Mind of my Stroked Brain

Before my stroke, I was a regular bloke with lots of work, lots of goals, lots of priorities and lots of distractions. This was both office work and personal life at home. Like with any regular bloke, I had ample share of distractions, procrastination, laziness etc, etc  After the stroke, it has come down significantly . I am not professing to be above all these. It has come down significantly though. Very significantly. I keep getting the complaint from everyone about my very painful following ups, urgency with everything, pestering about progress as follow up to something or updates etc. I have thought about it. It's not like I was setting such crazy expectations and the bar so high earlier. I had assumed it was just natural because of the effect of not being able to do anything & understanding the value of time and abilities because I am like this. It made sense and I had made peace with that explanation to my mind. Some days back, I was watching a podcast type talk show, wh

I loved food. Any kind as long as it was vegetarian. It has been that way ever since I have been a kid. I don't remember me fussing to eat anything. This was only passive consumption. For almost a decade before my stroke, the love for food xhanged from passive consumption to active experience and experimentation with food. I used to love cooking - especially without any recepie and just try various things and see how it turned out. I loved entertaining and feeding others as well. For the past 4½ years, I have been having only fluids through a tube - initially it was a ryles tube through the nose and almost 4y afterwards through the peg tube to my stomach. When I had the stroke, after coming out of the disoriented and confused state, one of the first things for the mind to come to terms with was not being able to swallow and consume anything. Water, food etc. Not even my own saliva. It was very disturbing to see others eat foods, gulp down water, have a hot cuppa, etc. After sometim

I watch many things that generally interests me. In that process, I end up watching news from various geographies, watch some interesting things on YouTube and watch a lot of podcast format talks. Most of the time, it is usual facts and explanations etc . However, sometimes I come across something very different. Very impactful for everyone. It is very less, maybe < 5% of the stuff. When I come across such matters - maybe scientific, maybe economic, maybe political etc, I also look at how exclusive is this content/ knowledge. Ie, how difficult is it to get to this knowledge. Almost nothing is exclusive and hidden. Anybody can reach it easily and freely. Most of them have very far reaching consequences to people - whether it is global, geographical regional, as a society, as a social group, as an individual, etc. And when I see how many people have watched it - it will usually be in many many thousands .  And I keep wondering, why is not there a bigger reaction to this by folks - I m

I am a very simple fellow with a very simple mind and thinking. I don't know much about economics, global economics and macro economics. To my very simplistic understanding, inflation is because of 2 things 1. Visible inflation: increasing prices of almost everything constantly. In India, the published inflation is ~ 7%. It is usually because of supply and demand imbalance. (Growing demand for everything and lesser supply of things). 2. Invisible inflation: as the name suggests, we can't easily perceive it. I generally think it is around 4-5% in India. It is caused not because of increasing prices but because of reducing value of the money we have. It is usually called reduction in purchasing power. It is caused by infusion of new money in the economy because of the need for it by banks, by governments etc. If there is more money available then it goes without saying that the value of the money you are holding goes down. Put together I think the real inflation in India is aroun

We have heard about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's very simple - Basic and important needs have to be met first to aim for the next rung of higher level of needs.  It might have started the same, but now It will be different for different sections of the society today as the order of needs are very heavily dependent on economic realities and affordability - as everything is organised nowadays and nobody usually stays in the jungle looking for things. I don't know about all segments of the economic strata in the society but I can take a shot at myself (I will say middle of middle class. I think even in middle class , there is upper and lower). I have a feeling it will not be very far from others in the similar economic strata and above... The very very basic thing is air to breathe - that is the same for everyone. After that, it becomes complex. It should be water. Water is indeed needed, but most dwellings today have a backup - a borewell. On top of it, usually there mig

When I was younger, maybe till about late 30s till early 40s, I was not very sure about my purpose in life and was kinda hunting for it . Not overtly I guess, but there was an undercurrent of finding that purpose of what I was doing. Whether in what I read, what I did, what I chose to spend time to think about, etc.  It was a bit frustrating I think. I didn't realise or feel or understand the frustration, but it was there. I guess it was building up for a potent eruption later which is usually referred to as " mid life crisis ". Luckily or unluckily, the stroke got to me sooner. I had a even larger crisis presenting itself, dwarfing all other potential eruptions  Even after the stroke, many have told me there should be some purpose otherwise I wouldn't have been kept alive. I just have to find it. Even if I don't think about it very much, this thought seeded into my mind has played with the mind many many times.  I won't call this final, everything changes al

I come across many quotes , memes, messages, forward, etc, everyday. I am guessing most of us have the same experience and have kinda become numb to all of it. However, there are 3 things I have liked very much and think about everyday sometime. It helps me avoid wasting time now/ procrastinating things for later...  None of these are my own thoughts and I have no memory of where I read these. The exact words might have been different but this is the essence I guess.  However, I feel it will help if we think about these 3 things everyday or as often as we can. 1. Death is inevitable for me (& everyone else). I am ok with death. 2. What I need to do tomorrow/ future if I can do today - do it. What I need to do later if I can do it now - do it . 3. Today is the youngest I will ever be in my life again. Ever!