foulowls

During my trip to London last month, I depended on the tube almost entirely to get anywhere and everywhere. It was the weekend. Parts of the tube were shut down for renovation. This translated to severe delays leaving hoards of tourists and city dwellers stranded on platforms for the limited number of trains.

The platform turned into a battle ground as people tried to push their way to get inside the trains. I admit I didn’t think twice about waiting for the next train, but pushed along in the battle for a spot in the train.

When I finally I made it into the train, right outside was a woman pulling along a large suitcase and pushing her baby on a stroller. I thought to myself, “Well, this is awkward.” The guy standing next to me must have read my mind because he tapped my shoulder with the folded newspaper in his hand and stepped down. He then proceeded to help the woman get her luggage and her baby in the train.

As the train doors shut, the woman said to the man, “Thank you for your kindness.”

I thought to myself, “When did I forget how to be kind?”

We are all caught up in our daily struggles. So caught up that we forget others are fighting their own battles. Many of us feel we are alone, carrying our own cross. I have felt that way a lot. But the truth is we all feel the same frustration in our isolated lives - too bitter to empathize, too scared to reach out for a hand to hold. We’ve forgotten how to be kind because it can’t be downloaded from the app store or ordered on Amazon.

This is a reminder to myself to be kind everyday, all the time.

Start, Use, Do

I started messing around with Photoshop when I was 15. I remember the first time I followed an online tutorial to create an image with my name set ablaze. I’d never felt so accomplished. I took a print out and got it framed.

I was (and am) a geek. So I carried the frame in my backpack with me. Sometimes I used to remove the framed image from my backpack and look at it. I did it once in a bus. The guy next to me asked me where I got it from and how much it cost. I told him I made it and it would cost him only a hundred Nepali rupees to get it done. He gave me his office address and asked me to bring one to him. After a week, I made my first sale and earned my first ever income.

Soon I got caught up in school and exams. I bought into the idea of getting a good education for a better job and the perfect future.

10 years later I returned from the US still looking for the ‘better’ job and a perfect future. I changed 4 cities, 5 jobs, traveled across South and South East Asia looking for the perfect life that was promised to me.

A year ago, I was searching online for a font to use on a friend’s wedding invitation when I came across a Photoshop tutorial to create text on fire. i remembered how I’d felt when I first created the image with my name on fire. That was how I wanted to feel.

For months, after that, I thought I’d train myself in graphic design, do some market research, prepare myself and then make the jump. That was just an excuse I’d contrived to keep myself from doing what I wanted to do because I was too scared of failure after finding the ‘better job’ I have been looking for.

I turned 29 last month. I was in London for my birthday. I had lunch with my cousin and his girlfriend at Old Spitalfields market. I met into a guy who was spray painting a shirt. I asked him where he’d learn to spray paint. He said he had never received any formal training. I bought the shirt from him for five pounds. I lost the shirt on the trip back but I had made up mind that I was gonna use whatever design skill I have to put something, anything out there. it just feels too damn good to keep waiting for the perfect moment.