For the past 2 months I have been battling with back pain. it hasn't been good time.

it got better over the weeks but then last week again, somehow it got triggered again and since then I was bed ridden.

I got to understand a few things about why this keeps on coming back. The conclusion that I have come to now is that it is my erector spinae which gets stiff after long continuous walks.

Last time when it happened, it was due to I walked about 13k steps every day in which about 7-8k was done together. This time as well, I did 6k steps when the back wasn't completely healed, next day I sneezed and it got locked again.

The endurance strength of the back needs to be increased. This time: baby steps.

Anyway today after 5 days I was able to stand continuously for 10 mins to make two cups of tea. Until now I could prepare but midway I would have to lie down, take load off the back so that it doesn't become worse again.

Here's to tea...

As I reach my mid 30s, it keeps getting clear to me that I cannot train as I used to earlier in my life.

During college and later when I joined the workforce, I could workout for 2 hours everyday and still could function well throughout the day. The recovery was never an issue. I would still be able to active throughout the day. Never had I felt the need to stretch, although I always did because I liked doing so. This is what has made me hyper flexible.

Now it appears I cannot do the same. Lately It is becoming clearer to me that I should change my plan.

This knowledge has not been made available to me without charges. For past few years I have been struggling with being active at the gym. I would go for a few days, workout and then something would happen. I would pull my shoulder, or sprain it or my back would give out.

Thus I would again have to take a break and rest till it heals.

For past few months I have been reading more about training and nutrition. A very important part of that is recovery. A part that earlier I would never think and would train 7 days if had time.

Now I only workout 3 days a week and rest of the days I only walk or do light cardio. This helps me keep my heart rate up and keeps the blood flowing. More blood flow helps in recovery much more. Even with all this, I can’t simply come out of bed and start moving. The way my son does. :D

I have to do small movements before I do the big ones. Ones like moving my toes, then ankle, pelvis, shoulders. If I get out of bed, without doing these, the body does not feel the same. It moves hard, with minor pains here and there.

A big weapon I am finding is taking warm shower after getting out of bed. You have heard of cold shower. Two times I took those and it froze my shoulder. I was walking like Robot for 3 days. Warm shower all the way.

Never had I thought the mid 30s would be like this but I have had years of bad posture, over training. The bill is coming now.

Find me on Hevy

This seems contradictory on the first interaction but let me explain.

Recently I started noticing one anomaly in my behaviour. I was missing a lot of stuff which I generally would not do. Like I would not put the lid back on the water jar in my kitchen after drinking water.

Or I would forget to bring back cloths from bathroom to the washing area after taking a bath.

Or I would not put my shoes on the shoe rack but on the side.

These seem much smaller issue but I never used to shy away from doing all these. This was a recent change and it seemed it’s not a good one. I should check what is happening.

I started to slow down a bit while doing stuff.

What I noticed was actually not very surprising. I was keeping my phone all the time with me.

I will wake up and reach out to my phone and start reading twitter posts. Then after 10 minutes, start watching YouTube shorts. One hour will be over and I will still be lying in my bed. Somedays I do move to sofa but that is not better at all.

It will either be watching YouTube shorts, or scrolling through twitter or reading Facebook posts. I always had the phone in my hand. In the toiler, while brushing, while wearing clothes or shoes, while drinking water. No matter what I was doing, it was with me.

Earlier I used to call my stammering my stalker but I think it is now my phone.

While doing so, I would ignore the task that I was supposed to do. Like putting the cap back on the jar. I would drink water and walk away.

I was more absent minded than I had ever been.

On a deeper level if I think it might be that my mind was thinking this info is very necessary for me. If I do not watch this short, something bad would happen but if I do not put shoe up on the shoe rack, it’s fine. That’s not a very threatening change.

I would give more importance to reading a post on twitter than the task at hand.

This is not good.

So, about a week ago, I changed a lot of things in my phone. I. removed YouTube, Logged out from twitter and Facebook. Fortunately I am not on insta which I hear is the worst of all.

Now I had nothing to watch on my phone. If I do open greyjay, I get normal videos instead of YouTube shorts. Watching a 10 min video has not almost become impossible for me. Probably due to shorter attention span but in any case, I do not have option.

The phone use decreased. It did not stop completely though. I would still sometime like an automated robot would reach out for the phone. In fact I logged into twitter multiple times. Like the Iran conflict would be solved If I provide my opinion on it.

Then a few days ago, when I woke up, I read an email in my phone. My twitter account was suspended because twitter thinks I am a bot.

My problem was automatically solved. I do not need to do anything there.

Now it has been about a week without any such app in my phone. I would still pick up my phone. There would be nothing to do so I would put it back.

Now I am more bored in the day. The two hours that I was watching shorts, I have nothing to fill there. Somedays I just sleep and that is amazing. I am catching back on my remaining sleep.

Other days I would go for a walk. Now it doesn’t feel difficult to complete 10k steps in a day.

But more importantly, I am doing more stuff.

I am writing more cause I not bust reading other’s twitter posts.

I take more photos because I am not busy watching other’s pics.

I am using my mind more to think ideas where previously I would simply let the day go without much output.

So overall, I am more productive because I have time on my hand and lesser distractions.

I am bored hence I am productive.

Here are a few pics that I took recently.

Next time I would try to smooth out water.

The rusty look of the bench and new life oozing from the flower.

Taking a picture has been accessible for almost 20 years now but not everyone is a good photographer.

Writing a book has been very easy for almost a 50 years now if not a century but not everyone is a great writer.

A similar function, is of the AI, at the present moment. People who know how to do things can increase their productivity many folds yet people who are completely unaware of another filed can do passable stuff.

If I have to edit a photo that is under exposed, I can ask AI to increase the exposure. In order to do so, I have to know what exposure is. The other way to do this can be I simply ask AI to “make the photo better” but AI in its sense doesn't know what better is.

However when such a tool is given to a professional photographer who understands exposure, shadow, highlights, he/she can make the edit much faster that what it used to take him.

Although in the process, we are going to see a churn. A churn which will render most of the population jobless in the transitory period. Similar thing happened at the start of industrial revolution where textile industries of India which were world leaders in producing clothes were left behind and the machines produced clothes at a much efficient rate. (Not excusing the coloism as that played an important role in the de-industrilisarion).

Coming back to the topic, I see many propagating the idea that AI can write all the code and our efficiency can increase 100 folds. The textile revolution has resulted into fast fashion where people buy and wear clothes for only one time. The abundance is such, due to their being demand of it in the fashion industry. I do not see such demand in coding space. Regular maintenance and security updation probably can be done using AI but I have to see that to believe it. No company in the world wants to risk unavailability.

We are going to see what happens with AI as it unfolds. There are more questions that remains to be answered. Biggest one being, is there going to be any way where the money invested already in the AI be recovered to make it profitable. When will be the time where cost of AI surpasses the cost of a developer or photographer.

Presently we are enjoying subsidized prices but when the music stops, what would happen?

Many a times I ask myself who do I want to learn photography. It is not a career option for me. It is not something I had always wanted to do. It’s just something I picked up last year.

Not long ago, I was writing an article. In that article, to emphasise my point, I wanted to add a pic of an umbrella that has come from the rain. A few droplets of the rain was supposed to be on the umbrella.

I wanted that picture to be clicked by myself. Obviously I could download one from google or unsplash but that does not produce the same emotion as the one that I had clicked with my own hands. The one I had edited according to my own preferences.

I could not find any.

This is when I thought why people take picture. Not because they also write something and need to hammer their point but the picture represents something to them. A lady wearing a red in autumn can mean nothing to me but it can very well remind someone of their home. Or the time when they were very emoted.

Recently, while in a discussion, I was reminded of a book that I read. The book that helped me understand a lot about the world. Most importantly it helped me move on in life, from things that I was holding onto for emotional reason rather than practical ones.

One quote from the book, that, everytime I read takes me back to the days when I was sitting on the hostel roof, slight rain looking over the horizon and seeing the cars going over the expressway.

• दुःख सबको माँजता है और— चाहे स्वयं सबको मुक्ति देना वह न जाने, किंतु जिनको माँजता है उन्हें यह सीख देता है कि सबको मुक्त रखें।*
• Sorrow refines everyone, and—though it may not know how to grant liberation to all itself—it teaches those whom it refines to set everyone free.*

Agyeya has a way about him that I haven't been able to find in any of the writers I have read. Only “The Idiot” from Dostoevsky probably comes close.

I remember when I read this book for the first time, almost every line would make me sit and think about it. It took ages to finish the book because of that.

Once done, I knew I had to gift this book to a friend of mine. I generally don't think about other people's in that sense. I think I am not equipped for that kind of social life.

Anyway while discussing the book, I referred to book as a lesson on how not every store in your life needs to have an end. Sometimes the incompleteness of the story itself is a completeness. You take the jacket off once it's not cold. it doesn't make sense to keep on holding to it because it helped you during cold.

And then the organiser gave a simile for the book for a movie called: Hamari adhoori Kahani. I thought at the moment and what!! the movie that I found cringe is so close to my favorite book!

what a life!!!