Growth and contentment

 It's tough trying to be a strict adherent of a philosophical way of life in these modern times, especially the school of Stoicism, but I'm never giving up on the journey. I can confidently say that every day is a betterment. But it's almost like I need an alter-ego to embrace the principles of a stoic way of life on the one hand, and trying to gel with the society, trying to play the role of an active social animal with all the likes/dislikes, differences, opinions and so on, on the other hand. But there is a purpose and a set of moral principles and guidelines I try to follow in every thing I do and in the way I try to live. Getting better at those never stops, it's a journey with scope for continuous betterment. I strive to keep that in check as much as I can so that the compromise between my stoic self and the social animal is a peaceful acceptance and a pleasant co-existence. As always, there is Seneca to the rescue and guidance:

One's life should be a compromise between the ideal and the popular morality. People should admire our way of life but they should at the same time find it understandable  - Letter V, Letters from a Stoic

This is how I learn and strive to strike a balance between being humbled & contented with what life throws at me (as a proper stoic disciple should) and working to grow as a better social animal. The alter-egos will eventually merge at some point when I will have surrounded myself with like social animals and we don't have a veil of compromise between us

The exercise called gratitude

Gratitude is an exercise for the soul that's just as important as physical exercise is for the body. Just as training against gravity strengthens the body, training gratitude daily against the gravity of life strengthens the soul

Of common man's clichés and truth

Is it because the common man's life is a journey of clichés that the clichés become his truth, or is it because his many paths to the truth in life are so clichéd that the truth itself becomes a cliché?

Of struggle & strengths

The point of any struggle is not overcoming the struggle itself, but acquiring the courage to withstand it while it lasts, and the will to see it through while it passes. For the actual point of the struggle passing is but a fleeting moment, but the courage and will acquired are lasting strengths

The loop of acceptance

As much as we have convinced ourselves and accepted the fact that these are tough times, for work, for businesses, for families and for the communities, and that the new normal is totally abnormal, I retrospect a little bit in a differnet frame of mind and find that this has been a time of blessing. There has never been a better time to count the true blessings in life for what they teach us about life, and death. Life is only meaningful because the discerning eye defines purpose. Because in death, there is no discrimination or purpose.

It's surprising, and worth retrospecting, how our perspective of life changes in a short time. In the sixty days since the lockdown and other controlling measures kicked in and have been in place, I have been going back to the Stoic basics and it has never made so much sense as it has now. I have crossed ocenas and am now on the othe side of the world. Life changes for me as I speak. And I have indeed risked coming in contact with and getting infected through unknowns (God knows who had what virus in those cramped airports and fully-packed flights!). But I had to take the flight even in that dire situation. And I can't emphasize enough that somewhere in all that chaos, it was all pure luck and timing. Back home, I hear from friends and family that the virus has caught on to their neighbors. It gets personal this time, doesn't it?

All this does nothing to assuage the fear that life is totally unpredictable and unplannable, and acceptance is the only way forward. We can whine all about bad luck or we can accept life with equanimity. Hence there is a perspective shift from 'plan for the worst, hope for the best' to 'live for good, the here and now'. There is no plan that cannot be disrupted. Our plans may appear too good to fail, but never underestimate the power of luck and timing, and Karma.

We propose. Karma/Luck/Timing disposes. We accept. We strive. And with enough practice of acceptance, peace bestows herself upon us.

And the loop plays forever.

Learning how to die

COVID-19 has changed people's lives in ways unimaginable until now. It is truly a crisis of a lifetime. I wish no generation hereafter has to face a pandemic of such proportions. Deaths go up by the thousands world over on a daily basis, over a night's sleep. And we don't even know if we have peaked, or when we will peak. We are left in the lurch, with nothing but hourly news of rising number of cases and deaths. Mortality rates compared to other pandemics of the earlier centuries don't matter anymore. Cure is a long way out, and prevention isn't getting any better as long as as people continue to ignore common sensical behaviours such as social distancing, personal hygiene etc. 

We have long lived a life of reckless materialism in the name of economic progress. It is time to question the definitions of developed nations and developing nations when their leaders lack leadership, governments lack good governance and the millions of people of these nations lack common sense grossly at such a critical time. And Nature seems to be taking the mantle back, at least long enough for us to realize that we have erred enormously in claiming superiority over Her. Nature doesn't need us, we need Her. To Her, we are just one of the million species She has given residence to. But to us, She is the supreme provider. And how we humans as a whole have brought ourselves to knees before Her now. Perhaps this is a reset button to unlearn the ways of our past and learn what truly matters from what Nature has given us and continues to give us. And what She gives, She takes back. And perhaps, now is the time to start to learn how to give ourselves back to Her when the bell tolls. Like it or not, given where we have ended up, what matters now is to start learning how to die. In other words, how we give ourselves back to Nature when the time comes. 

Specifically in the case of COVID-19: How do we learn to come to terms with an enemy unseen, yet so powerful and terminative in character? It doesn't kill us by combat or by war, it kills us by contact. But we know that. What we don't know is how we came into contact with someone infected with it, who in turn had no idea how he came into contact with someone else who had it. 'Contact tracing' may have sound logic and method behind it, but it does not answer 'why me?'- why should I be the one to come into contact with an infected person? Pure bad luck? Karma? Now, I don't have anyone in my social circle who is infected or dead yet. If it were the case, I wouldn't be reacting the way I am now. 

Now extrapolating this to a broad swathe of possibilites: what is the guarantee that a scenario of death in any form may not come to any of us anytime soon? Are we prepared to let go of someone when their time comes? And more importantly, are we ourselves prepared to say our goodbyes?

While medicine and science can prepare our bodies and minds to give a good fight, now it is only philosophy that can prepare our souls for accepting the ultimatum when it comes. In the midst of this fight with so much of progress in medicine and science, a philosophical twist may seem irrelevant. But this is where it makes the most sense and this is what we should all seek now. If not COVID-19, it is something else some other day. We have a choice, either seek wisdom or die in anxiety and ignorance. Maybe it is a good thing to see COVID-19 as only a trigger event to start the learning.

It doesn't matter what path of philosophy we start with. Most lead us to the same eternal truths. As proof, I leave you with the wisdom of Adisankara & Seneca as starting points (though Hindu and Roman in origin respectively, and separated by centuries, these two greats had more or less the same underlying principles on dealing with life and death, in their respective philosophies of Hinduism and Stoicism!):

From 'Bhaja Govindam' by Adisankara

मा कुरु धनजनयौवनगर्वं हरति निमेषात कालः सर्वं.

मायामयमिदमखिलं हित्वा ब्रह्मपदं त्वं प्रविश विदित्वा 

(Transliteration: maa kuru dhana jana youvana garvam, harathi nimeshaath kaala sarvam, maya mayamidham akhilam hithva, brahma padham thvam pravisha vidithva
Meaning: Do not pride/boast yourself in wealth, people and youth. Time can take all these away in an instant. Give up this world full of Maya (illusions) and work to attain the path of Brahma (supreme consciousness) 

And from Seneca in his famed 'Letters from a Stoic':

Now I bear it in mind not only all things are liable to death but that liability is governed by no set rules. Whatever can happen at any time can happen today. Let us reflect then, that we ourselves shall not be long in reaching the place we mourn his having reached. Perhaps too, if only there is truth in the story told by sages and some welcoming abode awaits, he whom we suppose to be dead and gone has merely been sent on ahead 

Let us start learning!

The passions of tomorrow

It's an ideal title given that we are in a grave global imbalance that is threatening life itself, and we are in the process of trying to stop it and set up a new normal. But this post is not about the reset itself, but my view of what it takes to accept a new reset and how I think I could set myself up for that. In the eight months since dabbling with the idea of many passions, I'm yet to find that tomorrow when I will start picking up one of the callings and doing something with it. I came incredibly close last week to the start of that tomorrow, but it has been put on hold. No hurry, given the reset that is underway. (The truth is I accepted it only after a day of bitter feelings, because the wait was too long! It was self-centered thought and I'm ashamed of it!). Bigger things are at stake for everyone. The next few weeks and months are going to change our lives in more ways than we can imagine.

Good things come to those who wait. The only problem with that is, for some of the things, the wait is just too long! But it is what it is. It shouldn't be surprising that the scales of maturity tilt more towards the spiritual side as one grows up. And one of my measures for that is how quickly I accept setbacks and get back on my feet. This time, a day seemed reasonable. I think I'll get better at it. If everything I wished for happened like clock work, what's the fun in it? And without some crude unexpected fun unleashed upon an adventurous soul, how does one appreciate the whiplashes of Karma?

Here is my realization from all that is happening. The paths for the passions of tomorrow are paved by the due repayment of my debts of today! Karma's account is never off-balance in the end, even though it may not seem so during the process. If it seems off-balance, it's not the end. And that is what this reset makes me think of my own time now. As counterintuitive as it may seem to the path I'm about to set off on, I'm more and more inclined to understand, analyze, soul-search and then set right my debts of each passing day. Or rather, only now it makes all the sense to me to be wearing this lens, exactly when I'm about to set off. It helps set things in perspective!

Sidenote: Sometimes the payment is past due and come with a penalty for the thing/person it is intended to be repaid to. One of the forms of penalty I have encountered is burning a good bridge before reflecting upon and appreciating another person's good wishes for me which I didn't yet acknowledge. And if the moment of genuine reflection is too late, it means nothing to the other person. One's genuineness to another person means nothing if the timing of it isn't right! They couldn't care less if you're too late. After all, there are only so many people who truly wish well for others without expecting anything in return, isn't it? But even above this, the hilarious irony of this is, when you want to be better today than the person you were yesterday, sometimes Karma expects you to be good for all the things you haven't been good at, in one shot!

That's all for this short babble!

Proud to be - or not to be - humble

Pride comes before the fall. That's blanket. What we do not get to know rightly is whether pride always comes before the fall, or do we certainly fall every time when pride gets to the head? Are praises & feelings of pride for you* from family & best friends a matter of pride for yourself? It's not a big deal for your family and your besties to feel proud of you. They know you are good and they are proud of you. They are your blood & flesh; even best friends are. I have best friends with whom I've shared a good part of my life since schooling, eating from the same plate, sleeping on the same bed, going through life's ups and downs, and also having fun together, and so on.. for two decades. You are proud of yourself because of the fact that all these people are proud of you. You feel proud and you move on. Period. In such instances there is no fall coming. This is a no-brainer. Even if you ask them openly (to remove any doubts you may have) 'are you proud of me?', they are gonna say 'of course' as if you asked 'did you sleep last night?'.

What is surprising is when acquaintances or colleagues or other friends (who are not best friends) say they are proud of you, and they mean it, when you least expect them to. That is the point of contention.

Human feelings are a puzzle in two ways.
1. The people you want to keep at arm's length or those who are not in your inner circle end up loving you and being proud of you, more than you can take. It's what I'm terming the FOOL's syndrome - the Fear Of Overwhelming Love. You do not understand the reason behind their affection/pride for you, and yet they bombard you with exactly that, growing into a fear of when & how they threaten to bury you in their affection, pride, and ultimately their love for you, so much that you break the chain with them. (Come on, I'm kidding. Nobody's like that these days!).

2. The people you expect to love you, or to be proud of you, are not there yet. Let me first of all warn that such expectations are the enemy of inner peace. Despite that, as feeling beings, you expect a great majority of your acquaintances to be proud of you. Sometimes you expect more and sometimes less. But you almost always expect. And when once in a while such expectations become a reality, you are proud of yourself. That pride is what surprises me all the more!

If you don't accept, acknowledge and feel humbled by their feeling of pride for you, you become cynics and recluses. And so you fall. If you do accept them, you become self-glorifying, and sometimes even arrogant, basking in the thought that you reign supreme in their hearts. And so you fall, again. The huge space between these extremes is a fully grey area, and somewhere in that grey area is where humility lies, I think. In such instances, it would help for us to be proud of ourselves, just to ourselves, and just enough to keep our head high in our heart's eyes, no more no less. Isn't that enough? And that moment of self-humility radiates universally, and is a thing to be certainly proud of! I think humility is by far the most important and, at the same time, the most underrated virtue.

* - 2nd person singular throughout the post is simply for convenience of conveying the message!

Better late than later...

Happy New Year and Happy Pongal wishes to y'all, belated though!

Over the course of the last few roller-coaster years, I have realized that ambitious resolutions in the new year generally don't take me far when I take stock at the end of the year. I'd rather have some blend of the SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound! Yes, management jargon. No one I know has mastered them, let's at least use it in language). So, I have a few simple resolutions for 2020 that have at least one or two of the 5 smart aspects combined. And I'm late by 3 days on one of the resolutions. But that's fine. I'd rather do it late than a little later (hence the title!). At the end of the year, I'll let you guess what that is.

This year I'm gonna travel. Except that it'd be across time zones, I don't exactly how far or how often, except one. But I'm sure it'll be a year of travelearning (bingo, i just had this pop up extempore to mean 'learning from travel experiences'!). 2019 had a few bumpy crossroads in sight on the professional side, when I could have taken on a new path, when I was ready to test the dirt & gravel on the unpaved roads leading to I don't know where. But I was lured back to the normalcy of the finely-laid, well-marked tar road of the mundane salaried-job! But I think I have waited enough this time. I will hit the dirt and see what I have to face.

As I take on the challenges I can and cannot foresee yet, I'll try my best to let myself be guided, consciously and conscientiously, by four principles below. One Advaitin, one Confucianism, one Haruki Murakami and one anon (in that order).

1. Aham Brahmaasmi
2. It doesn't matter how slow you go, as long as you do not stop
3. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional
4. Tomorrow you will wish you had started today

There! Done. Once in a while I know I stray off, but the lights are in the mind to guide back to the paths! I hope some of these help you in your endeavors too!

Welcome to the New Year!

Rare. Isolated. November.

The reader in me nowadays pops his head up 'once in a super-blue-blood-moon' from what was 'once in a blue moon'. That's becoming quite an achievement. Nothing I have read over the years sticks in my brain, neither are the stuff I'm struggling to read these days. Soon, it'll be a rarity and a success if I read one good meaningful book a year. Bah! But in this comatose state, somewhere in a nook or a corner of my brain, there are a few passages, quotes, words of wisdom that manage to reverberate. Those are from the early years of reading, time when Nietzsche, Russell, Seneca were all gold to my eyes. Aside from the interesting fact that he ended up as one of the most important thinkers of 19th century for the kind of person he was, Nietzsche has been a treasure trove in the selective areas I have reached out to him for. (Now it's baffling to me that I read Nietzsche and Seneca simultaneously, that the former was all joy and pain and celebration and derogation and what-not of life, while the latter was all stoic. Seems I read just about anything fancy, like a dog keeping its mouth on everything (translate to Tamil with the right tone and you get what I'm talking about! Ha ha!)

In the wake of a long-drawn rainy day, last night was a string of incoherent moments. Two days of fever was letting go of its grip on me, the doctor's medication was doing its job. Still, for a decently strong dose, I couldn't sleep. I thought Ludovico Einaudi's 'Divenire', which has been a great peace-bringer to me on many occasions, would help calm my mind that was wavering among a million things. Lying on my back, looking up at the sky through my mind's eye, my fingers tried to imitate his movements on the piano, and the orchestra's on the violin. It felt real, so real that I could have actually been playing Divenire, Rose, Primavera, and all the other jewels of music in the album. Music is indeed so powerful if it sinks into your mind! Divenire was finished and yet sleep didn't come over me. It had been an entire hour of starting at the ceiling and playing piano and violin in the air! Oops. It was time for 'I Giorni'. That was finished too. Another hour. Oops again! But in those two hours, besides the piano and violin, Nietzsche's "hour hand of life" kept flashing in my mind repeatedly. 

Life consists of rare, isolated moments of the greatest significance, and of innumerably many intervals during which at best the silhouettes of those moments hover about us. Love, springtime, every beautiful melody, mountains, the moon, the sea - all these speak completely to the heart but once, if in fact they ever do get a chance to speak completely. For many men do not have those moments at all, and are themselves intervals and intermissions in the symphony of real life

Reading it for the first time so many years ago made a huge impact on me because of the profundity with which he laid out a truth - that how many of us end up being intervals and intermissions. It was something that stuck to me instantly and has never left me since. Yes, he was certainly wrong about 'speaking completely to the heart but once' part. Of course, they all do speak to us all the time. It's only that we have become so distracted and digressed in today's age that listening to them truly, even once, becomes a great deal. It's only that we have stopped listening to mother nature. But what a run I've had with all those moments of greatest significance - no dearth of love, springtime, melodies, mountains, moon, the sea. What more am I to be thankful for?

Beep! Midnight. November. 35 is just around the corner. The shock pushed me instantly into sleep. Goodnight.

Run... come what may

Come what may...

This is the idea behind 100 days of running (HDOR) -  a challenge I've taken up for the 2nd time in 3 years. To me, more than fitness, it's a means to improve consistency, in running and gradually in other habits too. I used to be a person who got bored easily with routine - whether it was work or personal things. In a way, picking up running as my sport has helped me deal with routine in a sportive and a little bit more interesting way. As soon as I crossed the habitual milestone (the time after which an activity becomes a habit and the anxiety of having to stick to a daily plan for it vanishes) in anything I did, the habit gets set and so does the routine.

What I have come to realize, not just in running but generally in any activity, is that a lack of surprise stimulus (just coined this term, for lack of a better sounding and interesting word) turns a habit into boredom rapidly. Thereafter, it is sheer routine, and more routine, as a force of habit (like work!). And so, after 35+ days, HDOR was becoming uninteresting. After all, what could be so much fun about running 3 kms everyday? But something in me kept me going with this routine, awaiting a surprise stimulus, or even a miracle, that would make all the running worth its while. It didn't come, no stimulus or miracle.

Just before HDOR kicked off, our bunch of running friends decided to sign up for the SHHM, a half marathon up and down the Satara hill in Maharashtra, in August. This would be the first time for most of us, so you can imagine the enthusiasm and all. Our bunch of runners signed up with a coach to train for the run. I preferred to train alone and excused myself, only because there were days of rest built into the training, and I didn't want it to interfere with HDOR. To me, HDOR meant running all the 100 days, even though HDOR itself counts rest days in the 100 days, which I had not read earlier (you see, the relaxations in the rules do matter!). So, in retrospect, my resolve to run all 100 days is the first surprise stimulus I had given myself, unaware of it then.

I generally intend to focus more on strength training and so I decided to keep my running limited for this edition. At around the 35th day, which was my habitual milestone for HDOR, I wasn't strength-training much. So I thought I'd at least run better and longer this year. And so, regardless of how it was to be done, I set 512 kms as the target for 2019's HDOR (I did 511.5 kms in 2017). Around the same time, it struck me that I had been running just about 3-4 kms a day, and would end up way short of 512 Kms if I continued to run with that lackadaisical attitude. I shouldn't be running a hundred days for the sake of it. I should be running for the love of it. So, renewed targets. 6 kms every day at the least for the remaining 60+ days. As part of the prep for SHHM, our guys planned to do 15 kms once every week on flat roads or 10 kms on a nearby hill, only shorter and smaller than Satara but did the trick of simulation training. We did this mostly on Saturdays, and sometimes on Sundays. That took care of the daily average needed to be maintained. So I still had the luxury to run just about 4 kms during some weekdays. This routine took care of the next 7-8 weeks. Another 50 days covered, you see. Also, I made my personal best running month in June - 153 kms.

July is a good time for runners in Chennai. That's when the city starts to turn around from hottest to hotter. A few short showers show up, thanks to the Southwest monsoon for some mercy (July rains in Chennai are still in deficit every year, not as much rains as the monsoon should be bringing). But that is enough for a nature-loving, outdoorsy runner to look up to the rest of the year. So, naturally for me, it was a good feeling about the remaining days of HDOR.

Day 80 - I skipped the morning run as I had an errand to take care of early in the morning before shooting off to work. By evening, the skies had grown dark and there was clear signs of rain. Sure enough, it started to drizzle on and off at around 8 PM. I had just gotten back home and was anxious if I'd miss a day so close towards the end. By 930PM it hadn't slowed down. But something told me to hit the beach to run and I started off.

God is in the rains as much as in the absence of rains, in lighting and in thunder

नमो वर्ष्याय च अवर्ष्याय च;

नमो मेघ्याय च विध्युथ्याय च; 

नमो वात्याय च रेष्मियाय च  -

(Namo varshyaaya cha avarshyaaya cha; namo meghyaaya cha vidhyuthyaaya cha; namo vaathyaaya cha reshmiyaaya cha;) 

Salutations to him [Lord Rudra] who is in rain water and who is also in places where it does not rain; Salutations to him who is in the clouds and who is also in lightning; Salutations to him who is in the form of rainy storm and to him who is in the form of dry hoarse wind -

Sri Rudram)

 At 10PM, the beach was empty. Not a soul around, save a few dogs, the inhabitants and rulers of that stretch. That night, it all happened. By far, it was the loudest and brightest night I had ever come across in my life, really. The sky roared and shone and poured so much that it was a real physical pain to my eyes to see the asphalt from which the lightning reflected immensely, to my ears to be open to the loudest bangs, and to my head to bear the brunt of the heavy shower. For a few moments, I was even afraid, to put the thing in perspective! It was half an hour of earth shattering grandeur that would put any doubtful mind to rest of the presence of a Power Above. I have never been more thankful for being able to run and witness a spectacle like that.

I came home an elated man that He had intended me to experience running that night, in ways like never before. If that isn't "run... come what may", nothing will ever be. Who knows, you may end up with a miracle as your legs tire and stop, but your beating heart doesn't slow down!

The great and the invincible

Every time a man realizes his mistake, and people forgive him for that and take him in again, he becomes great by way of imparting his knowledge to them of how not to commit that mistake again. His experience is their teacher, and in that, he becomes their teacher! But, every time a man realizes his mistake, and people don't forgive him for that nor take him in again, and still he goes about imparting that knowledge to the very unforgiving lot, he becomes invincible. For, in the former, his greatness is a result of the debt paid more than full to the others' forgiveness, but in the latter, his invincibility is a result of a debt that does not exist but is still paid to even the unforgiving.

Now, isn't that a justification good enough to keep committing new mistakes?!

2016 Professional Running - Run One

Today was a special day. One that brought me one more step closer to realizing my potential. I kicked off the first professional run for the year with The Wipro Chennai Marathon's Half marathon, one that is also my first half marathon. The end of the 21.1 Kms felt a lot less painful that I had anticipated. And that now looks like the beginning of an era of professional running I plan to compete in.

Here's to more running!

Cheers!

Happy 2016

Surprise! I hope I'm not back just too late for you to remember that this blog and I exist! Here's wishing everyone a very happy new year. May God bless you all with prosperity, happiness and peace.

I know I have missed the usual rhetoric of a New Year's eve post to say 'here's to a better year ahead'. But some things do happen for a reason. It takes a best friend to believe that you are good at something when you feel you are not. So.. Dei Senthil - here I go. Thanks for watching out and letting me know that I have missed the new year's eve post, that made me realize I have hardly written anything in a long time. As a token of our friendsh... well, I don't think there can ever be a token of it. It's just us, the inseparables. I dedicate all my posts of 2016 to you. Hope you enjoy some of them at least!

2015 was a year of enlightenment in many ways. For one, I had to leave home to find home back at home again! And that's only mildly putting it! But more positively, it was also a year of spiritual resurrection, one that made me feel the resurgence of a strong belief in the ways of Mother Nature. I had to change to realize that I cannot, and need not, change. Constancy was indeed an inspiration that turned the second half of 2015 for the better. Funny, indeed, are the ways of life!

Now, to work on my self-awareness is a big task I've set for myself for 2016. We'll have loads to talk about it. As for the other to-do's: more running, more writing, more books, more music. Let's see where the year takes us.

Once again, happy new year! May there be peace.

Self-awareness - first lessons

Of late, I realized that I have often been selfish, at times self-centered, and sometimes self-obsessed. Thinking of why and how this happens and why I feel the way I do, I'm not surprised to find that my expectations from myself on all these occasions are narrow and short-lived, and my ways and means of meeting/exceeding them are 'instant-gratifying'. Neither such expectations nor such ways and means are virtuous paths to peace. This knowledge is my most recent discovery from my self-appraisal. All self-appraisals are generally self-fulfilling prophecies - I was right - and one ends up feeling proud at the end of this mirage of achievement. But, pride is the first enemy to humility. That is about as enlightened as I feel now! And pride does come before the fall! I'm not proud now. I only need to think and be thankful for how good a life it has been for me. I now know what humility I owe the Gods/ Mother Nature/ Invisible Hand or whatever you want to call it, having fallen now and getting up. (We will come to this later)

But the problem here isn't with humility or pride, though I wish it were that simple. Then it's a simple matter of do's and don't's. Do be humble, don't be proud. Isn't it? It is not even about fortune or luck - fortunate that one is in a position to feel proud, or lucky that one hasn't been pushed to the limits of humiliation and made to learn humility from it. The broader problem is about the whining mortals caught between these two extremes. Broadly, I come across only two kinds of people -- the self-gratifying, narcissistic, pleasure-seeking, fun-loving and ultimately wasteful life-a-holics who think their life is the greatest show on the planet; and the patient, all-bearing, self-sacrificing, thankful-to-God-ly, silent gazers into a wise life beyond the apparent survival. In short, the 'proud instant-gratifiers' and the 'saints'. The ratio could be something like a million to one. (Are there still any saints around?) So, let's simply say that there is just one type for now, the former. I hope to find, some day, the people of the other type.

I do not want to see the world made up of only these two types. There would be a few more types, and I could find them if I want to, but I cannot take those paths right now. (again, we will come to this later). I do not identify myself with either of the above two categories. But I find I often straddle dangerously close to the boundaries of both, sometimes at such high frequencies that I feel I'm literally rocking the boat from side to side in a dangerous tide in the sea of people on either extremes. It could topple any minute, but regardless of which side it falls on, it is only going to go under. It is a period of intense excitement, thrill and anxiety, all simultaneously, and in that order. Excited that I'm on a rocking boat in a turbulent sea, thrilled that it could topple any minute, and anxious of what would happen if it did topple and where would I end up.

And then...the moment dawns on me. I stop rocking the boat, and the sea calms too. It is a moment of realization that I need to rise above these mere mortals not only because I can foresee the vanity of their short-lived, self-centered, instant-gratifying, material lives, but also because it is easier to set myself apart from them based on my ideals, than fit in with them based on theirs. I'm learning to be self-aware!

Inspiration - Part 2

It is against my own wish to start a thought on a negative note, especially and specifically one with such a title. But this note should serve as a caution to ward off the biggest irony I'm currently facing about myself. I read Part 1 and wondered, to my shock and dismay, where that 'I' is now! It is close to a matter of shame to think that I can get lost of myself (not 'in' myself) in such a short time. I had changed, for the worse. But there is a consolation (unique to me) that it has been four years since that note (wow!), because four years to you can well be forty years to me, and that I have stayed on to look back four years and wonder at that now makes me feel both happy and sad. And it does not also fail to kindle something in me again. The last sentence in Part 1 - If i feel like writing a Part II to this, I sure will update - is the motive and the reason I'm here. To surprise myself. This post can be outright nonsensical or profoundly silly, for it is a contradiction to a widely held dictum that change is always a necessity and an inspiration, but this is a train of thought I felt should come out now.

Constancy as an inspiration: I have been dormant for too long, much to my dismay again, letting my uncontrollable flow of thoughts still uncontrolled, letting my attention sway too much into the trivialities, letting my guard off the 'higher sense' of life and be lured sometimes into the material and the transitory. My brother posited a truth simply - the more things change, the more they remain the same. It is inevitable to undergo change every moment, and yet we find ourselves mostly unmoved in the larger scheme of things. Once in a while, change throws me off balance and I feel it is reasonable to lose my footing for a while. But the wind does slow down, and I have to pull myself up. In that sense, I think I was wrong about my wind of change letting me shed some of my old unwanted self back home and start afresh a few things. The change has only made the permanence even more obvious. (Bro, you are a genius). I am what I was, and I will be what I am. If I'm to let myself get engulfed by my own misconception that I'm supposed to change, I lose myself. I'm not going to let that happen.

I recently stumbled upon one of JK's quotes - it is no measure of health to be be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. Somehow, the way I am now suddenly worried me if that is the health I was unconsciously heading into. Can I really shed some of my old self 'back home' in light of the new society? I do not think so. I do not need to change. My inspirations are still constant, non-material, and unlimited by space or time. I'm only held stable because of this realization, and because Mother Nature never stops calling out to me.

And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep

Here's to more of the best of times ahead.

Rajaji

Here I come, 30!

There are many cliches on age, but two stand out - 'Age - it's just a number' and 'We're always the same age inside'. Funny we get to take these (and all other cliche's) either so casually or so seriously that, on either side, there are deeper thoughts we miss to see in such apparent cliches! Since these cannot be generalized and one has to look for them oneself, I'm not stretching the point any more on what they ought to be. But here are mine. I'm no stranger to cliches myself. I have both given and taken tonnes of those. And this time too I can't help giving myself quite a strong dose of some cliches. Let's stick with a few on life that tie back to age.

Life has been good. Life has been gracious. Mother Nature has been patient and forgiving and merciful. As time has gone by, I now see another probable wind of change in the horizon for me. As much as I'd like myself to be grounded firmly on a few driving principles of my good and gracious life - stoicism, gratitude, contentment to name a few - there always come moments that tempt me to bend a bit here and there, and wish for things to be such and such, and want things to happen. Ah, if only controlling desires were that easy. And now how I wish the probable wind to turn real! And so, as I keep wishing and not-wishing, I wonder what I have done with that good and gracious life that has happened to me, if not something that I shaped here and there, least of all something that is 'chiseled by my own hands'! (ah, here's another cliche!). Well, I'm not a self-made man!

There's not a better 'circumstantially appropriate' time to look back on one's life than one's birthday. With my 30th a couple of days away, I'm doing the 'looking back' and wondering what have I done to call my life my life? What have I worked out on all the 29 years of existence (maybe the last two or three consciously living and not existing**, after crossing the chasm of identity crisis. Finally, I think I'm getting to existentialism!) to call something an achievement by my own standards? 

Education? Yes. 

Job? Yes. 

Meaningful work? 'Meaningful in what sense' is something that is still on the works! Let's stick with maybe

Societal belonging (outside of family & best friends)? Questionable, bordering on a No. Damn the society!

Love? Hell Yes, both loving and being loved, (although I guess I'm poor at the former compared to the latter!) 

Friendship? Yes, some exemplary. 

Philosophy? Maybe. Getting there!

Passion? Well.. maybe one or two. A few years ago, this would've been a resounding Yes. Now I'm wondering what my passion is! Sometimes I think I know (the probable wind of change may be one, should it turn real. Let's see), and at other times I wonder what they are. So, let's stick with maybe. 

There it is. A smorgasbord of  Yes-No-Maybe that captures my 29 years in 10 lines! Funny that some vital ones are Maybe's bordering on No's. Danger signs!

30 is a psychologically important time for me (don't ask why). I have a meaningful wish this time to firm up some of the above, starting now. I need more 'Yes'es. Here I come, 30!

** - Ok I promise I won't bring the existing vs. living conundrum again. This is the last time. Henceforth I swear to use existing interchangeably with living, so as to clear the air around my existential angst on surviving vs. living. Deal!)

On the continuum of 'Pathos'

Of all the feelings capable of being aroused in me, those of pathos form the perfect continuum. Pathos is a quality/experience that arouses mainly four different types of feelings. The continuum that I have identified looks something like this.


The three interesting discoveries, if I may call them that, in this continuum are:

1. The intensity of the movement of the feeling from its strongest to weakest state is directly proportional to the number of people it is aimed at. I empathize with my brother or a friend, and I carry with me the strength/burden of one feeling in two hearts. I sympathize with a set of people, say, destitute of basic physical & safety needs or devoid of social needs, and there I understand the heavy air of despair of that particular lot. I'm antipathetic to a social structure  that is dogmatic, trembling with chaos and on the brink of self-destruction. There I enjoy the company of very few men who think right but are largely antagonistic to that wretched society. (Simply put, we are the outlaws of an outlandishly outrageous system). And finally, I'm apathetic to a materialistic, insensible, incorrigible and unjust social system. And there I revel in my solitude while shunning everything & everyone else 
2. Empathy is one of the greatest virtues, of which most men are incapable. But the ones who are capable of gifting this to another soul will never stop feeling (and finding) themselves gifted.
3. Apathy is a weapon of immeasurable destructive power. The one who has used it will never be able to take it back and will find himself alone, with nothing but a curse of loneliness all around the destruction he causes. (if you read pt 1 now, you'll think 'revel' is probably not the right word to use there. But some of us do revel in solitude and not be cursed by loneliness, when we know how to use apathy in a just manner and not be left alone. We are like the water drops on a lotus leaf. We are one with the system and yet untouched, and we do cleanse the system now and then by just being there!We know how to be part of that social system and still make the right choices where we can!).

Rajaji

Imagining beyond being - The Foundation

As a good friend of mine read part two, she wrote back anxiously, I guess, to know if something strange/profound had happened. Quite surprised, I read the whole of it and found I had been a bit angry with people, quite irritated/disappointed with society, and overambitious about myself. In effect, I had felt emotions I should not have, about most people who don't matter anymore, at least as much as they used to. I re-read the post slowly and deliberately, so that I would see through the vehemence of it, and never write like that again, emotions glaring!

But that was not the only finding. I found I also violated some of the underlying principles of the philosophy I'm an adherent of now. It also struck home the point of examining the source of my thought processes of 'beyond from being', the ways of controlling passions and emotions; understanding the meaning within the apparent meaninglessness of life; and many more aspects, that would ultimately deliver wisdom from, and to, that way of life. Maybe this post could serve as a primer of the outcomes of that initial examination, which is still an ongoing journey.

About seven years ago, for the first time, I faced the reality of 'what is the meaning of life?' The years thence led me through the search for a philosophy, that would serve as the basis for a meaningful life, and one that would serve ultimately as the meaning itself. After a worthwhile pursuit of a few pearls of wisdom from the philosophers of my birth-religion (some of which reflected in my earliest writings but do not appear here now), and then of my brief encounters with a few philosophical dimensions from the West, I finally rested myself on the most sensible of them all - stoicism. (Considering where I found the source of this pearl of wisdom, it would befit to agree with what is said proverbially: that we find inspirations for life in the most unusual of circumstances and trivialities!)

Everything about the premise of stoicism - the wisdom of the self-possessed person immune to overmastering emotions and life's setbacks* - struck a chord in me. I hardly ever knew what hardships were, if you mean hardship as it is generally meant. I have been made steady by the sacrifices of many a human, starting with my mother, whose victorious struggles with unfair lives yielded me a fair one! (To me, they are the first beyonds!). But there are always hardships, of various kinds, for all of us. Some setbacks (as I saw them) early in life and the resulting emotional turf wars for extended lengths of time did make things difficult - the eternal struggles of the beings. But this essence - that there is wisdom possible for a self-possessed** person - sowed the first seeds of contemplation and critical introversion, with a curiosity to understand the roots of being human, precisely because I had long been under overmastering emotions and I always saw setbacks of different kinds. Once the seeds grew to be trees over the years and I began discovering the fruits of that wisdom, there has been no stopping. And then, an even higher sense of wisdom: the consummation of the individual with nature and a life in harmony with oneself and nature, no matter what fate sends in one's way, all the while living contentedly with what are just necessities and not be left wanting for anything.

Again, initially they did prove to be difficult, the sensibility and reasons of austerity and idealism in this. They still do so, at times. But no answers are impossible when the questions are reasonable. The questions of the nature of self, the oneness of that self with Nature, being human, beyond human etc. And thus goes on the process of critical introspection that has led me to where I am now. In light of all that fate or fortune has brought me, the stability of the reasoning arising from this introspection of the self-possessed does yield wisdom. There is no greater sense of contentment than realizing that oneself is steady in the path he chose for himself, in accordance with nature, and is prepared to be unfazed by what fate or fortune sends one's way.

This has been the best part of the journey so far, one that brings happiness and contentment from the understanding and realization that the subordination of pleasures, passions and emotions to the supremacy of the mind and the soul delivers wisdom, rooted in reason, for a harmonious life. And that is still just the beginning. I have a long way to go yet! I err, I stumble, I fall. But I pick myself up, and move on.

And so it was that the previous part about expendability turned out to be a shaky bit in the journey; a rocking boat caught in a storm. There may be bigger, more powerful storms coming. I brace myself! I know I have the courage to carry on to the beyond, and the strength to bear to stop being the being, even if it means expending some of the beings. As I know, it may end up as a solitary journey, but the path is clear, and I thank the stoic ideals which serve as the light at the horizon.

* - Preface of 'Seneca: Letters from a Stoic', Penguin Classics, 2004
** - Did you immediately sense selfish here, ignoramus?! Selfish is wanting for oneself, whereas self-possessed is holding oneself ground in reasons of the self; kind of a prerequisite for introspection, if I may say so.

Imagining beyond being - Expendability

As I wrote the introduction, I did not realize that I was writing just that - an introduction. Hence the title update now. Little did I anticipate that I would come to follow it up with quite a heavy dose of life lessons. But the difference between that introduction and this follow-up is the difference between two worlds - one of imagination and the other of reality. The situation here is the choice between the reality shaped by the thoughts of consequences of the imaginations if they were to turn real, and the reality that happens by itself. After all, it is one thing for an imagination to become real, and quite another for reality to happen by itself, unaided by any sort of imagination.  How many of us have had the true pleasure of saying 'I imagined I would live this way'?!

The following is the result of yet another battle of mind and heart, and the overarching and unyielding determination to go beyond rather than just stay being the being, no matter which one wins. It is in all ways defined by the motivation to break from being the being and become the beyond. And if I have to come to realize anything since that first thought, it is this: It is not impossible to go beyond the being, only just too difficult, at times, to hold on. But the point is to hold on. And the conclusive lesson is this: If a fellow being who knows he/she can be beyond, too, along with you, but still refuses to break free from the being for reasons whatsoever - society, insecurity, fear - it is not your fault. That is the reality that happens to them. If your reality is shaped by your imaginations, you cannot reconcile that with the reality that just happened to them. The logical thing to do is to let go and just move on your path to beyond. People leave. Simple. To rise above mere mortals, it is inevitable to break free from them! And that is how it often becomes a solitary journey. Here's to mutual expendability; you to them and they to you! I may probably leave you with the feeling that I sound like an anti-social, but I'm not. As I said in the introduction, I'm only just better off without the society. I don't raise slogans nor do I hold banners of protest against this damned society. There is nothing sacred in fighting something in the middle of which you yourself are. Instead, I think it is wise to be invisible to that very something, and make your way through it unnoticed and finally break free. (Paradoxically, I'm very obvious with this statement, am I not?!)

Most often, it is the society which keeps the being prisoner, and clips its feathers of hope to fly away to the beyond. And my latest experience is fully borne from this fact. Many people who should have mattered to me for life (and sincerely did at some point!) - some friends, other social gangs, and most of all, the women any of whom could have been my woman - all proved me wrong that I could take them too to beyond; and all of them preferred being the being. At best, I have tried to give them the elixir of imagination-driven reality, but they just wouldn't drink it! They have sided with the reality that happened to them, or worse, that they brought down on themselves. The infinite vicious darkness called society is just not the ground where I can take these beings head on and convince them of the possibilities of the beyond, and ask them to join me in overcoming the distasteful, dispirited, unambitious society. Looking back from the eyes of their society, they have all played their cards wisely. One more frog to the damned lot in the well! Good for them, and good for me!

For the pitiable souls (myself one, at some point in the past), it is awful to see how easily the society belittles something as significant as the motivation that once made them near-impossible to be held back in bondage. One of the reasons must be the fear instilled in them of becoming meaningless when death stared right at them and asked them what they made of their lives. I think many beings are slaves to the society because they are slaves to time and death, and the resulting fear of an imminent failure to state the meaning of life, should either time or death cut their journey short and make them answer to the society's question of 'the purpose of life'. The beings have a cause for the future, while the beyonds have it in their present. In this confusion, the beings do not understand that the beyonds seek a meaning starting now, as they live, which could only prove right in the long run. Even if death were to stare at them for an answer to the purpose, the beyonds have made right by the very ambition to start creating that purpose. As much as I have seen, the beyonds live, whereas the beings are always preparing to live!

That said, when I knew at every stage I was taking one step closer to the beyond, my beings could not understand. Looking back, I thank them all sincerely. For, as I said, the beyond is not the opposite of being, but the absence of it. Now I realize that the absence of that common lot brings meaning to my solitary journey. Still, I have not given up the ambition, or the over-ambition so to speak, that someday I will take, at least, one being to the beyond with me. To win that heart, I have an unrelenting spirit, an elevated spirit, of envisioning a beyond, far far away from the being. And when we start on the journey to create wonders, we will propose one toast to the expendables!

To the best of times!