Random word dump.

Mountains, night sky, existential crisis and a little universe.

So, I didn’t send out an issue in May. And June (excluding today, of course). 

There were a few too many reasons for that. But I wanna talk about some other things here.  

18th May, 2023. I embarked on my second official solo trip, an 8-day trekking expedition, over a ridge that connects the beautiful snow-covered mountains of Himalayas, upwards of a scenic hill station named Mussoorie in the North of India.

It’s not so much on the trip as after the trip that I could truly process what all I had experienced. The people, the colours, the cold air, the refreshing scents of the forest and the sweet pain from walking up to 6 hours (at an ascent) everyday while lifting a 10 kg backpack. 

Everything about this trip was perfect. The planning, the destination, the travel. 

Everything about this trip was beautiful. The weather, the views, the hike to the top.

Everything about this trip was memorable. My trekmates, our trek leader, our trek guides and the fluffy mountain doggos.

While I am working on writing a *very* detailed essay on this (which shall remain unpublished till I decide what to do with it) — I wanna pick some excerpts from said essay, along with some personal notes I’ve been jotting down, and drop them here.

This is a random word dump.

Mountains.

The mountains were majestic, massive, mind-blowingly gorgeous… and intimidating as fuck.

I couldn’t stop gaping at those white and brown-coloured towers of ice and rock, almost as if I’d never heard about mountains or seen them before. But then again, the Himalayas are a whole different deal, aren’t they? So I’m not totally crazy. I was genuinely in awe. Every pebble, stream, tree and insect seemed like a painting. Something you’re used to seeing only from a distance but not experiencing up-close. A painting so precious, I felt a weird sense of honour, that I was getting the pleasure of indulging with this through all my senses — I could see all the different shades of green, I could walk barefoot on the stones and grass, I could smell the wet mud, I could hear the birds chirp, I could taste the water that burbled down from the icebergs by drinking it from my palm.

The mountains were enchanting and they whispered.

There is an odd, mesmerising beauty in the fact that there’s a lot about their depth that is unknown, a lot about their density that is mysterious and a lot about their might that is downright terrifying, but at the same time, this fact doesn’t make you feel alienated. Instead, you wanna keep drawing in, going closer, because you feel like you’re a part of the mountains, there’s an unexplainable sense of belongingness in the unfamiliarity of the life that dwells within them. An otherworldly vibe, stirred by worldly feelings. It seems like they’re calling out, with every whisper of the wind, and saying: “Come, I’ll show you the path, I’ll take you to the top”. 

And there it is, suddenly visible, a narrow little trail, through the thick pines. 

Night sky.

I had no idea there were more than ten stars in the night sky. Boy, reality is really limited to your line of sight, isn’t it? I can now truly confirm though, that there are a million billion trillion gazillion x infinity of them. Dang, who knew? Nobody who lives down in the city, that’s for sure. 

They were SPLATTERED across the sky. All over. All. Over. As the popular consensus amongst our group was: “It looked like the sky had been draped with a black chart paper having silver, gold, red and blue glitter sprinkled all over its surface”. Lying down on our backs on a long straw mat, eyes looking straight up at the night sky, basking under the shimmery starlight, our trek leader thought-up a cute activity for us to do — connect the dots (stars) you see, draw a constellation of your own and give it a backstory (fictional or inspired), just like those old Greek astronomers did. Someone saw an ice-cream, someone saw a necklace, someone saw two figures holding hands, we made up several stories long into the night.

During one of the nights, at 1:30 AM, in a temperature of about -5°C, we woke up to witness the Milky Way in (part of) its glory. Frozen toes, numb limbs, but wide-open eyelids. A sight that cannot be done justice to in a few words. Nor a picture, no matter how clear it is. You just have to see it. You gotta see it.

I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I’m not exaggerating. I couldn’t even believe the pictures I took, they looked like they were AI-generated, or like those stock photos you get anywhere on the net. It’s kinda sad that that came to my mind, but yes, it was that unreal. And breathtaking. The beauty of nature is really unreal.

Existential crisis.

My getaway into the mountains, and witnessing the grandiosity of the Milky Way with my naked eyes, gave birth to a new curiosity within me to learn and read more about planets and stars, which led me to watch videos about black holes. 

Ever felt less insignificant than a drop of water in the ocean? I know I did. Maybe you will too, when you learn of something so unfathomable and humongous that it breaches even the boundaries of your wildest imaginations. 

But, at the same time, there’s something eerily magical about that feeling. It makes you feel like you’re nothing, but it's also liberating, or should I say freeing? It’s like a nihilist’s wet dream: “Ahh fuckk~ say I don’t matter for shit!” — okay, maybe not quite like that, but more like: “I myself am tinier than a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things in this strange universe, and I’m whining about even tinier things? Fuck it, lemme just do whatever the hell I want and get over this nonsense already”. You know what? I am not doing a great job of explaining this shit well, but the gist is that you matter even less than you think you didn’t so go fucking nuts for the sake of the only person that truly cares and is getting affected by what you do, i.e., you. Kind of a selfish and broad statement, but that’s just me, you don’t have to agree.

Coming back to the topic of black holes, the thing is, they are a secret that might never be unravelled, a mystery that might never be solved, and their existence puts everything into question, giving a frightening new meaning to the phrase: “Some things are never meant to be known”. (The intellectual orgasm though~ oohh, I’ve never felt so delightfully powerless! *laughs at top of voice in Yandere style*)

The event horizon of black holes is the ultimate, the place where there’s no beyond. But who knows, maybe there is something beyond the end. Maybe, all that we know is actually right. Or maybe, everything we know is a sham. Maybe we are at the edge of all we know, and we could tip over said edge at any second. Ain’t that thrilling!?

A little universe.

Humans have made up many things in the pursuit of understanding their surroundings. For example, the concept of absolute position is totally human-made, because in empty space (like the universe, supposedly, if you remove all the things inside it), position loses all meaning, since empty space is the same everywhere. So position makes sense only when there are other things around you, you can only be in a certain position with respect to something else. This also implies that your frame of reference is only yours, and not universal. From your point of view, things may look like one thing, from someone else’s they may look like something else. I find that so crazy.

We live more in relativity — or should I say, “numerous unfinished sketches of differing and different perspectives” — rather than reality. We’re not (really) right with respect to anything other than our own selves, and even that depends. What is “reality” anyway??

Ugh. Existential dread is real. And not as sexy as it sounds when it gets out of hand. So I held on to this ending dialogue from this one Kurzgesagt video I referred to, to put my half-baked scientific knowledge into words: “If this is all a bit much, don’t feel bad, the scale of the universe is brain crushing, and trying to keep track of how everything is oriented or where the best up and down is, is hard. But it doesn’t really matter, because that doesn’t change where you are. You’re already in the best spot you could possibly be — right here, right now. For all you care, nothing can stop you from being right at the centre of your own little universe.”

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I just wanted to write down a few things that have been on my mind. It’s been a while since I wrote, bear with me. 

What’ve you been up to? Let me know, I love making email pen pals and have enough time to indulge you in a decent convo. 

P.S. Like what you read?