The Other Side

 

On the edge

where ocean meets
the land

a child stands
looking across
towards the promises

on the other side.

Green orchards
blue skies
and a safe bed
among four walls
and no sound of
gunfire.

And yes,

water in the tap.

A small heart

struggling to survive
clutches on a
strand of hope
of the other side.

A Summer Day

 

A hot and humid

    summer day.

Maybe,
somewhat like
what firefighters feel
    standing near
crackling wildfires
weary
faces blackened.

The silent haze

reminds me
those afternoons in summer
of my Indian childhood.

Stillness then,

felt like everything
decided to hang its head
in idleness.

An ache

of carefree days
when afternoon heat
seldom mattered.

Not anymore.

Somewhere along,

we changed.

Want to dare
and step outside
once again
and play?
On this

summer day.

What is this blog about?

 

I started thinking about writing a blog during my transition years from work to a future life in retirement. I did not want the retirement to be just turning away from something but turning to something.  

In the back of my mind, I knew that someday retirement will happen, but it was always a speck on the horizon. Other than an occasional thought, I never paid much attention to it. However, nothing lasts forever and impermanence rules. Wish as we may, but everything is constantly changing. We just need to watch the world unfold at faster playback speeds to realize the change.

For me in 2020 it all changed. The prospect of retirement became a reality. The sudden realization of retiring in not too distant a future caught me off guard. The basic question about retirement that consumed my thoughts was – what am I going to do? what am I going to be in the retirement? how would I fill my time with engagements that will have meaning and purpose? What will be my identity? These are the traits that working life defines and are lost with retirement.

In my chosen field of work, I had a successful career that spanned more than 30+ years. Fortunately, or unfortunately, work became the identity, meaning and purpose for a fulfilling life. Work also provided a means to channel my creative urges. Leaving work behind meant starting with a blank state that needed attention to be filled in and creating a path for a successful transition.

I grappled with the thought of what the portfolio of engagement in retirement (to fill in the void because of leaving work life behind) would be. As part of that thought process for building the post-retirement portfolio of engagements, blog writing came up as one possibility. 

I had always enjoyed writing. As part of my work, I also enjoyed making connections between different subject matters and looking at the landscape of problems (that everyone had access to) in a different way. Also, there are few subject matters that I have above average knowledge, and it was always interesting to explore connections in between. A confluence of these traits made writing a good option and the idea of writing took shape. 

The thought of writing, even for its own sake, had the potential for providing an identity and channeling my inner need to be creative. It could be one of the pillars of activities in my post-retirement portfolio of engagements providing meaning and purpose. It could be a reason to get up in the morning and look forward to a new day.

This blog is an outcome of that thought process. 

The blog is not intended to focus on a particular area of expertise. The subject matters expand on brief ideas that flash across my  consciousness while reading or observing the world.

Some of those ideas become initial seeds for a blog post and take shape through further research. The subject matter of posts might seem random, nonetheless, they have a flavor of focusing on a few topics: life in retirement - both financial and its softer side (which is equally important); making connections between things around us; personal experiences, working through different trials and tribulations that life throws at us; technological advances, emergence of disruptive technologies and their consequences on society and causing generational differences; imprints of behavioral science in aspects of our life; future of humanity etc. 

Most of all, the blog is about exploring the connections among various branches of knowledge that exist all around us.

With time, the scope of blog posts will change and evolve, but that is future. In the meantime, hope you will enjoy occasional posts that might flash through the multiverse of internet feeds that you follow.

Ciao.