Thought on structuring my life story writing

 This post has come for the below two reasons:

1) Since yesterday (Saraswati Puja), I have started two new things - a) tracking all the books (maybe articles later) I would read going forward, with a few important parameters; b) tracking all the creative outputs of Zing original (10 different types I have thought until now). I believe this two initiative will provide much useful inputs for writing an autobiography in future. To be honest, I am thinking to write 'positioning of a book titled Agia to Oxford in Assamese language' very soon. 

2) While searching for inputs for point 1(b) above, I stumbled upon an old write-up that I drafted after attending a life story writing workshop at Oxford. This includes a few approaches of writing an autobiography. Below is the draft without any modification:

Serious thought on structuring my life story writing:

Thoughts for my future writing, sitting on the life writing workshop on 31^st May, 2014:-

  i.      Approach life writing as different ways- chronological way, reverse chronological way, segmented stories with different themes and try to connect the themes etc

  ii.      The other way I thought about initiating a conversation. For example, when I met a new friend, things will start like ‘Hey, how did you end up here?’ Then, that was awesome journey, but how did you do that xxx etc . This way the conversation will lead you to different stories.

 iii.      One interesting way might be to list down the life events and then how you manage those repeated events at different times of your career.  But probably at the beginning, you must give a crisp timeline or chronology order so that people can get the holistic big picture.

 iv.      Read this, amazing: http://m.wikihow.com/Write-an-Autobiography. From the suggestions there, I am thinking in the same line. But what about the overarching theme or conflict in my life? Is it to come out of middle class mentality , or to challenge status quo, dare to dream

v. some interesting ways in my life maybe:

        A. How I first realise the power of perseverance, which is a mantra I believe now - the prize in triple jump competition    after securing fourth position and then trying for one long year before winning next year.

        B. what are the things I learnt from a failed 3-year long mission of MBA voyage- thinking life timeline as a story or trying to learn even from my own life, why failures are important in life, how to approach people without shame, what I really want to do in life etc.

        C. No biography can be true as mine as all are preserved in my diary.

Starting new section- letter to future self

Writing letter  to future self is not a new idea. I think (if I remember correctly) while talking to Shainky, my junior from NIT Durgapur, this idea again popped up.

This might also solve one more categorisation issue. The current categories of this blog today are not succinctly representing a post covering my theories on life, which are not decisions, which are written in first person (i.e. not Zingism), and which are not strictly related to career or personal life (i.e. intangibles).

Although I am not 100% convinced with the logic of the second para above (while writing I have realized there is overlap), I believe, a section on letter to future self might be interesting.

Wait! I think Astrology is essentially about dealing with future. Hence, I am deleting the category and putting the single post in that category with the new 'letter to future self'.

Old categories: (Astrology, Birthday Post, Blog Strategy, Career, Decisions, Event, Finance, Health, Intangibles, Year Review, Zingism)

New categories: (Birthday Post, Blog Strategy, Career, Decisions, Event, Finance, Health, Intangibles, Year Review, Zingism, Letter to future-self)

Let's see how it goes! All the best !

A label called Career - why did I miss this?

People say sitting on toilet komod, one can get innovative ideas. I got two today- 1. start working on developing a public policy module to request universities/institutions to admit me as visiting faculty, 2. why there is no label titled 'Career' in my autobiography blog?

There maybe one explanation for the latter- I haven't made any distinction between my personal and professional goals while thinking about the future. Although this two are interlinked, I can see most of my posts under labels such as TimeStamp, Event, Decision, Conversation are related to career. Fuck ! This certainly means I am giving way too much time for the thoughts related to my career bit. This also means I am putting other things such as Xomidhan, book writing, exploring new thoughts in the back burner or I am not writing about them at all, although they represent a huge part of my life, things that I love doing.

This is actually a good realization. From another perspective, labels such as Timestamp/Event are not going to give much input while drafting a final autobiography in later stage of my life.

So, here comes the decision: I am going to make two new labels today - Career and Intangibles. Let me define the two below:
Career: Only those posts related to my thoughts (future or past) for a professional career (i.e. that pays me money). If any career related post falls in the Conversation or Decision category, those two will get priority.
Intangibles: This will feature those posts related to the intangibles of human life such as volunteering, hobby, passion, travel, doing hatke things etc.Mostly those things that I planned to include in the 'measurable parameters of intangibles' after conversation with Alex.  Relationships may also fall in this category unless I don't make a separate category called 'Relationship' (I have plans though).

Introduction of the two labels today resulted in removing two labels namely 'Conversation' & 'Timestamp', along-with lot of reshuffle of posts.

The astrological aspect while tracking life

By this blogpost, I am suggesting to create a new label titled 'Astrology'. As I mentioned in my year review post of last year (2015), I have started seeing astrology as a decision making instrument. I wish someday I will make my diaries as 'case study' and invite some astrologer to really analyze the whole human life (my life) corresponding to the movement of stars and planets.

I have no memory of being under the direct influence of astrology at any point of my life. The oldest memory - while travelling from Guwahati to Silchar for the AIEEE counselling, Maa gave me a ring (see picture). Fortunately after a few hours, I got NIT Durgapur- CSE and that ring got a significant amount of credit. I don't remember since when I stopped wearing that ring. Maa brought another ring (of Gold this time) after seeing my pathetic situation at Microsoft. However, I don't wear any ring now a days.

Showing the rings I possess, but do not wear

While in Aizawl, first time I visited an astrologer in Abhayapuri as Maa and Dada insisted. He was Master degree holder and his calculation arouse my curiosity for astrology for the first time. During the 1.5 years of volunteering, I met an astrologer from Bakaitari twice- first he came our home; next time I and Arup visited him. After the two conversations, I was convinced that there is more to astrology than blank superstition. Meanwhile, I developed my own definition of astrology- 'it is a tool which can help you take a decision when you are stuck at 50-50 scenario'.

Recently I was referred to an astrologer Mr. Ashesh Kumar by Xomidhan core team member- Kavita Jitani. He sits at West Bengal, but provides online/phone service if given the birth date and time. I was not hesitant to pay Rs. 500/- as I was in experimentation mood. After reading his report (which I will write next) I decided this is worth tracking in an autobiography blog.

Seeing the future is the most amazing thing that human can think of. This is why anything related to that domain should get a position in any life tracker. I hope I have made enough justification why I am including Astrology as a separate category in this autobiography blog.

If ever in future, I realize that astrology is influencing my decisions more than my brain & mind, I would be out of this experiment. Because, I believe, that would be the first step of supporting cult like with witch-hunting.

New addition to the Blog Strategy

"Whenever you are experimenting something that has never been experimented before, it is important to keep track how many times you are changing/modifying the strategy itself " - The Zing.

Keeping in view of the above 'great quote', I have introduced a new label named 'Blog Strategy' today. I am not quite sure whether the approach I am taking currently will suffice the needs in future or not. For example, when the number of posts exceeds 1000 how can the navigation be easier, while writing an autobiography how would I be able to fetch information quickly, how multiple dimensions of my life would be captured in this blog and so on.

I have decided to introduce two new labels a.k.a. two important aspects of anyone's life - Finance and Health. Off late, I have spent much time on strategizing my life on these two dimensions.

Today, I also wrote to Harvard University's Centre for Study on Adult Development which is carrying on a 75-year old study on what makes a person happy. I volunteered for their study and also sought suggestion how to strategize this blog and my diary writing practice. This video makes me do that.

I also have to keep this in mind that too much focus on this blog (which will remain unpublished for a long time) might distract my objective of writing a few good articles this year.

Keep writing and happy 2016 !

Why this Blog?

Writing an autobiography has been on my mind for last couple of years. If I do not publish the words written in my diaries since class VI, then I would do injustice to the very habit of diary writing- this is how I position myself in the mental debate of whether or not penning down my autobiography.
My frequent visit to the Oxford center for Life-Writing at Wolfson College, the personality cult of Homen Borgohain with his superbly written autobiographies, the published diaries of Bhabendra Nath Saikia, the visit to Anne Frank's hidden place in Amsterdam, and most importantly the closure of my secret blog on my failed (fortunately!) MBA voyage have earnestly prompted me to initiate 'something' towards a future autobiography. I have also realized that I am not critically analyzing myself these days as there is not a 'store-house' to safely keep my written analysis.
Hence, I decided to start another secret and unpublished web blog, and 'For An Autobiography' is just the output. Though the decision was taken during Oxford days accompanied by a few writeup, the on-internet creation of the blog took some time. 
I must mention this blog itself should not be considered an autobiography; rather this will assist me whenever I would sit down to start writing an autobiography (hopefully) in future. I will use the 'Labels' effectively from beginning as this blog is expected to have many posts. Though I have not been able to sketch a rough structure of my autobiography (even after heavy research), proper structuring of the blog will ease my future effort.

All the best dear future autobiographer Manjit Nath.

Regards,
Manjit
6th March, 2015

Purpose of a blog

I have come acrossed the question often on which topic you write blogs. previously I did not bother this question much. But a few days back, someone gave some nice funda about the purpose of blogging, vision, lakshya etc. I too think---Blog can be a way to publish some of the great things that you are doing. Now what i am doing-----Well So many good things. I am not sure what might be a vision of my blogs__ also, I won't concentrate much on that thinkning. But what i can do is to publish some of my learnings, which might help a few other people. E-Goverment is one of them, which I am reading currently. A detail explanation of GITA, at least how much I understood, my Proposed LIBRARY project are some of the things, i will start writing.

I will be more frequent on blogging, I promise.

The dawn

Hi, being in LIVE, I should have started writing blog here earlier. But the laziness and unapproaching attitude that I got from family hierarchy(Though I am trying hard to get rid of it) prevents me from pen down anything here till today. Of course, I have one valid reason too. Prevoiusly, I used to write blog on www.blogsource.com. But suddenly a few days back when I visited them, it was shut down. Thus all my blogs which I started long back at NIT-DGP(On the evening of the very day when the ECE guy of our batch committed suicide), and modified last during LEAP... all gone.

Now, being in Microsoft, I should use live Space; and if I am not doing my sixth sense will always convict me of guilt.Is it not a bit crazinees of my feelings. Anyways, to get out of the GREAT hierarchy virtue, I mentioned above, one spark had been required. Got that one in form of Alvaro. So, here I go.

All the best dude!!!!!