Losing touch with this hobby of mine is hardly the first time. What’s different this time, though, is that I am not even feeling burdened.

The uncertainty marks everything else futile. What is the point of anything when a few minds can decide to put the whole world in such turmoil?

Read. Write. Do whatever. Everything else feels meaningless.

I understand nothing. I am far away from the land affected. From the people affected. I read about millions of lives affected. About lives lost. Did they know what was coming their way as they lived their normal life? How confident am I that my life will stay normal? That it won’t be uprooted on a whim or a frenzy?

I am not meant to understand. But I wonder if people who are close, are in a position of power or decision-making, do they even understand what’s happening? Does anyone feel in control?

I could decide to tune the noise out. But, unfortunately, I am not a monk.

But reading about this day reminded me of my relationship with pen and paper.

I have terrible handwriting; often, even I can’t read the words I scribble. But how I write narrates a lot more than just what those words read. It represents the state of my mind.

I write notes, to-dos, and thought fragments every day. But I rarely write with intention anymore. There was a time when I wrote pages of words by hand. Writing morning pages in my diary was an everyday routine for years. I still have diaries full of old thoughts in the loft. Every now and then, I pick one, open a random page and read my state of mind at that time. Relive the phase of my life.

Memories abound. Some sweet moments. Some not so. But all crude. No filter.

And I don’t even need to read the words to fathom the state of my mind. The handwriting is enough. I didn’t recognise this connection until my wife made a passing comment once while I was scribbling away on the page. Without looking at me, she said, “Breathe. A lot is going on in your head. Try to write cleanly, and the cloud within will clear.”

To this day, I live by my wife’s suggestion. If I see myself writing illegibly, I will pause and try to write more clearly.

The clearer the words on the page, the clearer the thoughts in my mind.

Whatever I say or feel about writing, it remains a hobby for me. I need to find time for it. It does not come naturally to me. I can’t get to writing if I am not in the right headspace. Being tired doesn’t let me.

And the thing about hobbies is that they tend to get left behind while life happens.

I watched a movie today, and it had a dialogue, “We don’t forget old hobbies just because we have some new ones.” That reminded me how bad I have become at sticking to my hobbies.

Life will continue to happen. But if I am to live it, I can’t let writing die.

My current ritual is to refresh my email in HEY. Once I realise there’s nothing in there, I refresh the NDTV website. I hate the news, and yet the futility of the task feels perfect in the moment. The anticipation that something might have changed triggers a quick hit of excitement, enough to steer me through the silence.

How did I land so badly?

I am trying to think now, and I can’t even remember what filled those moments before I had my first smartphone. Music, maybe? Endlessly organising MP3s into folders. Or observing stuff around me. There were games, of course. Snake. Bounce. Small, with no context, background or “progress”.

I even remember the joy of loading Orkut on the puny screen of my Nokia N73.

It all changed once I got my hands on a smartphone. Games changed. Angry Birds, Doodle Jump, and such. Social media apps killed the games. Facebook became the king. And once Twitter launched, there was no going back.

My only ritual then was to scroll through the Twitter timeline. The meaningless, timeless interactions on Twitter were a perfect respite in those fleeting, yet tiresome minutes. The timeline met all the criteria. And for all.

My interest in social media soon dwindled, and so did my ritual. I read more. RSS feed. Read-later service. I soon realised these are not ideal for short breaks. The fitting short posts are interspersed among the meaningful long ones. The triaging needs attention, and hence, it doesn’t stick.

So I’ve landed on something compulsive that lacks any real purpose. That provides only hollow comfort. Those small games on puny screens once offered the real thing. Now there’s not even a game or an app anymore. Just the pull. Just the refresh. Just the tiny thrill of maybe something changed.

Hasn’t the mechanical act of refreshing been the ritual all along?

Routine. Reading. RSS Feeds. Emails. Calendars. I have been documenting my struggle to systematise everything. Or am I creating a problem by writing about it? Maybe I’m just writing about the wrong things.

My inability to stick might be a natural fallout of changing lifestyle and priorities. I am not who I was years ago after all.

Maybe I don’t need a routine anymore.
Maybe I don’t like reading the same things, or in the same way.
Building connections matters more than the medium I use.
And maybe, just maybe, I am disciplined even without a calendar.

I’m starting to worry that my attempt to systemise my life is slowly becoming my life. I want to write about living, not about the meta aspects of how I organise my life.

How can I if I forget to live?

Addressing the lack of “emailability” is quick and easy. I love email, but I don’t use it enough. I don’t email too many people unless it’s necessary. I don’t email friends. With Slack (at work) and WhatsApp (at home), any need for email goes away. I want to improve here, but the drive is lacking. I know why I should email more, but I can’t figure out how to build the habit when there’s no necessity pushing me.

With a calendar, it’s trickier. Here I know both the why and how, and yet I can’t master this service. I oscillate between too much and not at all. I am either marking every minute of my day on the calendar or making no entries at all.

And my inability to use the calendar effectively has a tangible impact on my life.

I can’t stick to any sane calendar usage, which is one reason why I suck at routine. I have tried every method productivity gurus recommend for managing calendars. But nothing has stuck till now.

And my search for a balanced way continues.

A recent invoice from Readwise Reader reminded me that I am not using the service enough these days. There was a time when I was syncing notes with my second brain in Obsidian, and taking action on them was an everyday use case. It is overhead now that I might as well get rid of.

So I logged into Readwise, cancelled my subscription, and began my search for a read-later service.

I need a simple feature – an easy way to add articles to the queue. And a good, clean interface to read. Instapaper was, of course, at the top of the list. But I just, out of curiosity, searched for other options. Matter was recommended at a couple of places. I realised it also has a free tier, which was enough for my current simple needs.

A simple queue of articles to catch up later on in a clean reading interface.

I am not interested in any of the bells and whistles. RSS feeds, notes/highlights, podcasts, or text to audio. The clean reading interface was enough for me to create an account on Matter and get going.

Plus, the long list of articles that have been pending for years is finally left behind.

It’s not them. It’s me.

My current mindset is such that what once inspired me no longer does. Posts about writing setup, meta posts about blogging, or thoughtful reflections on one’s life experience would have my ears perk up. I skim through them now. I have read about them all. How many setups can I be excited about if I know I can’t have it?

My biggest gripe has been losing patience with most long posts that I come across. They ramble on, the key point getting lost in flowery prose. The words are carefully chosen, pricey. Bejeweled. But they seem to be losing their soul.

And because nothing that I read inspires me, I have lost interest in writing. Only if I read well do I write well. Or write at all for that matter.

Time to correct that. I have unsubscribed from all the RSS feeds. I will start small, with voices that spark something in me.

I finally decided to get typing, and the first thing that came to my mind is how I suck at routine. I routinely suck at routine. I will get into a routine, but soon stop the moment I have one going.

My threshold is a week or two, at best.

I do plan my plans. However, what’s the point of so much planning if it’s all going down the drain after a couple of weeks? This does sound like a defeatist attitude. But I do feel defeated with my lack of control.