Notes

1. Why do I like books about wild country so much? (Most recent references: Steinbeck; East of Eden, To a God Unknown)

2. When can I realistically hope to get a dog? (Sorry Micku :( It's because I still miss you so much that I know I will need you back in some form. I wish I'd brought you back with me when I met you in Manali. I wish I could've said goodbye before I left. You followed me into the undergrowth of the hills through stretches of long grass, climbed up and down rocks, walked behind me down to the river, watched the sunlight playing on the water , drank from the river just a little away from me where I dangled my feet... I thought that you'd follow me back home. I should've known you'd need to be coaxed.)

3. Why does that silly song 'Go West' have the effect it does on me? (Ref: The song 'Tume Mile' reminded me of it - was quite thrilled when I discovered the connect after days of frowning and squinting whenever the song played on the radio or television.)

4. How can someone who loves to talk be bad at it most of the time?

5. Could there be a connection between tachyons and n-dimensional spacetime? (Ref: Documentary on E=mc^2, random conversation in Leopold's)

6. Why are there so few writers like Jorge Luis Borges? (Ref: 'Labyrinths' - with every 'story' he cajoles you to look into infinity, in every way imaginable. His writing is utter indulgence - an ode to the unabashed and absolute freedom of the mind. I'm losing my touch - some bits that I would've absorbed instantly a few years back, now I read twice or thrice. It is never the same when you do that.)

7. Why do people say negative things out loud at all? Who does it help? (Ref: Monologue on criticism - how I never understood why "talking behind the back" is such an evil thing, how there is no absolute right or wrong, how a thing becomes wrong if, and only if it causes hurt to any being, how criticism without exception helps the person criticizing more than the person being criticized, Bentham and the beauty and truth in the utilitarian principle... (I don't like his other idea so much, radical though it may have been... invisible omniscience sounds fancy, but it hints of mental torture that might be worse than physical suffering. Definitely has caught on, and reformed criminal law... a child of cold intelligence... but has its merits, allows normalcy in an environment of punishment...))

8. Why the overarching need to be different? Change when everyone else is staying the same, remain when everyone else is moving? Will it ever go away? (Ref: Someone who I know will forget and say "No, it won't", despite my orders.)

9. Music & company. (Ref: Evening at Blue Frog... listening to Thermal et 0.25. Difficult to really listen to music when you are listening instead to the many silent things being said in a silent group. Including the things being said in your own head. Listening for things to blot other things out. Much easier when you are listening to non-things like enthusiasm, friendliness, comfort... listening to these takes no effort, provokes no listening for anything, so you are able to listen to the music.)

10. Rhythm guitar and electric, ease and simplicity versus power, assertion. I prefer the lead in the mind, the rhythm in life... somehow incongruous with conventional wisdom (mine too, at times) about leading a life of fulfillment. Strange... in that most people I know or whose names I know are exactly the opposite. (Ref: Same as the above.)