On fixing things, presence, and balance
My life condensed into variably interesting posts on the internet
Welcome to Re: Life. I’m Aaryan Harshith. I’m a high-schooler from Sudbury, Canada that’s trying to figure out what in the world’s going on. Yeah. That’s about it.
Why a newsletter? So that one day, a long, long time from now, when my great great grandchildren ask me what my life was like, I can give them this link, and they can read it like a story. (I hope we figure out longevity by then).
(P.S. Accidentally forgot to credit last week’s cover photo. Big shoutout to Marjan Taghipour from Unsplash. Also edited that post to include a fitting kudos.)
What I’ve been up to
<//> Back to school now. Soaking up pages of Alice Munro in English, combusting magnesium in chemistry, and enjoying my old discussions with friends.
But these days - even when I’m having the time of my life - new thoughts unexpectedly welcome themselves into my head (“This won’t last for long”, “You’ll be gone in less than a year”…), lingering just beneath the surface.
Frankly, it still feels surreal that I’m in grade twelve - that so much of my life has passed so quick already. Just two years ago, I wanted to accelerate toward adulthood. Now, childhood is the one thing I’m trying to hold on to.
Of course it won’t last - nothing will - but at the very least, I can try to be present and hope the dots will connect one day.
<//> These days, I’m trying to reconnect with my parents. For the first time in a while, I went to a restaurant with my mom and watched a movie. I’m trying to get away from my old life of extremes, where I’d focus on things so intensely that everything else fell away.
I’m beginning to ask myself is this is really how a life should be lived. I still don’t have an answer, but after all this time trying to figure things out, it really would be hilarious if I arrived at the most conventional piece of advice in the book: balance.
But I think that’s really what’s happening.
<//> Catching up with buoyancy, Thales theorem, and countless other intricacies that can only be found in the world of mathematics and physics.
This stuff’s meant to be hard - there’s no denying it - but I’m starting to find an oddly cerebral kind of satisfaction from doing it anyway.
Maybe my will is a muscle, and even the things I find enjoyable are subject to change. Or maybe, I’m overthinking this.
Thought of the Week
A literary grenade from Oscar Wilde
“And all at once, summer collapsed into fall.”
Take out of that quote what you will. Is it just seasonal, or could it represent the stages of life, the arc of a story, or the passage of time?
What season are you in? That’s your enigma to solve.
<//> Thanks for reading! Like I already mentioned I’m Aaryan. My main work lies at the intersection between hardware and medicine, trying to build better diagnostics / imaging systems to help us treat cancer. My favourite time of the day is the night.
If you’re already here, I’m making it a point to know everyone in this community. Drop a comment or send me an email at aary.harshith@gmail.com for no reason at all. I love those kinds of conversations. I won’t scam you either.