Substack Posts

Some words are purely for the sake of communication. “The time flew by,” or, “This train is old,” or, “She was not thinking,” when used flippantly, shoved mindlessly between other flippant sentences, have no poetry (although they have meaning). They are each made up of four words that add up to four-word sentences. But then there are those sentences that are more than just the sum of their parts. “Time was passing like a hand waving from a train I wanted to be on. I hope you never have to think about anything as much as I think about you,” by Jonathan Safran Foer, is but one example of the haunting beauty that words can have. This sentence doesn’t make much sense—not at a superficial glance, at least—but it speaks to the soul in a way that everyday words and sentences never can. It has meaning that goes far beyond what it is trying to say, and for that alone, it deserves to be celebrated.

If I were to summarize my reason for being here—for writing these essays—it would be this: to bring to light the beauty of words, especially those that I feel are sometimes overlooked. I read a lot—I always have—and I often come across words that are so beautiful that they cause me pain. Unfortunately, the only way I can acknowledge their existence is by underlining them, or writing them down, word for word, in a special journal; and then putting them back on the shelf where are forgotten by me and unseen by the people around me. But the desire to share is a deep human need that dates back to our evolution as social beings. And for me, at least, that desire has at last become so strong that it now surpasses any trepidation I might feel about putting my most special thoughts on the internet. I don’t share because I’m bored, or looking for recognition, or hoping to hone my writing skills: I share because I no longer have any choice.

Another reason I want to write about all the beautiful words in the world is because I believe they can teach us something about how we can, and ought, to live. Consider this phrase by Milan Kundera: “Anyone whose goal is ‘something higher’ must expect someday to suffer vertigo.” ‘Vertigo’, for Kundera, is not the fear of falling, but the desire to do so; and if it is your intention to climb—to achieve the great and the unimaginable in those difficult places where no one dares to go—you will inevitably reach a moment when you wish to jump back down to a time and space where life is simpler and you don’t have to fight so hard.

In a world that keeps trying to kill the esoteric, I’m convinced books are pure magic. Every word you read is an extension of someone else—their ideas, their thoughts, their feelings; a book is a glimpse into someone else’s being. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is flip open a book. The nature of these books have changed over time: from fiction (in all its forms) to epistolary to biography to non-fiction to dictionaries (I’m not joking—I’m especially fond of thesauri), I have always sought solace, wisdom, and meaning in the words of others. As a lover of words—a logophile, I believe we’re called—the focus of my work is to share what I love, and to extract from this love those things that teach us what it is to live meaningfully and beautifully.

Or maybe, my own words are just an excuse to write about the things I could never write myself, because this is as close as I will ever get to creating something magical.

In his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera says:

No one can give anyone else the gift of the idyll; only an animal can do so, because only animals were not expelled from Paradise. The love between dog and man is idyllic. It knows no conflicts, no hair-raising scenes; it knows no development.

His novel tells the story of a couple, Tereza and Tomas, and their dog, Karenin. Karenin plays an immense role in Tereza’s life, and at times, she believes she loves her dog more than she does Tomas. When Karenin dies from cancer, Tereza grieves by reflecting on the relationship between humans and animals:

The human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals.

Throughout the novel, Kundera contrasts Tereza’s love for Tomas with that she has for Karenin, and it is clear to her that her love for her dog is more selfless and much safer than the love she has for Tomas. Personally, having lost dogs in the past, I can attest to the truth of this: the love between myself and my dogs was unconditional, and consequently, there is no heartbreak more pure than the heartbreak that comes from losing them. I say ‘pure’ in the sense that our relationship was not marred by the complexities, nuances, and undercurrents found in the relationships that people have with each other.

For instance, my dogs never intentionally caused me any harm or gave me reason to feel insecure or unsafe. As a result, the sadness I felt after their passing was not in any way tainted by bitterness or resentment (no matter how faint). The usual buffers we have against sadness—"I’m sad, even though—” or “in spite of—” or “but—”—could not help me here, and I was left with a crisp, clear, and sharp sense of grief that cut cleanly and deeply to the core of who I am. To quote columnist and author Gene Hill: “No one can fully understand the meaning of love unless he’s owned a dog. A dog can show you more affection with a flick of his tail than a man can gather through a lifetime of handshakes;” and it is exactly because this love is so pure that it hurts so much when we lose it.

Kundera’s analysis further indicates that the death of a beloved pet brings us to the limits of our goodness. If your relationship with them and how you treat them is a measure of who you are, then the end of those relationships means the end of the yardstick by which you could measure your own humanity. While this doesn’t necessarily change who you are, it does kill a part of you—the part that was capable of caring for and loving deeply a being that was entirely dependent on you. As veterinary surgeon and author James Herriot says, “The bond between a pet and a human is a sacred one, and when a pet is gone, a part of us goes with them.”

Kundera also suggests that the doors to Paradise close when a pet dies, leaving us on the outside. No longer can we bask in the glow of giving and receiving unconditional love, or the loyalty, trust, and companionship that our pets gift us with. Add to that the fact that I personally believe dogs are responsible for bringing magic into the world; and therefore, their death diminishes the overall beauty of the cosmos. The soul of a dog is sacred and pure, the loss of which can only detract from the world’s cache of joy.

All of this being said, it’s impossible to rationalise the incomprehensible, ungraspable, and mystifying love we have for our pets. At the same time, there’s no amount of writing or reading that can numb the pain of losing a furry companion. Given dogs’ relatively short lifespan, the love for a dog is a love that is doomed to end in grief; nevertheless, it is a love worth having: “Having a pet is a risk—you always have the grief ahead. But that’s the flip side of love.”

So, for all of us who have suffered the pain of losing a furry (or feathered, scaled, or shelled) friend, I leave you with these beautiful words by novelist Erica Jong:

Dogs come into our lives to teach us about love, they depart to teach us about loss. A new dog never replaces an old dog, it merely expands the heart. If you have loved many dogs, your heart is very big.

And to my dearest Sparky, I want to say: “If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever.”

The Stoics call it memento mori: “Remember you must die.” When I first heard this, I thought it somewhat morbid. How can you possibly live a fulfilling life if you are always fixating on your own death? But it was not the intention of the Stoics to be fatalistic. Rather, memento mori was for them a reminder that, because death is inevitable, they had to live every day as if it truly was their last. “Let us compose our thoughts as if we’ve reached the end,” says Seneca; “Let us postpone nothing. Let’s settle our accounts with life every day.”

I recently read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s final and incomplete novel, The Last Tycoon, and it made me sad to think that he was never able to finish what would undoubtedly have been a masterpiece. While he left extensive notes and outlines in which he explained the intention of his novel, the editors of this posthumously published work had to admit, at more than one juncture, that they were unsure what exactly the author had in mind. Fitzgerald was not the only visionary who left the world with unfinished business: Leonardo da Vinci died having never realized his many inventions, Albert Einstein was unable to complete his theory of general relativity, and Pablo Picasso left his painting, The Charnel House, unfinished. Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles, John Lennon, Antonio Gaudi—the list of people who ran out of time before they were done is nearly endless.

“Because I could not stop for Death,” says Emily Dickinson, “He kindly stopped for me.” Death does not care how busy or happy or successful you are, or how many things you have left unfinished: when your moment has arrived, all you can do is get on Death’s carriage (as Dickinson calls it) and ride away from this world. That being said, death, as tragic as it might be, is both natural and necessary. All things die, because change is part of the way the world is structured; and sometimes, change means making space for something new.

I've had much cause to think about death in recent years, and I'm by no means trying to diminish the heartache that accompanies it. But at the same time, I do believe we have to face the reality and inevitability of death. We can't overcome death, but we can prepare for it; and part of this means paying more attention to how we are living. Instead of approaching life as something that has no meaning because it will inevitably end, we have to think of life as especially meaningful, precisely because it doesn't last forever. Death is not merely something that happens after life—it is the pivot around which life revolves.

In The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche says, "If we wish to die well, we have to live well." For Rinpoche, this means living a peaceful life, but I think it also means living a meaningful life. Meaning comes in many forms, and is largely dependent on the journey of the individual. However, regardless of that journey, meaning comes from doing—even if (or especially when) doing is entangled with adversity. This redeems to some extent the many unfinished works mentioned above that brings me so much sadness: even though these great masters ran out of time, they kept doing until the very end. They didn't stop, not even when they became old or sickly or tired. I'd like to think they died well, because they dedicated their lives to pursuing meaning; and while the thought of dying well can bring peace those facing death, it can also bring solace to their loved ones.

Personally, I think there is comfort to be found in the knowledge that the people we have loved and lost used their limited time wisely. Additionally, I'd like to leave my own loved ones behind with the same consolation. Having lost my mother a few years ago, I find some peace in the knowledge that her life truly meant something. Even though I wish she was still around (and despite the many things she left unfinished), I can say with certainty she used the time she had to enrich the lives of those around her. She brought meaning to the world, and I am grateful to have that as both an inspiration and a consolation in my own life.

Rather than fixating on death as a morbid reality—or avoiding thinking of it entirely—I wish to find in it the incentive I need to drive me to live the best and most meaningful life I possibly can. It is only by embracing death that we can learn to live—for our own sake, and for the sake of those we leave behind.

As a writer, there are only two things I fear more than death: rejection, and writer’s block. As for the first, I have dedicated a lot of time and energy to growing a thicker skin. In the case of the second, well… I’m at a loss. I feel like Elaine Benes in Seinfeld, who was humorously brought to the brink of despair when she, as a catalog writer, could not think of a description for the ‘Himalayan Walking Shoe.’ Sandra Tsing Loh famously said: “When you face writer’s block, just lower your standards and keep going”—which is what I’m afraid I’ve had to do today. ‘Write yourself out of it,’ they say; and so, this is my attempt to cure myself.

One of the funniest excerpts about writing I’ve ever read came from the pen of George Orwell:

Part of the humour of this statement comes from its being true: the urge to write does resemble being chased by some terrifying creature that won’t ease up, no matter how tired you get. The demon doesn’t care if you are hungry, or tired, or in desperate need of time with your family and friends—all it wants is to keep you chained to your desk; and it does this by plying you with word after word that you simply must write down in case you forget them. But what Orwell fails to mention is that sometimes the demon stops driving you on—and its absence can be even more painful than its presence.

It is not just writers who face times of inspiration drought. Artists are prone to the same disease, as are designers, photographers, musicians, and anyone else who engages in some sort of creative field. But even if what you do is not traditionally considered ‘artistic,’ you can still find yourself in times when you simply don’t see the way forward. Thinking—whether it’s thinking about numbers or shapes, business models or ball games—requires your mind to make new connections; and being blocked means those connections simply are not being made. So whether you’re an accountant or a painter, becoming mentally stuck is always within the realm of possibility.

There are endless tips for people who suffer from writer’s block (some more realistic than others), and an equally long list of explanations for the reasons why writer’s block exists. Some believe you get stuck because your ideas are not ready yet, others are convinced that it’s simple laziness… John Rogers calls it a “thinking block,” Susan Neville compares it to a faucet with rusted, neglected pipes, and Barabara Kingsolver calls it “writer’s dread.” Annette Gordon-Reed claims it’s merely a lack of research, and David Burkus, Mary Kay Andrews, Jerry Seinfeld, and Natalie Goldberg all believe writer’s block simply doesn’t exist:

Basically, the most raw, deep truth is shut up and write. There’s no such thing as a writer’s block. If you’re having trouble writing, well, pick up the pen and write. No matter what, keep that hand moving. Writing is really a physical activity.

So what does a logophile do when passion fades and imagination fails? She reads, she hangs in there, she “beat[s] it into submission”—and then she shares the gems she found, because Orwell’s demon compels her to do so. (She will also quote others excessively, since she can’t think of anything original herself.)

Nephelolator: “One who admires passing clouds.”

Quill driver: “One that works with a pen.”

Mahpiohanzia: “A feeling of being unable to fly, unable to stretch out your arms and vault into the air, having finally shrugged off the burden of your own weight, which you’ve been carrying your entire life without a second thought.”

Be not a nephelolator but a quill driver—especially when the mahpiohanzia of writer’s block threatens to get you down.

Faire confiance au processus: French for “trust the process.”

Kshanti (kṣānti) or khanti (Pāli): The Sanskrit terms for “patience,” “forbearance,” and “tolerance.”

Fiddle faddle: “Trifling discourse, nonsense.”

Faire confiance au processus with kshanti and khanti, even if it yields nothing but fiddle faddle.

Shturmovshchina: A Russian word to describe “the practice of working frantically just before a deadline, having not done anything for the last month.”

Finis: From Latin, meaning “the end.”

When all else fails, give in to shturmovschina—because finis must be reached, whether you’re ready or not…

From a neurological perspective, the simple answer is that dreams are the stories our brains create to help us process the events of the day. However, I am not asking the question from a neurological standpoint, but rather from an ontological one: what is the nature of that dream world—that place where anything is possible—that we go to when we fall asleep?

There are spiritual and religious traditions that claim that life and the universe, as we know and understand it, is nothing but the dream of a divine being. Author of Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, alludes to this in his poem (albeit not from a religious perspective) when he asks, “Life, what is it but a dream?” Edgar Allen Poe makes a similar observation: “Is all that we see or seem, but a dream within a dream?” he laments as he stands on the shore, helplessly watching the sand slip through his fingers:

You are not wrong, who deem, that my days have been a dream; yet if hope has flown away, in a night, or in a day, in a vision, or in none, is it therefore the less gone?

All of this points, to my mind at least, to a potentially uncanny relationship between waking and dreaming, and illusion and reality: if reality is just a dream, can it not then be said that dreams are as real as reality?

Life—reality—has a very specific structure: time, space, and people all behave in predictable, immutable ways that can in no way be circumvented (unless you are a quantum physicist, in which case I beg you to close your eyes to my inexpert musings). We cannot be in two places at once, gravity is a real thing, people are not interchangeable, the future and past are inaccessible, and time is linear and ordered, and therefore an objective measurement of many day-to-day phenomena. These are the rules of reality as we experience them every day, and how we understand and expect life to work.

In dreams, however, that structure changes. It is possible to be both here and there at the same time, or to move from here to there without moving through the space in between. People are interchangeable: the face of a stranger may have the soul of a friend, or one person can embody two people at once. Time is fluid and fungible, so that minutes, hours, and months become incoherent and unorganised, and the future and the past are not off-limits as we expect them to be in waking life. Even gravity changes: I have had many a dream in which flying is possible, and levitating is not the obscurity it is in waking life.

The best evidence I can give of this is the confusion that arises when attempting to describe a dream to someone else: have you ever noticed how these descriptions often seem nonsensical, convoluted, and incomprehensible in the sober light of day? The reason (at least, as far as I can tell) is that the structure of dreams—in other words, the ways in which time, space, gravity, and identity function in the dream world—is different from the structure of the waking world; and not just are these two structures different, but they’re incommensurable: it is impossible to understand a dream from a waking perspective, because the main aspects that structure that perspective—and that make our waking reality comprehensible—do not track with the workings of those same aspects in dreams. For instance, you cannot understand the fungibility of time and space from a waking perspective, because that is simply not how our reality works.

The fact that dreams have a structure to them—even if that structure makes no sense when we are awake—suggests that dreams encompass a universe the same way waking reality does. As far as I can see, this can go one of two ways: either dreams are as real as reality, or reality is as unreal as dreams.

Sadhguru was once asked if life is a dream or if it is real; his response was that, “Life is a dream but the dream is true.” Just because life is a dream (and therefore an illusion), it doesn’t follow that life has no meaning; and the same can be said for the meaningfulness of dreams. I like to imagine that when we dream, we enter an entirely different reality that is no less meaningful—and no less real—than the one we are living in right now.

To me, it’s a bit of a scary thought (what happens if I get stuck there? No, really?), but it brings some magic back to the world: sleeping is not just a necessary bodily function, and dreams are not just a trick of the mind—it is an opportunity to traverse different universes with altogether different structures and unusual rules governing those structures, all without leaving your bed. It is the many different universes of Star Trek without all the hassle of getting there. Simultaneously, if life is just a dream, we can let loose a little (note: a little) and stop worrying so much about the small things that often hold us back.

Whether reality is a dream, or dreams are real, both are an opportunity to carpe the diem and have some fun: “Human happiness passes by in the end like a dream, and I wish today to enjoy mine for as long as it lasts; all of life is a dream, and even dreams are dreams.”

In his novel, The Storyteller, Mario Vargas Llosa describes the ways of the Machiguenga tribe who live deep in the heart of the Amazon Basin. Central to their culture are the ‘storytellers’ who travel between the small, scattered Machiguenga communities to share news of their neighbours, and to regale them with stories about their tribe’s origin, purpose, and mythology. Of the existence of these storytellers, Llosa says, “They’re a tangible proof that storytelling can be something more than mere entertainment. Something primordial, something that the very existence of a people may depend on.”

All the great traditions of the world—whether they be cultural, religious, or philosophical—have myths attached to them. Most famous in the Western world are the myths from ancient Greece and Rome, but they have this in common with many other civilisations. Popular today are myths and fables from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Africa, Scandinavia, the Amazon, China, Japan… There are stories from the Ottoman Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the British Empire, and pretty much every other empire in history—and all of these say something about their society of origin. More than that, they express something timeless about the cultures these stories originate from—something we simply can’t get from mere facts and figures.

In addition to telling us something about the world around us, stories also tell us something about ourselves. In answer to the question, ‘what makes a classic,’ author Harriet Sanders writes, “A classic brilliantly articulates universal themes—like love, morality, death, adversity—and offers revelatory insight and clarity to readers of any era.” In other words, classic literature—or stories that have stood the test of time—reveal something timeless about the human condition in a way that always feels relatable to the individual, no matter how much time has passed.

Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, for instance, said more using stories about the human experience in a world torn between opulence and poverty, nihilism and meaning, than any economic, political, sociological, or even anthropological treatise ever could. It was said of him by biographer Arthur Mizener that “[his] habit of accepting the values available in his world … makes him … a very conventional and representative man of his time”, and at the same time, that “he could make readers feel what he felt about the life he … was living.” Other authors, such as Harper Lee, T.C. Boyle, George Orwell, William Golding, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, and many others, addressed the human experience in such a timeless way that their work remains relevant even today. Using stories, they bring us face to face with truths about ourselves: who we are, where we come from, where we’re headed, and what our struggles and victories are.

A further reason why stories are valuable is that they make ideas and events more relatable than facts can. Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close—in which a boy loses his father during the 9/11 attacks—brings home the extent of that tragedy far better than any statistics about the event can. Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime makes the reality of living with Asperger's much clearer than any facts from a textbook could. And Anne Frank’s diary (although non-fiction, but nevertheless a story), in which she details how she and seven other people spent more than two years hidden in an attic in quiet darkness, truly brings home the horror of the Holocaust, and is more relatable than what has been written about the event in non-fiction publications. These stories—and many others—have woven fact into fiction, telling the tales of people living through things we can’t even begin to imagine. At the same time, even though they’re stories of the unimaginable, they make the imaginable more relatable, precisely because they’re stories.

Stories are also valuable because they make life lessons more memorable. We are far more likely to remember a nugget of wisdom if it is accompanied by a story than if it were given to us on its own. For this reason, religions use stories to convey ideas, and old-timey writers wrote fables and fairytales to warn children of the world's dangers. In the present world, series such as Star Trek and Gilmore Girls are just two examples of collections of life lessons hidden inside stories, and there are many movies and novels that are also testimony to this fact.

The final, and most important, reason stories deserve more attention is that they say things in a way that speaks to our emotions—our souls, if you will—as opposed to much of non-fiction, which can appeal to our intellect but not necessarily our hearts. As writer Michael Horan says, “The value of myth is not in its truth as fact, but in its truth as meaning.” Our relation to stories goes much deeper than mere knowledge—which is why fiction is more than just a good time, and stories are worthy of our undivided attention.

While I’m sure there are many philosophers I could turn to in this time of need, I found my inspiration in a series, instead. Launched in 2016, The Good Place is the story about a morally corrupt woman, Eleanor Shellstrop, who finds herself in heaven (even though she clearly doesn’t belong there). By way of trying to make up for her mistakes in life by being a better person in death, she asks her soulmate and former moral philosophy professor, Chidi Anagonye, to teach her ethics. After many plot twists and turns (I’m trying to keep the spoilers to a minimum here), Chidi also takes on the task of teaching Michael, the demon who runs the Good Place, how to be good.

Obviously, with Michael being eternally evil, this soon proves impossible; and to a disheartened Chidi, Eleanor says: “Dude, this isn’t your fault. You’ve been teaching him ethics for half an hour and he’s been evil since the beginning of time.” But Chidi soon realises this is not the problem: “Maybe the reason Michael can’t latch onto the ideas is because he’s immortal. If you live forever, then ethics don’t matter to you, because, basically, there’s no consequences for your actions.” Armed with this new insight into the moral fibre of a demon, Eleanor and Chidi try to teach Michael what it means to be mortal: “Before I can teach Michael to be good,” says Chidi, “I have to force him to think about what we used to think about. That life has an end and, therefore, our actions have meaning.”

While demons can’t die, they can be ‘retired’; this happens when a demon’s essence is scooped out of their body with a flaming ladle, and their every molecule is placed on the surface of a different sun. Every time Michael mentions retirement, he is nonchalant and flippant about it. But when forced to really confront the possibility of this happening – in other words, the possibility that there might be an end to his existence, and a world in which he, Michael, no longer exists – the wheels finally come off and Michael slips into a deep crisis of meaning. Faced with this existential anguish, he becomes almost catatonic: “Searching for meaning is philosophical suicide. How does anyone do anything when you understand the fleeting nature of existence?”

This got me thinking: death, no matter how much I try to ignore it, is always at the forefront of what I do and think. When I say goodbye to someone, it is generally with the understanding that I may not see that person again, and every time I get into a car, the many terrible statistics of fatal accidents spring to mind. Projects are taken on in the full knowledge that I may not be able to see them through to their end, and the older people get, the more aware I become of how precious my time with them is. I don’t consider myself a thanatophobe, and I acknowledge that I may be more sensitive to the topic of death thanks to past events; but I don’t think I’m the only one who has these thoughts. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not constantly worried about death; rather, it slightly tinges everyday life in a way that most of us have learned not to notice.

To Michael’s question of how humans deal with the looming threat of death, Eleanor answers that “you learn about death when you’re a kid and it’s just not that big a deal.” Except that it is. It’s always there, from the moment we lose our first pet or grandparent or friend or (heaven forbid) parent. We might believe we don’t think about our fleeting existence, but in reality, we do, even when it’s buried deep in our unconscious. Moreover, not only are we always faced with our own mortality, but there is also uncertainty built into that: we don’t know when it will be our last, and that’s simply something we have to deal with everyday.

And this brings me to the next phase of Michael’s existential crisis: uncontainable and unbridled enthusiasm. “[I] can’t [wind down],” says Michael. “Can’t stop moving. If I stop moving, I’ll start thinking. If I start thinking, I’ll start thinking about things I don’t want to think about, like death.” Inevitably, thinking about not thinking about death makes Michael think about death again, which circles him right back to anguish. At which point Eleanor gives us the insight we’ve been waiting for: “Do you know what’s really happening right now? You’re learning what it’s like to be human. All humans are aware of death, so we’re all a little bit sad, all the time. That’s the deal.” “Sounds like a crappy deal,” says Michael; “Well,” answers Eleanor, “yeah, it is. But we don’t get offered any other ones. And if you try to ignore your sadness, it just ends up leaking out of you anyway.”

The presence of death and the understanding that life is fleeting might be painful, but it’s also part of what it means to be human – because our very existence is defined by that existence ending. We carry this burden with us, every day, often without even noticing it’s there; and because of this, it’s okay to be a little bit sad on days like today. Even though I’m oozing sadness, I’m reminded that I always have humour, love, and beauty to turn to, and that the magic of these aspects of life come from their existence not being indefinite. Knowing that something might not always be there makes you appreciate it even more… and even though life might be fleeting, it isn’t any less wondrous for it. To quote the Facebook memory of my lovely friend: “I try to focus on finding things of beauty. It distracts me and makes me happy because I see lovely things.”