Fasting is good

Every now and then fasting is a good thing. Helps your system reset. For some reason, fasting is more of a regular things with women in my life than the men. Mom, sister, wife, MIL all fast every now and then on a Friday or Saturday on some pretext (god's name) or other. Sometimes it is a full blown water only fast. Other times it is a liquid diet only and sometimes it is a "no tamarind, lime, etc.. sour or tangy"  fast. My dad's idea of fasting was skipping Saturday night dinner and no one in our house pushed me or my brohter to do any fasting. 

While fasting w.r.t. food is a good thing, that has been proven by eastern and western medicine and science, fasting with respect to external information is a very very good thing! Just went through that experience recently.

Three plus weeks ago, on an evening, I went through my Facebook feed, Twitter feed, Linkedin feed, google news feed and they all ended up depressing me thoroughly. There were mergers in the semiconductor industry that were unparalleled and folks were ending without jobs (this is Deja vu for me and it seems to have something to do with the election cycle for sure. Third time I am seeing this correlation), there were folks in south India fighting over a water dispute, there was US election politics and the ads in social media that just made me want to go throw up(I totally sympathize with swing state voters and what they go through), not to mention that work was tough as it is and we were going through what was probably the toughest phase of a remodeling at home. 

After some interesting feedback from my wife and kids, just decided to do the following :

- delete the folder called "social" in my iPhone (which meant no FB, twitter, linkedin, etc. )

- delete safari from my home screen in the Mac. So there was no internet searching, no news, nothing, no late night comedy shows watched the next day, nothing.

- there is no TV at home anyways, so that was automatically taken care of

- the radio was turned off in the car while I was in the car, no exceptions

This in itself was an interesting experience. The first two days, you instinctively search for that folder when sitting in the restroom at work or home, come home and try to check some cricket score, look for that FB feed... but with some training, you get past it after day 3 and stop looking. 

San and the kids were right. I spend a lot more time with them, have meaningful conversations without distractions (they are the ones more distracted now), had fights with them which I actually won! (doesn't happen), laughed a lot, lived a lot better in short!

Then just before the Asia trip, went to check the feed, just to make sure there were no world events in that part of the world that would affect me and sure enough there was a Typhoon going through on our flight path on the way back.  The fact that social media I am used to are all blocked helped continue the fasting!

During that 2 hours spent after a 10 day break, realized that nothing is really changing. Same news feed. Same negativity overwhelming the positive.

The only postivie things were : nice photos of dancing ladies, landscapes and puppies from three of my friends, posts of my friends improving on their yoga experience in and out of the hot room (either smiling faces or faces that could bore a hole right through you with their intensity!)  and the snaps of friends who posted things about their kids doing stuff!

The rest of the feed was a bottomless abyss which drowned out the positives. 

That made me want to do two things. Find a way to filter the things I didn't want to see (it is out there and we should know it is out there, but there is no need to over dose on it), or continue the media fasting indefinitely.

Two days ago, I had an interesting conversation with my yoga teacher and I realized again that it is good to have conversations, it is good to meet new people, interact. Just pick the people and the interaction and it will be okay. 

Now that there is a better system in place, will start writing again. Putting thoughts on screen (paper is better) is a good way to discharge some circuits in your head. A media fast and regular yoga, that is like a shutdown and reboot.. 

Let's see how Sundar 2.0 does in the coming months!

The "Vrath"

The last 7 days was a self imposed ban on all news feeds. Don't want to say "internet" because I still had to work. There was no listening to the radio, no watching TV programs, no facebook, twitter, amazon, youtube.. nothing. 

Started is last Thursday and went back to the internet this afternoon. It was an interesting experience for so many reasons.

First, did not know I was this addicted to my phone. How it got to this point over time is beyond me. The first two days, there were severe withdrawal symptoms. You see the damn icons on the phone and you have to resist the temptation to click it. It was a lot more difficult than originally anticipated.

Second, I have been shutting out the outside world thanks to this addiction without even realizing it. On Friday morning drove to work without turning on the radio. It was so intense to sit in the silence of the car and hearing the occasional sound that would reach through the closed windows. It was eerie because it was not the "usual".

At lunchtime, I had to look at the food, savor it and eat it. It got to me. So I went and sat with a bunch of colleagues and ate lunch with them for a change. Usually I eat lunch in my office and read the news and the food doesn't go in well as most of the news is negative. Enjoy my lunches now as the smiles of coworkers! For someone who was a very social person, this is a shock.

Later in the week, got to watch Jr. practice saxophone and the little one practice her violin. Instead of listening to them while simultaneously fiddling with my phone, it was an interactive practice. They were amazed that I was actually noticing things all this time inspite of fiddling with the phone. I was surprised by that too.

Every night we watch either "baby photos" or two 5 minute clips of  "How its made"  where the kids pick the item being made. We skipped it because of the Vrath (Vratham as it is referred to in Tamil.. aka Fasting). The one week without internet-news thing was given the name Vrath.. as daddy was "fasting" from the internet of sorts. The kids thought I could have made an exception there, but I didn't want to do it. One minute you are watching "how its made" and next thing you know.. there is something about Syria and the congress clowns that takes your blood pressure through the roof. So stayed clear to maintain the promise.

Finally, when I got back to the news today, it was like nothing had changed. India still looks like it is turning into Sierra Leone from the blood diamond days with a rise in child warriors, politics is still the same, people still talking and arguing about guns, abortions, gay rights, expensive medicines, etc. etc. Given all that, the last week of abstaining from news somehow made me numb to this today. Looked at it for a second and just closed it. Now that there is a realization that none of this matters, just simply closed it and moved on. It sounds simple but it is not easy. I could not do this before. Maybe something was or is still wrong with me, but it took this trial to let things go, news wise. 

The FB feed and twitter feed were a similar story. I did watch a few clips from the daily show in the last hour and laughed.. but that is twisted in its own way. Initially you laugh and later it gets to you. The daily show is like eating my grandma's vaththa kozhambu. When you mix it with rice and taste it, it is divine, but once it reaches your intestines, no amount of buttermilk is going to calm your ass for what is to come. Once in a while she has tricked me with that. Yet again, I digress. 

Starting today, excluding Netflix watching, there will be 1 hour maximum of internet a day and this will not be at lunch time either. It will be after kids go to bed. Deleting all social network apps on the phone as well. 

For someone who does Yoga every chance he gets, I have been feeding my mind crap all this time, outside the yoga room. It is not okay to eat healthy and do yoga and go back to feeding the head with all the negativity, thanks to the phone and internet. Need more positive things in life.. 

Wish me luck!

Going to "fast"

Getting tired of hearing the news with every two time politician and social activist starting a fast.

Seriously here, here, here and here...and much much more.

Half these guys are overweight and their fasting is more of a much needed break from binge eating. To top this off, they get a ton of press, a "breaking the fast" press release where everyone is feeding the faster (fastee?) a glass of orange juice, milk, sweets etc. which negate the whole fast this guy was on, which by the way does not go past one day (typically)!

Next thing we know there will be headlines like :

10 year old boy goes on fast unto iPad 3 or

Engineering graduate goes on fast unto getting a girlfriend in Chennai etc..

For crying out loud, enough with the fasting already!

We should say "patni kedakkariya.. Nalladhu! Odambu koraiyum." (Want to starve for a few days, good. Your body will get in shape).

Or I am going to go on a fast unto no fasting..

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