Reasons for disenchantment

If I were to be with you, I would rather I be kind to you. I know I am cruel, unintentionally maybe, still you bring out the worst part of me: the cruel, neurotic, unhappy face of me. I am happy with a lot of people. I make them happy too, even without trying.  A lot of them make me happy, even when I don't crave their company.

Your company I crave....yet, I am cruel and unhappy with you.

How then can I be with you? I don't want to be that person you know. I don't love you, that's true. Still wouldn't it be good if I could be happy with you, happy for you - happy that you are you and I am me, and we are together. I think about trying. I try.

Shouldn't happiness be effortless? Should it be effortless? Does it even matter!

I say goodbye now. You see,  I would rather I be kind to you - one good reason for disenchantment. 

To do list.

Here's an article I found rather inspiring. Indeed, a strange thing to be inspired by. Nevertheless... 

 http://www.planetgary.com/sunscreen.htm

Wear Sunscreen

By Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '98: Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blind side you at 4 PM on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.

Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

Nicholson Baker - a snippet

           “ If your life is like my life, there are within it brief stretches, usually a week to ten days long, when your mind achieves a polished and freestanding coherence. The chanting tape-loops of poetry anthologies, the crumbly pieces of philosophy, the unsmelted barbarisms, the litter torn from huge collisions of abandoned theories - all this nomadic sub-orbital junk suddenly, like a milling street crowd in a movie-musical, re-forms itself into a proud, pinstriped, top-hatted commonwealth. Your opinions become neat and unruffleable. Every new toy design, ever abuse of privilege or gesture of philanthropy, every witnessed squabble at the supermarket checkout counter, is smoothly remade into evidence for five or six sociological truths. Puffed up enough to be charitable, you stop urging your point with twisting jabs of your fork; you happily concede winnable arguments to avoid injuring the feelings of your friends; your stock of proverbs from Samuel Johnson seems elegant and apt in every context; you are firm, you think fast, you offer delicately phrased advice.
          Then one Thursday, out on a minor errand, you inexplicably come to a new conclusion (“Keynesian economics is spent”), and it - like the fetching plastic egg that cruel experimenters have discovered will cause a mother bird to thrust her own warm, speckled ones from the nest - upsets your equilibrium. The community of convictions flies apart, you sense unguessed contradictions, there are disavowals, frictions, second thoughts, please for further study; you stare in renewed perplexity out the laundromat’s plate-glass window, while your pulped library card dries in a tumbling shirt pocket behind you.
             Such alert intermissions happen only infrequently: most of the time we are in some inconclusive phases of changing our minds about many, if not all, things. We have no choice. Our opinions, gently nudged by circumstance, revise themselves under cover of inattention. We tell them, in a steady voice, No, I’m not interested in a change at present. But there is no stopping opinions. They don’t care about whether we want to hold them or not; they do what they have to do."

—

Nicholson Baker, Changes of Mind

Thought stew

  I have become obsessed with the work of Elizabeth Barett Browning and Oscar Wilde. How are such radically different people, able to influence me at the same. The life and work of both litterateurs are in no way converging. I could almost call them parallel lines traversing the universe of thought, never to meet. Yet by influencing my thought almost simultaneously, uncannily enough, both theirs worlds seems to have converged in me.

It reminds me of that poem. The mosquito that holds my blood and his blood; and in the most unlikely place, within the mosquito, our blood become one - we become one. I am the mosquito within whom Wilde and Browning combine. With me will perishe the thought stew of them in me combined.  Strange, very strange indeed.

'Produce'. That is my new golden rule.
It comes right after my other golden rule, 'no matter what you do (whether you love it or not), do it well'.

I have been fumbling around in search of inspiration because I have been dissatisfied with my life as it is. Dissatisfaction is a corrosive thing. It digs into the well spring of your being,  slowly eating away at the things that are true of you. At some point it reaches the core of you and you start feeling that you don't know yourself anymore. Other things that made sense before start irritating you, or you try to spurn the good things in your life. Yes! dissatisfaction can be highly corrosive and mostly ends with waste.

(to be contd...)

On winter

I am not a winter person. Growing up in a place that knows 'not much' of winter, Delhi is a climate shock. Imagine having to have a whole new wardrobe for the season. You pack away all you pretty summer clothes, and out comes all the bulky (not so sexy) winter wear. With it comes, the laziness:

'Get up at 6?'             

 What sacrilege?! 

 Read (forget study) late into the night?     

 'What?! Are you out of your mind!' 

 And then there is the washing - more clothes to wash, colder water to do the washing with...

So hey, do you wonder that I am not a winter person. Yet, there is something about winter that makes me... moody. I know, I know, such a typical female thing to say. Still it is the closest I can describe what the season does to me.

Early mornings makes me all lazy and kind of sad. Staring out the bus window on my way to work, I see all the fall colors and a sense of harmony permeates my whole being. I watch toddlers skipping off to school, in colorful sweaters, all plump and full of joy; and I feel like I should hop, skip and jump with them. On nights that remind me of someone, I grow a little sad and wish I were home...

The prayer I always want to remember

Lord, protect our doubts, because Doubt is a way of praying. It is Doubt that makes us grow because it forces us to look fearlessly at the many answers that exist to one question. And in order for this to be possible…

Lord, protect our decisions, because making Decisions is a way of praying. Give us the courage, after our doubts, to be able to choose between one road and another. May our YES always be a YES and our NO always be a NO. Once we have chosen our road, may we never look back nor allow our soul to be eaten away by remorse. And in order for this to be possible…
Lord, protect our actions, because Action is a way of praying. May our daily bread be the result of the very best that we carry within us. May we, through work and Action, share a little of the love we receive. And in order for this to be possible…
Lord, protect our dreams, because to Dream is a way of praying. Make sure that, regardless of our age or our circumstances, we are capable of keeping alight in our heart the sacred flame of hope and perseverance. And in order for this to be possible…
Lord, give us enthusiasm, because Enthusiasm is a way of praying. It is what binds us to the Heavens and to Earth, to grown-ups and to children, it is what tells us that our desires are important and deserve our best efforts. It is Enthusiasm that reaffirms to us that everything is possible, as long as we are totally committed to what we are doing. And in order for this to be possible…
Lord, protect us, because Life is the only way we have of making manifest Your miracle. May the earth continue to transform seeds into wheat, may we continue to transmute wheat into bread. And this is only possible if we have Love; therefore, do not leave us in solitude. Always give us Your company, and the company of men and women who have doubts, who act and dream and feel enthusiasm, and who live each day as if it were totally dedicated to Your glory.

Amen

 - Paulo Coelho

Gibberish

 Yesterday : "Find me a fallen star. Go, go, run and lure out that fantastic lore. I want to fall in love, see; So lure out that fantastic lore". 

Today:  "What fallen star? What lore? Love (?) - don't you know it is all  but a fantastical myth :  woven by the dazed bards, with golden sands and silver webs, laced with shiny stars and sparkling rainbows? Don't you know? "

 Save your head, she said. It is quite useful to have around. Throw out all that rubbish. Wake up, life is no dream. 

On possibilities, choices.

Everywhere I look, I see possibilities. The infinite possibilities of me. To choose one is to deny myself the infinity of others. Yet, to not choose is to deny myself every possibility. How then to make a choice?

I googled it. - the one stop search on all questions.

It spat out a slew of quotes on choices. Every  quote contradicting the other one - it was one mess of confusion. I wonder if any of those who wrote that stuff, actually dared to make the choice. My choices are small. I choose to live. I choose to be happy. I choose to be true to myself and all that is in me. I choose to not be used. Every moment, I chose on among the infinite possibilities that can be.

The sad thing about choices, is that there is no one who has to  live with them, except you. With every moment of choice, another of consequence is born. And within that consequence is  another choice - one of attitude this time. Will this spiral of choices never end?

I ask myself, why I make the choices I make? What is it that I am letting these choices make of me? Coz true enough, it is my choices that make me.

A Mer-song

Sometimes, I hear the ocean humming to my ears; then I realize how far from home I am.

I lost myself a little much. A little much I have lost.  I don't know why I did it, all I know is that it's left me dizzy, disoriented. I have lost all sense of who I am, what I will. It is not your fault - not really. I was the fool that hoped, that trusted. I am the fool who took you for my dream.

Why did I ever let anyone become important?!

I need boundaries. I need walls. You are to stay outside.  Stay quiet - I like my peace.  Never again will I let you in. No way will you ever come first again. Hear this, no way! You can do as you will. In my head I have muted you, paused you. Do what you will.

Don't think I am easy.

I was:  for you. There, beneath those trees, near that well trodden path, in a field of rabble, she now lies buried. There is no tombstone marking her passing. All I know, she is gone and I buried her.

I am stripped of her. Now, there is only this bit of me. I have boundaries and I have walls. You will never find me here. Find my walls, find my shell. No, you won't find me.

 Go. Walk free. Head held high. Be whoever you will.

I am me. I don't regret that. Just stay out. I won't let you in.

Go. Walk free. Find your happiness, your place.

I am me.

I am me.

Until I melt into the silent waves and the humming in me is home once again.

A blank page can be a staggering thing. To gather the colorful chaos of images and voices, swirling, shifting, flitting through the mind; and  capture them onto a word, written and  tangible, is to stagger. Yet, I find that today I am compelled to do it. I am encompassed by a strange disquiet. I breathe and it becomes a living thing, fluttering in my chest. 

To you, for inspiring me.

     At times, meeting someone new can give you a new perspective on life. It doesn't matter what your state of mind is right then...you suddenly look on the world with new eyes.

        I am not talking about big things or grant events that descend on you with aplomb; It is more of another ordinary day, and you come upon this person.  Of course, inspiration comes in all forms, shapes and sizes. For me, when we met, inspiration just took the form of a person. Ever since, I have found inspiration in other little things. But this chance meeting, it was the beginning...of something. 

        Imagine this: You are stuck in the routine of life. You do today what you did yesterday and it is going to be same things again tomorrow. At times, if you are lucky, you look at the person you are and wonder ' what am I doing' or  'Is this all there is to life?'; if not, you drift through life oblivious to the monotony of life -- nursing a vague discontent, but never going into the root of it. That was the place I was at. My life was 'ok'. I have a job I do well (sort of)  and it pays my bills. I have friends - good friends. Yet, I am drifting through life, and quite unexpectedly

        I meet you...
      "  I never felt alone, till I met you
        I'm alright on my own
        And then I met you
        And I'd know what to do
        If I just knew, what's comin'

        I would change myself if I could
        I walk with my people if I could find them
        And I'd say that I'm sorry to you
       I'm sorry to you

       And I don't wanna call you
      But then I wanna call you....

A strange tumble of unfamiliar emotion, of conflicting, contradicting, tumultuous thoughts defined me. I am me, but yet I find myself wondering who am I.  Amidst all this angst and unwanted strife, I found a piece of me that I didn't know existed. I found the inspiration, the will, the need to accept and be.

'No matter what'- what comes, what goes, what happens, what does not - know this: you inspired me. If only for one moment, you gave me a bit of me. This then is a thank you - one you will never read. Nevertheless, it is here and it remains a silent testimony to my moment of inspiration.

 

I dance alone

A warm night and a girl with a mind all disquieted by the day, they went off together to dance their worries away. The dance was once a fear, now it was relief. The girl found a strange new friend in new beats she met there.

There was a sanctity to that moment of  her abandon. She sways and swings, moves with effortless grace to the rhythms of that abandon. She loves how the solitude is merged with those of all those many bodies swaying with hers. No one cares, the only thing that matters is the moment. A gracious moment that accepts all.

I met her there. I, the ghost of her Christmas' Past.  She looked me in the eye, with a strange sad smile on her face. She looked. She smiled. She waved goodbye, walked away and didn't look back.

A certain me

           Independence is a heady thing. Like that first taste of vodka, it is a rush of feeling:  the strange tang in your mouth,  fire blazing to your belly, slowing, settling into a pleasant glow all over.  I find in me a bottomless pit, craving that exquisite rush. 

           It took me a long time to leave home... I remember when I was rearing to go, to leave and never look back. It did not happen though - not then. Slowly, the urge to leave died down and I settled into that comfortable routine of life. It was not an unpleasant life, no. In a way, it was a time for learning  about those familiar faces whose lives were intertwined with mine -- family, friends, teachers, neighbors...to gradually see them without the distorting myopia of childhood.  I wondered at these curious creatures that inhabited my life -- these courageous beings, familiar, but not quite.

       When it was finally time to leave, I thithered, fidgeted, vacillated trying to find the will to leave. Leave I did - told  myself 'adventures are not bad'; and it certainly has been one. It felt awkward at first - this new skin I was trying on; and lonely, strange and scary. Silently, the new skin has somehow melded in with the old and it feels more completely like 'me'. I fit into it and it suits me well.

        I love the people I am with. I love the place I am at. I hate my boss (that unbearable chauvinist!).  I love and hate, I dread, rage and roar with laughter, I dream and not work for them - all of it feels like me, and I feel free to be all that. This place, this time in my life is about knowing 'me'.   And  I find that "25  is a bottomless pit - nothing I consume weighs me down. I have so much more room in me that I used to..."( via Linz)

          
    

Memories

          'Memories are more precious to me than possessions'. If there is only one thing someone is allowed to leave with, I can understand how they could walk away with just a shoe-box full of memories.  I wonder at the person I would be without all of mine. Most of them are intangible glimpses of my perceptions - of people, places, time, experiences.  

            If I wanted to be specific, I would say 'memories are my skewed perceptions'. After all, it is not truly 'what is' that I see. I see, choose out of what I see and then I interpret, and store that interpretation. And whenever I retrieve them, they are susceptible to alterations. So yes, memories are not always true. But somehow, all that science doesn't diminish what memories truly mean to me. Imperfect as they are, it defines me as I am now. 

          Each memory holds within it the essence of our emotions of that moment. Whenever I think of 'harmony', it is one place and a certain journey that comes to mind... one long trek from Tutupani to Muraldhanda.  It was mid-April, most of the snow had melted off on the hills of Himachal. If you would look carefully, you would find some chunks of snow like mud-soaked memories of winter, hiding in those corners and crevices. We had started off early in the morning. There was a chill in the air; it was fresh, the world calm. We walked along  the curving mountain roads, with the huge drop on one side and the Rhododendrons splashing the world with color.

        

             I had on my most comfortable pair of sneakers, an old windcheater with the hood down, and was toting an even older backpack (God alone knows how many people had used it before me?!).  It was a long walk. I was starting to get a little tired, a little depressed and then it started drizzling. First, there were splashes of darker gray on the road, then it spread... A few moments, then it was a downpour. I could feel the water dripping onto my face, flowing down my nose, my clothes getting soaked. I pulled the hood up and kept walking. I was watching the road - the way it curves, how it slowly got drenched, and those rivulets flowing across the road.

             Suddenly, I looked up. Stopped. Held my breath.

             Lo behold! the world was beautiful. It was like everything had taken on this dazzling hue: the flowers were more red, the grass more green, the soil full of life and the water swishing, swirling, tumbling down the drop.  I was in a moment of absolute perfection - life in all its beauty. 

            Years have passed since. Time seems have washed away a lot of the details, leaving only the very essence of that moment - the being in harmony with the universe. And so it is, that I  too would walk away with just a shoe box full of memories - of old photographs, that broken watch, the pressed carnation inside that well worn book...

“For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences.”

Ha! Finally I created a blog. The stupidest thing to do to the world. As if  it were not enough to dump all those rambling thoughts onto a diary...
 Do not be mislead by the title -- it is primarily a state of my mind.