walking through a bramble bush

 some sort of impasse seems to be built when things don't exactly go at the same pace as I wish them to.

The resulting frustration is sometimes responsible for leading me into various other paths. Of course I am not trying to absolve my own thinking, feeling and aware brain of its responsibilities in finding meaning, keeping up the tempo and trying to enjoy life.

But quite often, the multiple paths or intentions tend to get muddled up. Specifically, if you look at the simple goal of trying to be happy, comfortable and trying to be super productive, or even perfect. These are kind of built to conflict at various stages, as trying to do something or achieve something, often makes us move from a particular state of mind to another. And all movement requires a bit of stress, attention and focus to get it right. This is in contrast with the staple amounts of peace or comfort at staying in one point.

The feeling gets stronger and stronger that we are not going to be the perfect <anything> , as per any criteria of perfection defined without touching my very specific needs and persona. If anything, in order to get a fine balance between my own definition of perfections and the external triggers for action, there is a complex interplay between these two forces. It is not easy to state the importance of any one, or to predict how in a particular moment, a decision may be taken.

But the external practical world craves stability and predictability, and being actors on this stage, I too have developed a few skills in providing these to others, and am capable of judging the same of others, to some extent. To claim mastery on these, is akin to accepting the folly of accepting the need and the resulting abilities in living with those rules. It also gives and internally thumbs up to continue boosting those attributes. 

Let us be clear that I am in no way already favouring one side of things. I might be just going a circuitous way to say that these things require a fine and delicate hand to let each side take turns winning, or sometimes generate completely unique and wild things by combining with each other in various proportions and manners.

That unpredictability and the bound in the stride that it provides is afterall the elixir of life.

Am I too good for myself

Well, here I am, opening this Blogger interface after long long breaks and gaps.

The question in the title is the one I always find myself asking, when I am back here.

I end up browsing through my past articles and give up on writing anything.

I think I am holding up my past work to myself as the heights of my achievement. Some parts of me wants to believe that it is indeed the best I was. But I am now questioning that notion, because..well.. you know..I think I am the best in the current state always.

After all, I am here in the current state only after being in the past state, which naturally makes my current state a superset of my past states too. So why shouldn't it be better than the past state, which doesn't have the benefit of hindsight that my current state of mind has?

So here is to a new beginning..

Jungle diaries - First day ends

 I had got allocated to the Gopalswamy Betta range or GS Betta range. That range was controlled from the RFO's office itself, and not any makeshift camps. 

This is just one of the many ranges within the Bandipur reserve. And definitely not a good one for sighting animals, as it is situated just outside the park boundaries and meant mainly for administrative purposes than core wildlife activities. 

I got a different camp than the others I had got acquainted with by that time. There were a lot of haggling and transfers. I didn't feel like asking any, even knowing well that I was going to a weak buffer zone just outside the gate.

I was clearly dejected and devoid of any company or contact to improve my situation. I had literally given in.

The instructions were provided and the manuals shared were largely in Kannada with forms to fill. Had gone around getting the key fields translated at least.

At least I should make myself useful wherever it is.

4-5 people finally joined out jeep which is HQ for the entire park. There we heard that the beats are waste and Hangala nearby has better sightings. Two experienced guys in our batch immediately opt for it and are taken there, leaving me and Ravi Kiran here at HQ.

The rooms are bad. No water, no guards for company, and no one to cook. This isn't what was promised at the briefing which promised well stocked camps with guards and lots of responsibilities.

The room was basically a small one with a shelf to keep some stuff and a space to sleep on the floor. The toilets too were in an exterior building somewhere behind the HQ. This building was part of some kind of quarters for the staff, minus the furniture they had.

Hopefully, someone would come in soon. And the beats aren't promising either. But keeping hope that this experience would be positive.

By this point, I was regretting various decisions, starting from the very first one to enroll for the exercise to not asking for a better position. It took a bit more of mental affirmations to find the right attitude to bear it.

Ah, there is a lot of politics and inteferences. Sitting idly outside the room, I can see after all the shortlisting, people who just walked in also were being accepted. So much for the formal application processes we had gone through. I could have haggled and tried to get into the core zones, but I didn't even try. 

Keeping fingers crossed and making plans in mind to utilize opportunity to maximum.

Hope my other friends are getting a better treatment and are enjoying.

Signing off for now.

-Vivek

1st day at Tiger census Bandipur