Life, Laughter and Everything Else

It was well intentioned but impulsive nonetheless. Would $5 be enough? Nah, lets make it 10. I keyed in the letters, my credit card details, scrolled down and clicked "Donate". Within a minute, I was $10 poorer, though somewhat happier. After all, had she not stated on her site that Donating equals to Loving? Though just as an afterthought, maybe I should just make sure it went to the rightly deserved. So I googled her name, "Maria Popova" and clicked on the first Wiki link that came up. It started of with the usual introduction. From Bulgaria, started the website Brainpickings.org that had millions of readers monthly, writer for the Atlantic, Wired etc, once one of Forbes 30 under 30. Obviously someone who had started small and grew to be very influential through her website which I frequented now and then and whose articles would, often at confused and stressed junctures of my life, give me much emotional and spiritual relief. As she stated, it was a one woman sho

I can't remember the last time I felt I had this much time. Not that I was never the beneficiary of a balanced life within socialist Europe, but I had squandered much of it away, jumping from the consumption of ever immersive electronic devices, forgetful routines and the maintenance of social relationships. A digital detox felt timely. Faced with a swath of unfilled time, here I was blogging again after ages (does creative pursuits such as writing does not fall within digital detox?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). Time had flown. 2020 is a year that will live in all our memories till the end of our lives, not so much because of what happened, but because of what did not happen. A year that started promisingly with two memorable marriages of family and friend came to a halt as a tiny microorganism proved how vulnerable we humans still were. I remember when colleagues in the office laughed as a Chinese friend hoarded masks so she could send them back home. A month later they were asking her where the