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When Mind is a Scrambled Egg
"Life is always a mind game; one is either always fighting against, or for one’s own current desires."
Success maybe a habit, but it becomes so only after perseverance has become one's virtue. This is especially true when motivation is all but a wavering or missing influence. Just like a war never ends until at least one side actually and comprehensively wins it, success is never achieved until the struggles have ended. And struggles are so called for one is always trying to stay afloat for one more stab at the cherries before they finally give up and drown in a sea of failures.
Now all of what I've just written may sound like a 'horrifying ordeal to glory', but when one is in the midst of the action, it seldom feels like that. One's motivation to succeed makes them completely ignore the pile of mounting failures, and one's dedication to their work makes them ignore how and where the process hurts. It's only when those outside the thick of the action start reminding them of their fruitless attempts and gaping time wounds, that the pain really sets in and starts to pinch, and steps become heavy. But even this is not a catastrophic event. What is though is the demise of desire, and setting in of mental disenchantment. This is when a creative mind experiences what I call a 'scrambled egg state’.
When the ‘desire to succeed’ goes missing, and is instead replaced by the grave knowledge of fruitless attempts, a mind can easily become disinterested in the activities that it had not so long ago passionately pursued. Then when every time one goads their selves to pitch in some more efforts, the mind gets distracted by the most meaningless of pursuits; the escapist ventures. In my case, I recently found myself sitting in front of my computer screen, stacking cards in game after game of 'Spider Solitaire', than working my grey cells on the Ableton Live DAW. My mind would simply not invest itself into the process of music making or writing, but rather seemed bewitched by a game that even toddlers can master in under an hour. This disenchantment, in spite of my being acutely aware of the fact that for my life to prosper I need to be creating music or writing another book, is what made me investigate as to how I reached this 'scrambled egg state', and then subsequently come up with its resolution. So how did I get to this state; how did I lose my desire?
To lose one’s desire, one generally goes through three stages; loss of motivation, realization of failed attempts, disenchantment with the work. This is the stage where a mind is in what I call a ‘scrambled egg state’. Now let me take you through my personal story to explain how this process works, before I explain the very simple resolution.
When I finished my third English album, I had done enough tracks that were better than many that get aired on commercial radio, and yet I had found myself without a fan-base to boast of, or a bank balance to bank upon. This was in spite of my varied, and often documented efforts, to get public involved with my work; from performing in the middle of a market, to distributing CDs and literature door to door, all on numerous occasions, recorded live either in the form of social media posts or videos. My attempts to get social acceptance had been vast and varied, and yet the public indifference pointed out to something more sinister going on behind the scenes. Now that of course is a recipe for conspiracy theories, until one has evidence to support one of them, but facts, theories, and evidence aside, the events still take an emotional and psychological toll. The knowledge that someone else could be blamed for your troubles doesn't mean the troubles won't affect you psychologically. They will still drain you, and that's what they did to me.
So I started work on my fourth English album, fully aware that I won't be allowed entry into the club of successful and great through any of its regular doors. I rather started work on it because I had finally become the master of my trade, and my mind knew I need to persist with the work to create my own new door into the club. There was no motivation to get a fan-base from there on, but just the knowledge that what I want to achieve requires me to attain a socially elevated pedestal, and to get that elevated position, I need to get some good work done that would help me tear down the walls and create my own door. The motivation had already begun to wane, getting replaced rather by knowledge. With this knowledge however in mind, I managed to bring out seven songs in that album before tragedy struck.
On 9th September 2017, my mom lost her battle to a relapsing cancer, and her loss was the biggest shock of my life. One single event changed the meaning of my life and efforts for me, forever; one moment she was there nodding to my words, and the next gone. Suddenly the one person, who would have enjoyed and cherished my well earned success and respect the most, was gone forever. I struggled to find a reason to continue doing anything anymore, for suddenly the society and all its love and adulation had lost all their charm for me. Above all, its moral standing to deserve anything from me, whether creative, reformist, or intellectual, was gone. From there on even the knowledge of what I needed to do to succeed became meaningless, and the first stage was complete; the motivation in any form, including knowledge, was gone.
Now as long as I was away from my extended family of uncles, aunts, and cousins, I was cocooned from their concerned narrative about my efforts, and above all, lack of success to justify them. But once back in India, by my father’s side in this tough hour, there was no hiding from their prying questions. They were all concerned about my future, or lack thereof, from where I stood. I was repeatedly questioned as to what I want to achieve on the one hand, and equally reminded how I have failed to achieve that in over seven years. My expertise was questioned, my rationale was questioned, my decisions were questioned, and my future prospects autopsied. My pile of mounting failures was pasted on to my face repeatedly, not because they took pleasure in doing so, but because they were hurting at watching me hurt. But nonetheless, their concerned words were not helping me anyway. So far I had been in the thick of action, creating work after work, never stopping to look at my failures, but now, I had been forced to confront the same. No, I wasn’t ashamed that I had failed so many times; rather I was devastated that after so many great attempts, I still couldn’t give a proper reply to their words. While I couldn’t justify my further attempts, my prolonged spell of failed attempts justified all their words. The second stage was complete; my presumed failures were in my face, and I had no defence.
Now of course, for a person as strong minded and strong willed as me, even this confronting experience wouldn’t have been much of an impact, for I knew the flaw wasn’t in my works, or my marketing attempts, but rather somewhere else. What however complicated the scenario was my father. My father is a very pessimistic person by nature, and there’s nothing I can do about it for he’s been like that all his life. He never wanted me to become a music producer, and is too scared of me taking political risks. He is a man who never had the acumen or heart of a businessman, leave alone being an entrepreneur or a leader, very unlike my mother, and a reason why even my mother’s demise couldn’t bring me any closer to him compared to my relationship with my mother. My extended family may not be by my side every day, but my father always is, talking about the same negative things about my efforts and works, only that I have to listen to them all the time. Now the problem with persistent negative talk is; it makes every subsequent setback and hardship appear much worse than what they actually are. And in my case; hardships and setbacks are the two final stages of every work that I have put out till date.
So there I was; in spite of all negative tidings in my life, continuing with my work. It might have taken two and a half months for my production gear to finally reach me from Australia, but I started in the earnest; releasing two final singles to complete my first Punjabi album, and the eighth single from my fourth English album. Then it was time to market the Punjabi album. Now as I mentioned above, my efforts and works had provided me no bank balance to support my endeavours, and I was left to dig in deep and find the last reserves that were left with me. From some good old times, when I used to work for the Government of Punjab as a High School Science teacher, I had with me about a hundred fifty thousand Indian rupees, that I had left with my father, and that was the cash that I was banking upon now; roughly three grand Aussie bucks.
The first thing I did was to get in touch with a few recording companies, only to find they were not interested in investing any money at all, while I was ready to pitch in my last bit of cash above, plus a similar amount that I could have borrowed from my father. Without this recording label support, the minimum budget for a proper campaign for an album is roughly around seventeen hundred thousand to twenty hundred thousand Indian rupees; about thirty four to forty thousand Aussie dollars. That is more than ten times of what I had. So there never really was a chance for me to promote myself in a big way; another setback, adding up to all the negativity surrounding me all the time. But it won’t be me if I won’t find a solution, for I don’t believe in superstitions, but science and reason. There is nothing called luck; only hard work and ability to milk every opportunity that arises out of probability. I set out to start what would become the starting point of my own movie production pipeline; the ‘Kind Man Productions’.
With just about twenty two thousand Indian rupees (or AUD 440), I assembled all the equipment I needed to shoot with my two year old 40 USD Chinese made action camera; a dolly and track, three point LED lighting system that pumps around 24000 lumens of light, green-screen frames and screen. Armed with the equipment, I shot two music videos; ‘Ve Lalariya’ for about Rs 18000 (AUD 360), and ‘Jandi Jandi’ for Rs 4500 (AUD 90), while the market price for a similar project is Rs 250,000 (AUD 5000). After the first one of these was shot, the next step was to promote it. So having tackled the hardship of budgeting, it was time to tackle promotions. And needless to say; obstacles didn’t disappoint me here either.
To promote a musical compilation, the advertisement needs to be done on music channels, but unfortunately for me, the Punjabi Music channels simply refused to play my music (in fact, I would have had to borrow money from my father to even put my music on some of them for a week). Music channels like ‘PTC Chakde’, ‘MHOne’, ‘Tashan’, ‘Josh’, and ‘Punjabi Hits’, one after the other, turned down my video saying it wasn’t up to the standard of videos they play on their music channel. With very few options left, I approached an infotainment channel, ‘Chardikla Time TV’, that happily played my song, not for one week, but for ten days, and even did a feature interview with me. And if that wasn’t enough, I made sure I put a full colour ad in the leading newspaper of the region, to support the TV campaign. I didn’t let the hardship defeat me, but I found my way around it. Unfortunately however, the shortcoming of having a video played on infotainment channel during daytime instead of prime time on a music channel meant that it badly, and expectedly so, underperformed. The hardship may not have defeated me, but the setback gave fresh ammunition to all those around me who are concerned about me, especially my father.
Now I may not have truly been overwhelmed by another failure, for I know what the limitations are that I am working with. I know I am trying to create a million dollars out of a petty penny, and that’s what I tell my well wishers what my real ability is. But such an unhappy situation still does affect one’s psychology and morale. My work started to lose its’ efficiency, and it took me at least one month too long to even completely shoot the second video, that of ‘Jandi Jandi’, and another extra month to create a finished product. By the time I finished this project and started working on my ninth song from fourth English album, I noticed myself spending less and less time on production work, but wasting more time playing ‘Spider Solitaire’. This song took me more than four weeks, when in ordinary course I can churn out a new song in about nine days, and then spend another three to perfect it to another level. This is when I realized something wasn’t right; I just didn’t feel the desire anymore; the third stage, that of ‘disenchantment with work’, was complete. My mind was like a scrambled egg, ready to waste time on anything except work. And this got me thinking; what has happened, and how to fix it?
Now I have already explained what had happened, and I am sure anyone else out there who is feeling a similar loss of desire, would easily be able to identify such a pattern in their own life. The important thing however is; how to fix it? The solution however, is really very simple.
The first and the most important thing is to accept that you are facing a loss of desire, and believe me, there could be a lot of mental struggle to bring your mind to terms with this acceptance. Once you have accepted the issue, you need to thrash out how you reached that point, just like I thrashed out what had weighed upon me. Then the solution is as simple as working out where you really want to get in your life, and then applying symptomatic treatment to the causative agents.
In my case, I know I am going to tear down any and every wall that stands in my way, stomp down on any neck that grows in my way, but get what I want. I love my father, and my family, even though none of them is as close to me as my mother. So I am going to simply listen to their words, for I know they are born out of love and real concern for me, but I am not going to let their words bog me down. Just like success becomes a habit once you succeed, even perseverance can be made a habit, and a good one at that, for life. ‘Never give up’; the solution is as simple as that.
Fatal Urge Carefree Kiss
Amanpreet Singh Rai
Now all of what I've just written may sound like a 'horrifying ordeal to glory', but when one is in the midst of the action, it seldom feels like that. One's motivation to succeed makes them completely ignore the pile of mounting failures, and one's dedication to their work makes them ignore how and where the process hurts. It's only when those outside the thick of the action start reminding them of their fruitless attempts and gaping time wounds, that the pain really sets in and starts to pinch, and steps become heavy. But even this is not a catastrophic event. What is though is the demise of desire, and setting in of mental disenchantment. This is when a creative mind experiences what I call a 'scrambled egg state’.
When the ‘desire to succeed’ goes missing, and is instead replaced by the grave knowledge of fruitless attempts, a mind can easily become disinterested in the activities that it had not so long ago passionately pursued. Then when every time one goads their selves to pitch in some more efforts, the mind gets distracted by the most meaningless of pursuits; the escapist ventures. In my case, I recently found myself sitting in front of my computer screen, stacking cards in game after game of 'Spider Solitaire', than working my grey cells on the Ableton Live DAW. My mind would simply not invest itself into the process of music making or writing, but rather seemed bewitched by a game that even toddlers can master in under an hour. This disenchantment, in spite of my being acutely aware of the fact that for my life to prosper I need to be creating music or writing another book, is what made me investigate as to how I reached this 'scrambled egg state', and then subsequently come up with its resolution. So how did I get to this state; how did I lose my desire?
To lose one’s desire, one generally goes through three stages; loss of motivation, realization of failed attempts, disenchantment with the work. This is the stage where a mind is in what I call a ‘scrambled egg state’. Now let me take you through my personal story to explain how this process works, before I explain the very simple resolution.
When I finished my third English album, I had done enough tracks that were better than many that get aired on commercial radio, and yet I had found myself without a fan-base to boast of, or a bank balance to bank upon. This was in spite of my varied, and often documented efforts, to get public involved with my work; from performing in the middle of a market, to distributing CDs and literature door to door, all on numerous occasions, recorded live either in the form of social media posts or videos. My attempts to get social acceptance had been vast and varied, and yet the public indifference pointed out to something more sinister going on behind the scenes. Now that of course is a recipe for conspiracy theories, until one has evidence to support one of them, but facts, theories, and evidence aside, the events still take an emotional and psychological toll. The knowledge that someone else could be blamed for your troubles doesn't mean the troubles won't affect you psychologically. They will still drain you, and that's what they did to me.
So I started work on my fourth English album, fully aware that I won't be allowed entry into the club of successful and great through any of its regular doors. I rather started work on it because I had finally become the master of my trade, and my mind knew I need to persist with the work to create my own new door into the club. There was no motivation to get a fan-base from there on, but just the knowledge that what I want to achieve requires me to attain a socially elevated pedestal, and to get that elevated position, I need to get some good work done that would help me tear down the walls and create my own door. The motivation had already begun to wane, getting replaced rather by knowledge. With this knowledge however in mind, I managed to bring out seven songs in that album before tragedy struck.
On 9th September 2017, my mom lost her battle to a relapsing cancer, and her loss was the biggest shock of my life. One single event changed the meaning of my life and efforts for me, forever; one moment she was there nodding to my words, and the next gone. Suddenly the one person, who would have enjoyed and cherished my well earned success and respect the most, was gone forever. I struggled to find a reason to continue doing anything anymore, for suddenly the society and all its love and adulation had lost all their charm for me. Above all, its moral standing to deserve anything from me, whether creative, reformist, or intellectual, was gone. From there on even the knowledge of what I needed to do to succeed became meaningless, and the first stage was complete; the motivation in any form, including knowledge, was gone.
Now as long as I was away from my extended family of uncles, aunts, and cousins, I was cocooned from their concerned narrative about my efforts, and above all, lack of success to justify them. But once back in India, by my father’s side in this tough hour, there was no hiding from their prying questions. They were all concerned about my future, or lack thereof, from where I stood. I was repeatedly questioned as to what I want to achieve on the one hand, and equally reminded how I have failed to achieve that in over seven years. My expertise was questioned, my rationale was questioned, my decisions were questioned, and my future prospects autopsied. My pile of mounting failures was pasted on to my face repeatedly, not because they took pleasure in doing so, but because they were hurting at watching me hurt. But nonetheless, their concerned words were not helping me anyway. So far I had been in the thick of action, creating work after work, never stopping to look at my failures, but now, I had been forced to confront the same. No, I wasn’t ashamed that I had failed so many times; rather I was devastated that after so many great attempts, I still couldn’t give a proper reply to their words. While I couldn’t justify my further attempts, my prolonged spell of failed attempts justified all their words. The second stage was complete; my presumed failures were in my face, and I had no defence.
Now of course, for a person as strong minded and strong willed as me, even this confronting experience wouldn’t have been much of an impact, for I knew the flaw wasn’t in my works, or my marketing attempts, but rather somewhere else. What however complicated the scenario was my father. My father is a very pessimistic person by nature, and there’s nothing I can do about it for he’s been like that all his life. He never wanted me to become a music producer, and is too scared of me taking political risks. He is a man who never had the acumen or heart of a businessman, leave alone being an entrepreneur or a leader, very unlike my mother, and a reason why even my mother’s demise couldn’t bring me any closer to him compared to my relationship with my mother. My extended family may not be by my side every day, but my father always is, talking about the same negative things about my efforts and works, only that I have to listen to them all the time. Now the problem with persistent negative talk is; it makes every subsequent setback and hardship appear much worse than what they actually are. And in my case; hardships and setbacks are the two final stages of every work that I have put out till date.
So there I was; in spite of all negative tidings in my life, continuing with my work. It might have taken two and a half months for my production gear to finally reach me from Australia, but I started in the earnest; releasing two final singles to complete my first Punjabi album, and the eighth single from my fourth English album. Then it was time to market the Punjabi album. Now as I mentioned above, my efforts and works had provided me no bank balance to support my endeavours, and I was left to dig in deep and find the last reserves that were left with me. From some good old times, when I used to work for the Government of Punjab as a High School Science teacher, I had with me about a hundred fifty thousand Indian rupees, that I had left with my father, and that was the cash that I was banking upon now; roughly three grand Aussie bucks.
The first thing I did was to get in touch with a few recording companies, only to find they were not interested in investing any money at all, while I was ready to pitch in my last bit of cash above, plus a similar amount that I could have borrowed from my father. Without this recording label support, the minimum budget for a proper campaign for an album is roughly around seventeen hundred thousand to twenty hundred thousand Indian rupees; about thirty four to forty thousand Aussie dollars. That is more than ten times of what I had. So there never really was a chance for me to promote myself in a big way; another setback, adding up to all the negativity surrounding me all the time. But it won’t be me if I won’t find a solution, for I don’t believe in superstitions, but science and reason. There is nothing called luck; only hard work and ability to milk every opportunity that arises out of probability. I set out to start what would become the starting point of my own movie production pipeline; the ‘Kind Man Productions’.
With just about twenty two thousand Indian rupees (or AUD 440), I assembled all the equipment I needed to shoot with my two year old 40 USD Chinese made action camera; a dolly and track, three point LED lighting system that pumps around 24000 lumens of light, green-screen frames and screen. Armed with the equipment, I shot two music videos; ‘Ve Lalariya’ for about Rs 18000 (AUD 360), and ‘Jandi Jandi’ for Rs 4500 (AUD 90), while the market price for a similar project is Rs 250,000 (AUD 5000). After the first one of these was shot, the next step was to promote it. So having tackled the hardship of budgeting, it was time to tackle promotions. And needless to say; obstacles didn’t disappoint me here either.
To promote a musical compilation, the advertisement needs to be done on music channels, but unfortunately for me, the Punjabi Music channels simply refused to play my music (in fact, I would have had to borrow money from my father to even put my music on some of them for a week). Music channels like ‘PTC Chakde’, ‘MHOne’, ‘Tashan’, ‘Josh’, and ‘Punjabi Hits’, one after the other, turned down my video saying it wasn’t up to the standard of videos they play on their music channel. With very few options left, I approached an infotainment channel, ‘Chardikla Time TV’, that happily played my song, not for one week, but for ten days, and even did a feature interview with me. And if that wasn’t enough, I made sure I put a full colour ad in the leading newspaper of the region, to support the TV campaign. I didn’t let the hardship defeat me, but I found my way around it. Unfortunately however, the shortcoming of having a video played on infotainment channel during daytime instead of prime time on a music channel meant that it badly, and expectedly so, underperformed. The hardship may not have defeated me, but the setback gave fresh ammunition to all those around me who are concerned about me, especially my father.
Now I may not have truly been overwhelmed by another failure, for I know what the limitations are that I am working with. I know I am trying to create a million dollars out of a petty penny, and that’s what I tell my well wishers what my real ability is. But such an unhappy situation still does affect one’s psychology and morale. My work started to lose its’ efficiency, and it took me at least one month too long to even completely shoot the second video, that of ‘Jandi Jandi’, and another extra month to create a finished product. By the time I finished this project and started working on my ninth song from fourth English album, I noticed myself spending less and less time on production work, but wasting more time playing ‘Spider Solitaire’. This song took me more than four weeks, when in ordinary course I can churn out a new song in about nine days, and then spend another three to perfect it to another level. This is when I realized something wasn’t right; I just didn’t feel the desire anymore; the third stage, that of ‘disenchantment with work’, was complete. My mind was like a scrambled egg, ready to waste time on anything except work. And this got me thinking; what has happened, and how to fix it?
Now I have already explained what had happened, and I am sure anyone else out there who is feeling a similar loss of desire, would easily be able to identify such a pattern in their own life. The important thing however is; how to fix it? The solution however, is really very simple.
The first and the most important thing is to accept that you are facing a loss of desire, and believe me, there could be a lot of mental struggle to bring your mind to terms with this acceptance. Once you have accepted the issue, you need to thrash out how you reached that point, just like I thrashed out what had weighed upon me. Then the solution is as simple as working out where you really want to get in your life, and then applying symptomatic treatment to the causative agents.
In my case, I know I am going to tear down any and every wall that stands in my way, stomp down on any neck that grows in my way, but get what I want. I love my father, and my family, even though none of them is as close to me as my mother. So I am going to simply listen to their words, for I know they are born out of love and real concern for me, but I am not going to let their words bog me down. Just like success becomes a habit once you succeed, even perseverance can be made a habit, and a good one at that, for life. ‘Never give up’; the solution is as simple as that.
Fatal Urge Carefree Kiss
Amanpreet Singh Rai
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