For APJ

Today the nation mourns a man 
who, when thwarted in his attempts to fly a jet, 
aimed for outer space instead. 
And for 83 years, lived a life less ordinary. 

A visionary. 
A man who believed in the power of dreams 
to light a spark of imagination and ignite our minds. 
A man who defied categorisation, 
and the usual norms of style and convention. 
Whose casual demeanour 
belied a staggering intellect, 
and yet, was helpful, thoughtful, and kind. 
A man who loved his country, 
and its people. 
Who knew that greatness lay within, 
and made it is his mission 
to help us be better than ourselves. 

A good man. 
Who rated purity of intention 
on par with scientific invention. 
A man of beautiful, oft-quoted words, 
but also of action and interaction. 
Who always looked back, 
never forgetting from whence he came, 
while still soaring, like a missile, 
out into the future, 
self-propelled and precision-guided, 
towards a target we thought was out of reach. 

A humble man. 
A man who like the poet said, 
filled the unforgiving minute 
with sixty seconds worth of distance run; 
who talked with crowds but kept his virtue, 
and walked with kings but didn't lose the common touch. 

A selfless man. 
Who gave of himself until the end. 
Words of encouragement still stuck in his throat, 
as he breathed his last. 

We are poorer today for having lost him, 
but so much richer for having had him at all. 

For he was one of us, 
and he showed us it was possible. 

Salaam, APJ Abdul Kalam

Another day, and news of another life snuffed out in cruel, unexpected circumstances. This time a friend of the family, someone with whom I had limited interaction myself, but remember well. And so, it was another sobering morning spent reflecting once more on the fragility of life and the capriciousness of fate. 

Lots of questions, but very few answers. Ultimately, I think we must confront the reality that so much of our lives is out of our hands. And yet, so much of it is. Which is which and what is what? And why haven't I got a copy of the manual? I look for signs and try to discern patterns, switching intermittently between hope and despair. 

Are you living today like it's your last day on earth? I was thinking about this and came up with a few reasons why I should, and also why I shouldn't. Scrambled thoughts, on an increasingly scrambled day. 

Obviously, treasure each moment. Never be oblivious to the magic that is all around you, the miracle of existence, the devastating beauty of the here and now. And yes, make the most of it. Fill each unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run and all that, but also make sure you're not ruled by a sense of urgency. 

There was a time when I was hung up on the 'Art is long but Time is fleeting' mantra and the tragic implications of that. Taken to its extreme, it meant that every minute not spent crafting a piece of art was an unforgivable waste of time; another round lost in a fight you were never going to win. 

There is a point up to which this is useful; beyond that, it is cripplingly counter-productive. There must always be a place for calm and solitude. For walking when you can run. Yes, there's a middle ground somewhere, but it might as well be Middle Earth to me because I am still trying to pull it from the realms of fantasy into my own reality. 

Someone once said "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever". Again, I can see there is something to be said about coming to terms with your mortality. 

As the late Steve Jobs once famously said: "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." 

And yet, I think it is equally important to pay heed to the future. To look forward, with hope, to a time that has not yet come. To consider the long-term implications of your actions in the present. When you do this, you realise there are often real, important things that you stand to lose. And, without wanting to sound too self-important, there may well be others in your life who stand to lose from your absence too. 

So it is right to improve your chances of sticking around longer by looking after both body and mind, so that when you reach the point where time (and it's been known to happen) seems to stretch out before you like a vast ocean, you will still have something to fill the unforgiving minutes with. Besides, a part of you does live forever, does it not? Even if it's just in the memories of those who never stop loving you. 

So, sure, come to terms with mortality, but ask immortality to the dance. It will be short, but what a dance it could be; what a beautiful life. 

Scrambled, scrambled, scrambled. But I guess I've never been a sunny-side-up kind of guy.

Plough the land

These were the only three words a writer I once met said to me when I asked him for some writing advice. I tried to press him for details but he repeated the same three words- plough the land. 

Every so often I think about that brief encounter and why he chose those precise words- perhaps he knew I came from a country where agriculture makes up a large proportion of the GDP, and would therefore get a farming reference? Perhaps he was a farmer himself? 

(I then have to stop myself because I am obviously over-thinking it. It is a terrible habit and I sometimes wonder whether it has something to do with this one time when I was twelve and...aaaagh! Must stop.)

Anyway, the point of this post is to say that I thought about it again today and have decided that what he meant was essentially this: Do the work. The dull, repetitive, unglamorous, hard graft type of work. The reading, relentless research, the note-making. Confronting the daily tyranny of the blank page. 

Because if you're a writer, the one thing you might have in common with a farmer is this: you need to prepare the ground. 

Just so that, hopefully, at some beautiful moment in the indeterminate future when the stars seemingly align and a seed of inspiration arrives unbidden like rain, it falls on the fertile soil of your imagination, takes root, and turns into a magic beanstalk that keeps growing till it kisses the clouds. 

 There. I am certain that is what he meant.

I sometimes have a dream about the afterlife which involves somebody up there asking me if I want to see a magic trick, and I'll go "sure", and he'll proceed to play my whole life back to me and then, like every classic magic trick I've seen before, he'll go "pick a moment, any moment", and the real magic will be that every minute will be as magical as the next. 

A lifetime of magical moments. What better dream is there?