Welcome to my inaugural post. And my weblog.
Imaginary reader of one.
Dear sister, thank you for daring me so and reading. You will always have a free ticket to my one-woman circus, of freak acts and random occurrences, front row seat, no less.
This post is in many ways a meta post.
When my sister and I were chatting this morning, and for the 13th time this week, I reminded her that my blog was eating me, inside out.
And now that it was getting to the tendon, it was perhaps time to move on it, she reminded me.
To date, my blog has largely only lived within me. Inside my imagination. It technically does not exist. Not until now at least.
It existed as a meta-link, on a domain that I zealously bought three months ago, which was one lonely website waiting to happen.
So my sister said, “Why don’t you write it?”
And (drumroll), I will read your first blog post on your website, under blog.
I am sure she was thinking, not as some 100th edited variation of a google doc, which I would have thrust on her, if she had not so specified.
As your blog, she insisted.
Hmm. So here we are.
Hello blog, how does it feel to be (a) live?
Blog speaks back…. (a bit flustered and flappy)
“Wow. Jeez. Thanks.
A bit breezy if you might ask…..
Like lifting up one’s skirt and flashing an unsuspecting audience.
Feels a bit naked. Yeah, just a bit. And chilly in parts, if I might add further.
Waffly. Winding and windy.
(The experts have a word for this- they call it verbal runniness)
Was that paragraph written on a dare as well, my blog asked.
A bit anemic… but HEY, thanks for showing me the light of the day…!!!!!!”
Credit: Nirupa Umapathy. Fat Finger Drawings. All you need is iphone notes and a fat and lusty finger to squiggle and scribble
Ingrate… I think to myself.
Back to blog post 1.
Wanting to set standards really low, I am going to start at zero.
What it feels like to be a zero, more precisely.
To write an entire post about knowing nothing is going to be well, interesting.
I am on a journey this year. It is the journey of inverting the 100%.
And by inverting, I don’t mean doing handstands and yoga.
(Although, here is a not so perfect picture of me doing an inversion, handstands being one kind of inversion.)
Credit: Photo taken by Janica Kirpalani. Friend and healer
By inverting, I mean, I am borrowing a riff from the incredible James Clear, as a way of thinking.
How do you invert 100% to make it zero?
Through an additive inverse, which is, the number you add to 100% to reduce it to zero. That would be -100% to be precise. To start at -100% sounded complicated. Zero had a nicer ring to it.
So this is what zero looks like.
To be the anti of everything up until 2017.
That means, inverting all past designations, labels. Let’s call it a quick series of demotions.
Anti-hero-ine.
No, this does not mean villain, but a more goofy, and sometimes mopey, character with spiky hair and baggy red shorts, and red-converse sneakers, with a permanent expression of puzzlement and outrage, tattooed on the forehead.
Credit: Nirupa Umapathy. Fat Finger Drawings. All you need is iphone notes and a fat and lusty finger
Anti-perfection.
This one is a hard one. I wore this like a fake birthright.
(Maybe there, should be a guest blog post, on Type A ways of being a Type B, sis?)
Anti-expert.
In my old life, I wore “Knowing” like a badge. If I were asked, “What do I think of this”, I would flash my badge on the ready. The badge of experiential knowledge, recite insights and theories, back it up with data, statistics, more numbers, until the cows could come home.
Anti-proficient & anti-capable.
I am using creative license to not call this deficient or incapable. The qualifier is anti- not a dis. No dissing on this website please. But being even anti- in this department guts me every day, it makes my prematurely arthritic knees wobbly.
Anticlimactic.
There is no climax when well, there is no known ending. And no heroine, remember.
Anti-thesis.
I mean this literally, as in the inverse of no thesis. As in, I have no thesis that I can call my own. Not yet.
Anti-striving.
I am taking a break from striving. Non-striving gives me anxiety. I occasionally self-medicate with wine and cheap, synthetic cheese, in the middle of the day.
And finally, a designation, a new label.
Anti-original
Nothing on here is original. To walk, listen and breathe every day is to read, listen, absorb, and be influenced by sources so diverse. This post is but a riff off things, concepts and ideas that have moved me, inspired me, provoked and poked me to do one thing originally- live this life, wholly and fully. Where I know so, the sources are clearly cited. Where it has not been so obvious, a word of thank you nevertheless.
The anti-blogger.
I am claiming this by writing the anti-blog first. I have freed myself from writing subject matter that may in its entirety be, blog un-worthy, making this an anti-blog.
In fact, this might be my first and perhaps my last blog post, my dear imaginary reader.
On a big lonely website. No expectations.
Sit. Relax.
(Chicken wings flapping in the distance)
I commit to one thing only.
To leave no blog post behind.
My mission: to birth one blog at a time.
And to introduce myself,
Hi. My name is Nirupa.
I am the acting CEO of Small Things Unlimited.
Credit: Nirupa Umapathy. Fat Finger Drawings. All you need is iphone notes and a fat and lusty finger
Resources and Acknowledgements:
Thought fuel. Soundtrack for this writing
Nicolas Jaar (on a loop). Nymphs. 2015. 7 Songs. 53 mins.
Why didn’t you Save me?
The Three Sides of Audrey and Why She’s All Alone Now
No One is Looking at U- Lorraine
Swim
Mistress
Fight
Don’t Break my Love
James Clear. Recent adopter of your newsletters. Respect. Thank you for your very astute post on “Inversion: The Crucial Thinking Skill Nobody Ever Taught You”.
My sister. If you choose to not be named. You are my first stakeholder. Queen nerd of living by data points. Thank you for laughing at my jokes. And flash frying my analysis paralysis.
The friendly, remotely available helpers at Squarespace. Your incredible patience, when I did not always want to go through hours of tutorials, was refreshing.
And Jenny. For encouraging me to not give up on my website and go with Squarespace. When Wordpress had me defeated on all fronts. No really.
Sourcing for Images:
Nirupa Umapathy. Fat Finger Drawings. Fire up Notes on Iphone. Hit the squiggle and let the inner mad sketching gnome out.