Three offline things I did this month

I recently read on a wall in a cafe that life is whatever we have left after our screen time. The line stayed with me long after. We are losing years to scrolling. So now, to encourage myself to live a little, I have started talking about the offline things I do. Sometimes, I mention my offline activities to friends who may or may not care.  Sometimes, I just take a picture to document the moment. And today, I decided to write a blogpost about it.

I bought flowers for myself for the first time.

I grew up around people who believed flowers were a waste of money. And quite frankly, they are, especially in lower-middle-class households where every expense is carefully calculated, closely monitored, and repeated only if it has real value and doesn't interfere with more important expenses. But now that I can afford to spend just a little money every now and then, I would rather spend it on things like flowers. Once I had them in the house, I realised I looked at them several times a day. And every time, they seem to uplift a part of my spirit.

I stared at a bug for almost half an hour. 

In my defence, the bug looked magnificent. This photo doesn't even do it justice. And it matched the colour of my coffee mug. After staying motionless for a while, the bug appeared to inspect the mug, examining it from three different angles. Almost half an hour later, I think it got bored and decided to leave the mug alone and wandered off.

I read Iris Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea in a month. 

The book is about a theatre director who leaves his dazzling life in London to move to a basic house with no electricity in a coastal town. And he wants to do good, but can a change of scenery change a person?   

For me, the book was almost like a crash course on how to quietly observe a narcissistic, egoistic narrator, never get attached to him, and still enjoy everything around him – the house, the streets, the local market, his friends, and, most importantly, the sea.   

That's all for this month. Will come back with another post next month.

...........................................................................................................................................................

Please follow me on GFC and Instagram if you like reading the blog.