Thinking, my hobby

Playing with my thoughts under the shower in morning is perhaps my favorite time of the day. Those 10 minutes of seclusion from everything else gives me time with my thoughts and ideas, and with the cool water heightening my senses, almost everytime I come up with something cool and original, an idea or a one liner thought, that I feel good about for rest of the day!
While commuting to my office, I get about 10 minutes with myself while I'm sitting in an auto-rickshaw. Even with all the noise and commotion around, I find myself floating in the vast expanse of my thoughts. Yes, I enjoy playing with my thoughts, and some of it I write. Even in a group of friends, I have a string of thoughts running in parallel to the chatting happening around me.
One of my seniors and perhaps the most influential and wise student I met during my days at college, told us on 2nd day of our orientation that, "whatever you enjoy doing is your hobby. I enjoy thinking, so Thinking is my hobby. No harm in that!"
That very thought of having Thinking as a hobby intrigued me and I was deeply impressed by him. I felt motivated to make thinking my hobby, and it eventually has become my habit.
My physics teacher at Gurukul, the coaching institute at Jalandhar used to tell us that one should never stop thinking because whatever we think can be possible. His reason was simple: we are a part of this universe, so our thoughts would also be confined to the various possibilities applicable in this universe. So, he encouraged us to keep on thinking and be innovative.
The best part about thinking is that it only requires our time and our attention. No investments is needed, no team or partner required, and it can be done anytime, anywhere!

Does love exist?

"I love you".
This is perhaps the most invigorating words to hear, yet the most overused words as well. And I say this because I see/hear people use the word 'love' for almost anything and everything that makes them happy or gives them pleasure.
"I love my mom, my dad, my sis!"
"I love chocolates!"
"I love my new job!"
"I love Parineeti!"

I have heard people use the word 'love' so much that I had started to doubt its credibility and for sometime now I also wonder if 'love', not just as a word but also as a concept really exists?!

You say you like someone/something, its usually attraction. You get to know that person, it becomes affection and when you two spend enough time together, know each other and are comfortable in each others' presence/lives, that's attachment. Beyond that people say its true love.
Then there's care, compassion, worry... and many more such emotions that happen due to "love" for someone.

The way I see it, love is like a soul, unseen and not noticeable to almost all of us. Whereas other emotions/feelings like care, attraction, compassion, worry etc. can be perceived and well defined, like various body organs. They're tangible, understandable and can be attended to.
Or love is this entity that shows itself once in a while in these other emotions/feelings.
Or love is the amalgamation of all these emotions.
Or love manifests itself in various forms.
Or love isn't real, it doesn't exist. Its just a concept of convenience, a word to be used if you feel anything like care, affection, attachment, attraction, anxiety, about someone/something consistently!

Deep Dive:
Also, sometimes I think we feel that love between two young people is different from love between parent and child or love between siblings or love between friends, or even love of a person for his work or some particular subject. The truth is that we confuse all this by calling each one of these emotions as love. Each emotion is different. Parents pamper, scold, worry about, encourage their kids; siblings/friends fight, share, care for each other, pull each other's leg, and in many cases are ready to die to save the other person; a person can spend sleepless nights working on a big project or learning more about some subject. All these examples show a certain connection between two entities that we call love. But then we say love should always be good, but its not! Love also hurts when the relationship suffers due to some reason. Is it really love that hurts you or the failure, the mismatch of expectations, the lack of commitment? Is it fault of love, really?
Love is what we want love to be. Its like God, a man made entity. It is the emotion we must identify, it is the reason behind the joy or sorrow that we must identify. Then we will know that love is just a word of convenience that we call the connection we establish with another person or thing.

Room Cleaning Campaign

Dirty room (Check)
Floor, table, closets, travel bags covered with lots of dust that gives me asthma (Check)
Bed covered with books, laptop, dirty clothes, bedsheet (Check)
Covered my nose and mouth with a handkerchief (Check)
Music (Check)
Broom (Check)
Let the room cleaning begin !!

I stood there at my door, scanning at my room, wondering where to begin, which part of my room demanded my immediate attention, where should I go first, to the nearest one or the dirtiest one... these questions kept me standing there for a few minutes, until I realized that I was feeling tired. I took off the handkerchief from my face, took a deep breath of air from outside my dirty room and went and sat down on my bed. As soon as my bum hit the bed, something hit my bum. It was my Natraj pencil sharpener. I took it as a sign from God to start my Room Cleaning Campaign from the bed!
I covered my nose and mouth with my handkerchief once again, determined to free my room of all the dust and garbage that had been living in my room uninvited for many weeks now. I covered my nose and mouth not to hide my face in shame because cleaning one's own room is not shame, its quite a recreational activity for me. You can immediately see the result of your venture, which is very satisfying. After collecting all that dust that had been sprawling around and getting rid of all the wrappers, and unwanted stuff that are either broken and not being used anymore, one feels a sense of happiness when looking at and staying in one's room.
This makes me wonder, why don't I get my room cleaned by the house keeping staff, on a regular basis? But then how would I get to enjoy hunting down these things till the last speck of dust in my room is identified and thrown out.
I get busy with my broom, slowly collecting all the dust and wrappers and hair and other stuffs, from under the bed, table, edges of the floor and walls, and even the cobwebs from the roof and the window sill. It is quite a workout for my arm and wrist. Like a warrior I wield my broom (read: sword) and vanquish (read: collect) my enemies (read: dust and garbage). I like to be thorough and until my sweeping doesn't change the appearance of the floor, I keep sweeping !!
Suddenly I felt this sudden blocking in my throat and I coughed out...
OMG the dust is attacking back !! Its triggering heaviness in my breathing, I feel choked !! I fastened the handkerchief and with few quick sweeps got rid of most of the dust. Hastily I walk out and few steps away from my room, open my handkerchief, take a deep breath of relatively cleaner and dust free air, and cough out. I see few people walking nearby give me a cursory glance after hearing me cough. With tears in my eyes, I sniff, glad to be able to breathe normally again, and walk back to the door of my room and look in.
Not bad, I think. Now to clear the clutter on the study table and change of bedsheet, which has earned its right to take a break and get washed, after having served me for almost a month now... even a govt. employee get a Sunday every week.

White Sheet of Paper

When I see a white sheet of paper, I get this urge to fill it up with words, sketches, numbers, anything would do. Just that I want the whiteness of the white sheet to vanish.
The whiteness overwhelms me, mocks me, yet serves as a playground if I choose to play. It is here that I try out my ideas, brainstorm and bring new things to life, with each stroke of pen/pencil reducing the whiteness lesser and lesser and in the end leaving behind a trail of whiteness arranged in interesting patterns.