Tomic Riter

Tag: story

  • Understanding Your Feelings: A Path to Emotional Clarity

    Understanding Your Feelings: A Path to Emotional Clarity

    I wasn’t too busy. In fact, I had ample time to write something every evening. No, I wasn’t busy. I just have this strange feeling. I feel as if I am starving for something I cannot put into words. I feel like I haven’t felt anything in quite some time. This isn’t about love. No. This is something else. I could blame my boring day job for this feeling. But blaming doesn’t help me in any way. I don’t want to dwell on who to blame and how much to blame. I want to understand this feeling and it’s not easy. I don’t know where to begin to understand this feeling. It has been with me for so long now, like a shadow. I want to understand this feeling and I want to feel better. I want to feel good. Is that too much to ask for in today’s world? To feel good?

    – Tomic

  • Cultivating Daily Habits for Personal Transformation

    Cultivating Daily Habits for Personal Transformation

    Murakami hasn’t published any new book in quite some time. Strange! I admire his writing stamina besides physical stamina. Dude runs 10 kilometres almost every morning, and then sits down and writes for hours each day. I call that true discipline.

    It’s the kind of discipline that I want to cultivate in myself – to work towards being fit every day, and to write something every day. Besides these two habits, I want to cultivate a third habit as well – to be meditative for at least forty minutes each day. I think these three habits can bring a 180 degrees transformation in anybody.

    But merely thinking about building these habits won’t help. I need to act on them as well. I need to wake up in the morning much earlier than usual, which means I need to sleep no later than midnight. That’s the tough part. To sleep much earlier than usual. As of now, night time is the only time that I can get for myself. It’s a difficult situation but not out of my hands. I know that I can make a new routine for myself and stick to it. The question thus remains – when to begin?

    Once I wake up early, I’ll have ample time for a 7-kilometres walk. It’s what I’d begin with, and gradually increase the distance to 12 kilometres of daily walking. Once my body gets used to it, I’d begin jogging 3 kilometres and gradually increase the distance to 6 kilometres, and finally to 10 kilometres of daily running.

    Coming to the third habit of meditation, it’s the easiest one for me to develop. I’m used to meditation of upto twenty minutes at a stretch. I just need to be regular on it and gradually increase time from twenty to forty minutes, and finally to one hour of meditation each day.

    I won’t talk about the second habit of writing each day since I’m at it on most of the days, and I love to write so much that I hardly skip doing it on any day, however late it gets.

    The road to building this new routine is hard but doable. I know it is. It’s something that I need to do to get better at everything, at life.

    – Tomic

  • Finding Inspiration: Lessons from 9 Years of Writing

    Finding Inspiration: Lessons from 9 Years of Writing

    Each night, as I sit to write, something always comes out. Isn’t that strange. I’ve never not been able to write so far. There’s always something to write.

    The year was 2017 and now it’s 2026. I’ve been writing regularly for nine years now. On and off. Mostly on though. I’ve got two published poetry books. Besides that, more than thousand poems scattered here and there. And still, as I sit to type, something always comes out on the paper. I find it quite strange.

    Sometimes I wonder from where all of this comes, the things that I write. Personal experiences of course. But it isn’t just that. I believe one must get out there and put himself in all kinds of situations. It demands certain courage and not just that. It demands a certain level of madness too. Were I not a bit mad, I’d just stay indoors and eat and sleep and one day, die. But I don’t want that. I want conversations, experiences, challenges. I want to earn a good long sleep.

    But not each day goes in the way in which I want it to go. Most days are spent doing slave work. It hurts. Hurts a lot! But such is the situation sometimes. One’s got to do stuff to get money so that one may live a little of the life that one wants to live. And one does all of this while getting hurt. Absurd but true. Life is absurd. Is it so difficult to live the kind of life that one wants to live everyday?

    I don’t know. I cannot say much about that. I believe that life is to be lived well, and it is to be lived so despite failures and successes.

    But why am I suddenly talking about life. I was talking about my writing journey and suddenly I started talking about life. I think that such is life. It seeps into everything, into all the aspects. Life is one and whole and should be lived so.

    – Tomic

  • Ramblings: Man alone

    Ramblings: Man alone

    Man is burdened with work. He is alone and sick. He cannot share anything with anybody. Nobody to share things with. He is just so alone and so sad. Each evening, he waits for the work to get over so that he can go home and be alone for the rest of night. He can go anywhere at night, be anyone at night. But he is just too tired. He doesn’t want anything. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone. He doesn’t want good wishes or consolations or motivation. He wants his bed and he wants some rest. His spine aches, his mouth runs dry, his eyes are hurting all the time. He knows that the morning isn’t far. It’s on the way and like a demon, it’s coming right at him. He doesn’t want to think about the morning and about work. He hates work. He wants to give up and run away to some strange land and live on bare minimum. He wants to spend time in divine company. He is tired of running and hurting. He wants to take everything slow. He is waiting. Waiting. Waiting. He is waiting for the right time to leave everything behind. How would he know that the right time has come? How? I’ve got no clue. I’m as lost as he is, probably more.

    – Tomic

  • The Struggle of Waking Up Early: A Personal Journey

    The Struggle of Waking Up Early: A Personal Journey

    I had to wake up early this morning but I couldn’t. I had to wake up early yesterday morning but I couldn’t. I had to wake up early on all the mornings before and I didn’t. I couldn’t. Do you understand how it feels to wake up failing?

    During the day, the mind keeps itself busy at work. The work continues for most of the evening. It is only after late evening that I begin to regret for not waking up early morning. There are tasks that are better done early morning than late night. Walking. Exercising. Writing a bit. Reading a bit. Meditating on a form.

    Once I’m back from work, my body is tired. My eyes hurt. My mind feels heavy. Severe back pain. All I care about is eating and resting. I am unable to put my body and mind to another heavy activity. I just want to sit in my chair, listen to good music, maybe have a drink or two, and when it’s time to lay in bed, I lay in bed and close my eyes.

    Every morning I put three alarms and I fail to get up from bed on all three. I hope that I wake up early tomorrow morning and break this dumb cycle. I believe that a productive early morning would lead to a much more fulfilling day.

    – Tomic

  • Detachment: A hard earned lesson

    Detachment: A hard earned lesson

    There’s a pattern. A beautiful pattern. The pattern repeats itself for days, months, even years. One day something happens and it causes the pattern to break. Sometimes the pattern breaks in such a way it makes a man go insane.

    Man is not prepared for such a sudden disturbance in his life. Man was happy in his world. Suddenly he isn’t. Man was fearless. Suddenly, he isn’t. He is afraid. Sometimes, he is even paranoid. He fears he might break something. He cannot calm his mind. He cannot control the movement of his limbs. He cannot choose the words coming out of his mouth. He is deteriorating more and more with each passing second. There comes a moment when he stops functioning like a sane man.

    There’s a beautiful pattern in a man’s life. Different men have different patterns. But each man has his own beautiful pattern dear to him. When the pattern breaks, the man breaks with it. Different men break to different extent. Some break to some extent. Some break down completely. Some break very little. Some do not break down at all. Detachment.

    – Tomic

  • Battling Addiction: One Day at a Time

    Man in leather jacket drinking coffee beside a café window

    Slept around 4:55 am. Woke up at around 5:15 pm today. What’s wrong with me. When I tried to wake up, my back started aching badly. It felt as if an infection is travelling upwards through the spine and not letting me move. It was a strange sensation.

    Haven’t smoked in a day. I feel the urge to smoke but I won’t. Or maybe just one. No I won’t. Just one maybe. No. Just one. Won’t. One. No way. No fucking way.

    The fight is ugly and real. I’m closing my eyes and listening to something pleasant. I love the music of Hermanos Gutierrez. It captures that fleeting feeling. It captures that long stretch of time when nothing much gets done and days feel the same and the observer is doing what he does best – observing.

    9:05 pm. Sleep won’t come tonight. I know it won’t. The weather brings nothing except melancholy. Man is sick but he can’t rest. There’s much to do. There’s people to look after. There’s duty to carry out. Man is sick and dying. Sometimes he finds rest only in his grave.

    – Tomic

  • Late Night Reflections: Nature and Nostalgia

    Yesterday evening at around 5:30, I went to the river. Sat there for almost three hours. When I looked at the gently flowing river, I felt my heartbeat slowing. I’m glad that there are places in nature that offer such silence. It isn’t the kind of silence that one fears. I sat near the flowing waters and meditated. Before last couple of months, I used to go there every weekend. I missed going there and yesterday evening, I was so glad to be back there.

    Sometimes the evidence of divine is experienced but not in the ways in which a logical mind would understand. Not everything in this world seems logical. I feel that not everything in this world has to be logical. The most bizarre experiences of our lives keep challenging our logical frameworks. When I sat near the river with closed eyes, I felt this profound stillness within me. Everything fell quiet.

    After sunset, I drove to a bar nearby. Had a beer and roasted fish while I listened to some old melodies from the 90s. I love to sit in places that do not bother me. I love cafes and eateries that aren’t too crowded, and so I do not have to be in a rush to eat and pay bill and leave. I like to take my time. I like to observe things around me. I like to talk a bit with strangers. I do not want to do much of other stuff.

    I returned home at around 9 at night. On my laptop, I saw these people from the 8th century raiding and massacring everywhere. They’re popularly known as Vikings. Not much of anything else was done that night.

    – Tomic

  • Embracing the Ordinary: Thoughts from the Bathroom

    Man sitting on toilet with head resting on hand in contemplation

    Like a pig I slept. It’s 12:46 noon now and I think I didn’t get enough sleep. I fell asleep some time after 2:30 in the morning. I usually fall asleep around midnight. Yesterday night, something kept me busy.

    12:48 noon. Im sitting on the toilet seat, wondering where to go next from here. I’d rather sleep a bit more but I shouldn’t. Hunger pangs in my stomach. I should take a shower, get dressed and go out.

    12:53 noon. Nothing else makes me happier than taking a proper sh*t in the morning without much struggle. Sometimes when you take a huge dump, you start feeling somewhat dizzy in your head. Strange!

    12:55 noon. Listening to Memora by Gesafflstein. He is an amazing artist. I admire his music and come back to it from time to time.

    12:58. Time to exercise a bit, not much. These muscles need some movement. Lower back is hurting as usual. Feels incurable. I hope it isn’t.

    – Tomic

  • Thank You, Readers: A Writer’s Comeback Journey

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    I am back here after almost two years. I was active on Instagram. I think Instagram sucks for writers. There isn’t much engagement between readers and writers. I do appreciate the photography community of Instagram.

    I haven’t written much in the past two years during which time I was away from this space. Had I not left this space completely and forgotten about it, I know I’d have written much much more.

    Anyways, I’m glad to be back here. I’ve always loved this space. On here, I feel free in writing and sharing whatever I want to. I do not care even if nobody reads. Luckily, I’ve always found a reader.

    I would like to thank all my fellow readers and bloggers who are still connected to my blog. You motivate me in keeping going.

    I’d try to be regular on here from now onwards. I’m also thinking of making some changes to this website with regard to its looks and design. I’ll see what I can do about it. Please feel free to drop in any suggestions/ideas.

    – Tomic