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!

A few words

Whenever I think of getting to the writing page just for the sake of writing something and keep the flow going, it ends up being a more difficult task than concentrating on a thought that needs to be written in a better shape, or an opinion that is personal. Finally, I end up writing nothing at all, and later ponder on the blank page that could have had a life. That is how this space has taken shape in the last few years. I need to overcome my ADD as it applies to my writing. It's like a runner in a lull, with signs of a pot belly, tired legs, and a loose unathletic frame. It is unacceptable. A person like that defies the nature and purpose of his/her self. I had to bring the runner's analogy here, because that is both contextually and literally relevant.

I started the year with five simple goals, achievable at ease. I'm sticking on to two of them, and trying to bring back the third to life after it started sleeping in February. It's quite an improvement compared to prior years when I would've had ten ambitious resolutions, and asked in February 'what resolutions'! As it turns out, I'm becoming a man of few words and fewer actions! As soon as I wrote the last piece, I started on this one purposefully to see if I can kick back to life one of the unfollowed three goals so far. So, there goes.

Speaking of the five goals, running is one that's fortunately continuing! Touchwood!

Another short babble!

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.

How long till the next?

Now what?

This was the first thought that occurred to me last Sunday morning, the 100th day of running for the 2019 edition of the 100daysofrunning challenge. I had gone past my target of 512 kms on the 99th day. So, I ran the 100th day at peace. I could not comprehend my own thoughts on that day. Is it a good thing to complete a target comfortably and feel empty on the finish line, or is it a good thing to keep the target in sight till the end and feel the finishing touch right at the last moment? Actually, I could've done 550 if I wanted to. I had the days and I had fuel left in me. But 512 sounded fine enough. On retrospect, I could not help wondering that I have felt the same way almost always, all along my life. I'm a procrastinator.. big time! But I somehow manage to finish things on time, in the end. Things have worked just fine, as long as it is on time. What starts to occupy my mind thereafter is 'now what'.

I don't remember the exact moment when, many years ago, in a flash, I felt living up to 50 would be a decent enough life. It's a brief memory, but one that is very deeply ingrained. I vaguely remember my thoughts on half-life that I penned down at 25. I used to write a lot then. A lot of poetry (thank God I've taken out most of them from here), a lot of self-discovered philosophical scribblings. I read quite a bit too - some Russell, some Nietzsche, some Somerset Maugham, some fiction. All of this in the middle of my MBA, with a lot of time still left for family, my first nephew, friends and college life. Nine years later, I'm a changed man, only with the longings of what all I could have done in 9 long years since. There's been a constant hunger for leading a different life. But it's not an insatiable one. Every 30 days, the hunger is fed with salary, and there's a good week's sleep. Then the hunger returns the next week to remain for the further three, and then it's satiated again. This for the last 9 years. Man, what a life!

Now I'm caught in a conundrum between the young and the old. 34 is what? Young or old? At my workplace, I see both ends of the spectrum. In the industry I'm in, 25 is a good start for a management graduate from a prestigious B-school, with no student loans, to call her/himself a consultant (now whatever the hell that means.. many in my encounter have been just dumb! We haven't needed a lot of consulting from our own consultants!). And I see the potential they could reach in 10 years, only if they were sincere and ambitious enough (which is what their prestigious B-school is supposed to teach them!). On the other end, I see 45-somethings, the few friendly and open types, lament about what they could do if they were 34 and had 10 more years to be where they are now, without their many EMIs, of course!

You see, my problem is not wanting to be 25 now again or let the years pass by to when I'm 45, satiated by salary till then, and then start longing for 35! The point is to find a way out of the mess now. I could get out, any moment. Someday soon I would. My problem is passion. I don't have just one, but many, and so I don't have one! A man passionate about many things is not passionate about one thing! Or can he be? Too many passions arise from too much freedom. For the most part, I have been responsible with most of my freedom, and that's taken me on a proper and safe journey with many fellow travellers. But it's not adventurous! It's the little extra freedom that provides for eccentricities that are adventurous and are hard to resist. That's what goes on in my head all the time - which of these eccentric passions to choose and which adventure to take. And if I end up with one, how long it will be before the next one raises its head? Shouldn't life be either one great adventure or many little ones, instead of just proper and safe?

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!

A runner's guilt

There could have been a better title for this post. Still I'm intentionally keeping it this way, for the directional intent of where this is coming from. But it is not all negative. Go on.

As I write, I have never been in a more welcoming environment than where I am now. It's a still, cool evening. The sky is an awesome pale blue, with white patches of paper clouds here and there. A jet is tearing through the sky, leaving a trail of white fog that is cutting the sky into two. Way below that, and just above my head, all kinds of birds are heading home, the sound of pleasure in their chirps. So I'd like to think. My favorites are the cuckoo couple - the red-bead-eyed black male and the white-grey spotted female, and the innumerable companies of parrots that glide past my terrace everyday right about this time. It's a kind of serene calm now even amidst the constant chirps. So that's the setting now in which I'm retrospecting. 

I seem to be in a perennial writer's block when I try to think of a new idea or frame a new social concept or philosophy to write about. Those days just seem to be gone for a while now. I'm trying to operate on that mode of thought and feeling. If I could, I would instill a pace-maker to that part of the heart that works on these areas to beat normally! That is, if there ever is such a part in the heart like the different parts of the brain (as if I'm using those effectively!!). 

And so, the simplest thing to get me writing is to do with running. I love running, so I have no block or problem writing about it. Tomorrow would mark the first time in 24 months that I would have run 150 kms in a month. This is the second full month in the '100 Days of Running' challenge for 2019. (I ran 125 kms in May). The last time I clocked 150+ was June 2017 during that year's 100DoR. My mind went back to the circumstances of that year's challenge. It was a run-rage that I took on, in some serious testing times of my personal life. And today I reflect on how much things have changed since. Back then, the running used to cure me of negativism. Now, it keeps me composed and contained from too much positivism. In both cases, it has just helped me stay on track. And this is the guilt that has captured me now. Why is my running becoming a refuge or a neutralizer to just keep me normal? Why is my running keeping me normal and not elevating me as a person? How could I love something that is just normal? Or is it because my running cures and contains me that is making me love it more? Or to simply state - Why am I not running for the love of it, if I truly did love it?

I'm only reminded of Haruki Murakami's golden words that still keep me going about running - "I'm not a great runner, but I'm definitely a strong runner". No one could state it simpler and more powerfully than this, to keep someone like me running. By God's grace, I have never been left wanting for strength, at least when it comes to running since I picked it up as the sport for me four years ago. That strength will be enough to overcome the guilt and embrace love, my love for running. And that strength is enough to keep this lone wolf going! 

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?!