Bumps

Bumps in life, by this I mean the bad times that come ever so often in small measures. I won't say we should enjoy them - that will sound like a lie because I myself never did enjoy my bad times. As I see it life is a very complex thing and there are too many things and people intersecting in it. Our goal/aim is of course to make life better for us (and the ones we love) but then as it is such a complex thing it is not always possible. There are times when we just can't make a difference. Like for example - if I am in a plane that might possibly crash, I would not cry and fret over it - not that I hate my life, but I know I can't do anything about it. But here lies the beauty of life - we may not be able to make a change in the world at times, but we can always see life in a differnt shade - from a different perspective. This freedom that life affords us makes things so much better. So instead of choosing to see those bumps as disturbances, see them as variety in life - basically something desirable or at least less odious. If we can we should make a difference or an effort to that effect, but if that is not possible I would rather than suffer and cry over 'fate' see it as a reason to be better in the future. To make sure that there is no repeat of what happened this time.

I hate using trites but this is very apt - they say a hero is a hero only because there is a villain. So basically a villain's existence is important in order to appreciate a hero. So transposing this to our point of discussion - bumps are but villains and the smooth sailing life ( and everything to be happy about) is the equivalent of a hero. So in order to appreciate the good in life bad is required. Well I would personally don't mind if the bad was just mythical but if I have no hand in deciding it, I would see it as something good, something helping me appreciate the past good times. Well if life doesn't give you reasons enough to be happy - who is better than yourself to go and find some (reasons to be happy)!

Simplicity, an excuse to non achievement?

Firstly I need to acknowledge - this is not coming from my insight, but that of someone else. That should suffice to absolve me of my sins of plagiarism. So simplicity.. seen by most people a quality, a model way of behavior that some of the most selfless and pure amongst us have. But perhaps it is not all that good - for there are fakes amongst them as everywhere else. These counterfiet people obviously reduce the value of the other genuine ones. There are very few people who are genuinely simple with no other reason for being so, than their strong belief that it is the most sensible and honest way of being in existence. There are a lot of incentives towards appearing simple, you get a lot of leeway to excusing yourself and non-achievement and of course admiration/respect of a lot of people. People following the idea of - 'I can do this but I don't want to' are hard to differentiate from a person who actually cannot do anything. The reason being that this can be explicitly tested only in the time of a need and till then everyone looks the same (on the outside at least). So the need to differentiate the fakely simplistic people and the really simple minded people is important. One are the weakest members of our society and the other perhaps the most mature and sensible ones.

Also, perhaps we, as men, being so egoistic creatures, tend to give ourselves too much air. We make ourselves believe that we can do a lot, just that we are being modest/simple in not doing everything. Sub-consciously we tend to take our weakness to the other side and count them as a show of restraint. It always feels good to cross off a missing part in you. So there is a need to be self evaluating on a regular basis, so as to not give ourselves false airs and know ourselves and our true capabilities. This should in no ways diminish our self confidence, you rather reiterate it and instill a sense of conviction in it.

Not only that, there are many who are capable enough to do a lot but would rather choose to rest on this knowledge, and do nothing. For them their ego is a dreamy bed for them and their talents. They are so lazy that they are happy achieving nothing and choose to find excuses for this instead, simplicity is just one of them. If ever it is possible to make these people realize this and make them stand on their feet again, they could do a lot of good work in this world - just the motivation needs to be found for doing that.

Lying

Lying, finally something we all can identify with. There is perhaps no single being who doesn't ever lie. I hate lying in general, but there are times when I myself lie. Some people do it more often, for them it is not a big deal and they can lie just for the heck of it. So there is a major difference in liars - the intent to refrain from lying. As I see it, if you are lying to a person not as a defense, but just for fun or well just because you can - you are showing the most disrepect to him/her that you can. You show that you don't really care a bit for the person and have a trust in his/her lack of intelligence - so that you can lie away without the other person knowing it.

But who do we lie to. A person who doesn't really want to lie, still has to lie to people he is dependent upon, the people of authority in his life - like your parents perhaps, your boss etc. This well though avoidable needs a lot of courage and willpower, for the consequences of being truthful can be, at times, drastic. Then there are occasions on which we lie just to be polite, we don't want to say "Your house looks aweful" or "No, I don't think you can really get this job". Those are what I believe somewhat harmless lies and well they can't be avoided at some times. Where do love and lying meet. Well when you love someone respect is paramount, and that means there is no room for casual lying. Of course you need to do those "Hey, you are looking amazing" compliments even when your partner has had the worst day and looking like aweful.

There are some special people in your life that you feel like not lying to - to put yourself open in front of them and show them what you really are. With those people there is no reason to lie even for defense. You know that they will understand whatever it is that made you do what you did - they accept you as a whole - like you do them. Having such special people in your life is a rare thing and not all have such people. As naive as I am, I believe your lover should be one of these people.

Vengeance with a Debt

We have all had a hand pull us up on occasions when we fall. The hand is something we grow to love. And of course we tend to ignore it's faults. But sometimes there comes a time when you realize that it isn't just working out. What to do then. Here is what I think:

Good deeds done in the past,
do not bound me forever,
my heart they do not deserve,
a heart felt thanks is all they get.

Heart Break

Each time a heart is broken, it survives for survival is the only option. But to survive a part of it dies and even after taking a long time to recover, it never recovers fully. It can love less each time, a part of it is still with the one who broke it and there is less to give to the next one if there ever is one. So what is the answer to this, should you instead not give your heart to someone and just stay oblivious to the world - just a face with no heart, a body without a soul? Not really, but perhaps being more cautious about choosing the people before you care for them enough to give them the power to hurt you.

Practicality in 'Love'

Being practical is a cold thing and sometimes even fraught with not having principles. Love, on the other hand, is the most warm, mushy thing. They don't ideally have anything to do with each other. Alas, so is not the case - the problem is that love cannot survive in a vacuum. It needs to coexist with this world and the world runs on practicality and so love needs to come to terms with practicality to survive. Now it is very much given that for people to be together love should be the reason. But then there are other reasons by way of need that bring people together without any love. Also, it prevents all people in love from being together - money, status, religion etc there are too many factors. So the question is what is the correct mix of being practical and being guided by love. I would say be greedy - want both, don't settle for one. Love should be the only reason for being with someone but then again other factors are important to the survival of love in the long run. So there should be a minimum cut-off level that you should expect in all matters practical and materialistic. So probably a girl going with a guy with love but no career whatsoever is as unlucky as a girl going with a guy with all the riches to offer but no love. The hopeless romantic that I am, I always believe that you can get both, just wait your turn and be patient.

Confidence as a privilege

Confidence is the bridge from talent and hardwork to success. People with confidence can many a times very easily get away with a lot of shortcomings. I am not to say whether it is unfair, that talented people are left behind just because they are lacking in confidence. This is a reality of life and this world and there is no sense in debating whether the significance accorded to confidence is justified or not. Now, what brings this confidence and what is a reasonable / moral source for it? Money, beauty, fame among other materialistic things are some things confidence follows very commonly. It is very easy to be confident if you are rich, powerful, beautiful, famous. The people who are not any of these - the populace, are obviously and perhaps justifiably annoyed. They do not have the luxury (confidence is surely a luxury as it makes things in life easy) that they see others enjoying - that sounds a lot like jealousy. Then again who ever said that the world is fair, it is quite obvious to be compassionate to the cause of the poorer / weaker side - but then, the other side is not really one with any malice.

So I would say the practice is wrong but it does not mean that those benefitting from it need to be made a scapegoat. Now for example being a person of beauty does make you the centre of attention and you feel a sense of power through this. This in turn makes you confident to face the world. But the fact remains that within that person is a regular person who has dreams, aspirations, talent and fears. The problem is that they walk through their life focusing on other things and let their fears be sidelined. So they are not as mature to face challenges that are thrown their way. This in no way means that they are not deserving. They are just as deserving as anyone else. And the fact that they have had that help so far and had chances plentiful should in fact make it easier for them to do anything without needing to rely on their beauty. It is alas a bit too easy, in this case, to be oblivious to other things.

The more important thing is that everyone should be confident of his/her abilities. No matter what other gift have been bestowed upon them. If confidence is a chain reaction that eventually leads you to achieve something, it does not actually matter if the start of the reaction was from something fake as long as there is enough substance in you to keep the reaction going forever. The idea is not to think where the confidence comes from, any source is a good source, the bad thing is over-reliance on it. It is always better to have something, but having the ability to survive without it is important. Once you get there, there is no harm in enjoying all luxuries that come your way.

Cosmopolitan

First of all who is a cosmopolitan. A cosmopolitan is basically a being who is not tied down by stereotyping, he is not the expected - more tangibly not tied to a particular regionalist behavior/characteristics/beliefs. I call myself a cosmopolitan and am proud for some reason that it is mostly true.

Now the second thing is why is being cosmopolitan good and what does it encompass. Well I think being cosmopolitan means being self-thinking, you don't let the predefined notions make up your thoughts - it's about being more independent. This makes it just more difficult to stereotype you. Stereotyping is akin to wearing blinkers (things that horses are made to wear to let them see only straight). You don't get to know the person, you take it as given that an Indian guy is a geek, an Afro is useless, an Arab is dangerous, a Jew is a penny pincher, a Brit is a snob or whatever notions you came across in your past experiences. It is hard to not have any notions about people based on their background. So basically by not being evidently a Brit, a Jew or an Arab you do not let people make pre determined notions about you - you start with a clean slate. I am obviously always seen as an Indian and can't possibly do anything about it - that's evident from my physical appearance. But yeah my provincial, religious and all other background need not be paraded in front of everyone and I take care that they are not. It does not mean I am ashamed of what I am, I just don't want that to be a factor that people judge me on.

People who spit their religion on your face have always annoyed me, so do (after a limit) people who parade their regional descent. Still it doesn't make them these people any lesser of a being, just that they are sometimes a little unrefined at the very worst and obviously think with a different perspective.

As always there are things that people fuck up at and which make the whole group appear in the wrong. For example people with certain ethnic backgrounds tend to stick together (which is good) but at the same time close that group and all others (which is rather cheap/mean). Being a cosmopolitan you basically end up not making the whole group associated with you (racially, religiously etc) to be associated with your actions. So are cosmopolitans ultra beings? Not really - a tad more mature than others possibly; but otherwise nothing more, nothing less.

Finding Love

Why is finding love so hard? Companionship is something that money or other materialistic things can get you. Partners are not as easy to find but still circumstances are an incentive for people to become partners and partnership can be attained by everyone. Love on the other hand is not bound by any compulsions and needs and cannot be easy to find. Perhaps that's the reason most people never find love.

No two people are absolutely the same, they can be alike to certain extend but never the same. It is not as if love can only be among two people that are the same. Luckily love, like a chemical reaction, can happen between any kind of a match or mismatch. It is a magical formula that no one knows and probably thats for the best. But there way too many problems that stop love from blossoming. First of all our behaviour is not uniform. People have different facets; and different people, that we know, get to see different facades of our personality. So it is not just something in you two but also a lot is left to chance. After that comes the perspective - you can be nice to someone, care about them and do all you can but possibly the other one might not see it for what it means or even worse see it in a negative way. The there are various social issues which I club together and call practicality - there are so many things that happen in our lives that make us unable to do what we want, then there are social differences too that stop us. I won't elaborate, but obviously there are various issues here.

As a joke I devised a 7 layer mechanism on what stops us from finding a partner. It doesn't exactly apply to love but in some way it might. First you should be geographically co-located, then you should also chance to meet. Third is that you are looking for someone at that time. Fourth is the your hypothetical partner is looking for someone at that same time. Fifth is that you like someone (which is not very easy for some people). Sixth is of course that your hypothetical partner likes you. Seventh and last is that mystical luck factor - for every factor that I forgot/overlooked/can't express.

Anyways that's enough digression - the point is that there are enough obstacles in your way to finding love and you should not be adding any more. Your disposition and your ego are things you have control over and they should not be allowed to before another set of walls to your soul's search for the elusive soul mate.

Book Review - Fountainhead Part I

Fountainhead is probably the most amazingly life and perception changing book there is, at least amongst the ones I have chanced to come across/read. There is so much of exquisite work that my review just never could do justice to it but perhaps I should try. Fountainhead seeks to (with clear success) shatter an inherent thinking that we all have - that no sacrifice is too high for the greater good of mankind. It is very hard to explain but when you read it you realize that perhaps what we had taken for granted for as true isn't quite so right. It shows how every man is selfish and rightfully so. There is no shame in bring selfish - infact the selfless devotion to ones desire is the most pious deed. The notions that we are taught as we grow in this society are not the final word - every man has the right to pursue his happiness and that for Roark in Fountainhead was his work. The desire - be whatever it might be - the ultimate crux of the matter is that there is no principle which is greater than the pursuit of your desire. You are in no way indebted to the society and sacrificing yourself to pay it is hence senseless. The biggest debt you owe is to yourself and to pursue your desire is the only way to repay it. Howard Roark was a talent par exemplar and it is rare to find such people and they when allowed a free hand can unknowingly give to the society that they never took anything from. The fact that these very folks are often sidelined and not even given the recognition that the most undeserving amongst us recieves is sad. There are numerous true stories of geniuses rebuked by the society - well the rebuke is not cared about mostly. But even worse is that it impedes their selfless efforts which will never take anything but give to others.

..to be continued

Desire

An austere sage teaches us that desire is the root cause of all evil. But to not to desire is to not to live and we are not interested in dead/suicidal people anyways. The problem needs to have a more granular solution. The problem is not in desiring but in desiring without limits. Man by instinct is such a greedy animal that it desires not one but a host of things in every domain. It's thinking is not simple as that of a animal. Animal just wants freedom, limitless freedom and to be well fed - a forest has everything it wants to live. Man on the other hand is a confused about this, he wants freedom but wants also wants chains that allow him comforts that they provide. There is this whole well-known debate on whether moderization/development is actually helping man but that would be digressing from the theme. So the limitless greed is what we think is the root for all evil. Take for example a popular business family and you will find people with billions of dollars each fighting over - of all stupid things - money. Now that might make some sense if they were poor and lacking in that area. But all they ever want is more, which as I see it is insane. Desire for anything to any amount is not bad till it takes over you. Till it takes control of the way you see, interpret thing and makes you do things you wouldn't want to do were it not for that greed (bad things obviously). It is basically the evil twin of determination. One leads you to achieving your goals in life and the other does the same but at the cost of your principles and morals. Greed and desire are divided by a thin line and the idea is to try and keep to the good side as much as we possibly can.

Under the yoke of mediocrity

Some part of all of us wants to be excellent, the best rather. Determination and hard work can help achieve a lot but still there are never millions of places at the top - only a few. There is a fight for those few places. But sadly the law of numbers prevails and numbers matter more than being the best. The multitude is, as expected, most aptly described as mediocre. This notion of democracy has been extended to mean that even this mediocrity of talent (in whatever field) is a desirable thing. Whatever this large proportion of the audience interested in, is sure to find lots of people fighting to get in providing. Thus we have a lot of mediocre products - be it movies, art, music, food, clothes, educated professionals or anything else for that matter. It is as simple as the business adapting as per the market requirements. Thus we see that a lot of mediocre stuff being pushed in - of these inferior things getting precedence over the better ones. People who actually have an eye for the excellent, the best of them are left out in the cold. Let take a practical example - say there is an exam on some logical subject. This is something where you should have people think over new/original problems - but the exam ends up testing attendance in class instead of logical reasoning, it has all the questions that have been 'taught' earlier. This is done to accommodate the majority of people incapable of coping with an intellectual test. In this way people who mug up achieve higher than people who actually think logically and have an understanding of the course material. This is the way that medicrity of the entire society stifles the better ones.

The reign of mediocrity was beautifully portrayed in Ayn Rand's Fountainhead. It remains one of the best pieces of literary work till date. There is a Howard Roark (the protagonist, defender of excellence in himself) in many of us, just the fact that most don't take up the battle of excellence and mediocrity - for it needs you to risk everything in your life at times. Thus the being who is a bearer of some form of excellence - under the slavery of practicality is forced to hide his talent and live intermingled and tinged with the poisoned of compelled mediocrity. And thus mediocrity begets more mediocrity and even stops the mushrooming of excellence.

But where do we see hope - there is always supposed to be some hope! Well in this case the only hope is going to come from individualistic strength to challenge the promotion of sub-standard things in any walk of our lives.