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Showing posts from February, 2011

Fatal Optimism

The world is so filled up with all the wise people around us telling us about the glass half-full argument. Optimism has its role to play in making otherwise hostile world around us bearable. We face a particularly obnoxious moment and believe in optimism that it will pass. Yes, it will surely pass, not disputing that. But at times, it is this very optimism which cause the most amount of inertia in life. I got up in the morning to an early alarm, set primarily to be able to attend the early morning meeting. Having looked at the face of my most precious friend lying so angelic and peaceful. So at peace she now looks in the early morning, it is almost impossible to predict the huge amount of naughtiness that this angelic creature is going to perpetrate during the course of day, So as I rush to catch up with the news paper headlines and in between walk down two floors to get milk from across the road, little do I notice the storm that builds into my chest. As I walked up the stair, what

Each to His Own

I feel each man lives through his life stretch across two different poles. Like a taut string of an bow stretched and ready for a kill, it is this tension which defines life. Call it Yin and Yang or call it any name, our entire life is a struggle to strike the just right balance between the two. We walk this path as a way to survival and it is only very late in our lives we realize that this is what we end up doing, merely, pathetically..surviving. We try to find a solution, but so rarely is there one. There is one thing which leaves me pretty amused is the teaching by greats which says then whenever you find yourself disconcerted with life, you should dive within. Within your soul is the pot which contains the nectar of life. The very thought discomforted and confounded me at the same time. Even if I understand, how bad every thing and the reaction of people is, unless those around me or those who are the main protagonist of the whole act are in the know of the downward spiral that

Great Expectations- greater gloom

Past few days have been as sore as a sore thumb, with all the nerve endings turned blue. Morose and melancholy, decided that the best thing would be to get into a self-imposed exile, listening to those I am totally not in position to talk back to. Some like for instance, Arthur Schopenhauer, as I listened into the audiobook of The World as Will and Representation. Often termed as the philosopher for the pessimists, the reading, on contrary turned out to be the most pleasant thought I have come across in the recent times. He argues, on the lines of ancient Hindu philosophy that major source of discomfort in life draws from great expectation we subject our lives to. We dream, think and imagine what life should be, how people around us ought to act, to us and to the world in general and anythink in deviance from our idea of "ought to" leaves us feeling terribly betrayed. Is the ought-to really practical? is the world around us as faithful to the idea of ought to? While having

A day or an Abyss

Every day ends with a night, thankfully. And similarly a week ends with a weekend. What if it doesn't? when your duty bound acts of your work days is simply replaced by a different set of duties on the weekend. I still remember that sinking feeling on a merry-go-round, as the lift came down, scared as you are you beg to somehow touch the bottom. As an aircraft descends on the earth, the only way on knowing it be a safe landing is for it to touch the earth. What if there is no earth to hold the landing.  Some days are like that. They are not one of your great days, not even one of the average ones, and worse still, they are not even your worst one, You stand there on the edge of sanity, just hoping that the day would at least decide to take one direction, to soar or to plunge. What is most frustrating is when the day stands undecided, seeming to be confounded by the enormity of the decision which passing moments entrusts it with. Today was one such day, it was not hot, but was n

Truth and Ephemeral Nature of Life

Last few days have been terrible. As I moved from a pure-play telecommunications vendor to my new role into an Information Technology major, I was expecting the days ahead to be full of splendor, vigor and happiness. I spent the last leg of my earlier employment with glorious lazing around at my parent's place with my little daughter in the two, as I tried to consume my pending leaves which never could earlier. There was a great part of day spent as an unhindered discussion between me and my daughter, under the bright sun in that small town near Ahmedabad. I tried to soak in the undivided attention that I got from my daughter possibly on account of non-availability of the second parent. I came back while father complained of being unwell, initially assumed to be on account of stomach disorder. It was only few days later, and couple of days after my joining in to the new role in a new organization that the test reports came out with inference of kidney problem. For the first time i

Self-doubt

I am not very sure of the age at which self-doubt first surfaces on the calm composure of a child's personality. When I look at my daughter, it is self-belief and the idea of happiness that drives all her efforts, which makes an observation of hers most engaging. A man is, to me it seems, all that he can be, at the beginning of his life. Her needs are so pure and straight-forward that any apology is therefore, out of place. Happiness is the sole driver of her activities. She, the sweet child of tomorrow, has no qualms of pointing to my shoes and tell very clearly to my nephew who is trying to wear them that those belong to her father and he should wear those of his own. At half his height she would pull herslf up to all of her stature and make her point. And I do love her for that. By this simple act she throws out all norms of social appropriateness choking the true human feelings, and makes it more meaningful to me is that she thereby connects to me as an extension  to me, by wh