What happened to me in Italy
And what I'm upto in 2025
Happy 2025 friends! I hope you’ve had a good start to this year!
In this post, for the first time I’m sharing unfiltered thoughts about what’s been happening with me and how I feel. I’ve decided that I’m no longer going to spend hours aiming for perfection – in anything I do – starting with this blog. And no, I won’t accept Grammarly’s suggestions barring typos.
Here goes:
Being out in the real world outside of my bubble was nothing short of therapeutic.
After a long long time, I was able to be who I really am – a fun-loving extrovert who loves getting to know people’s stories and sharing his own.
Think of me as the guy who likes to strike up a conversation with the barista, the waitress, and the immigrant selling souvenirs. I love asking random couples and families in touristy spots if they’d like me to click a picture for them. And I leave no opportunity to get to know about the local culture from service providers like taxi drivers, hotel folks, street food vendors, and so on.
Being in Italy this December enabled me to do all of this. I was able to be my true self and feel alive. I made friends, and I made plans to host them and visit them again. I was reminded that I thrive around kind people and I must find a way to surround myself with kind people once I’m back home – something that’s been missing in my physical world.
Most importantly though, after 5 very difficult years, this trip helped Debolina (we’ve been married since 2016) and I do the things we love doing together – roaming around aimlessly by foot being the favorite.
I cannot express how grateful I am to be in a position to take a trip like this at a time like this.
There’s so much suffering going on, good people are struggling to find jobs, those who have jobs are barely able to make ends meet, and overall, people are anxious about everything that’s going on.
Therefore, I don’t take my privilege lightly. I think about it way too much; it makes me feel both happy and sad – for various reasons.
What annoys me the most is how much more unfair the world has become. We have a billionaire who chooses to float on a yacht longer than a professional football field1 and at the same time, we have children consuming polluted water to stay alive.2
I know I’m digressing but it’s something that I’ve been wanting to write about and now felt right.
Anyhow, I just wanted to let you know that taking an extended time off from work has enabled me to get out of my shell and connect with the real world after 5 long years.
If you’re feeling anxious, overwhelmed, burnt out, or anything in between, take some time off, do that thing you’ve always wanted to do but didn’t have the bandwidth for, and most importantly, enjoy life while it lasts.
I’m not here to preach but to share what’s working for me.
I’m finally working on my poetry book which I’ve been putting off for 15 years. And because nobody buys poetry books, I’m also using AI to bring my words to life!
Wanna take a look?
My book/album is called The Crude Caress which used to be the name of this blog. My goal is to tell stories that go beyond my poetry which is why I’ve renamed it to Raconteur Arpit.
I’ve also started posting on Instagram and will soon begin sharing stuff on YouTube.
Thanks for reading!
I want to hear from you:
What’s new?
Working on a creative project?
Got a playlist to share?
Text me on WhatsApp if it’s easier to respond: +91-9953-666-710
This is great, glad to know y’all!
Glad you got to disconnect to reconnect Arpit. Your trip to Italy looks like it was a blast and a well deserved dose of kindness. Happy you wrote this, keep writing!