The Better Blueprint

Some Mornings

Some mornings arrive not with sound, but with presence.

The house is still. The tea simmers. The sun has not yet decided what kind of day it will be. That’s when I feel them most—my ancestors. Not as spirits, not as visions. Just a soft knowing.

They are in the way the wind moves through the neem tree.
In the old dented ladle that still stirs the dal.
In the pauses between chores.

I don’t remember all their names. Some were never written down. Some faded with time, like ink left out in the sun. But memory works in stranger ways—it doesn’t always need names to remember love.

One taught me silence is not emptiness.
Another, that a meal is never just food—it's prayer served warm.
A few taught me what not to become. And I thank them, too.

When I tend to my small garden, I think of my grandmother’s hands—rough from scrubbing floors, gentle while plucking tulsi leaves.
When I write, I wonder if some long-forgotten uncle once kept journals no one ever found.
When I cry without reason, I feel the weight of old griefs I never lived, only inherited.

There’s something holy about continuing.
About standing in a kitchen once theirs,
wearing socks they never owned,
boiling water the same way.

We are the newest leaves on an old, gnarled tree.
And though our lives look different,
our roots hum the same lullaby.

So today, I pause.
I bow—not with rituals, but with remembrance. For the ones who walked before me
so I could walk barefoot and free.

They didn’t ask to be remembered.
But I remember anyway.

Uncelebrated Kindness

In life, not everything needs a proclamation.
Some of the most meaningful acts happen without noise, without an audience, without reward.

There are people—not always loud, not always noticed—who make it a habit to fix what’s broken. A loose bolt on a shared bench. A torn corner of a poster. A moment of silence in a room that needs soft laughter.

They do not do this because someone asked them to.
They do it because they noticed. And once you’ve learned to notice, it’s hard to unsee.

This isn’t about tools or handiwork. It’s a way of walking through the world. A way of saying—“Let me leave this place a little better than I found it.”
Even if no one sees.
Even if no one claps.

To fix something quietly is a form of love.
It says: I cared enough to act, even when it wasn’t mine to mend.
It says: I see the cracks, and I won’t look away.
It says: Maintenance is grace. And care is a steady hand.

In a world chasing applause, choose to be the one who repairs.
The one who resets the chair before leaving the café.
Who replies gently to the curt email.
Who keeps no score.

Because it’s not always the grand gestures that hold the world together.
Sometimes, it’s the quiet ones who fix things before they fall apart.
And walk away without leaving their name.

A Great Quote

“The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts;
and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been,
is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life,
and rest in unvisited tombs.” — George Eliot

Book Review: “The Book of Delights” by Ross Gay

The Book of Delights is a quiet, luminous collection of daily essays by poet Ross Gay. Written over the course of one year, each short entry captures a moment of ordinary joy—a smile from a stranger, a chance encounter, the beauty of birdsong, or the memory of an old friend. The essays are raw, warm, and observant, drawing from everyday American life with a tone that is part journal, part meditation.

Gay’s central idea is simple: train your mind to notice delight, even in its smallest, most fleeting forms. But this book is not naïve. It is full of social tension, grief, and fatigue. The delight here is not escapist—it is rooted, grounded, and often bittersweet.

Ross Gay writes the way one might speak to a kind friend after a long day: openly, gently, with pauses. His voice is personal and unpolished, and that’s its strength. These are not carefully sculpted essays. They are reflections—loose, fragmented, spontaneous.

What sets this book apart is its refusal to separate joy from reality. Gay walks through the world with a deep awareness of injustice, racism, aging, and grief. But even in the thick of that, he finds room to marvel—at language, at friendships, at small mercies.

Key Themes

• The Discipline of Noticing: This is a book about attention—how to stay awake to the overlooked.

• Joy and Sorrow Together: Many delights sit beside wounds. There is no denial, only tenderness.

• Connection: Whether through casual friendships, memory, or strangers on the street, Gay shows how deeply we crave and create connection in passing ways.

• The Body and Presence: There is a constant return to embodiment—the feeling of walking, eating, touching, laughing. Delight is never theoretical here; it is always lived.

Who This Is For

If you are drawn to the slow life, to the art of reflection, or to noticing the beauty of what isn’t trending—this book will feel like a companion. It’s ideal for those who enjoy writers like Mary Oliver, Pico Iyer, or Anne Lamott—writers who look at the ordinary and find something holy.

It may not suit readers who want resolution, a plot, or structured argument. There is no grand arc here. Just a year’s worth of tender moments—one after another, like rain on a tin roof.

Final Thoughts

This book doesn’t change your life in one sitting. But it gently teaches you how to return to life—to its cracks, its clutter, its sweetness.

You don’t read this book once.
You return to it—on slow afternoons, tired mornings, and days when you want to remember how to look at the world again.

About : Welcome to our fortnightly journey—a space for reflection, growth, and quiet discovery. Each edition brings two deep dives into personal transformation, a handpicked quote to stir the soul and a review of a book that reshapes perspectives.