Waste not...

Waste not the ink of your heart,

For love that but is fleeting like the season;

For there is love for the loving,

That never in eternity will part.

Strain not your chords on a song,

That has only words and tune;

For there is music that comes from the divine,

That will live forever long.

Drown not your breath in tears,

For the alchemy never meant to be,

For there is color and scent in nature's bosom,

That will bloom for you through the years.

WATCHING AND WAITING, BY THE SEA

I stood by the edge of the water waiting for the water to touch my feet,

And watched the birds glide over the crashing waves,

And waved at the boats carry men away to fish from the depths

And watched the sunrise from the mountains to the heavens

But the salt water and my feet, ne’er did they meet.

I stood by the edge of the water waiting for the waves to wash over me,

And watched the children play in the crashing waves,

And saw a few dolphins break the water to breathe,

As the sun changed colour to gold and amber,

But my body never got wet, and my soul never washed by sea.

Tired and angry, I sat myself down waiting for the tide to rise to meet me,

And stared down the fishermen rowing back, boats filled with their catch,

And watched the children swim back all gleefully drenched and dark,

The sun mellowed to a dark red as it met the horizon,

But the tide fell with the sun, and rose with the moon, never to wash o’er me.

Now I stand at the edge of the sea and think over the day,

And the moonlight plays with the crashing waves,

And the night sky riddled with stars twinkling as diamonds in a diamond mine,

Waiting for another night that shall pass by, another sun to rise,

And hoping for tomorrow, with some unknown blessing, the waters will come my way.

Religion that is no more about SPIRITUALITY...

I am a tolerant person, well mostly! I believe that God and religion is a bunch of hoopla and hoax created to control the human free spirit. But, I am tolerant to those who find God or find peace in God. What I do find wholly bewildering are the people who hide behind religion when their individual purpose is solved. And I am not talking of politicians and self proclaimed tricksters, er, religious leaders! I am talking of every day idiots who hide behind religion to justify asinine behavior, incompetence and malicious intent. 

A Mark Twain quote comes to mind...

And I live in India. The Motherland of Religious Escapists. Everything impractical and sometimes everything that defies basic logic can be justified by religion. Whether it is fasting yourself to illness or making excuses for not working (the never ending inventory of religious festivals and functions) to shunning basic human dignity. All this can be justified by using religion as an argument.

And there is always a loophole to exploit. At the very least to ensure that all is forgiven! If you commit a sin, no matter, there is always some temple you can ring the bell at or a river you can bathe in to clean up! And then you can go right back to sinning, whatever your choice of sin may be. Every time I go to any relic of religious worship, the number of crooks praying can only be outdone by the number of people exploiting God and the crooks to make a quick buck. 

To say nothing of religious extremities! Some of them are just plain stupid and others are reflections of poor character that is preached in the garb of religion. An extreme example is that of the Aghori Sadhus. These are members of a Hindu sect who worship Shiva, whom they see as the supreme god. Because they believe that Shiva created everything – they consider nothing to be bad. For this reason they engage in a variety of sexual practices, they drink alcohol, take drugs, and eat meat. A perfect example of leveraging religion to eat, drink, fuck and make merry! 

In some parts of India it is believed that ghosts can inhabit certain people of the living world. Most notably, girls who are born with a baby tooth already erupted through the gum and girls who are very ugly or have some facial deformation are believed to be possessed by ghosts. The only way to exorcise the ghosts is for the girl to marry an animal, typically a goat or dog. Even though there is a lavish wedding ceremony complete with booze and dancing, the girl is not expected to copulate with the animal – which is good news!

And how can we talk of religion and it's bullshit (pardon my language but I cannot find a better word) and not talk of the Muslims and their matam and the Sati Pratha among Hindus. Thankfully the latter has not been outlawed. But I am sure if you search deep and wide enough, it is still practiced.  

By all means, pray and be spiritual. But you don't have to burn women, be violent and marry animals to achieve fulfillment. And if you truly find charity in your heart and good will to the world, practice it instead of using it as a facade to commit atrocities.

A Ghost of Wrong Exits & Turns

Did I tell you about the first time?

It ran like a shiver of love

Running through all of my body

Until it was piercing light in my eyes.

Did I tell you about the second time?

It was like floating in a dream

Through darkness and light, 

Until it was a tearing thirst in my throat. 

Did I tell you about my tenth time?

It felt quite like the sun had run out

And winter and dark was all around,

Until it was time for the next time.

Did I tell you about the last time?

It was like a pain that promises to never cease,

Been burning in your muscles since the last time,

Until there was no breathing anymore. 

Did I tell you of the shadowy streets I wonder?

Amidst the dark and scary memories past,

A ghost of wrong exits and turns,

Until there is only waiting for the next birth.

The forgotten promise of my generation....

The whole world seems to be falling off at the seams and my country has not been left behind from the winds of turmoil and uncertainty that gradually blows us towards an unseen brink. What lies at the bottom of the abyss beyond the cliff I do not know. But I know that as a generation we have failed. And failed rather remarkably!

Every generation has a promise and every generation fails its promise in some measure. For what is a promise if it is not haughty enough to be an aspiration! I was born into a generation with roots in a murky, hardening and protracted struggle for economic and social identity - whether in the microcosm of our own hamlets of existence or on a global stage. A basis that carried the expectation of great achievements and promise of opportunities for takers. Seeded in ideals of tolerance and equality, we came with the promise to build bridges of confidence and unity over all that divided us. 

And when I look around me today, I cannot help but feel that we have squandered away what was handed down to us from our fathers who toiled hard to put up for us a foundation from whence we could establish identities that would make us proud citizens in whatever room we walked into. Instead we have landed ourselves into self-centered isolated islands with no room to spare, no charity in our hearts, intolerance to our neighbours and devoid of the capability to build and sustain relationships. 

Yes we have made a lot of progress on the chronology of evolution with means and ways to ease every pain and eliminate most basic units of struggle. In the process however, we have managed to increase the distances between our hearts, break down the bonds that held us together and all of this while pursuing individualistic aspirations fuelled by fear and greed. A fear that feeds greed and a greed that fuels fear. Entangled in a vicious cycle that is pushing a generation towards a social and economic reality that has incinerated all that was our rich inheritance. 

We have become more prosperous and pronounced as a people but driven a a blade against the moral fibres to the point from whence we can probably no longer repair. And, unabashedly, we continue gnawing at that which unites us, and continue building more walls that divide us.

Acquisition of wealth and associated potency has become the axis of most of our existences. In this pursuit values of sharing, kindness and civic duty being drowned in an apathy that is so dark and desperate that it has begun feeding on our own self worth. 

But I believe that there is good there in our souls. Buried deep in the reverie of selfishness and self-centredness, there still burns the promise of the generation that was to take the world on a shinier path. From the debate that I hear waging in corners and the unrest that brews within the walls of our homes, I hear hope for a better tomorrow. It is hope worth clinging on to for without a tiny glimmer of hope of some measure, we will end up as a generation that failed our past and failed our future. 

The Outcome Matters Not...

One rather solemn evening in the recent past, my grandfather said something that has stuck with me since. He is a career philosopher with years of research and teaching experience so most of what he says I absorb partially, me being someone grounded in the quagmire of practicality. He said, "you must do what you must do but misery and pain ensue when you fall in love and get attached to the outcome". Now it made sense to me somewhat at first sense as being a derivative of service without the hope and wishes of rewards from the Bhagvad Gita. But the more I thought the miseries and sorrows I encountered, self inflicted or of others, it made a lot more sense to me.

It takes the service without wish or hope of consequence or rewards to a whole new paradigm. Most often in life, we undertake the tasks or initiatives that we do with not just an anticipation of an outcome but with the expectation of a desirable outcome. And that kicks off multiple streams of events that guarantee an equal probability of either happiness or sorrow; both at the end of a path and, many times, along the road.

At the very bottom of the stacks of wisdom that makes up the meaning of life is the axiom that the future is not in our control. We can only control the present and align to the most rational course of action. The deepest flaw in our definition of the rational path is that it is built on the expectations of the rationality or gainful nature of the outcome. If we stop defining the present in terms of the future, it eliminates to a great deal the pressure and compulsions we feel to shape an outcome. And it also opens up a wide array of alternatives based on capacity, capability and level of dedication or passion that is felt.

In my experience of a corporate life I have often stumbled in decision making and execution inhibited by the fear and doubt of the outcome. Inherently therefore is the stress that is caused by the defense of the outcome against naysayers around. We feel so much love and attachment over what we have achieved that we are pained when criticism and, less often, feedback crosses our path and we drown ourselves in the joys and sorrows that accompany the rise and fall of the creation of our labors. Imagine a world in which you could just "do the right thing" that is optimum in terms of effort to execute and honest in terms of the intent. Continued stress and doubt of the future, when eliminated, opens up the space in our overcrowded mind and soul that is burdened by worry and anxiety. And inevitably helps us think and act with creativity and in the end be the best human beings we can.

Caught in archaic perceptions....

One of the things that makes India so different from the world and possible the single most powerful adhesive between us and our past is the grip of legacy and often archaic perception driven behavior. a lot of people will call it "our culture" and some will call it "our tradition" but what it mostly is, is a set of practices and an outlook that probably made some sense in terms of practicality a long time ago. But they have stayed on with us over generations and gotten enforced as a tremendous force of inertia that drives the way we think, what drives our beliefs and value systems and how we act.

As a country and civilization, we have come a long way from our past that, while studded with gold nuggets and diamonds, is in no way all great. And while we have uniquely adopted the new realities of the environment around us, a lot of the burden of the past still lingers on creating a very complex and sometimes counter-productive approach to seeing and reacting to incidents and surrounding.

These sometimes manifest themselves in taboos that have outlived their utility. Sometimes these are presented in their associations of religious symbolism - most notably heaven and hell. Most times however this manifests in what it really is - "it is what it has been", a generational treatise that has been passed down from the past to the present.

Every passing day these carvings on the stone are being challenged and in some corners being broken down but the progress is slow. Some would probably challenge me in that any way forward breaking shackles of the past, is not progress at all! But how is breaking away from the disappointment of giving birth to a daughter, or the often frowned upon single motherhood or the taboo associated with relationships outside the wedlock not progress.

If you step outside the neon flashes of the mega cities, as you make inroads into the small town and rural cultures, such practices abound in every aspect of life. And I think that holding on to such prejudices, perceptions and practices thus have very little to do with culture or tradition or any other justifying attribute such. We hold on to these beliefs and customs driven by antique value systems because they provide a corner of comfort and a place from where the practicing individual can wield some level of unjustified influence while being shielded from the harsh discomfiture of having to change.

And more often than not we would rather be exploited for this way of thought and action than change. It is how the colonial oppression succeeded and it is how every eon of ruling class has succeeded. We are so divided in our small universes and in our minds that our effectiveness as a united force is sub-optimal at best.  

The very fact that progress has proven inversely proportional to social rigidity, shows that it is. And as long as we choose to hold on to what our ancestors believed in and continue to explore the world and our lives through those narrow lenses, real progress shall elude us. The time has come for new sets of values and beliefs to be adopted that are more in line with the realities and forces of economics and globalization.

Journey Logs of my Canon... Vol-1

      

  

The Tragic Consequences of Biased Perceptions

Perceptions are an outcome of complex emotional processing leading to the most common responses to practical problems being emotions, and therefore inevitably irrational.MReality becomes a subject of our interpretations that are, in turn, clouded by our perceptions thus making reality inconsequential in our physical or cognitive actions...

As consequences....

**We spend too much of our lives bound by self enforced walls and restrictions that we miss so much that the world has to offer, in vain...

**Most often we make decisions based on our perceptions of Right and Wrong; contributing to our sense of well being but with nearly no upside for the "bigger picture"...

**Things are rarely as complicated as we make them to be...

**We tend to judge others by measures of who we are as a person...

The obsession with the future…

John Maynard Keynes said, "In the long run, we're all dead." And it is perhaps all that we can predict with any level of certainty, about the future. And yet we strive every day to change the outcomes and influence the future. Makes sense, since it is in the future that we will end up spending most of our time, anyways. However, the fact is that our influence on the future is limited only to a small extent because we cannot forecast what factors will drive the shaping of the future.

A story I heard some time back was of a guy who was scared to die, what is clinically called Thanatophobic. His phobia was very specific though – somewhere in the intersection of Thanatophobia and Dystychiphobia. He was absurdly scared of dying in an accident. I don’t think there is a clinical term yet but, this man was killed in the most absurd way (God rest his soul)…! He lived almost in a child safe cocoon with the inclusion of having his groceries delivered home. He was pale from lack of sunlight and fresh air exposure. He lived the safest possible existence until he died from a brain bleeding caused by his shower head falling on his head in the midst of his bathroom.

So, here is my point. The future is the equivalent of a roll of the dice on a swanky Vegas casino (or any other gambling destination of your choice). And in the long run the house (the alternative or uncertainty) will win. Yes, tomorrow I will wake up, water my plants and get to office after navigating some really irritating traffic. To that end I can predict the future but is that proof of a certain future or that my life is really boring! And yet, fortune telling is such a booming industry that some places have legal definitions of fortune telling and license regulations.

Eastpointe, MI is one such example that details quite extensively what qualifies as fortune telling, and lists acceptable tools, including crystals, coffee grinds and the occult, as well as proper usage of one’s powers, which can be summoned for “effecting spells, charms, or incantations, or placing, or removing curses,” among other things. It’s quite an interesting read.

“Fortunetelling” shall mean the telling of fortunes, forecasting of futures, or reading the past, by means of any occult, psychic power, faculty, force, clairvoyance, cartomancy, psychometry, phrenology, spirits, tea leaves, tarot cards, scrying, coins, sticks, dice, sand, coffee grounds, crystal gazing or other such reading, or through mediumship, seership, prophecy, augury, astrology, palmistry, necromancy, mindreading, telepathy or other craft, art, science, talisman, charm, potion, magnetism, magnetized article or substance, or by any such similar thing or act. It shall also include effecting spells, charms, or incantations, or placing, or removing curses or advising the taking or administering of what are commonly called love powders or potions in order for example, to get or recover property, stop bad luck, give good luck, put bad luck on a person or animal, stop or injure the business or health of a person or shorten a person’s life, obtain success in business, enterprise, speculation and games of chance, win the affection of a person, make one person marry or divorce another, induce a person to make or alter a will, tell where money or other property is hidden, make a person dispose of property in favor of another, or other such similar activity.

Quantum mechanics, more commonly accepted these days as the predominant rules that explain the physical universe (not much help with the metaphysical world), says that outcomes cannot be predicted. Much like the Schrödinger’s Cat experiment (for those of your who do not think very highly of Physics or not a fan of Big bang Theory here is a link that explains the experiment), the future is indeterminate until you are contextually present in it.

Why then the absurd obsession with the future? I have asked myself this question as to why, knowing that we have limited power, if any at all, to influence the outcomes of the future (assuming anything we do is a triggering mechanism towards some outcome), we obsess so hard about what is to be of us tomorrow. There are different theories surrounding the subject – the one that makes the most sense to me, from a pragmatic perspective, is that the future is random within a broadly defined range, at best. Will the end of the world happen tomorrow or not (well the last one failed pretty uneventfully, thank God, fate, destiny or just the carefully engineered balance of power by the global policy makers or whoever)? There are plenty of prophecies left yet. The two that are closest are by Nancy Regan who before her death in 1997 claimed Armageddon would come in 2020 or alternatively Dr. F. Kenton Beshore’s prediction that the world could end in 2018.

I think that humans are inherently built of hope. Hope is the center of our existences and most of our purpose in life is defined in terms of our hope for better outcomes. And it always feels nice to have hope substantiated by some form of authoritarian pretention. And that is really the answer. All our prayers and dependence on the agents of future are basically manifestations of human hope – our greatest strength and weakness at the same time.

The Difference between Disbelief and Choice of Faith…

To my blog yesterday, talking about the role of the concept of God, I received a few comments. One of them was particularly interesting and pointed me to the controversy that surrounds those that simple undertake a choice of determination of faith. The comment is re-quoted below.

“There is good definition of Atheism… The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.”

If that is what Atheism really means, then I am no atheist. In my heart I believe that there is a general construct of laws and rules that drive the shape of the future. Many people call it fate and destiny while others, like economists and speculators, try and seek the shape of the future in numbers. And there are those of us who choose to believe that there are outcomes and ways of science and mathematics that we do not understand – while our understanding may be skewed towards ignorance given the size of the cosmos, it does not mean that everything that is beyond our grasp amounts to magic and divine intervention.

A friend of mine once quoted a gentleman called Erich Von Daniken to explain how faith and belief take shape – I will try and capture the gist of it. Imagine a cluster of people who have lived in complete seclusion for generations, since before the industrial revolution took off, in Africa. They had children and their children had children and all they learnt and practiced was basic sustainability – hunt, cook, build roofs, etc. while staying completely secluded from the rest of the world that was advancing so fast. Imagine their consternation, one find day, when two men and a woman with clothes they had never seen before, complexion unlike their own and accessories that made no practical sense, landed a helicopter and got off it with guns firing. How difficult would it be to convince the aborigines that the new entrants of their lives with fire weapons and strange ways had superpowers and were higher beings?
 

Sadly in the reality that has been documented, this is the general path to slavery and exploitation. My point however is this - the origin for faith and belief is not founded in rationality. It is essentially an emotional reaction to ambient circumstances and outcomes. Very often we come across outcomes that we cannot control – be it in the form of plagues and hurricanes to the pre-historic man or a flying chariot with rotating blades to the African aborigine or be it in form of death of a loved one in spite of the best medical care money can buy. As I mentioned in my previous blog, humans are slave to their need to rationalize outcomes to conform to what makes them comfortable and helps them cope with the reality.
 

The matter of not believing that the universe, and all in it, is being driven by a single or a group of super-powerful individuals with power to make or remake as they choose fit is not so much an active disbelief. It is a matter of choice. As an individual there are multiple ways of dealing with any given manifestation of reality that cannot be explained with existing information and knowledge at hand. A large majority think that there is a divine plan that has been written and will play itself out as time progresses. Some believe that it is coincidence. There are others who believe that everything is driven by cause-and-effect. Every outcome is caused by an input. And if we believe that time is infinite going forward, we must also believe that it is infinite behind us too – thereby choosing to not believe in a specific origin of all things. Cause and effect have been playing out forever and will continue playing out forever. That perspective does not necessarily mean an active disbelief in an alternate answer to the problems of life and other parts of the grand picture.
 

Much like religion and God, it is a matter of choice. What do I choose to have faith in? Physics? Or a divine power? I choose to put my faith in mathematical precision of physics. There is a lot that I don’t understand about it and a whole lot that no one understands about it. That does not make me and more right or more wrong until we can have comprehensive proof of everything that is anything – one way or the other. Till then, I believe, that I should have the right and freedom to choose any way that suits my appetite for faith.

If there was no God…

Voltaire said, “Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer.” Translated to English it means ‘If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.’ In a discussion I was having with my mother the other day, we were debating the need for physical manifestations of the abstract for people to believe. Therein stems the need for rituals, deities, books and chanting for the average mortal to believe the existence of a God.
I am an atheist and am loved and hated in different circles for it. In the circles that I am hated for my opinions, I am told that the equivalent of being an atheist in their minds is drawn with being an anarchist. And the more I speak with people, especially those who hate me and despise me for being godless, the more I am convinced that Voltaire was right. Let us assume that there was no God – in essence let’s start at the beginning, before religion. The human mind, as I see it, is not independent and does not possess the strength to deal with reality as is. God, genetics, or whoever made man, equipped us with an inquisitive mind; and the natural next step of the inquisitive mind is to seek reasoning and meaning. It is never enough for things to just happen. They must, for us to be able to cope with the reality, happen for a reason and that reason must converge into something that either can be controlled or not. When it cannot be controlled, it is the weakness of the human mind that leads it to attribute the occurrence of an event to a higher power.
If you and I were told that we are organic beings destined to be born, feed, reproduce and die, which would be a depressing thought. The lack of purpose, the ability to not being able to control and alter or change the outcome would be difficult to consume. We then found a way of justifying the outcome in terms of God, religion and complicated theories of sins and afterlife. In essence what purpose did religion and God serve? It helped, us humans, justify the seemingly meaningless organic process of life that would have otherwise been a purposeless journey towards a pre-determined outcome. If you think hard enough and draw out the fishbone long enough, you will realize that everything we do is to make life, as we know it, have greater purpose and meaning, and possibly an outcome in whatever way possible.
So what is wrong in searching for meaning? Nothing, if you ask me! The human mind craves meaning and purpose and therefore we are different from the average stray dog that we run from or the fish that we slay to consume. And different people search for meaning in different ways. Some find meaning in God and religion. Others find meaning through different pursuits ranging from knowledge to money. And to a significant population, a hybrid approach provides greater solace. To the pursuer of money, money is God. To the hungry seeker of knowledge, knowledge is God.
Without the comfort of our individual Gods, we humans would basically end up as meaningless organic existence who, must fight to feed and run from danger to survive, till age or said danger catches up and terminates our lives. There would, in essence, be no motivation to strive for a better or different outcome in the short term or the long term. Without the motivation to strive for a different outcome we would never have become a civilization, and thereafter, a modern civilization spoiled by technology, as we exist today. That is why we need God. As for the argument of whether God is a super-human entity who exists on different solar systems, as energy or in physical bodies, or any of the other manifestation we choose to fantasize into reality, is a question that must be answered by the individual. Because, the individual answer is the source of the individual’s sense of purpose and motivation towards betterment.

What we really need to protest against.....

When I look back at 2012, I see a calendar of protests. From protesting against burning Qurans that marked the beginning of a disturbing year to the year being dragged through Russian, Walls Street, Catalan, Palestinian, Arab, Syrian, Egyptian and Greek protests against everything from governance to sustenance.

 

In India, we saw our share including a year-long anti-graft drama playing out on multiple fronts, to the Delhi centric anti-rape protests extending into the new year. I believe that protests are the healthiest form of expression of dissent, peaceful or otherwise. However, what I do not see is protests leading to tangible outcomes of betterment, especially close to home. The quality and value of life are no better or higher as an outcome of protests. What does that tell us about the state of affairs in our country as they manifest themselves?

 

I believe that we need to relook at how modernization and economic enrichment has affected the way life is valued in India. It is sad to see that with so much that has changed, nothing much has really changed. The gap of perception and reality between the ruling and ruled continues to widen and at a much faster pace every passing day. Regard and respect for law and order continues to diminish as the value to honesty continues to be defined in money terms. We continue to improve the outside while deteriorating as human beings from within. And I have come to conclude that we have indeed not learned from the lessons of the West where capitalism came at a dear cost of humanity.

 

That brings me to the crux of protests in India. Are we really protesting against what needs to be uprooted and discarded? Independent issues and occurrences fuel most of our angst at the external manifestations of a system that is gradually rusting towards an unsustainable future. This road that we are on has little to do with the politics of the nation or of the legal inefficiencies and enforcement corruption. These, in my mind, are symptoms of a much deeper degenerative gene. As human beings, if we take the time to look at the mirror, we have increasingly come to define ourselves with independent and material end objectives, almost always with a common trait of greed. Measuring ourselves in terms of money and material well-being has led us to forget that we live in a great nation forged from the blood and sweat of many thousands who dreamed of a common brighter future. As we go about our lives with our own selfish agenda painted and tainted by dreams of material acquisition, we forget the potential of collective growth. To suit our superficial moral angel (sitting and weeping on our shoulders), we react to outrage committed through protests and demonstrations of solidarity and yet, in the tone and nature of who we are, the hollow echo keeps getting louder every day.

 

Who do we blame? The Media? The Politicians? The System? What we need to take cognizance of, when pointing the proverbial finger, is the fact that the media, the politicians and not least of all, the system is comprised of you and me. The corruption and misdemeanor we see around us is just a manifestation of what has become of the human spirit. When pointing a finger we fail to see that the finger being pointed is really at a mirror of our collective. And, as long as we measure our successes by the steps we climb in an economically defined social staircase, no matter how hard we scream and shout offensives at the establishments around us, we shall make no progress.

 

I see people around me every day, pray to God, revolt against injustice and then return to conform to a system of convenience where everything is acceptable as long as their preferred way of life is not altered for the worse. How shall we dream and execute a luminous future if at the end of the journey we are standing alone; surrounded by wealth and well-being, with no one to share with? It is our greed and self-centered perspective, which we so readily conform to today, should be the object of our protests. Can we be slightly better as human beings tomorrow that we are today because we protested against how we do things? When we, as a people, begin to change individually for the better will we begin to see the society improve.

 

The alternative may be soothing to our conscience but that is all it shall be limited to till the day we die.

45 LIFE LESSONS, WRITTEN BY A 90 YEAR OLD - Regina Brett

Agree or not, it's a good read.....
REGINABRETT.COM


1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short not to enjoy it.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.
5. Don’t buy stuff you don’t need.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for things that matter.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye… But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful. Clutter weighs you down in many ways.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to be happy. But it’s all up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Overprepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words, ‘In five years, will this matter?’
27. Always choose Life.
28. Forgive but don’t forget.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give Time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d
grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have, not what you think you need.
42. The best is yet to come…
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

Quote from Mr. Bachchan....

Defining The 'Self'

My life, starting from when I finished school, has been a continuous array of moving from one point to another in pursuit of something to define myself by. The first few years the discovery was mostly in search of what parameters can be used to define self. Why is defining the self, important? Many times when we are asked about who we are, the response to this question is never about who we really are but a kind of socially trained response that is driven by acquired perceptions and an imposed set of values that are not formed independently.  While the social definition of the self, although derived from the collective many, is what gives a society and its people some level of a homogenous character, it fails to take responsibility or accountability for the outcomes of choices of the individual self. The two ideas, viz. “who I really am” and “who they think I am” can often merge with one another to form a pretty complex universe that must be navigated.

To be able to navigate successfully through the catacombs of individual and social, it is very often important of defining the self, independent of external influence with a set of meaningful parameters that enable the individual to make choices towards most desirable outcomes. Every outcome and every experience is the complex output of how our individual choices interact with the collective direction and while we make everyday choices almost at a subconscious level, the outcome or experience may not have a noticeable short-term disruption of momentum.

Most often what we do struggle with are the bigger things like the choice of a career path and or deciding on a spouse because these are choices that impact our lives and completely change the direction of its course. And we think we understand these choices when we are hitting the throttle on the decision. However this understanding is often very shallow and as with most choices frivolous, is made through a socially constructed looking glass. The long-term experience and outcome of choices we think we understand will often lead the individual to question the choice. It is at this juncture that we come face to face with trying to understand the drivers of the choice and there we are exposed to understand that we are inherently different from what we are perceived as.

As an example with utmost respect due, most politicians use this to their benefit. In fact most successful politicians seem to have an almost iron clad understanding of their self and use this understanding to drive the external looking glass to driving a desired political, social and economic outcome. Most people I know at my age or over question their choices and decisions and I believe that the symptoms of this can be seen in almost every piece of statistic that has shown rapid change in recent times – crime rates, divorce rates, suicide rates, rebellions, unemployment (I strongly believe that unemployment is an outcome of someone doing what they are not built to do hence not doing it well), per capita income – the list is endless.

At the end of the day, it’s always the individual that defines the character of a stable social entity and this is why defining the self independent of social imposition is crucially important to be able to sustain a stable social fabric. Human nature has evolved over time and faced with a choice that does not align, increasingly we see people jumping ship to alternative avenues in search of satisfaction making for an unstable individual and therefore an unstable society.

Before successfully defining the self, it is important to choose the right parametric pillars to build the definition on. The choice of the wrong pillars will, depending on how they are wrong, will not lead to a meaningful and true reflection of the self. 

Starting with the obvious and most spoken about parameter as we move to a primarily economics driven life – wealth driven affluence. And this is probably the most common parameter used for definition. The road of wealth driven self-definition is one that tends to stretch somewhat beyond the horizon. Call it a cliché but you can buy that 75” LCD and then the 100” plasma and keep going till you have your own movie theatre and the incremental euphoria is really marginal once you reach the 75”.  Beyond the 75” or whatever the equivalent passion is, the acquisition of wealth and hence material wealth as a defining parameter becomes meaningless to some extent.

I consider that the definition of the self is really about the attempt to define a legacy to engrave on your memorial (photo, stone, or whatever your religion asks of you) – the attempt to get to the ‘richest’ in any given cross section will cease to be true with the individual unless you can leave behind machinery that continues to generate wealth.  So, I guess what I am really saying is this, wealth for the sake of being wealthier that some pre-defined parameter or person ends in a somewhat wasted effort since the race feeds on itself like an unbalanced mathematical equation – the higher the attributed values to the variables, the wider the lack of balance.  But then, of late, I have increasingly been meeting a group of people who essentially define and design their lives based on the pursuit of material wealth.

I reiterate (for the fear of being misunderstood) – my contention is not that altruism on a completely selfless basis should replace acquiring wealth. That is not my suggestion at all and frankly I do not believe that true selflessness is achievable – at least in the context of modern life, as it is. If we build a society that is based purely on social welfare the outcome would be unsustainable since this would be discouraging to individual initiative and wealth, or more importantly the opportunity to incremental wealth acquisition, is the most potent motivator towards collective economic progress driven by individual achievement.

But, as we have demonstrated, the incremental value that money or wealth can add to life is somewhat limited and beyond a point the law of diminishing returns results in wealth based self-definitions becoming meaningless statements of accounts. At one time I used to yearn for travelling on a Business Class ticket and, I would not deny it, even today I wish I would be able to get a Business Class ticket. But the actual incremental value (based on experience) is much limited to a perception based value. 

Is then the creation of the capability or the ability to generate wealth a more worthy criteria then to define the self. As wise men have said very often, “you are what you do.” This cannot, in my opinion, be an absolute way of defining someone for two reasons.

First, every individual’s choices and outcomes is as much a determinant of his environment as his own actions. It can be argued that the environment is a direct outcome of a person’s choices and hence outcomes are indirectly influenced by choices. But that would be assuming that choices are always made independent of the environment – this cannot be true since every choice we make is an interaction between the environment and thoughts; and every outcome is an interaction between choices and the environment.

Secondly, by that logic, most individuals would be defined by their profession. Which sometimes this might be true but in very many cases may not be – and this kind of definition of the self in itself is an outcome of acquired perceptions and hence cannot be a very good measure of who you are. A shrewd businessman who is driven solely by a profit motive at work may be a good father and husband – but should he define himself as a shrewd and profit minded person or a loving father and pampering husband?

It is true that what we do and more importantly, how well we do what we do can really be the looking glass for the world to look at someone and hence we often end up convincing ourselves that I must be the person everyone around thinks me up to be. This is the “Ctrl+C – Ctrl+V” version of defining the self. Why bother, right? Well, the problem is that we end up spending most of our lives and very often become the person everyone else wants of us thus draining the individual of his or her full potential to achieve and grow.

I do not say that everyone is born with one unique true purpose in life. If that were the case the concept of a homogenous social existence would crumble under forces of divergent purposes. But I do believe that for a society or economy or existence as such to progress, certain predefined purposes are established forming totems that an individual or groups of individuals gravitate towards. Leading, for example is one of the totems that a few individuals may gravitate towards while a larges number of people will gravitate towards one or more execution related purpose. So, theoretically, while you remain in control of your destiny, in practice you are really subject to choosing from a predetermined set of end games.

Thus using what we do, or end up doing in life, to define one’s self is flawed because this is not an independent expression of our fabric. In fact, it would not be too outrageous either to say that what we end up doing is more a reflection of the society we are born into (the totems we are bound to gravitate to). This makes me become a part of a larger whole instead of having defined the self as the axiom to the environment and social surroundings.

A lot of people have urged me to take the spiritual route to discover the answer to my search for parameters by which to define myself. I started out a few times on conventional and unconventional spiritual paths but stopped very short when I realized that spirituality as it is taught and practiced is more about the preaching and practice than about a journey towards self discovery. My biggest problem with any metaphysical or spiritual attempt at describing oneself is that this starts with the basic assumption of faith in that which is greater than the self and it’s purpose; and a certain acceptance of the magical supernormal as a guiding force. And while the supernatural does not intimidate me (it is a massive universe and there are bound to be things we don’t know, understand or, at the moment, have the ability to comprehend), the variability in the representation of this greater than you and me force and the attribution of prayer as a means to understand it’s power and presence.

I strongly believe that prayer will not help us answer the questions of the existence of a God in whatever form our perceptions shape him to be. The human mind and body have great strength and potential, potential that can be harnessed through meditation and concentration; but attributing such power and capabilities to something beyond ordinary (just because we do not understand it does not mean it is magic or supernatural; I agree it is statistically outside normal) leads to the same problem as with the “you are what you do” approach. As a parameter, spirituality cannot define the self, independent of social and religion driven perceptions – and as we have seen that road generally ends up in a person accepting that, which is socially formulated.

While this essay does not focus on the presence or absence of God as a deterministic force of fate, I would like to believe that fate is not predetermined since such predetermination essentially means that as an individual there is very little control one can exert on his or her life. If my fate and future is predetermined, whatever choices I make will lead to the same outcomes making any effort at self-realization and discovery futile. From what I have seen and heard so far, the argument of God conflicts itself in this one aspect, of many. I would much rather concede to random genetics being the determinants of fate.

Very often decisions and choices are just sum of limitations – you do something because that is the extremity of your capability. For example, I was never good at math; and never for the lack of trying. And this is an independent attribute that random genetics has assigned to me.

At this point it is important to understand or accept that outcomes can never be pin pointed since choices are unique although gravitating towards broad totems. Can I say that a choice I make is going to have an absolute outcome? Outside of numerical mathematics and physics, and sometimes even at that, it is difficult to predict the future. Heisenberg and Schrodinger all have said the future or outcome cannot be predicted beyond potential outcomes. Hence decision-making is generally a factor of deciding on a course that in combination of choosing for the most desirable of potential outcomes and understanding of limitations. So, therefore can we conclusively say the definition of the self is really a sum of a person’s limitations? While this does sound like an immensely pessimistic view of the world much of our conduct and choices are aimed at either concealing and overcoming or working around limitations. Having established that limitations form a large part of how we define ourselves, if is important therefore to also give due merit to strengths.

But, I believe, that a person’s strengths are compensations for his or her limitations. And examples are abundant. Great athletes do not make great scholars, as a rule, and vice versa other than in Robin Cook and John Grisham novels. I would attribute athleticism as an active quality requiring physical strength and scholastic pursuits are generally compensation. There are exceptions but most of those who end up pursuing pure or applied physics will tell you that they were never good at outdoor sports than saying that physics was an inclination from childhood – as if the limitation of outdoor capabilities is largely the defining force. The reverse is true too. Not everyone is geared to applied physics. And if you are not, chances are that you will compensate by inclining to outdoor sports apologizing along the way for not being good with number.

But, thankfully limitations cannot be the only components of defining the self.  A little earlier I mentioned that some significant part of our efforts are directed towards concealing or overcoming our limitations. If our definition of self would be reliant solely on our limitations then the effort to compensate or concealment would be futile. There must therefore be some other parametric element that gives rise to such emotional responses like hope, rationalization and inspiration; key components of being able to work around limitations.

Is it perhaps the much talked about force of will power? Ockham's razor would dictate that that must be it. But I, in spite being an eternal cynic, do believe that will power is something all humans can summon together. It cannot be the missing parameter since it is definitely inherent to human nature and the ability to summon it up is a derivative of situation and consequences. Ordinarily getting up early on a Monday morning can be a pain and yet picture facing a critical examination on a Monday morning, sleep generally ends the night before and there is no shortage of will to wake up.

I believe that, based on recent progresses in understanding the human brain, this factor is the basic human character. It is now proven that strengths and flaws of character, are driven by corners of the human brain and human character is a key determinant in terms of what drives human decision and hence key to self definition. To some extent, human character is shaped by his or her social environment; in the way it impacts the development of neurological reaction centers - to that extent definition of self is not completely isolated from social influence.   A person who is dishonest by character faced with certain limitations will react differently to life as against an honest person faced with the same limitations.

Definitely then, an individuals character is the road that the individual will take to make a choice or behave within the boundaries of his or her limitations – thus concluding to the definition of the self.

Interpreting An Odd Series of Dreams....

The odd nature of dreams, I have found, is that they end up, almost always, merging with a real life trigger - the alarm clock, the urgent nature's call, noise and, if you are watching about dreams on TV, someone shouting you name. Very recently I read someplace that you cannot see your own death in a dream. Or, at least what I think it meant, you cannot experience you own death - I am guessing this applies for those who experience dreams in first person. And I am not very sure how that works but this one is about a particular stream of dreams that are haunting me off late. And I am not the person who gets haunted very easily.

It generally starts with a normal day, picture the average boring work day with not too many variables out of the ordinary. And somewhere towards the middle of the boring day (I can tell you these are boring because most times I am unsure if the real is a dream or vice-versa, and I know a boring day when I see one; there have been so many of late!). And then, almost out of the blue, there will be this one thing that gets introduced into this rhythm that is unpredictable and unaccounted for. The range of the variable of uncertainty has been widespread from a harmless power disruption to disaster events like crashing planes or a tornado or a particularly harmful lightning strike.

Typically the way events unfold from there on are as varied as the nature of the disruptive variable (I will not try and detail it out because it would probably sound over creative) - the end sequence of events is rather constant. I am bleeding pretty badly (with no particularly discernible injuries) and surrounded by faces of people I have never met. Breathing is difficult and the distinct feeling that the next inhalation may quite be the last.

What is bothering me about this sequence of dreams is not so much the 'meaning' but the 'relevance' and or 'context'. I did spend some time researching some bit of similar dreams and how they might be relevant to my life as it was progressing - little surprise that there was not much help from there. Hence I spent the whole day pondering about the potential meaning and implications.

My first thoughts were influenced, I shamefully agree, by the more recent hypes surrounding the forecasts of the impending 2012 end of days scenarios. Given the nature of events unfolding in the world, I am not very sure that we may survive very long before the next war erupts - I am fairly convinced that for the next major war, it will not matter who starts it. It will spread so fast and so far that there will not be too many safe places short of the moon to hide. The only safety net we have is that the terrorism agenda has been somewhat diluted and no other agenda (Korea, Iran or whatever) is strong enough yet to justify war. In a way, the incidence to too many crisis issues coinciding is probably what's holding us off the all out war path. But that cannot be it. The disruptive variable in my dream is never battle or war related - no bombs or gunfire in any of the event sequences. In addition, as shallow as it sounds, I would probably not die for my country or any cause, not unless the change of circumstances will actually benefit me and keep me alive - I am selfish, it's just the way I am; at least I am honest about it.

The other perspective to the dream - it was probably telling me that there would be a change of career choice I would be offered very soon and, as has been the case last time I made a career choice, I would choose the wrong path and eventually be doomed for complete destruction. I must concede that my career choices have always been questionable at best and the outcomes have been very very disappointing. But then I think I have learnt my lessons so if this dream is a premonition or, scary version, a precognition, there is not much upside and it depresses me. That too cannot be because I know, as far as I can predict,  that there is no drastic change coming along. I am, at least from a career point of view, facing serious momentum issues.

Is it then my subconscious side reminding me that I am a mortal? That may well be the case since my research of dreams has told me that dreams of death or impending death are ways of my mind reminding me that I am going to die sooner or later. And that I need to take the chance of changing paths to make some difference. Being born into a family with a medical man as my father, I am very aligned to the fact of mortality and do not have any illusions of living forever. While it would be nice if we could come up with technology that could allow us to live forever, by downloading consciousness into new bodies. It is well established that the human body is not the most efficient vehicle for perpetual life - the only solution to the mortality problem is not in curing illnesses but some way of extraction & downloading of the human consciousness. That's the Robin Cook fan in me speaking, I guess.

My wife will say that I need to stop watching too much Science Fiction on TV and start watching more romantic comedies. That might be a suggestion to lead to some more clarity in my dreams - clarity in form of what I should pay attention to and what I should restrain wasting my reserve thought bandwidth. This could however be some form of an innocuous dream like the ones where I am my own superhero or good looking alien life form - not much to them. Well, I have been warned. World War will probably not leave me many options for an alternate future but the other outcomes I will be able to control to some extent, so fingers crossed!

I don't have anything against God...

I am prone, very often, to get into a discussion over the validity in the extreme euphoria surrounding the presence of God. I am not learned in the subject and by no means am I against the concept of God. For a universe the size of infinity, I am sure that there exists a race somewhere that must be all powerful compared to the destructive abilities we have achieve over a few thousand years of civility. And, by no means do I feel pity or disgust about those who believe in the existence of a power that is supreme and dedicate their life to it. But, that is a question of faith and belief and what you dedicate your life to; and herein lies my beef (or pork, or any meat or vegetable of your choosing and faith!) with the concept of God and associated religious beliefs.

Faith and belief are inherently very personal and not subject to external interpretation, judgement and contemplation. I, as any individual, have the right and (post the age of 5! Personally that was when I liked to think I developed the ability to think) to choose and practice what I believe in and anything that adds to the quality of my existence. Association of faith and beliefs to material rituals and habits by very nature reduces them to a rule bound and hence dependent set of feelings. As long as my faith and beliefs do not involve infringement on another's, I do not believe that these necessarily need to follow a particular set of 'divine laws'. Human laws are sufficient to guide moral conduct and abused concepts of enlightenment and repentance. Do I have to believe in a super-human power and worship what supposedly he (or she) has said to be able to decide that it is wrong to kill for profit, rape for pleasure and cheat. Or maybe it is not wrong!

The fundamental problem of religion and religious anything as I see it that it dictates a code based on very powerful fiction that is not based on scientific evidence or replicability and tries to manipulate the human mind with the awe. God is all knowing and all seeing, apparently and yet his justice is not immediate. I need to wait till Judgement Day to see thousands of 'impure spirit's (you know, your everyday politicians, scammers and definitely the spammers hitting my mailbox everyday) before they get punished. If there is a God of such nature who created man in his image and let's man spread such tyranny and  pain in the world, it does not speak very highly of his image, does it?

Just because some of our ancestors saw them heal and fly, it is not magic. My dad can heal (he is a doctor) and I can fly (in exchange for a lot of money but all the same)! To the primitive who has not been educated beyond the Bullock Cart, I can see why this might seem God-like but for the modern 'plugged-in' human this cannot justify blind faith that can convince him (or her) of anything. We will have teleportation and long distance space-travel soon enough unless we kill ourselves before we get there in the name of God and His religion. And then are we Gods or is there yet more to capture before we can be equals with our Gods? A wise man once said (oh! wait, that was me) that the meaning of life is for the idle mind; life is for the living.     

Living Alone

My wife has been away for some time now - she's just in a different country driven by circumstances. In case she or friends are reading, we are doing very well, thank you! As I am sure most of you in my circumstance have experienced before, it's not very easy after the first two weeks once you have been married for a considerable length of time.

The first seven days feels like back to bachelorhood and the possibilities are fairly endless, "Yay! I can do all those things that I did 4 years and some months ago." The second week carries some of the inertia of the previous week but the illusion sublimates after the first few conversations on a Monday morning. After that it just gets sad. For the most of us at least! Some people will tell you that they do actually have a lot of fun - Asian massages, Vegas trips and drunken binges, but I guess I am quite the bit domesticated I feared.

Before I went all bachelor on myself, I was on a diet and in the gym every evening. And that completely disappeared in record time after my wife left. Cooking tasty low calorie food to satisfy an appetite is an unbelievably daunting task given the quantum of food I consume. Given the ages of overeating, I was not very good at three bite sized meals that passed for meals. And just when you think that you had mustered what it takes in terms of motivation and drive to be able to cover the high ground to make yourself a very difficult meal (high volume and low calorie) after a day on a lot of encouragement, canned soup and a banana, you realize that it take a whole new level of initiative to do it all for yourself. And after the first really cheesy pizza I excused myself to eat, my resolve to lose weight and live longer went for a toss. I was back in a moment to eating slippery fatty food.

Every friday evening, I work out an elaborate plan to go pubbing after a light dinner. It is surprising how much certainty and surety is involved in what I finally do afterwards. Have a fully easy to cook high calorie dinner, have some Walmart wine and watch TV till late night. And almost with regularity sleep well into Saturday. And, I hate Saturday pubbing alone because, frankly, paying entry for one person is ridiculously expensive. When my wife is around, it makes sense for two people with ladies entry free - who says it's a man's world! And predictably I end up with pizza or when I am very depressed, chinese food and TV series of unknown origin.

Every now and then, I will cook myself a feast. And then, by the time I get to the end of cooking a 3 course meal, I have no appetite to eat any of it. So I will probably have a cup of coffee and get back to some really unattractive and boring work before I go to sleep. And the next day I will have the same food reheated.

And two months into this rather depressing period of my life, I am convinced of the fact that being married is a habit and a very addictive one at that. And there is no getting away from it. I have tried planning every alternative and even drove 200 miles to the state border to indulge in photography. Two photographs and I was bored of it too. What can I say, I guess since marriage makes me tough to stay away, I am happily married.