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Nature's Design: A Journey of Existence - On the eve of my birthday by Akash Thapa  I am what nature intended to be. I dare not say that I have control over nature. Was I born? Or was a human baby born that ultimately turned into me? I have been at the depths of rivers, Deprived of air to breathe. I have been at sun-covered beaches, Enjoying the summer heat. At moments, I have had a lifetime's worth of experience. My lifetime though would not amount to certain moments. I am a certainty that has occurred, I am a chance that could’ve been. Losing control is in my domain, Seizing the universe is my aim. Calling for everyone to be by my side, Alone in my dying moment is the design. Searching for mysteries is my calling, Setting the highest benchmark, is my falling. Being who I was born to be is my fate, In any way struggling to find myself is my selling rate.

What can you call NATURE when everything in this world moves with time? There is no set definition that one can pinpoint. The all-too-fictional-seeming book by Kafka, The Trial , seems to me a natural tale but of a different time. I finished reading the book today, and the world that Kafka creates certainly seems fictional to me, but I often glimpsed that the book had close ties to our way of the world. We logically try to think that it must have a certain meaning inherent to its nature, but we often find contradictions in the simplest of senses. What can you say when a person commits to doing one thing, but their actions inevitably lead to another? And we come around to these things in a cycle. The beginning of the book could be well read, but after a certain time, you realize how strange the nature of the world within it is. The protagonist K. might have gotten very far ( in his case ) due to his presumed intelligence to outsmart everyone, but he ended up in the worst shape possible,...

                                                                           René Magritte.  The Lovers . Paris 1928. Echoes of Past Love: A Tale of Nostalgia, Guilt, and Introspection by Akash Thapa  "O Ellen, what will you say when the recording angel asks you why one of your sins has my name to it?" George Bernard Shaw wrote to his love, Ellen Terry, in a letter dated 1897. Almost 127 years later, reading it this fine morning, I am reminded of a past love in which I had a chance to play a role in. I wonder, how would her recording angels take my lover's sin to be? I still feel guilty at the thought of how the affair ended between her and me, abruptly, even though it took years to ignite our passions for each other. The guilt I feel has been mine to bear,...

I've been able to take care of some of my bad habits for almost three days now. They feel like an eternity. My muscles ache, and I realize that I'll have to factor in exercise a few days later. The key habits that I would like to keep up and sharpen are writing and reading. Being able to talk about my misgivings has helped a lot. Currently, I'm reading  Civilized to Death :  The Price of Progress . Some concepts resonate well with me; some I take with a grain of salt. The reading is exciting, and the writing seems well-informed. My thoughts now wander back hundreds of thousands of years, and I try to imagine what a human eons ago must have felt. What were the troubles that they dealt with? What were the aims that they aspired to? And finally, how did this age come about? This age that so many find wonderful to live in, this best of times which incidentally many feel to be the worst of times as well ( current  famine -like conditions and  warzones  around the wor...

My bouts with insomnia are growing. Yesterday—or rather, this morning at around 1:55—I felt tired enough to sleep. I knew the exact time because I was reading my Kindle (" Civilized to Death : The Price of Progress" by Christopher Ryan). Just as I tiredly closed my eyes, in the silence of the morning, I could hear roaches moving about in my room. The small tap-tap-tap noise they make as they scurry across the floor is familiar. I mostly let them be. Today, however, one roamed by my bed's headboard. I could hear it crawling by. Irritated, I tried to ignore it, but a moment later, I heard the flutter of its tiny wings as it flew towards my door. I lost it. I knew that some innocent creature like that could be left alone, but not today. Sleep-deprived and bleary-eyed, I quickly turned the lights on in my room. I remembered having an old bug spray somewhere in the room. As I caught sight of the spray, I heard a faint rustle of plastic by the door and knew that the roach was t...

Suddenly, I was awake, and the first thought that came to mind was of her. How would it feel to have that lost love by my side the moment I woke from sleep? It was a cheerful thought, though not real or possible in any sense. Then, like all addicts who want to give up their addiction, my mind began a tug-of-war between indulgence and ignorance. I closed my eyes and let my thoughts go at it for a while. Ignorance, I thought, would be best, but it's like that old saying: "Don't think about monkeys." Then all you can do is think about monkeys. That's how it went for a few minutes, me fighting my urges at the very first light of day. Yesterday, I would've given in to indulgence, but today I decided to let the thoughts come and go. I then went for a jog. I like to think that my stamina determines my overall well-being, and for that, I love pushing myself out of bed and going jogging as soon as possible. Obviously, there's no consistency in that either, but on d...

Yesterday , Friday, was like many other Fridays I've spent in the past: meeting with friends, hanging out. Meeting with friends isn't bad on its own; after all, we need our individual groups, our own community, and for that companionship, I am grateful to every one of my friends, who I can count on at all times. This isn't about them, however. It's about what I have been doing and feeling on my own. My lifestyle, as it seems to me now, has taken a stale turn. I hope to make changes but come full circle within the very week of trying to enforce those changes. The good thing, if any, that has come out of almost half a decade of debauchery is that I have been able to balance my academic life fairly well, occasional dropping out of colleges and failing a few classes included. Other than that, I am on the cusp of writing a thesis for my Masters in English Literature, procrastinating as usual. This loop of life has been going on for long enough, and I have decided it is time ...

First Version :   After many a days in a haze,  I come back to my old self,  ragged, beaten I find him torn,  but not dead, mind you !  The old rhythm of heart goes on still  a decade has passed by in a moment,  there to here, a journey of years,  away, hidden, tormented by silent tears. Can I forgive the past, at last ?  or maybe just forget ?  What a life does to man,  is nothing short of regret.  Latest Edited Version :  After many days lost in a haze, I come back to my old self. I find him—ragged, beaten, torn— but not dead. Mind you! The old rhythm of the heart goes on, and a decade has passed in a moment. From there to here—a journey of years, away, hidden, tormented, silent in tears. Can I forgive the past at last? Or maybe just forget? What life does to man— is it anything but regret?

  ( The picture is not of a golden retriever but a good boy nonetheless : My Oskar )   I’ve been trying to get my health back on track for a few months now . Daily abuse of junk food , smok ing and polluted Kathmandu airs have done wonders against the effort. To counter those abuses, I decided jogging would be best as a start. For a few days now, Prashant Dai and Agya Dd have been taking walks with me in the morning. Today, only D d came, and we headed towards Pasupatinath Temple , my usual destination . I jogged most of the way towards the temple and she walked . We both walked on the way back , talking about simple things in life . At Bhimsengola bus stop, just as we crossed the road onto our street, we came across a Golden retriever peering its head patiently above the front porch walls o f a newly built home.  P atiently looking upon the people that passed by without turning its head to follow along, the dog held its head on the porch walls and let pe...

Some days, I stay in bed trying to stop the day from occurring. A hopeless matter indeed, but what can you do when you lose the strength to face the day as it is? There are tasks that need doing, and you recall them, and the guilt pushes you out of bed. I am engulfed by that guilt, and most days pass by with wishes to change that, one way or another. Don't get me wrong, I've had a good life, and it has been mostly fulfilling in terms of having achieved some wishes. However, when it comes to depth, I've barely swum below the surface, afraid of the dark blue waters. Hopelessly, I look out the window and see the gray clouds covering the city, about to pour down. I take the weather personally too, and that is no way to live, but that's how it has been for as long as I remember. Today, with its potential for heavy rain, the day is likely to flood me with emotions while covering this wonderful Kathmandu city. However, I have a few things I want to accomplish on rainy days. I ...