Learning through experience and error

CategoryDecluttering My Life

Decluttering My Life #4: Project 333 Winter Edition

In Decluttering My Life, The Archive
10 months ago
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Let me start off by saying that I am not a minimalist… at least, not yet. However, I am trying to find a balance between what I need, want and the ideas of minimalism and decluttering. I managed to declutter my closet, workspace, and relationships in the last one year. At least, to some extent. I’m still working on them. It’s a constant and ongoing pursuit if you ask me. As...

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Decluttering My Life #2: My Attempt At Project 333

In Decluttering My Life, The Archive
July 23, 2017
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I went to H&M yesterday to get a T-shirt. Guess how many I got? One. Now, that may seem absurd. I needed one T-shirt, I got one. We’re all aware that this is not how store shopping works. You usually go to buy one thing and then see something really cool and then another thing catches your eye and you’re coming home with bags in your hands instead of just one small package. That...

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Decluttering My Life #1: The Cupboard and the Table

In Decluttering My Life, The Archive
April 26, 2017
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This post is in the series, Decluttering My Life. Look around yourself and try to find the things you haven’t touched in a long while. Be honest and you’ll see there are so many things you bought because they looked cool and then didn’t use them at all. Now, you have two choices. Start using them if you can or give them away. Giving could be donating or selling and both these...

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Learning through experience and error

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Deepansh Khurana

Blogger and writer from Dehradun, India. I'd say I love coffee but don't we all? I find stories, people and experiences. I blog about them.

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You can follow the blog or me on these social channels. Instagram is where I post musings along with decent photographs so that is the only one I'll urge you to check out.

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I've been studying data science lately. It's funny because you see, data science basically tries to make computers behave like humans, at least a major chunk of it works toward that goal. Yet, the more I study it, the more I have started understanding how humans work. I guess it's difficult to judge the human experience from our bird's eye view of it - it feels complex and annoying and just chaotic - but if you start seeing things as individual problems, it gets simpler. For example, when you make choices, you're just doing a decision tree. When you're making decisions based on experience, you're just solving a classification problem. When you're trying to figure out who is important and who isn't, you're clustering. Jargons, I know. Sorry for the math overwhelm. Still, I want to get this thought out there. Data science tries to emulate human behaviour. Yet, I've felt it has brought me better clarity somewhat on how a human sees things. The way I see it, all we're really trying to do at the end of the day is figure out the answer to this one question for countless problems - which side of the line do I lie on? That's data science. #blogging #bloggersofinstagram #epiphany #thoughts #musing #random #datascience #programming #math #data #delhi #ncr #delhimetro #jargon #lines #microblog #indiblogger #writersofinstagram #writing #shotbypixel #teampixel #vansoffthewall #philosophy
You can "just miss" a lot of things. A bus to work, an important package, an opportunity of a lifetime, a friend you hadn't met for months, a lover you met at the wrong time. You can "just miss" all of it, and people will tell you that the universe didn't will for it to happen. I call bullshit. I'll run after buses, I'll find the package myself, I'll create another opportunity, I'll find time for the friend, and I'll wait for the lover. I'll do all of that and more, every day. You know what? I'll also stop for coffee while I'm at it. You know, just for the laugh. I hope your universe can deal with a stubborn little shit. #life #blogging #bloggersofinstagram #writersofinstagram #writing #musing #coffee #stubborn #timing #blogging #dehradun #shotbypixel #pixelperfect #teampixel #errandruns #liferuns
I missed out on reading The Catcher in the Rye when I was at the age most people who read it had done. I read it recently. The book, had I read it at the age, would've really helped for I was Holden in my own way. Perhaps, I still am. Perhaps, all of us are. The funny part is, I had read the last page of Catcher before I had read the book. It's funny because you can't understand what the last line means until you see the story of Holden or at least the part he chooses to tell; "chooses" being the operative word. In subsequent reading about J.D. Salinger and his life beyond Catcher, it seems he too believed truly in the last lines of his book as he became recluse and unapproachable. Reading The Catcher in the Rye impacted my life, and the way I go about it extremely deeply. If you need context, maybe look at my recent blog posts. It's a really simple yet oddly complex book, with a really simple yet oddly complex ending. If you haven't read it, do it but don't tell others. "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."
I often dream about living in a cottage amidst the clouds and in the hills when I'm at the twilight of my life. It's an odd sort of fantasy where I'd be on my own, and a lifetime later, I'd just live a life where there aren't a lot of people, and obligations, and goals. There will be a life, and days that all seem similar, each peppered with little things that make me smile. I'd have a sort of an open library where I'd invite young people to come over and read whatever they want. I'd also have a counter where I'd make them some coffee or tea, something I imagine I'll still want to do, irrespective of my age at the time. I'd listen to these people talk and find stories –their stories. I'd scribble sometimes at night, though I won't call it writing. On days when I feel like it, and because of no other motivation at all, I'd take long walks and strolls along misty pathways. I won't have a lot of friends, but people who'd live around me and talk to me would remember me and sometimes, they'd throw a little greeting if I passed them as I walked. I'm only twenty-one now but I think I'd like to do that, once I'm old enough, and when a lifetime would've passed. Wouldn't you? #oflife #mistyevenings #random #life #writersofinstagram #writing #blogging #bloggersofinstagram #indiblogger #hills #lifeinthehills #thingsthatmakeyougohmm #scribbles #thoughts #music #coffee #tea #reading #musings #thoughts #oldman #oldmanandthehills #shotbypixel #teampixel #pixelperfect
On some days, I'd want to do nothing and learn nothing. I'd want to spend time with a loved one, walk around town and then look at pigeons sitting on a wire, imagining whether the few who sat far away did it because they were disliked by the lot or was it of their own accord. So, I'd do just that, and then end the day with the following thought —nothing spectacular happened today; everything was spectacularly ordinary, and that is fine by me. #blogging #bloggersofinstagram #hometown #home #random #life #writersofinstagram #writing #things #sky #pigeons #birdsonthewire #life #relax #chillout #phew #blue #shotbypixel #teampixel #pixelperfect
Every café adorns itself with shelves adorned with random books. It always baffled me, perhaps due to the limitation of my own understanding, that how could someone read random books for an entire duration of a café visit. You couldn't finish it in that time, and reading it halfway made no sense. Hell, most people I know don't visit cafés alone; they dread it and shudder at the thought of sitting by themselves. Even if I could do the task of sitting alone by myself in a corner, I'd bring my own book. Until some days ago when I found myself reading a Catherine Cookson book. The part which broke my heart was that I had to leave it almost at halfway mark as I left the café. Before I left though, I hid it in the shelf itself. It was my own ploy to make sure no one picks it up or relocates it when I visit next. I went again the next day and read through most of it, leaving a few chapters again, as I sipped some cinnamon joe. I went on another day, and I finished it. It was satisfying. The idea of going to a place, slyly hiding a book so that it's always there, and revisiting a place consecutively only to know how the story ends was something I never imagined myself doing. Books on shelves in cafés don't baffle me anymore, and all it took was a little side-quest of reading one from a random shelf myself. #cafes #books #random #life #reading #coffee #catherinecookson #colourblind #writersofinstagram #bloggersofinstagram #blogging #writing #indiblogger #words #wordporn #experiences #littleadventures #lifeinthehills #gapyear #shotbypixel #teampixel #vintage
Sometime between watching the background change behind this relic of an antenna on my rooftop, I grew up. I sent this photo to a friend along with the similar text today. Then, I thought to myself and realised, this is the second most photographed subject in my life; the first isn't with us anymore. Like most teenagers filled with angst, I often ran to the terrace whenever I found things slipping out of my hands, and thoughts whirling in my head. I'd take my earphones and just listen to a lot of music until I was calm enough to walk downstairs. While all of that inner turmoil happened, I'd click this antenna without thinking. I'm sure you have your own sets of things which have their own story to tell – yours. I find it odd that most of our lives can be summed up in a collection of random objects – bridges, benches, antennae which don't work, earphones, roads, spots, coffee tables – which leads me to believe things do outlast people for I'm not the same kid who first clicked a photo of this antenna with his first mobile phone eight years ago. That is the last photo above, if you were wondering. #epiphany #blogging #bloggersofinstagram #hometown #home #random #life #writersofinstagram #writing #things #outlast #sky #skyporn
I walked over a misty road, almost amidst clouds as the rain pattered softly on trees – conifers. I couldn't see as clearly but I heard laughter echo through the narrow pathway, breaking the ambient sound of birds, and the monkeys, and the crickets, and the rain. A quick stride uphill taught me that the laughter came from a group of women who had just left their shift at work. The laughter was simple. It was unhinged. I think that's the best form of laughter. That's the only way to laugh really; unbound and uninhibited. This is the laughter which is contagious, I thought, as I chuckled on my own. #blogging #writersofinstagram #writing #life #indiblogger #bloggersofinstagram #hills #mountains #shotbypixel #teampixel #lifeinthehills #silhouette #monsoons #foggy #googlepixel #laughter
All I've ever wanted to do is to see things as beautifully as Keats did, to understand people as clearly as Shakespeare did, and to tell stories as honestly as Hemingway did. All I've ever wanted to do is to tell you about my life. But how can I do just that if not by telling you of all the beautiful things I've seen, of all the people I've met, and of all the stories that happened to me? So, I live life, day after day, trying to put words to everything, and everything into words, hoping one day someone, not much unlike me, will want to share their life like I did. #blogging #writersofinstagram #writing #life #balance #indiblogger #bloggersofinstagram #hills #mountains #shotbypixel #teampixel #lifeinthehills #silhouette #monsoons #foggy #googlepixel #keats #hemingway #shakespeare

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