A Dedication to Insecurity

The other day i was watching "the diving bell and the butterfly". really good movie by the way, though not for everyone. literature lovers will enjoy this french movie. anyway, so i was watching and close to the end, our beloved protagonist exclaims, something like, "only bores tell of their dreams". ouch. not a direct quote but you get the gist. immediately i thought of my "dreams" post. i felt a little insulted but i reluctantly agreed. here's the fucked up part, after finishing this brilliant movie i got ready for bed, which usually means a quick read, especially if my mojo's running, which a movie like this will no doubt accelerate. so i grab my current buddy, "the food of the gods" by h.g. wells and by the end of the second paragraph of where i left off the previous night, i read: "Or I should not have mentioned it, because as a general rule I do not think it is at all interesting for people to tell each other about their dreams". two ouches within an hour!

so i put the book down for a moment to think. i agree. who am i to disagree with literary greats, right? if dreams are your source of entertaining or enlightening others, maybe you don't have much to offer realistically. shit! i don't have much to offer. back to not being insightful again.

in my defense, my post wasn't necessarily about my actual dreams but about their appearances or lack there of. i hope, for your sake, i'm not a bore or even worse, uninteresting.

i dedicate this post to insecurity.

my song needs a voice.

My Reasons

Inspiration; a divine influence on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation; the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions.

Inspiration is the only way i know how to do what i do and the reason why i do what i do, i write. what makes me tick 'n' type? my friends are a huge inspiration and they don't even know it, the online ones as well. i have online friends who i never actually see, i'm officially a geek.

the night, the rain, the dark... the light, the pain, the stark... the seas, the clouds, my glitter... the trees that shroud my bitter... i tend to write a lot more during the darker seasons. the winds and rain, night time, dark clouds, the cold, thunder and lightning storms. spring and fall, i know most people love summer and/or winter becuase of the events and what not but spring and fall hold so many visual wonders, a million colours with shades barely imaginable.

my 5 senses, my dreams and nightmares and aspirations, being pretentious, better than thou-ness, trying to be humble with all this, not being comfortable with this, my contradictions... words... weird fucking thoughts that i wonder why i have and if anyone else gives these thoughts further recognition than i do.

art! (i'll elaborate on this more later), photography and paintings and sketches and grafiti, writers! my grandpa - ardhaman singh parmar - the single most important factor for my passion. charlie kaufman (if i could choose to have the power of any pen in the world, living or dead, it would be his), khalil gibran, j. krishnamurti, mark twain, gunter grass, steinbeck, herman hesse, guy vanderhaeghe, jose saramago, charles dickens, thom yorke, andre benjamin, brandon boyd, elliott smith, eddie vedder, jack white, ben harper, matt good, cee-lo, tupac, biggie, wu-tang, wu-tang, wu-tang is the greatest! early em before he became a one note pony (i think i just foreshadowed my demise), nas, jay-z, common, black thought, mos def, big pooh and phonte, q-tip and phife dawg, kanye, josh homme, cobain, corgan, cornell, staley, bradley nowell, ben gibbard, nick cave, chris martin, anthony kiedis, maynard, feist, lauryn hill, bjork, norah jones, etta james, nina simone, bob marley, dylan, leonard cohen, gurdas mann, babbu mann, nusrat fateh ali khan, endless songwriters, i could go on! chris rock, dave chappelle, louis ck, bill murray, bill maher, george carlin, richard pryor, demetri martin, bill cosby all these guys can make you laugh your ass off and make you think at the same time. and then there's the creatively goofy, jack black, will ferell, ben stiller, seth rogan, flight of the conchords, the entire cast of snl, ever.

movies! wes anderson, p.t. anderson, sam mendes, tarantino, rodriguez, andrew dominik, paul haggis, cameron crowe, the farelly bros., the cohen bros., michel gondry, kevin smith, tim burton, scorsese, spielberg, peter jackson (c'mon, lotr trilogy, cinematic GOLD! he doesn't have to do anything ever again and i would still consider him one of the best), stanley kubrik, oliver stone, david lynch, francis ford coppola, sofia coppola, spike jonze, michael mann, clint eastwood, ron howard, sam raimi.

music! hip hop, my first love! the blues, jazz, black american music of the 40s and 50s, classical, bluegrass, old hindi songs of the 50s, qawwalis and ghazals (similar styles of indian folk music, both very poetic, mastering the language and voice is emphasized. qawwali is a little more minimalistic music wise and more repetitive lyrically) and all the different kinds of rock under the sun, all the bands belonging to the songwriters above, piano keys and violin strings, all my musician friends, without a doubt the rza's beats have had more of an impact on me than any other producer, organized noize, j. dilla, dj premier, 9th wonder, the alchemist, early havoc beats, dj quick, dj muggs, countless beatsmiths! I LOVE INDIE! tv on the radio, placebo, portishead, interpol, modest mouse, the shins, broken social scene, wilco, the eels, hayden, metric, alexisonfire and a million other bands... name dropping.

the men and women that make a difference and change the world for the better! i don't know nearly enough of them by name to not leave out someone extemely important to all of us.

As you can see inspiration has never been hard for me to find. inspiration is everywhere, you just have to look, listen and feel.

O' Dreams, Where Art Thou?

Lately my dreams have not been very exciting, in fact, on the contrary. from what i remember of them, they've been pretty boring. they play out like everyday life. i wake up with vague memories of sitting at a restaurant with a friend or sitting on the skytrain even just walking. i used to have such strong, vivid and exciting dreams. nightmares that left me literally gasping for air. my life, although somewhat calmer, doesn't feel like it's particularly complete at the moment. my problems are in the midst of being solved but in no way are they so. i imagine our dreams represent some aspect of our life at that moment or our desires or our fears.

i have a fond memory of a dream i had when i was in my early teens about being this james bond type of character shooting bad guys and making love to beautiful women. pretty standard stuff for a boy during puberty but it was wildly vivid which is why i still remember it. i recall my nightmares more clearly than the dreams. i think we remember our nightmares better because of the affect they have on our psyche. i had this nightmare once about a kid bully chasing me in a forest, stabbing me in the back and spitting on my face when i turned and fell. i woke up right before i died. i had watched "flatliners" not too long before this nightmare and there is a very similar scene in that movie. i saw the obvious connection a few minutes after waking up and left it at that. a couple of years later (post cancer), i dreamt everyone i knew had cancer but me and it was up to me to save everyone. i don't know where the doctors or the rest of the world were at this time. who knows what the hell that means but it definitely left an impression. the scariest one however, was one of all my friends and family on a mission to murder me. hidden knives behind their backs while smiling and inviting me with open arms. i remember the end the best, i was running down a hall in search of the room my mom was sleeping in while various friends, uncles and cousins chased me with bats, swords, knives etc. once i reached my mom's room, she tricked me, she was my most unlikely executor after all! the shock! you had to be there. again i woke up before i died. this was by far the most intense dream i ever experienced. it took me at least 5 minutes after waking to calm down and reassure myself it was just a dream. i was soaked in sweat and was utterly panicked and breathless. everynight after i tried to re-create that dream to no avail, of course. i wanted to feel that intensity and adrenaline again, kind of like a virtual reality slasher video game and im the one being hunted. it was thrilling! it was exhillirating! it was so real! but it was all a product of my mind, which made it more disturbing but also safe. safe enough to re-create.

that was about 4-5 years ago. i've had a few half decent dreams again but nothing ever like that. and now my dreams are so bland they're not worth a second thought except that occasionally i'm with people i don't know or have ever seen. does this mean i've reached some kind of pinnacle in my life? does this mean my life is so great now that i no longer need dreams to spice it up? does this mean i've conquered my devils? have i gone above and beyond? am i enlightened? have my nightmares succumbed to my superior mind set? am i fearless? am i desireless? have i reached nirvana? am i a fucking idiot? is my life so lame that my dreams reflect that? am i so bored? has my life just become so mild?

hardly.... maybe? what gives?

By Any Other Name...

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." - William Shakespeare

In a nutshell, he means names don't matter, you are who you are regardless. I kind of disagree.......

My name is Amman. My brother's name is Navchetan. And i have name envy. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate my name, on the contrary. My name fits my personality more than any other I can think of, short of Gilbert Von Weirdo of course but.......

One of the earliest memories I have of my grandfather is that of him explaining us our names. He named us both. He told me many times "Amman means Shanti, peace". I can't help but wonder if my knowing the meaning of my name and gladly accepting it helped in shaping me. Obviously the pride in which my grandfather told me instilled that pride of it in myself. I AM a peaceful man........

My brother's name, Navchetan, means NEW DAWN. Nav meaning new and Chetan meaning dawn. Now that's exciting. No, that's REVOLUTIONARY! So i think to myself, if I grew into a peaceful man due in large part to the influence of my name, then what if.........

I'm more than happy with my name and I'm proud to be a peaceful man but sometimes, in moments of writing something peaceful again, I have name envy.

PEACE

(this was originally posted on facebook on Aug 5th, 2009)

An Introduction

First off, this whole site will pretty much be an introduction to who i am.

Amman, my name means peace and these are my pieces. i love writing but please don't call me a writer, it embarrasses me. plus my grammar is horrible and i use profanity. i'm also not a big fan of my shift key because my keyboard's shift keys are smaller than they should be, which cause for mishaps. i'll be using capitals when i please. to summarize; bad grammar, occasional profanity and no capitals. if these things bother you, try to get over it, it won't be hard.

its 2:30am right now. most of my reading and writing takes place when the owls are hooting. damn! that would've been a good domain name, "the hooting owl". sometimes my writing can be wise like the owl but in real life i am far from. in fact, i'm irresponsible and grossly immature but i get to be a little wiser and a tad bit more mature when i write. a friend once called my writing "insightful", i was taken aback by the compliment, it definitely inflated my balloon. to be insightful, to me, is in a way to be selfless and to be selfless, to me, is to be great! i snapped back to reality. that's a lie. i considered greatness for a moment. then i was involuntarily forced back to reality. i'm not insightful. i can meet her halfway though and agree on being honest. i wish i was insightful. i wish what i wrote spilled over to real, day to day life but most often it doesn't. odd how my writing makes me something better than i really am.

at first i wanted my blog to be called "just a thought" but it was taken. that idea was inspired by "just a thought" by gnarls barkley. the chorus goes, "i've tried everything but suicide, but it's crossed my mind" then he says, rather than singing, "it's just a thought". that's always stuck with me. it's just a thought, nothing else, it shouldn't scare you. it was a feeling at a particular moment that passed just as sure as that moment. so remember that if something i write offends you... its just a thought. my thoughts. and my views often alter with time and further knowledge. you're allowed to disagree or agree with them. thoughts intrigue me, their ever variations and their power. so share with me yours. everything i write will be mostly a continuous train of thought. when the train stops the fingers stop typing and the post ends. so it might get a little erratic and disorganized as far as flow goes. try to understand it, it won't be hard.

i went through about 10 names before landing on pieces-o-peace. i don't mind it as much now as i did at first. turns out there is or was a band by that name. there is no connection, just a coincidence, but judging from the picture of them above, they might've been some cool cats to jive with.

read if you want, i'd surely appreciate it. at first i'll just put up some of my posts from facebook and i'll try to keep it fresh all the while.

this is going to be weird, putting my thoughts out there for the world. i hope it will force me to write more often if i can convince myself someone is actually waiting to read. plus i kind of like the idea of strangers potentially reading what i have to say. so try to enjoy, i hope it won't be hard.