 to 15-year-olds trying games.
I work only 4 days now with 10-hour shifts and then hit the gym so I don’t get the time to think about all this. This works fine until I have the 3 days off and have nothing planned.
I think this outcome is bound to happen no matter what city I move to. I was lucky to build circles in GTA but it seems like every other city will just keep me running in circles.
The Outcome
I love this video and love the way Joe says “We’ll be alright.”
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While I live 50-50 toward “What is this life?” and “This is the only life I have to make the best of it”, I move forward. We all will be fine. We all will be alright.
As Kanye West said,
The only thing promised in life is death. If you had the opportunity to play this game of life, you need to appreciate every moment. A lot of people don’t appreciate their moment until it’s passed.
FYI: This newsletter is not a call for help. Maybe call for something else but not for help.
Life goes on