Monday, June 15, 2015

Wisdom



Signs of worldly wisdom: (Disclaimer: I'm the type that will score big on all of these when pigs begin to fly. Let me know if you are the type that only needs crows to fly, for you to conduct correspondence courses on any of the topics below) 

1. Not being sure of anything (as in, knowing that any damn thing is possible and nothing is certain) 
2. Accepting inevitable change with a nonchalant flick of a speck of dust from one's attire (just pretend to flick a speck of dust if there is no speck of dust) 
3. Having zero expectations from loved ones and people in general (inner peace)   
4. Being able to stay calm amidst clutter and chaos (if you are a top scorer in this area, please send me a selfie with your signature) 

5. Being able to juggle social situations and solitude with equal ease (gawk)    

Words are all I have



A hundred unwritten poems in the heart
A hundred incomplete ones that will never see the light of the day
Some that came alive
A few that made it big
A few that destroyed what was
Words are all you sometimes have
Good, bad or ugly

A Life of Purpose



I delve into one of my favorite topics - life, purpose and happiness - and hope it strikes a few chords. 

All of us need something that we can focus and spend our energies on, in life. We need our lives to revolve around something or the other, just like how the Earth needs the Sun; simply because we do not feel truly alive if we don't have something to focus on. To use a cliché, we only exist. 

One of the most positive and yet fragile emotions that we can expend our energies on is love. The subject or object of love may be one (or more) of the following: 

(This list is in no particular order and is open for debate. There may be some unavoidable overlaps between a few areas) 

Love for: 

- Conventional work
- Sport & Physical activity 
- God
- Life (Probably through science, art or service) 
- An idea or a concept
- A cause
- Another human being or family or other entities such as animals/plants 
- Mankind as a whole or a specific community or one's country
- Food
- Power or Fame or Money & Luxuries 
Oneself 

There is no right or wrong.

Meera Bai chose to focus on God. Gandhi chose a cause and a country. Steve Jobs chose an idea. Romeo chose another human being. Einstein chose God and life through science.

Disney chose to focus on life through art. Wodehouse chose life through art. 
Victor Frankl chose life through service and himself (in an indomitable way). Watterson chose life through art and himself (in an unconventional way). 
Jane Goodall chose a specific community of animals. Aung San Suu Kyi chose a country. Sachin chose a sport.
 The Dalai Lama chose mankind and a cause. A lot of politicians and businessmen may start with a cause but digress and go into power or money. A lot of actors and movie-makers may start with an idea or life through art but digress into money or fame and so on.   

Each of us gravitates towards one or more items in the list based on our nature, upbringing, influences, circumstances, challenges, skills, early experiences in life and so on. The intensity with which we pursue what we choose varies from person to person. If we focus on a category that we have some control over (with exceptions such as God and Mankind) and one for which we have the necessary skills and wherewithal, we're going to be happy and busy...or happily busy. Simply because we are doing what we love, are good at and have the resources for. The caveat, however, is that if we are excessively obsessed with our chosen 'Sun' and lose our grip over it, we may fall out of our orbit and into a potential catastrophe unless we have the skills to jump on to another appropriate orbit (think lone genius scientists/geeks etc)   

On the other hand, if we don't gravitate towards at least one item in the list, life looks empty and void of any meaning. I suspect no one can exist this way unless (s)he is in a vegetative state. In related news, the common and widely accepted solution to engage ourselves with life and have something to focus on is Marriage. We are, more often than not, guaranteed to have a spouse and/or child(ren) that we will feel motivated to place at the center of our world.     

Let's take a closer look at some of the items in the list.

- Conventional work: This is adrenalin, accomplishment and intelligence based love. An extreme form of "work love"is perhaps entrepreneurship. 

- God: Inexplicable to many and enchanting to those submerged in it because you need to live in the spiritual realm and see what most people can't or choose not to see. Tricky because everything is based on our own interpretation of events, dreams and otherwise indecipherable miracles.

- Idea or Concept: One of the more fulfilling items because people who pursue ideas are generally the ones who do not wait for it to be approved by others. A great manifestation of end to end creativity. Take one idea and chase it all your life because it is one meteor of an idea or take up a series of smaller ideas one after another and jump from one fascinating world to another. Bliss of creation, accomplishment, intelligence, life and more. You might forget yourself as you transform the idea from its abstract form into tangible reality. 

- A cause: Arguably, the most noble pursuit and the one most approved by the social ecosystem. Otherwise more or less similar to loving an idea. But every cause has its share of critics who are hoping that it will cease to be given importance. It is, arguably, easier to ignore idea critics but not so easy to ignore people who become obstacles to causes. 

- Another human: Most tangible, natural, and popular choice for a majority of humans. Simple and popular way of leading your life as long as you are good at dealing with people, understanding others (or just that one person) and garnering the support of the rest of the people in your life. If your people skills are bad, this can turn out to be a huge and hilarious mess.

- Power/Fame/Money or Luxuries: Love that many people cry against but secretly pursue or find it hard to resist if it happens to them. 

- Oneself: All of us need at least a bit of this in order to survive with self-respect but too much in the wrong direction turns you into a megalomaniac that the world loves to hate. Hats off to the few people who have mastered the art of focusing on the self without alienating others.     

Finally, if you know how to engage yourself properly in one of the categories and learn to efficiently juggle a few more categories, you're likely to be a happy person. However, shifting frequently within the same category may be the result of inappropriate focus, flimsy thinking or lack of ethics (think politicians switching parties on the pretext of supporting a new cause every few years or movie actors confused about specializing in commercial vs art genres). 


So, what am I driving at? My undying love for exploring and analyzing life from my armchair.....God only knows. :-P  #kthxbye 

Mobile Technology - Impact


Mobile phones are going to lead to large-scale destruction. That's what's in store. Someone is going to invent an App to predict the exact date very soon. It'll be a free download. People will brag about it too.
Maybe we should all be happy for the world, as it now has an obvious opportunity to renew itself. 2012 is done.


Sample this. These days, people go around taking pictures of those in distress/jaws of death rather than putting their phones away to save them. Advertisements proudly declare that we must stop interacting with people as they may not respect us and we must instead shift our focus to mobile phones as they, however, are sure to respect us.Advertisements also unequivocally suggest that we must not think twice about taking selfies and posting them as it may inspire people in our lives.

As if it was not enough for businesses to be obsessed with numerical evidence to prove their worth, we now have toddlers, teenagers and oldies hanging on to the number of likes to measure their self-worth.

H.O.P.E


Ken Robinson - "Not far from where I live is a place called Death Valley. Death Valley is the hottest, driest place in America, and nothing grows there. Nothing grows there because it doesn't rain. Hence, Death Valley. In the winter of 2004, it rained in Death Valley. Seven inches of rain fell over a very short period. And in the spring of 2005, there was a phenomenon. The whole floor of Death Valley was carpeted in flowers for a while. What it proved is this: that Death Valley isn't dead. It's dormant. Right beneath the surface are these seeds of possibility waiting for the right conditions to come about, and with organic systems, if the conditions are right, life is inevitable. It happens all the time." via TED

Thursday, January 01, 2015

Fully Alive or Not?

There are probably only two ways to stay fully and truly alive.

To be completely engrossed in reality and merge into it; to absorb everything in the world and respond back to it so casually and efficiently that the give and take is seamless, there appears to be just one entity in all and there is no such thing as unproductive friction.

Or....to be amazingly unperturbed and detach oneself thoroughly from reality, as if it were of no consequence whatsoever. To be as if nothing actually happened even whilst everything happened.....if you get my drift. To behave like there is no other entity apart from the self.

Some enlightened souls, of course, would have us believe that both these ways are exactly the same. ;) #zen #paradox