The rulebook of a Bohemian writer

(A survivor guide for failed authors by Sidharth Vardhan)

1. Never get married or get into a relationship that expects you to. Never have children.
2. Never own a thing that you can't pick up in a single hand. Things you can't own as per the rule - vehicles, houses (rent a room all for yourself), desktops (laptops are fine), big sound systems (smaller ones are fine), fridge, washing machines, furniture bigger than chairs, small tables, and a small metallic bed.
3. Never take up a job that needs a routine.
4. Never own physical hard copies of books. Notebooks and pens are fine.
5. Never develop an addiction for any kind of food - this includes drinks, cigarettes, meds, coffee, tea, or even good food.
6. Never 'own' a pet. If you must chain or cage it, you own it - it's not a family or friend. Having an animal friend whom you hang out with and feed but don't ever chain or cage is fine.
7. Never be scared of asking for money from people but don't make promises to pay back if you can't.
8. Never develop a need to be wanting to be dressed properly in any way or have a shred face or even bathe regularly. If you have a problem wearing socks of different colors or clothes that make you look like a beggar, you are breaking this rule.
9. Never develop a habit for conditioned air (Ac, coolers, internal heating).
10. Never pay for things that someone can share without a personal loss e.g. Netflix subscription.
11. Never keep more money in hard cash with you than you have to.
12. Necessary assets of a Bohemian writer - 'a room of one's own', a small cheap laptop, a small laptop, a smartphone, a pair of earphones, a Google account, a pair of pens, a notebook, ready internet access, a metallic cup, free versions of cloud services (particularly ones with a website), free versions of note keeping apps (particularly ones with a website), bowl and plate, pockets (lots of them), backpacks, big coats (with lots of pockets particularly internal ones).
13. Never learn to drive or pretend you don't know how.
14. Down own these things yourself but find friends who do and will help you if you need their use: Printers, two-wheelers, cars, Netflix, nail clippers, mechanical tools
15. Don't own more than 3 pairs of footwear.
16. Avoid owning easily breakable stuff e.g. crockery or decorations (e.g. wallpapers). This includes hard copies of photos dear to you. Exceptions - mobile and laptop with glass screens, your collection of photos (saved on the cloud) and beautiful wallpapers are okay.
17. Never borrow from a bank, buy a thing on credit or anyway get into a condition where you must pay EMIs. Never in any way get yourself in a commitment where you must back money in a specific period (even it is a long period). Don't break this rule even if it means living deprived of necessary assets.
18. If you come into a lot of money and you already have the necessary assets; pay back those you borrowed money from, lend some more to them so as to ask it back in small sums when you need it, donate the rest or what comes to the same thing, buy copies of books by living writers that you have already read and loved. If you must, you can keep some money in the bank but if you do, don't let it affect your lifestyle (except now you have to borrow less from friends.
19. Google spies on you but is still your friend because it is freer and it's services are more readily accessible. Apple doesn't spy on you but is a servant to the rich only and imprisoning so not a friend. Don't ever use an apple product. Anything that needs a 'jailbreak' is evil.
20. If you are watching videos for more than two hours a day on average, you are watching too much of videos. Try watching only quality content even in that time. Small TikTok-sized videos offered by any company whatsoever are evil.
21. Save everything important to you on a free cloud service that let's you have a backup as far as possible.
22. Accept that you will probably die a failure, alone and ununderstood.

(Copyright - Sidharth Vardhan)