Hello there, long time no see! Although I feel bad for abandoning my Substack for almost two months, it feels good to be back. Here’s to hoping I don’t go away again.

The prologue

Today, I look back at how life has changed since Snow entered our lives. It’s been almost a month and a half since I first saw Snow. From the moment I saw his face through a WhatsApp forward message, I knew I should bring him home.

Growing up, I often pondered the idea of adopting my cat. However, mom always opposed the idea. Moreover, it didn’t seem like an economical idea back then. Honestly, we were struggling to make ends meet, and bringing another living being into the mix doesn’t make a lot of sense if you think rationally.

Now that I have my (rented ;-;) place and am financially at a point where I can afford to offer a cat a luxurious life, I seized the opportunity. Huge shout out and thanks to Pooja for answering all my dumb questions and making it a seamless transition. :’)

That said, here are a few things I learned from Snow, my beloved cat!

Standing your ground isn’t a crime

They say life is all about compromises. Snow begs to differ! He won’t do something unless he is wholeheartedly into it. There’s no such thing as half-assing in Snow’s books. Either he will never do it or go all the way.

For instance, after weeks of interaction, I learned Snow is not a typical outdoor cat. He prefers staying indoors all day and night. He loves people-watching from his beloved spot and doesn’t mind staying there for hours. Of course, there are times when he meows and orders us to let him outside his room (yeah, he has a room!). Even then, he is happy hiding under the sofa or staring at the balcony or utility area.

Having learned from multiple experiments trying to get him outdoors, I’ve made peace with the fact that he doesn’t want to go outside. If acting paralyzed while putting a harness on doesn’t convince me, I don’t know what will. After it happened several times, I took a step back to introspect if I was doing something wrong. And yes, I was.

I was so fixated on meeting my expectation of taking the cat out for an evening walk that I didn’t stop to think if he was interested in the activity I was excited about. Perhaps I should not force my idea of leisure on Snow, since we are two different living beings.

Stay present

Snow is all about living in the moment. I imagine he doesn’t worry about what tomorrow holds and is living his best life, purring, meowing, rubbing, and occasionally scratching us.

I know for a fact that he isn’t too fond of screens. He gets bored after watching TV for 15 minutes and jumps out of the sofa to walk around and live a little. Maybe our lives will get better if we all collectively reduce screen time. Idk, Snow thinks so.

Never let your guard down too fast

Cats don’t trust other creatures easily. You’re supposed to earn a cat’s trust. Fail the vibe check and you might be subject to scratches, bites, or even getting ignored. Getting a cat to trust you takes real effort and won’t happen overnight. It could take days, weeks, or even months for cats to get used to you and your environment.

It’s been a month since Snow has been here and he is still a little scared at times. He never leaves his sofa hideout spot when guests are home. The sofa is where he feels safe and we let him be, which brings me to the next part.

Have a safe spot

When Snow is scared, moody, or upset, he rushes to his hideout spot — the sofa. Until he knows it is safe to come out, he stays there. While it is heartwarming that he has a place to count on, it becomes a trouble at times. He just won’t come out and I have to come up with creative workarounds if I need him outside.

One such method was bringing the vacuum cleaner under the sofa. While it used to work like clockwork, I think Snow, the smarty, has learned to ignore the vacuum. :(
The current method involves waving something like a stick under the sofa. I hate to do it since it alarms him, but it works for emergencies.

Perhaps we should all have such little hideout spots, don’t you think? For times when the world is not being kind to us, when it feels like everything around is falling apart and all that is left in the world is eternal pain and suffering. This spot could be the warm hug you’re looking for when you need something to lean on.

Forget and forgive

To be honest, living with a cat isn’t as easy as it sounds. While I love Snow, there are times when he pisses me off and I end up wondering if I am meant to be a pet parent. I also got to know that I shouldn’t punish him by de-grounding him (I keep him somewhere high so he can’t jump off, but he somehow finds a way and comes out every time) or denying treats to correct bad behavior.

While we have our ups and downs, Snow doesn’t ruminate over unpleasant incidents and forgives me instead. He comes to me and rubs his head on my hands or legs. As a result, I end up forgiving him too.

I hope he knows he is safe here and is loving the new place. I hope he knows he is loved. I hope he knows I’m grateful to have him around and I look forward to kissing him after coming back every work day :’)

A word from Snow

Snow wanted to convey the following while I was writing this piece. I have no clue what it means, but feel free to come over and indulge in deep conversations with him to understand what he wants to say. Here’s the full text:

k,,,,,cvfjkmuhr fjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjkmn gvh\]vcccccccccccccccco09
\][p;k
iukj/
;pl[ty655555555555555555555555555///////////////////////g /.
8888888m/;lqbviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiKJUcx
]-

As a side note, being Snow’s exclusive social media manager, it’s my duty to inform you that you can follow him on Instagram to never miss any of his crazy updates. It’s snow.meow.meow. Creative, I know. :3

Until next time,

Hearts if you liked it, subs if you loved it!

Meow-meow,
Subin

It’s 7:45 PM on a Sunday evening. As I gently recover from a state of feeling physically and mentally exhausted, there’s one phrase that comes to mind — practice what you preach.

After relying heavily on my fallback mechanisms (more on this later), I finally have the headspace for introspection to answer the dreaded What is going on with me? question.

At this point, you might be wondering what I usually preach. Dear reader, at the cost of sounding preachy, I say it’s just general wisdom (hehe). And it’s about time I start applying them to my life.

So, what do I preach? For starters, I argue self-care isn’t selfish, emphasize the importance of delayed gratification, and highlight the importance of critical decision-making. Perhaps this edition of the newsletter is a gentle reminder (not the passive-aggressive corpspeak gentle, mind you) to practice self-compassion.

Now that we have the background and have established the premise, do I have any actionable steps to ensure I will be more compassionate to myself? Well, I could try. And I did. Here’s what I came up with:

Strengthen self-fallback mechanisms

Contrary to popular opinion, I won’t recommend involving another human being in your fallback mechanism. I’d rather look for DIY fallback mechanisms. For instance, what helped me this evening was my moody playlist and a much-needed nap for over 2 hours. Sleep really serves as a hard restart for the brain, doesn’t it?

I don’t see an area of improvement here as of now since I started playing music right when the auto was reaching my doorstep lol. But yeah, putting it out there so future me can come up with something.

Update from 10 minutes later me: Well, my first thought was to watch a movie, get drunk, and sleep, so I’m glad I found a healthier fallback mechanism. Anyway, moving on.

Say no more often

I often criticize people for being people pleasers. Perhaps I should take my advice and say no more often. Not in the mood to do something? DON’T DO IT (unless it’s a priority obviously).

Build a stimulation control system?

On the surface, this seems like a doable action item. For the first step, I’ve silenced notifications from everyone. Yes, everyone. All notifications will go directly to the notification center when I’m home. So yeah, please expect a delay in responses and give me 48 hours TAT :P

I should also proactively take things off my calendar when I’m feeling overwhelmed or overstimulated. Speaking of calendars, I’ve created a public calendar to keep track of events and gigs I find interesting in Bangalore. I’m looking for collaborators to maintain it, so please drop me an email if you’re interested!

Treat Corner 🍨

This week, I have a song recommendation for you — Valerie. I discovered this song recently when a (cute) lady was singing it outside Bangalore International Centre. I kinda sorta liked her version better, but Amy’s cover is equally good hehe.

Editor’s Note: I had the aforesaid version in drafts for a few days and listened to it while writing this post. I sorta found it a bit too overstimulating. Anyway, I found a live acoustic version (240p though) that sounds more peaceful.

I keep seeing these Amy Winehouse was a legend comments, and I’m starting to understand why. Her voice is amazing! This section of her Wikipedia page (TW: Substance abuse and mental illness) is devastating to read though.

Small Wins 🥹🌟

Introducing Small Wins, a new section where I appreciate myself for achieving smol things in life. :3 I guess this might be a mandatory section, as opposed to the optional treat corner and rant box sections. I have a niceeeee rant for this week, but I’m too tired to keyboard it now.

If you don’t see this section in the next post, you can safely assume I’ve achieved basically nothing lately :P

Umm, I have two small wins this week. I finally rekindled (no pun intended, physical books >>>>) my reading habit, thanks to a silent reading community called Lalbagh Reads. The idea originated in Cubbon Park with Cubbon Reads and since then, multiple chapters have been formed across the country and even abroad.

You know what I like about this community? It’s not a book club. Maybe they should make a tee merch with this quote (you’re welcome, Nandi Hills :3). Everyone is minding their own business and quietly reading books, making art, under a serene sky. No typical pretentious bookclub gossip discussions are happening over here, and I think that’s beautiful :)

And I bought a fancy 4-slice pop-up toaster 🥹 Haven’t unboxed it yet, but yeah, looking forward to extensively using it for productive mornings :P Hope it isn’t damaged ;-;

Until next time,

Hearts if you liked it, subs if you loved it!

Love,
Subin

“Is prioritizing oneself to avoid isolation and loneliness a gateway to becoming a narcissistic/selfish person?”

This is the question that popped up in my mind during a corporate social wellness session. After careful consideration, I decided to scratch the itch and ask the meeting host (doctor) the question.

And she said something along the lines of, “As long as you’re not hurting others, focusing on yourself is not necessarily a bad thing.”

Sounds like a reasonable answer, right? That’s what I thought at the moment. Little did I know back then that this question would lead to a million other questions, one of which is, “Am I selfish for prioritizing myself?”

Like every other millennial, I was all set at this point to go down an internet research rabbit hole to uncover the “truth” (and self-diagnose random illnesses in the process, obviously). Except, I didn’t.

This time around, I took the road less traveled. I chose to get the opinion of a mental health professional. After presenting him the question with a little context, here’s what he said: “You’re not selfish for prioritizing yourself. People who are actually selfish don’t even ask this question”. Feeling validated, I left the room.

A few days later, my mind gave me a follow-up question: “What if I’m a self-aware selfish person?”. The fact that Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero is the top-played song of my Replay 2023 Apple Music playlist (Spotify who?) doesn’t help either. I have this question on my “list” for the next visit, let’s see what he has to say.

Meanwhile, he also suggested giving Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) a shot (Narrator voice: He didn’t give CBT a shot). It’s going to be an awkward conversation, that’s for sure. But that won’t stop me from asking questions. :3 Anything for sanity, amirite?

Coming back to the subject, I’d like to emphasize that self-care isn’t selfish. In fact, indulging in self-care is a necessity to recharge our physical and mental batteries. Still not convinced? Here are a few clichéd quotes that may do it for you:

• Put your oxygen mask on before helping others.

• Don't set yourself on fire to keep others warm.

• Loving yourself isn’t vanity. It’s sanity (wow, I like the clarity of this one).

• Self-care means giving yourself permission to pause.

• To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

Alright, that’s enough self-love for today.

Content Warning: The following paragraph contains references to body shaming. Reader discretion is advised.

Treat booth: Have you ever been body shamed by your parents, relatives, or worse, “friends”? (of course, you have been). This Vice article is a good read on the subject.

In slightly positive news, a trailer for a film covering BlackBerry’s history (remember BlackBerry?) is out now on YouTube. It’s coming to theatres on May 12 and I’m looking forward to it!

Until next time! Hearts if you liked it, subs if you loved it! (how original, I know)

Self-love regards,

Subin