In December, I wrote about how rest feels illegal. How the world keeps telling us that productivity is like a moral obligation and exhaustion is like a badge of honor. How doing nothing feels like disobedience. How slowing down feels like slipping off the map. That post came from a place of very tired and quiet rebellion.

But rebellion, I’m learning, has seasons.

For the first time in my life (a first in four decades) I took seven days off from work. Not because I had a trip planned or because I had work that needed handled. It wasn’t because of any other reason, but to practice what I was preaching… To rest. I have been feeling it in my body and my mind - they were starting to rebel and telling me that they needed rest. And so, I took days off with other plan than to sleep. 

The first three days I was ‘productive’ because I managed to clean and re-organise my bookshelves and make space for more. I had been putting that off for a while even though books were starting to pile up everywhere (including my closet that is meant for my clothes) because it takes a lot of time. Once that was done, I did what I promised myself… eat (I don’t have to prep or cook), sleep and stare at the ceiling - letting my mind go blank.

You can only rest for so long before something inside you begins to stir. Not with urgency. Not with hunger. More like a low hum. A reminder that you are still in motion, even when you are still. That breath doesn’t stop just because you stopped performing. That the heart doesn’t wait for permission to keep beating.

That hum is where 2026 begins for me.

My word for the year is Momentum.

Not the loud kind. Not the startup-bro, grind-culture, “rise and conquer” version of it. Not the kind that burns fast and collapses faster. I mean the quieter kind. The kind that builds without spectacle. The kind that reveals itself in tiny shifts. A sentence written. A thought held gently. A boundary kept. A song felt all the way through without rushing to the next one.

Momentum, as I want it this year, is not about how fast I move. It’s about whether I’m still moving at all.

After learning how to rest without guilt, I don’t want to swing violently into ambition again. I don’t want whiplash disguised as motivation. I don’t want another season of “I should be doing more” echoing in my head like unpaid rent. This year, I want continuity. I want the soft discipline of showing up without spectacle. I want the kind of forward motion that doesn’t require me to abandon myself at the starting line.

Momentum feels like choosing life in increments.

Some days, it might be just getting up and showing up at my work desk. Or it could be just writing a page about all my random thoughts. Other days, not quitting. Some days, it might look like finally letting a thought reach its end. Other days, simply letting a feeling pass without naming it a personal failing. Momentum, for me, only asks that I participate in my own becoming.

And maybe that’s enough for a year.

What Momentum Looks Like

Momentum, in my world, is not a dramatic reinvention montage. There is no triumphant background score swelling as I finally “get my life together,” even though I might play ‘Never Mind’ on repeat. This is is the part where I learn how to keep walking where others stop.

Some days, momentum will look boring.

It will look like opening a half-finished draft instead of abandoning it for a shinier new idea. It will look like replying to the difficult message instead of mentally rehearsing it for three days. It will look like choosing the slower road even when the faster one keeps whispering threats about being left behind.

It will look like showing up imperfectly and refusing to make a tragedy out of it.

Momentum will also look wildly inconsistent. There will be days when I move with conviction and days when I crawl with doubt. Both count. This year, I am no longer interested in only validating the versions of myself that arrive with confidence and clarity. Hesitation is also motion. Uncertainty is not stagnation. Pauses are not failure. They are part of the rhythm, whether I like it or not.

Somewhere along the way, we learned to confuse momentum with intensity. As if forward movement has to hurt to be real. As if ease is a lie we haven’t earned. I don’t believe that anymore. I think momentum can be gentle. I think it can feel like steadiness instead of struggle. Like water that doesn’t crash but still reshapes stone over time.

This is the year I stop waiting for the perfect emotional weather to begin again.

This is the year I move even when I am unsure. Especially when I am unsure.

Momentum, But Make It Mine

For me, shows up in my journal first. It always does. Journaling is where I measure aliveness most honestly. Last year taught me how to stop. This year is teaching me how to begin again without violence. Not the intoxicating kind of beginning where you promise yourself a new personality and a better schedule. The quieter kind, where you return to unfinished entries (or blogposts) and don’t treat them like evidence of failure. Where you write badly on purpose just to keep the current running. Where you trust that form will come later, but motion has to come first.

It also shows up in how I sit with symbols. As some of you know, Tarot has never been about prediction for me. It’s been a language for the things I struggle to say out loud. Last year, I pulled slower cards. Pause cards. And I admit that it made me feel bad at first, because I had bought into the world’s version of momentum. This year, I notice more movement in the spreads. Pages walking. Knights charging. Even Death, doing what it does best. Change doesn’t ask for permission, it just keeps happening. Momentum is realizing that I don’t have to chase transformation. I only have to stop resisting the current I’m already standing in.

And then there’s the emotional terrain. The part one can rarely map in clean lines.

Momentum, emotionally, means I don’t stay stuck just because I recognize the pattern. Familiar pain is still pain. Familiar fear is still fear. This year, I want to stop nesting inside what I know just because it’s predictable. I want to move even when the next feeling doesn’t come with subtitles.

I hope that it will not be like reopening old doors just to check if the hurt is still alive inside them. I hope it will look like choosing steadiness over emotional whiplash. That it will look like learning how to stay with myself when distraction is easier. I HOPE that it will mean letting music move through me without turning it into escape. Letting stories mirror me without consuming me. Letting longing exist without immediately demanding a story arc where it gets resolved.

What I Hope 2026 Will Be

What I want from 2026 is not a dramatic leap. I hope it to be a year that grows through accumulation. A year where small steps don’t feel insignificant, because they’re part of a longer arc. A year where my goals don’t sit on separate islands but feel woven into my everyday routines. A year where discipline isn’t punishment, and rest isn’t guilt.

Momentum that lets me move in that direction.

It connects my dreams to my actions.

It supports both ambition and gentleness.

It reminds me that growth often happens in the follow-through, not the beginning.

And that’s why it’s my word for the year ahead. Wish me luck!

Social media is inundated with the assertion that “no one should be a billionaire” and it has become a prominent moral standing among a vocal group of people on the interweb. The phrase raises legitimate concerns about wealth inequality, labour exploitation and concentration of power.

However, as with many slogans that gain cultural traction, its broadness and vagueness risks collapsing distinct forms of wealth accumulation into a single ethical category and in doing so, it often obstructs the very mechanisms of power that it seeks to critique.

The hullabaloo surrounding Taylor Swift’s emergence as a billionaire reveals a lot about this herd mentality which is rampant online and it is often accompanied by no amount of critical thinking. Taylor’s wealth has provoked a cultural anxiety that appears disproportionate compared to public reactions toward ultra-wealthy individuals.

The public outrage is not merely economic in nature. It is cultural and gendered. Taylor is not an oil magnate, a private equity executive or a tech monopolist. She is a highly visible cultural producer whose labour, persona and emotional expressiveness in forms of singing, songwriting and art are central to her public identity. The discomfort surrounding her wealth cannot solely be seen as opposition to inequality. Rather, in my opinion, it reflects unresolved tensions about women’s access to power, ownership and legitimacy within capitalist systems.

My demand is for analytical precision and critical thinking to prevail in this age of herd mentality and stupid but divisive “hot-takes” that sweep through social media.

Accumulation of wealth is not a morally uniform phenomenon and the process by which wealth is generated and the degree of labour involved, the transparency of accumulation and the uses of the accumulated wealth and power matters. Taylor’s case complicates dominant narratives about billionaires.

The Anti-Billionaire Rhetoric:

Extreme wealth at any point of time in the past, present or future is off-putting. The claim that extreme wealth is inherently immoral rests on the assumption that no individual can accumulate wealth to such an extreme degree without exploiting others. It should be noted that this assumption is often justified in cases involving resource extraction, financial speculation or monopolistic practices but the logic becomes less persuasive when applied indiscriminately.

Political economists often distinguish between different modes of capital accumulation. Wealth derived through rent seeking behaviour such as controlling access to housing, healthcare or natural resources operates very differently from wealth generated through direct labour and intellectual production. If we ignore this distinction, then there is no distinction between a George Lucas and a Elon Musk or a Mark Zuckerberg. If we ignore these distinctions, we are transforming the argument from structural analysis to a symbolic condemnation.

Taylor Swift’s wealth is overwhelmingly linked to monetization of intellectual property she helped create. Her dominant income streams include album sales, touring, licencing and publishing her art which is directly tied to cultural consumption rather than essential goods or coercive market control. Obviously, this does not render her wealth morally pure but it does situate it differently from other forms of wealth accumulation that rely on scarcity, dispossession or systemic harm.

Opposition to inequality requires specificity and critical analysis. Otherwise, without specificity, moral outrage becomes performative rather than transformative in the long run.

Taylor Swift’s Cultural Production:

One of the defining features of Taylor’s career is the visibility of her own labour. Unlike many wealthy individuals whose work is abstracted behind corporate structures, Taylor’s labour is public and ongoing. It is not an accident that she has achieved this level of success. She writes her music, performs extensively (is a fan of over-delivering) and maintains creative involvement across all her work. Nobody else was baking cookies for their fans and having secret hang-out sessions and opening up their hearts the way Taylor has continued to do.

The Eras Tour exemplifies this labour-intensive model. The tour was not merely a revenue generating enterprise but a physically demanding performance that requires endurance, rehearsal and emotional presence. The tours impact includes employing thousands of workers and contributing significantly to local economies which complicates the narratives that frame her wealth as purely extractive. Additionally, her model of – "if the tour does well, everyone involved gets paid more" should set a precedence in the entertainment industry!

Cultural labour is often undervalued precisely because it is associated with pleasure and emotion. The assumption that creative work is less than industrial or technical labour has historically been used to justify its under-compensation. Taylor’s success threatens the entertainment industry as it challenges this hierarchy by demonstrating that cultural production can generate enormous value when creators retain control over their work.

To dismiss her wealth without acknowledging the labour, creativity and hard work behind it reinforces the very devaluation of artistic work that critics of capitalism often seek to dismantle.

Ownership as Resistance:

The most significant factor distinguishing Taylor from other ultra-wealthy figures is her approach to ownership. The sale of her masters without her consent exposed a structural vulnerability faced by artists within the music industry. Taylor Swift engaged in a strategic market-based intervention and re-recorded her catalogue.

Economically, it devalued her original masters while legally operating within existing contractual structures and culturally, it reframed ownership as a site of resistance rather than resignation of your fate. Taylor’s public declaration and acts of reclamation established a precedent that will forever influence industry norms.

This is a prime example of how Taylor did not reject the market; instead, she used it to correct an imbalance of power. She demonstrated her agency within capitalist systems and expanded it through knowledge, leverage and collective support. Her resulting wealth is not merely the outcome of market success but the by-product of an intervention that challenged exploitative norms.

Gender, Ambition, and Moral Scrutiny:

The outrage and reactions to Taylor Swift’s billionaire status cannot be disentangled from gendered expectations surrounding ambition. It is a truth universally acknowledged that women who pursue power are more likely to be perceived as unlikable, manipulative or morally suspect which is not the case for men with identical behaviours.

Taylor’s career trajectory has been marked by strategic decision making, brand management and her continued vulnerability and ability to express herself and her emotions in a way that marks her as a brilliant storyteller. Her career trajectory has increasingly positioned her within a traditionally masculine domain of authority.

The discomfort provoked by her wealth has disrupted the cultural framework through which she was initially understood which is as a confessional songwriter whose value lay in emotional transparency rather than strategic competence.

Emotional expressiveness is tolerated and even celebrated in women, so long as it is not accompanied by structural power and Taylor’s refusal to be boxed within these distinctions and her refusal to choose between vulnerability and ambition challenges this age-old stereotype and binary.

Criticism framed as economic concern often masks deeper anxieties about women who refuse to self-limit. The demand that she justifies, apologises for or redistributes her success reflects expectations that women temper achievement with humility. Where are these demands for George Lucas, Steven Spielberg or James Cameron?

The Demand for Relatability:

Taylor Swift’s wealth destabilizes the concept of relatability which is a quality disproportionately demanded of women in the public eye. Her music has fostered a sense of intimacy with her listeners who interpret it as personal connection. When that perceived intimacy coexists with immense wealth, it produces cognitive dissonance.

However, relatability is not a moral obligation and it is a market construct that benefits audiences more than the artists. We will be conflating art with personal availability if we insist that Swift remain economically accessible in order to preserve emotional authenticity. Additionally, this expectation reflects a broader pattern in which women are asked to trade power for connection.

Taylor’s refusal to do so exposes the transactional assumptions embedded in audience attachment. It is evident that the audience forever wants a palatable version of you.

Philanthropy and Responsibility:

Supporting Taylor’s billionaire status does not automatically mean that I idealize her use of wealth. While she has made significant philanthropic contributions, no individual’s charity can offset systematic inequality and to demand that she solve structural problems through personal generosity misunderstands both the scale of the problems and the role of the State.

At the same time, Taylor Swift’s labour practices, including reported bonuses for touring staff and advocacy for artists’ rights suggest an orientation toward responsibility rather than indifference. These actions do not absolve her from scrutiny but they do distinguish her from figures whose wealth accumulation is accompanied by deliberate opacity or harm.

Conclusion:

Taylor Swift’s billionaire status is not a referendum on capitalism’s moral legitimacy; instead, it is a test of our ability to think critically about power without resorting to symbolic scapegoating. 

Taylor did not inherit her billionaire status nor did she accumulate it through monopolistic control of necessities; she did not detach herself from the labour that generated it. She was successful in navigating an exploitative industry, reclaimed ownership over her art and leveraged cultural production into sustained economic power.

If the goal of anti-capitalist critique is to dismantle unjust systems, then precision is essential. Blanket condemnation may feel satisfying and will get you clicks and likes but it obscures meaningful distinctions and reinforces gendered double standards.

Taylor Swift’s success is unsettling precisely because it resists easy categorization. It exists at the intersection of labour and capital, vulnerability and authority, intimacy and distance. Engaging with that complexity does not weaken moral critique; it strengthens it.

Supporting her billionaire status is not an endorsement of inequality. It is my refusal to flatten nuance in the name of ideological comfort and a recognition that who holds power and how they came to hold it still and will forever matter!

 It always starts innocently enough. You decide to take a break, maybe a fifteen-minute scroll through nothingness, maybe a nap that dissolves time entirely. Then, right on cue, the guilt slithers in. That itchy little whisper: shouldn’t you be doing something right now? We’ve turned idleness into a moral crime. Stillness feels dangerous, indulgent like eating ice-cream for dinner or ignoring an urgent email that probably wasn’t urgent at all. We even disguise our rest as productivity to make it acceptable:
“I’m recharging”
“It’s part of my creative process”
“Self-care Sunday.”

As if simply being needs a justification.

We live in fast-paced times where an individual’s worth is measured in output. In posts published, tasks checked, and in steps counted. So when you do nothing, it feels like letting yourself and the world down. Even rest now comes with progress bars. My fitness kept prompting me to “track recovery” alongside “track fitness.” Imagine that! You must perform even in your sleep. Somewhere between capitalism and caffeine, we absorbed this belief that stillness is laziness. That if you’re not moving, you’re falling behind. But behind whom, exactly? The answer changes daily. Sometimes it is that influencer with the perfect morning routine, sometimes it is a colleague who is thriving on burnout, and sometimes you beat that imaginary version of yourself who never wastes a second.

Doing nothing has become an act of defiance because to sit quietly, without producing, improving, or proving, is to reclaim your humanity in a world that monetizes every breath. Maybe the problem isn’t that we’re tired. Maybe it’s that we’ve forgotten how to stop without feeling like we’re doing something wrong.

Somewhere along the way, someone decided that rest had to be earned. Like it’s a prize you get for surviving your own overcommitment. You work yourself raw. Then once you’ve proven that you are suffering enough, do you get to sleep, to read, to breathe. We have to wait till the inbox is empty, the dishes are done, the to-do list resembles a battlefield cleared of enemies. And when we finally sit down, it is not peace that we feel. It is relief edged with guilt. Because apparently, we can’t even stop without a reason.

We wear exhaustion like a badge of honor. We compliment people for being “so busy,” as if depletion is a virtue. “I haven’t slept properly in days” has somehow become a humblebrag and an offering to the gods of productivity. Meanwhile, our nervous systems are waving flags of complete surrender.

What’s tragic is that rest was never meant to be a trophy. In nature, it is a rhythm. The tide goes out. The moon wanes. Even seeds stay dormant before they bloom. No one scolds them for being “unproductive.” But humans? We schedule burnout like it’s a recurring meeting. The irony is painful: we chase momentum but refuse to see that even motion has pauses built in. A heartbeat, a breath, a drumbeat… they all depend on space between sounds. Take that space away, and what’s left isn’t rhythm. It’s noise.

So maybe it’s time to stop treating rest like a reward for endurance. Rest isn’t what you get after you’ve lived. It’s how you live. It’s the pause that keeps the music from collapsing into chaos.

There’s a quiet kind of rebellion in closing your laptop while the world screams “hustle.” No fireworks needed. Just a simple act: choosing to stop. We’ve been trained to believe that rest is the absence of progress, that stillness equals surrender. But what if… just what if, stopping isn’t the end of motion, what if it’s the beginning of meaning?

Rest, in its purest form, is refusal. Refusal to be consumed. Refusal to perform with burnout as proof of value. Refusal to run a race no one actually wins. To rest is to say: “I’m still human, even when I’m not producing.”

That’s not laziness. That’s resistance.

Look at any creative or revolutionary life, and you’ll see the pattern. Artists vanish between projects. Writers retreat after the noise. Rest isn’t what comes after greatness; it’s what allows greatness to exist.

Agust D goes silent before a storm of music.
SRK disappeared for years, before delivering a comeback that will go down in history.
{Ofcourse I had to tie-in my two favourite men 😀}

There’s something beautifully subversive about rest that’s unapologetic. Not “I’ve earned this,” but simply, “I exist, and that’s reason enough.”

Here’s the cruel joke: we say we want peace, but we can’t stand what peace feels like.

Stillness, true stillness, is a confrontation. When the noise stops, the mind doesn’t sigh in relief. Instead it panics. Suddenly there’s space, and in that space comes everything we’ve been running from: boredom, anxiety, unprocessed grief, the sound of our own thoughts echoing too loudly.

That’s why rest feels wrong. Stillness reveals what we are trying to avoid.

We’ve wired ourselves for constant stimulation. We can’t even stand in an elevator without reaching for our phones. Our brains, marinated in dopamine hits and notifications, have forgotten the flavor of quiet. We call it “doing nothing.” Anything but what it really is: existing without distraction. It terrifies us, because we’ve built our identities around doing. Ask someone who they are, and they’ll tell you what they do. Jobs, hobbies, achievements. Rest strips that armor off. It forces us to ask: who am I when I’m not performing usefulness? So we stay busy to avoid ourselves. We call it discipline, ambition, drive… anything that sounds better than fear.

So, how do we rebel gracefully without giving up life?

You don’t have to renounce society, move to the mountains, or delete every app to reclaim rest.

You just have to stop apologizing for being human. Rest doesn’t have to look like lying in a meadow with your phone on airplane mode (though that sounds divine). It can be quiet resistance threaded through ordinary hours… a refusal to make every second productive.

Here’s how to start rebelling without burning down your life:

1. Schedule rest first, not last.
Treat rest like a meeting with your sanity. Put it on your calendar before the work, not after. If you wait till you “deserve” it, you never will.

2. Redefine success.
Try measuring your days by energy instead of output. Did something restore you today? That counts more than the number of emails you sent.

3. Take micro-pauses.
Tiny rebellions does wonders for you. Stare out the window for five minutes. Breathe without purpose. Listen to music without multitasking. Be unproductive with intent.

4. Let boredom breathe.
You don’t have to fill every silence. Boredom is the compost heap of creativity. Leave it alone long enough and something wild might grow.

5. Rest publicly.
When someone asks how your weekend was, try saying “I did nothing,” and resist the urge to justify it. Watch their face twist in confusion. That’s their system short-circuiting.

6. Remember the body knows before the mind.
If your body is screaming for rest, believe it. You can’t think your way out of exhaustion. You can only stop.

At some point, you stop chasing and start noticing. The light on the wall. The sound of your own breath. The way time expands when you stop demanding things from it. You realize the world doesn’t fall apart when you step away. The emails keep arriving. The projects keep orbiting. The planet keeps spinning, almost insultingly fine without your supervision. And somehow, that’s not depressing. It’s relief.

Because maybe the point was never to keep up. Maybe the point was to wake up.

The real power lies in knowing when to stop, and daring to stop anyway.

So rest. Not because you’ve earned it, but because you exist.

Rest because the world has enough noise, and your silence might just be the most radical sound in it.

Rest because you can.

With Stranger Things Season 5 dropping its first four episodes on November 27th 2025, we need to refresh our memories and remember every character arc and re-organize our burning questions about the Upside Down. As the trailer suggests, the stakes have never been higher!

All of us need a battle plan which includes a strategic re-watch that won't consume our entire life. Forget binge-watching as we outline the 5 episodes that will remind you why this show became the cultural phenomenon that it is and prepare you for the final goodbye. 

So grab your waffles (Eggos) and let's dive into the essential viewing list for your last revision - 

1. Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers (Season 1, Episode 1) - The relevance and importance of this episode is marked by the exclusive clip that was released on Youtube. Why was Will chosen and his connection to the Upside Down seems to be the big plotline of season 5 and we need to understand the remember the nuances of the 1st episode to "close the circle". 

2. Chapter Seven: The Bathtub (Season 1, Episode 7) - This is where the show transforms from a simple mystery series to full scale sci-fi, dark and scary. We are introduced to the sensory deprivation tank scene which expands on Eleven's ability to travel mentally. We slowly begin to understand the full scale of Eleven's powers.  

3. Chapter Eight: The Mind Flayer (Season 2, Episode 8) - This season is one of my favourite and Noah Schnapp's acting is the cherry on top. Will Byers is at the center and he has been fundamentally changed by his time in the Upside Down. Every strategy the Mind Flayer has learned and used is something that it has learned from Will. The show's message of friendship, love, found family is beautifully showcased in this episode. 

4. Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab (Season 4, Episode 7) - We finally start piecing all the crucial information together as we are introduced to "One" aka Henry Creek aka Vecna. We finally understand why Eleven created the portal to the Upside Down. 

5. Chapter Nine: The Piggyback (Season 4, Episode 9) - This is the episode where the team loses and the bad guys triumphed. As the episode reaches a crescendo in the end, we are left with a Hawkins which is torn apart. Vecna finally gets what he wants and four gates open! The use of fear, mob mentality, sacrifices and deaths tie this episode beautifully and leaves us wanting more. 

Where are we now? 

From Season 4, we clearly get the picture that Vecna cannot leave the Upside Down. We have seen the Demagorgons and Demodogs in Hawkins but it is established that Vecna is confined to the Upside Down. And Season 5 seems to be the last and final phase of his plan to finally be able to be on the normal plane and not be stuck in the Upside Down forever. As our favourite characters embark on their last journey to tie all the loose ends, I cannot wait for Season 5 to start streaming!

As for you, you could binge all the episodes but life is short and streaming time is limited and not every episode is essential to understand the endgame. Watch these 5 episodes as you get ready for the finale of one of our favourite TV series. 

I finally gave in.

After years of avoiding Black Mirror because "I did not need extra anxiety, thanks", I caved.

Earlier this year, a friend casually showed me one episode — Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too — and suddenly I was extremely intrigued by this unsettling vortex of techno-dystopia. Honestly, the Miley Cyrus episode didn’t even feel like science fiction. It felt like someone had taken today’s pop-star-worship culture, tossed in AI assistants, and hit fast-forward. I've read a short story previously along the same lines — Taylor Swift by Hugh Behm-Steinberg. It even won the Barthelme Prize in 2015 because 'it casts a spell'. And I agree. The story is as strange and unsettling as the Black Mirror episodes I talk about below.

And you know what, the scary part in these stories is never the tech. It's always the fact that people can easily twist tech into something manipulative and profitable at the expense of other people.

That episode starring Miley Cyrus struck a chord because I’ve been working on a short story in the same AI-tech space. So with a blend of curiosity, dread, and writerly research greed, I started exploring more episodes. And wow… some of them are so real, it’s almost like the show is reporting live from our near future.

Let's get into a few of them that have been renting space in my brain for a while.

1. Fifteen Million Merits (Season 1, Episode 2) – We’re Already Pedalling Into It

Fifteen Million Merits is one of the earliest episodes and one of the most plausible ones. People cycling all day to generate power, earning digital credits, drowning in hyper-personalised ads — it’s weirdly familiar, isn't it?

Japan recently started converting footsteps into electricity. Train stations, stadiums, public pathways — people simply walking around are generating power. It’s incredible technology and a brilliant sustainability effort. But watching Fifteen Million Merits, I could see the extent to which this idea could be exploited. Technological inventions always start with a noble intention, then greed takes over. You don't even realise how trapped you are in the system. Moreover, when the ending did not disappoint, it became even scarier. I mean, how do you even fight against the system when you're dying at its feet, but it still manages to provide a lifeline?

2. Be Right Back (Season 2, Episode 1) - Digital Ghosts, Anyone?

3. Nosedive (Season 3, Episode 1) – The Social Media Olympics We All Signed Up For

4. Hated in the Nation (Season 3, Episode 6) – Hate + Tech = Combo that Kills. Literally.

The Only One I Found to be on the Positive Side: San Junipero

Just when I thought Black Mirror was going to warp my brain and fill me with dread for the future, I watched San Junipero. And it was… beautiful but also predictable.

For once, I found the use of advanced technology to be healing, to offer connection for the helpless, to create joy. It explored death and the afterlife in a way that felt hopeful instead of horrifying.

I’ve only finished three seasons so far, but I’m hooked. I’ll definitely be back with more reflections, more worry, and hopefully another feel-good episode or two (right?).

What does Shah Rukh Khan have in common with Tarot?

So, here I am with this post to celebrate King Khan’s 60th birthday!

If Shah Rukh Khan, the person, were a tarot card, he’d be The Magician.



It is simple. The Magician is the master of transformation. He takes the tools in front of him (in Tarot: the sword, the cup, the wand, the pentacle) and turns them into alchemy. Just like Shah Rukh turned a middle-class Delhi boy with no industry godfathers into the King of Bollywood. He didn’t wait for permission. He just said it out loud, “I am the last of the stars.” The Magician is about charisma, manifestation, and sheer willpower. He’s the person who channels energy from above into the real world and SRK does that every time he steps on a stage, greets a fan, or owns a role like it was made for him. He doesn’t just perform for the sake of performing and it shows on screen. He makes the audience live the role through him.

As The Magician, Shah Rukh reminds us:

it is not about what you have, it is about what you believe you can do.

Now let us take a look through a tarot-inspired lens on Shah Rukh Khan’s roles over the years. I would like to pay a symbolic tribute to the way his roles mirror the soul’s journey. Think of it as cinematic astrology with a Bollywood twist. And who knows? You might just find your own soul card hidden among of one of his iconic characters.

Raj Malhotra (DDLJ) – The Sun


Keywords: Joy, Innocence, Radiance

Raj isn’t just a character, he’s a feeling. The wide-eyed charm, the cheeky humour… everything about Raj radiates warmth and light. He’s the embodiment of The Sun card, which represents joy, youthful optimism, and the kind of love that feels like home. But The Sun isn’t just about happiness. It is about authenticity. It is about showing up as you are, without manipulation or masks. Raj is playful and goofy, yes, but also deeply respectful, especially of Simran’s boundaries and her father’s authority. He chooses love with integrity, which is rare and powerful.

Raj reminds us that the brightest kind of love is the one that’s honest, patient, and brave enough to wait.

The Lovers – Aman (Kal Ho Naa Ho)


Keywords: Love, Choice, Sacrifice

If ever a character embodied the bittersweet beauty of The Lovers card, it’s Aman. His presence electrifies everyone around him. He is love in motion, laughter in chaos, life in a dying body. But The Lovers card isn’t just about romance, it is about the choices we make in life, especially the hard ones. And Aman’s story is ultimately about choosing someone else’s happiness over his own. He doesn’t fight for love in the traditional sense. He lets go. He steps aside so that Naina can have a future with someone who give her a ‘forever’. The Lovers card asks: What will you choose when the heart is divided? Aman chose selflessness.

Aman reminds us that love isn’t always about possession. Sometimes it is about giving someone else a lifetime when you only have a few moments left.

The Emperor – Major Ram (Main Hoon Na)

Keywords: Authority, Protection, Duty

Major Ram is the embodiment of order, discipline, and devotion; both to his country and his family. As The Emperor, he stands tall as a figure of structure and safety in a chaotic world. Whether he’s defusing bombs, tackling teenage drama in a college corridor, or trying to unite a broken family, Ram always brings calm, control, and unshakable principle. The Emperor in tarot represents the divine masculine: a provider and protector who leads with integrity. Ram is that archetype made flesh: a man in uniform who softens only for his loved ones, who holds his ground when everything around him threatens to collapse.

Major Ram teaches us that strength isn’t about stoicism. It is about showing up, staying grounded, and leading with heart led authority.

Justice – Rizwan Khan (My Name is Khan)


Keywords: Truth, Fairness, Moral Clarity, Cause and Consequence

Rizwan Khan’s journey across cities, heartbreaks, and hostile people is one of radical clarity. Diagnosed with autism and driven by purpose, Rizwan’s mission to tell the U.S. president that he is not a terrorist isn’t just personal. The Justice card is about accountability, truth-telling, and standing firm against prejudice. Rizwan embodies all of it, with sincerity and zero ego. He’s not loud, but he’s relentless. He doesn’t seek revenge, but he demands recognition. He is living proof that moral courage doesn’t need anger to be effective.

Rizwan shows us that justice, at its core, is love made brave.

Strength – Veer (Veer-Zaara)

Keywords: Inner Power, Compassion, Patience, Devotion

Veer isn’t strong in the way most heroes are. He doesn’t flex his muscles or raise his voice - ever. But when it comes to emotional strength, no one comes close. He sacrifices his future, freedom, and voice for love, for peace, for respect, and for Zaara’s dignity. The Strength card is about quiet resilience: the power to wait, to endure, to love without demand. Veer spends 22 years behind bars, not out of helplessness but from a place of deep, unwavering choice.



Veer teaches us that the strongest hearts are often the softest ones and that love isn’t proven through possession, but through patience.

The Hierophant – Mohan Bhargava (Swades)


Keywords: Tradition, Teaching, Values

Mohan Bhargava starts as a man of science (NASA engineer) but as he returns to his roots, he becomes a conduit between two worlds: the modern and the traditional. The Hierophant represents a spiritual teacher or guide, someone who honors existing wisdom while also reshaping it for the future. Mohan doesn’t come to the village to “rescue” it. He listens, to understand, and eventually, serves. What makes him the Hierophant is his reverence for learning , not just textbooks and satellites, but hand pumps, village elders, and the lives of those that history usually forgets. He learns as much as he teaches.

Mohan reminds us that true leadership lies in humility and that progress is most powerful when it honors its roots.

The Star – Jahangir Khan (Dear Zindagi)

Keywords: Hope, Healing, Renewal, Guidance

Jug isn’t just a therapist, he’s The Star. He is a gentle, steady light that appears after the storm, guiding Kaira back to herself. The Star comes after The Tower in tarot, symbolizing the calm that follows emotional collapse. That’s exactly where Kaira is when she meets Dr. Jehangir Khan. Burnt out, closed off, disconnected. And he doesn’t rush her. He listens, nudges, and invites her to see herself with compassion. The Star doesn’t heal with grand gestures. It heals with presence. With stillness. With the quiet belief that you can be okay again. Jug never promises to “fix” Kaira. He just shows her she was never broken to begin with.

Jug reminds us that healing doesn’t always roar. Sometimes, it whispers: you’re safe now.

The Devil – Rahul (Darr)

Keywords: Obsession, Shadow Self, Control, Unhealthy Attachments

This isn’t the romantic Rahul we’re used to. This is Rahul with a knife and a stutter, weaponizing vulnerability and intensity. The Devil card in tarot is not evil. It is a mirror of our shadow selves: the parts of us driven by fear, obsession, possession, and the illusion of control. Rahul in Darr is dangerously fixated, mistaking love for ownership, attention for intimacy. What makes it so unnerving is how believable he is. He is soft-spoken, poetic, yet terrifyingly persistent. The Devil card reminds us that when love becomes addiction, it loses all tenderness.

Rahul shows us how unchecked desire can twist even the most romantic heart into a cage.


Death – Don (Don 1 & 2)

Keywords: Transformation, Endings, Rebirth. Power Shift

No one kills a version of themselves quite like Don. Not just once, but again and again. He is the Death card personified: not literal demise, but the complete shedding of one identity to evolve into another. Death in tarot is not an end, but a metamorphosis and Don is constantly three steps ahead, morphing from criminal to kingmaker, from hunted to hunter. What makes Don’s transformation powerful is that he is never apologetic. He reinvents himself with swagger, intelligence, and danger and forces the world to recalibrate around him.

Don teaches us that to become unstoppable, sometimes you have to bury who you were and build something scarier in its place.

The Fool – Sunil (Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa)

Keywords: New Beginnings, Naivete, Risk, Heart-led Choices

Sunil is all heart and no plan. The Fool card captures that wide-eyed, chaotic, sometimes foolish optimism and no SRK role captures this more vulnerably than Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa. Sunil lies, fumbles, schemes, and crashes. But he also feels deeply, earnestly, unashamedly. The Fool isn’t stupid. He is brave in a way only innocence can be. Sunil leaps before he looks, and when he falls, he still believes the next thing will work out. And somehow, he’s right. The world bends just enough to give him another chance.

Sunil shows us that the beginning of every journey is messy, but the heart that leads it? That’s pure magic.

The Chariot – Kabir Khan (Chak De! India)

Keywords: Willpower, Victory, Redemption, Direction

Kabir Khan drives a redemption arc so focused that it burns through into the hearts of his audience. The Chariot is about sheer will, discipline, and moving forward despite resistance. Kabir channels humiliation, bias, and heartbreak into razor-sharp determination and leads his team (and himself) to glory. He did not do any of it for applause. He was there to prove a point. Not to others, but to himself. The Chariot is victory earned, not gifted and Kabir earns every second of it.

Kabir reminds us that strength isn’t just muscle. It is momentum, forged through pain and pointed toward purpose.

If tarot is the story of the soul’s evolution, then Shah Rukh Khan has lived it on screen many times over. He’s been the boy who loved too much and the man who lost it all. He’s played the rebel, the romantic, the redeemer, and the ruthless. From The Fool’s innocent chaos to The Chariot’s unstoppable drive… from The Lovers’ ache to The Devil’s grip… SRK has danced through all the archetypes like he was born with the deck in his veins.

And maybe that’s why we keep returning to him. Because in watching his characters stumble, fight, love, lose, and transform, we’re reminded of our own messy human journeys. His films echo our fears (what if I’m not enough?), our hopes (can I try again?), and our fantasies (what if someone saw the real me and stayed?). And like the tarot, his roles don’t just entertain — they reflect, reveal, and sometimes, even heal.

So the next time you pull a card, don’t be surprised if you see a familiar dimpled smile, arms outstretched, whispering,

“Picture abhi baaki hai, mere dost.”

Psssst - Would you like me to match up rest of the Major Arcanas to other roles he has played?

The movie follows Gabriel (a low ranking angel) who observes Arj (a gig economy worker) and recognises him as a "lost soul" and decides to intervene. 

With a strong cast which includes Aziz Ansari who wrote, directed and stars in the film, along with Seth Rogen, Keanu Reeves, Keke Palmer and Sandra Oh, we were strapped in for strong performances and not only did we get strong performances, we also got one of the best comedy movies of 2025.  

In 2025, when we look around, we realise that everyone in the world is struggling (emotionally, financially and more) while the ones who are rich are getting richer. When I am scrolling through my social media apps, I see another person getting laid off, while simultaneously reading about a millionaire becoming a billionaire. In this current environment, Good Fortune talks about the gig economy in an extremely realistic and tender manner. 

Arj (Aziz Ansari) is a gig economy worker who finds it hard to make ends meet and is perpetually broke. Gabriel (Keanu Reeves) observes Arj's plight and decides to help him by teaching him an age old lesson - "money doesn't solve life's problems" by swapping his life with another (Jeff played by Seth Rogen). Arj, Gabrriel and Jeff learn a lot about each other while they dispel their beliefs and collect new experiences along the way. 

Keanu Reeves has given one of his most charming comedy performances. His Gabriel is confused, innocent and a bit slow. His discoveries (cheeseburgers, taco, smoking, alcohol) and his remarkable bewilderment gives the movie a lot of heart. 

Aziz Ansari has done it again! He is a brilliant writer (if anyone has seen Master of None then you know what I mean) and in this movie he has been able to capture the soul crushing reality of the gig economy. Arj's character does not just struggle, he is living in his car and donating his plasma for cash. The film explores app based work not just as a plot device but as a modern form of exploitation (remember Amazon delivery staff's 14 hour work day with no pee break?) 

Ansari has been able to make the film reflect about poverty in a funny way while making you simultaneously angry for these circumstances. Ansari's chemistry with Reeves makes you believe that the characters have genuinely changed each other's perspectives by the end of the movie. 

Ansari as a director has captured LA in a way where we can see the neighborhoods where people work in impossible jobs and sleep in cars while also following the lives of the ultra rich who have soo much money that they spend a day running between their hot sauna and their cold plunge bath because of "health benefits". 

Seth Rogen's character Jeff is not portrayed as a cartoonish villain, instead he is shown as a product of his circumstances and privilege that have kept him insulated. When he learns about the hardships, we end up laughing with him and there are moments where we feel bad for whoever is on the receiving end of the cruelty of living pay cheque to pay cheque. 

Here's What I Liked about Good Fortune:

If you are looking for a film to entertain you on your day-off, then this one isn't it.

Better Days destroyed me completely. It has been months since I watched it, and I haven't been able to talk to anyone about it at all.



To be frank, I started watching it expecting a social drama about bullying and a bit of romance. What I got was a story that cracked me wide open, wrung me out, and left me crying for days after. This is a movie that doesn’t just tell a story, it changes the way you look at people.

The story follows Chen Nian (Zhou Dongyu), a high school girl crushed under the weight of absentee parents, and the rigorous exam system. Things only get worse when she finds herself the target of the school bully. One day she crosses paths with Xiao Bei (Jackson Yee), a small-time street thug with more scars than swagger. When she sees him getting beat up, she tries calling the police to help, instead gets caught by the thugs. One thing leads to other, and Chen Nian ends up asking Xiao Bei for protection from bullies outside school. Together, they form a fragile alliance, not quite romance, not quite survival pact; but something raw and real that makes your chest ache.

The performances are so good that you believe in the characters and forget that these are just actors playing a role. Zhou Dongyu's performance gives Chen Nian's character a quiet sort of strength that makes you want to shield her from the world and cheer her defiance in the same breath. Jackson Yee, in his first major film role, is shockingly good. He is a small-time street thug, trying to survive on his own and at times we forget how young Xiao Bei is. Behind the rough edges, there’s a vulnerability that makes his bond with Chen Nian extremely tender. Their chemistry isn’t romanticized; it is survival, intimacy forged in fire.

What makes Better Days extraordinary is how it threads tenderness through brutality. The bullying scenes are unbearable. I wanted to skip them, yet sat through them anyway. They are filmed with an unflinching honesty that puts the spotlight on not just cruel classmates but the entire system that lets cruelty fester. And in the middle of all that pain, the film dares to show us love. Pure love. Love as defiance, love as shelter, love as a reminder that even in rubble, something fragile and beautiful can grow.

Cinematically, it is a world of muted grays and dirty streets, a realism that mirrors the suffocating weight on its characters. But it’s in that bleak palette that the smallest gestures - a glance, a touch, and a shared silence shine through like stolen sunlight.

Better Days isn’t an easy watch. It’s brutal, it’s devastating, and it will leave you gutted. But it is also a movie that everyone MUST WATCH. This is a story about youth, cruelty, and survival that refuses to be sanitized, even under censorship pressures. It’s the kind of film that makes you cry not just for the characters but for every young person who has been failed by the world meant to protect them.

The Life of a Showgirl might be a LOT of things, but the life of a swiftie is never dull.

As a Bengali, I was already in a festive mood with Durga Puja shenanigans right before the album release. But I would not deny the fact that I was more excited for the album than I was for Durga Puja this year.

First of all, when the tracks were declared and the fifth track of the album stared at me, I could almost hear it say, “It’s me. Hi! I’m the problem, it’s me.”

Taylor Swift admitted to placing her most “vulnerable, personal, honest, emotional” song as Track 5 on her albums in 2019 when the fans spotted that pattern. Of course, I was eagerly waiting to be wrecked by a song. Again.

In India, the album was released at 9:30 in the morning and I only got out of bed after listening to all the songs. With TLOAS being the shortest TS album till date, it took me just an hour to go through them all (yes, I might’ve listened to a few of them multiple times). I loved some songs immediately and others might’ve taken some time to gel with. After that 31-songs double album which was heavier than expected, I was relieved that The Life of a Showgirl is full of upbeat and lighter songs (except maybe two).

There was a time I used to open my blog with excitement. It was like stepping into a cozy little room filled with my books, my thoughts, favorite words, and the quiet thrill of expression. Then one day, it just felt heavy. I’d stare at the blinking cursor, feeling like a fraud. Every idea I had felt boring and every sentence sounded hollow. I’d open my dashboard, scroll a bit, sigh, and shut it again. Sometimes, I didn’t even bother opening it for weeks at a time.



It didn’t happen all at once. That’s the tricky part about burnout. It’s rarely loud or dramatic. It arrives quietly, in the form of “Maybe I’ll write tomorrow,” or “I don’t know if this post even matters.” It wraps itself in the language of guilt: “You haven’t posted in weeks.” “You’re letting your readers down.” “Everyone else is so consistent. What’s your excuse?” And before you know it, something that once brought you joy begins to feel like a chore that you are miserably failing at.

For me, blogging was never just a hobby. Initially, it was a form of self-expression, and finding a community that loved reading as much as I do. This blog specifically was how I made sense of the world while going through a huge transition in my life. I made sense of life and inevitable changes in life through reviews of K-dramas that made me cry at 2 a.m., personal essays on grief and healing, or lyrical reflections inspired by my favourite artists, re-learning tarot cards and re-igniting my love for long walks. But somewhere along the way, I got tired. Not just physically tired; soul tired. The kind of tired that sleep doesn’t fix. The kind of tired that creativity cannot flow through.

At first, I blamed myself. Maybe I was too busy with work. Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough. Maybe I was being lazy. Maybe I had nothing more to say. But the truth was much simpler, and sadder: I was burned out.

The weirdest part? No one talks about blogger burnout as a real thing. We talk about content creators, influencers, journalists facing burnout all the time. But bloggers often get overlooked. And yet, we’re the ones pouring out the softest, rawest and scariest parts of ourselves into our words. Of course it gets heavy sometimes. If you’re a blogger, or someone who creates anything from the heart, who’s ever felt this way - I want you to know you’re not alone. Burnout is real. It doesn’t make you less of a writer, or less worthy of being read. And it’s not the end.

This post is not a listicle of productivity hacks. It’s not a 10-step formula to “crush your content goals.” It’s simply a story of how I lost my spark and slowly, kindly, found my way back to it. If you’re somewhere on that path too, maybe this can be a breadcrumb you follow home.

Watch out for those signs and take them seriously. There were signs I ignored at first. Small, ordinary signs that now seem almost poetic in hindsight. I stopped jotting down ideas in my notes app. My daily writing rituals - a cup of tea, a soft playlist, a few moments of stillness, faded into background noise. I didn’t feel excited to share my thoughts. I didn’t even feel connected to my voice. And that scared me.

Emotionally, I felt hollow. Like I was watching myself go through the motions, detached from any real sense of purpose. Creatively, I felt like a well run dry. No matter how many prompts or Pinterest boards I looked at, nothing felt true. And physically, it started showing up as mental fog, eye strain, and an odd heaviness in my chest every time I even thought about logging into my site. What made it worse was comparison. I’d see other bloggers pushing out content, growing their platforms and I’d spiral. I am not up-to-date on instagram algorthm or the reel trends and I felt like I was falling behind. I wasn’t just tired, I was inadequate. And that shame loop can be brutal. We rarely talk about how painful it is to lose something that once made us feel like ourselves. But that’s what burnout can do. It doesn’t just rob you of your energy. It robs you of your identity.

So, if you’re here... stuck, stalled, or silent... wondering why something you once loved now feels like a burden… please know this: It’s not your fault. You didn’t fail. You’re just burned out. And you deserve rest, not judgment.

The first step to healing wasn’t forcing myself to write again. It was admitting I couldn’t. And in that quiet surrender, the healing began. One of the hardest things I had to learn, and I say this as someone who prides herself on being productive even when I’m running on emotional fumes, was that I am allowed to stop.

Not pivot. Not rebrand. Not hustle in a “new direction.” Just… pause.

Here are the shifts that helped me find my way:

1. I reconnected with why I started this blog in the first place

2. I let the content priority change

3. I Wrote Without the Pressure to Publish

4. I Became a reader again

5. I made mini rituals around writing

6. I stopped pressuring myself

No single change “fixed” the burnout. But together, they gently co-created a space where writing didn’t feel like something I had to fight. It felt like something I could trust again. Coming back from burnout isn’t about going back to who you were. It is about building something more sustainable from the ashes of what once overwhelmed you. When I finally began writing again - truly writing, not just forcing words out, I realized that I didn’t want to go back to the pace or pressure I had set for myself before. I didn’t want to be a content machine. I wanted to be a person who created from a place of honesty, not obligation.

So here’s what I do differently now:

I don’t chase consistency. Yes, consistency is important. But connection — with myself, with my writing, with my readers — is sacred. If I can’t show up with my full heart, I’d rather wait until I can.

I plan for breaks before I burn out. Now, I build in rest periods. I treat them as necessary pauses, not signs of failure. I no longer wait until I’ve hit the wall. I slow down before I crash into it.

I embrace imperfection. Some posts are poetic, others are plain. Some are long essays, others are lists or rambles. And that’s okay. My blog is not a portfolio — it’s a living, breathing space. It grows and shifts just like I do.

I stay close to my “why.” Every now and then, I ask myself: Why am I writing this? Who am I writing for? What would I say if no one ever read it but me? That check-in helps me write from a place of truth, rather than perform for algorithms or imaginary critics.

I seek help. Whether it is ChatGPT to help me polish my ideas or certain sentences; or ask my co-blogger to pick up the slack from time to time. I am human and it is okay to ask for help.

I let myself write about what makes me feel alive. I do not care whether that’s a K-drama review that no one asked for, a tarot post that no one cares about, or a stream-of-consciousness post about sunsets and solitude. If it lights me up, it’s worth writing.

Burnout taught me that I am not a machine. I am a person with seasons, rhythms, and limits. I no longer romanticize hustle. I romanticize presence, purpose, and peace. And honestly? My life is better for it.