Power and comfort

Mankind has always been behind power. Power has been supposedly the biggest quencher of ego thirst, or even for that matter, a confidence booster, and a materialistic satisfier for as along as we can remember.

Very few can handle power well, I am not talking about how people make use of that power, instead I am talking about how few people are not comfortable of being in possession of that power.

Is it because we are comfortable being powered around?

Is it that we do not want to be the one to bell the cat, and be struck with being the one who has to stand up, be the bad one, and convey hard rules to people?

Is it because, its easy to be one amongst the rest, rather than one above a few?.

Is it just a matter of transition, just like anything new, we are taking time to get eased into it.

Is it that we are terrible leaders, and not wired to handle power.

Is it that we are afraid of the owning upto consequences which are inevitable with power.

any thoughts?

Tag time

Its been a long time since I did some tags, so here goes my attempt at following “manic me“

A

- Available: Not sure

- Age: at times 5, others 27

- Annoyance: Ego, at the moment.

- Animal: none, I like them away from me, Unless you count me as an animal

B

- Beer: Bud Light, if not anything which is straight from the tap

- Birthday/Birthplace: Rajkot, I think it was thursday well past midnight

- Body Part on opposite sex: must have

- Best feeling in the world: Remembering something/someone whom you really wanted, and realizing you still have them right with you.

- Blind or Deaf: I would go for mute.

- Best weather: cloudy, grey, just about to rain, or just after the rain

- Been in Love: nope

- Been on stage?: yes, kind of resent it though

- Believe in yourself?: I would like to say yes, but then I doubt so much, so no

- Believe in life on other planets: don’t care

- Believe in miracles: yes, definitely

- Believe in Magic: nope

- Believe in God: Yes, mostly

C- Car: Not so much of a car person, own a santro which I have hardly driver

- Candy: given the right one

- Color: grey, beige,

- Cried in school: very rare

- Chocolate/Vanilla: anything, any form, anywhere

- Country to visit: Africa, Brunei, New zealand

D

- Day or Night: Day, early mooning, late noon

- Danced: nope, I don’t even have two left foot

- Dance in the rain?: no way, never

- Do the splits?: never tried

E

- Eggs: omlette

- Eyes: green

- Everyone has: problems

F

- First crush: realized way too late.

- First thoughts waking up: What’s my schedule

- Food: anything vegetarian

G

- Greatest Fear: loneliness

- Giver or taker: shameless taker

- Goals: calmness and peace for the self

- Get along with your parents?: yes and no

H

- Hair Colour: black brown silver

- Height: 5’8”

- Happy: very rarely

- How do you want to die: instantly

- Health freak? nope

- Hate:People who have no sense of time

I

- Ice Cream: without nuts

- Instrument: nothing one can play

- Jewelry: not my cup of tea

- Job: Coolie, but techie variety

K

- Kids: Amazing, simple and talented.

- Kickboxing or karate: just plain kicking

- Keep a journal?: Yes

L

- Love: over rated, and ignored at the same time.

- Laughed so hard you cried: nope..

- Love at first sight: Does drooling over a nice dish count as love at first sight?, if yes, many times.

M

- Mooned anyone?: hahha no, I can’t imagine how fun or bizarre that would be

- Marriage: will happen some day

- Motion sickness?: Nope, If you count not moving on weekends from front of television over the weekends which my mom terms as sickness, and is related to motion, then definitely yes.

N

- Number of Siblings: 0, but virtually speaking yes

- Number of Piercings: none

O

- One wish: Disney land near my house,

P

- Place you’d like to live: beach side, or by the mountains

- Perfect Pizza: they all taste the same

- Pepsi/Coke: non aerated shakes

Q

- Questionnaires: I kind of like them

R

- Reason to cry: helplessness, by crying I do not mean tears

- Reality T.V.: non real

- Roll your tongue in a circle:  on?

S

- Song: current favorite – “jaane kaha mera jigar gaya ji”

- Shoe size: don’t know, must be 8 or something

- Slept outside: yes. in open air, in the tent, below a tree, ah fun!

- Seen a dead body?: yes.

- Smoked?: no

- Skinny dipped?: nope…never

- Shower daily?: there have been days I have skipped

- Sing well?: haha is “well” relative?

- In the shower?: yes

- Swear?: very rarely

- Stuffed Animals?: nah

- Single/Group dates: considering this is fantasy to me right now, I would go for group dates, more the merrier

- Strawberries/Blueberries: blueberries

- Scientists need to invent: cure for greediness

T

- Time for bed: used to be 8:30, now I would like it to be 10pm

- Thunderstorms: fun, if you have good food and good company

- TV: fun if sitcoms are on

- Touch your tongue to your nose: easily

U

- Unpredictable: nope..too predictable

V

- Vegetable you hate: capsicum

- Vegetable you love: Okra, Potatoes

- Vacation spot: home stays within forests

W

- Weakness: worrisome

- When you grow up: I will like to be immature

- Worst feeling: not able to share your happiness

- Wanted to be a model?:  yeah, if they are selling something geeky, why not

- Where do we go when we die:  candyland

Worst weather: sweaty summer

X

-X-Rays: Cool if you are voyeur

Y

-Year it is now: 2009

-Yellow: does not look good on me

Z- Zoo animal: slimy

- Zodiac sign: Virgo

How do I turn the d*** thing off!

Tap!, that’s all I had to do to get the tap flowing.

You pretty much don’t have any concerns left, once you find a loo after having to hold your pee for a long time, the relief is almost heavenly.

Wait, Tapping the thing did open the faucet in the sink, but how do I turn the d*** thing off?.

I start with the basic stuff,
twist it right,
twist it left,
pull it,
push it,
even try to move it slantingly.

Nothing seem to work.

TADA!, mentos, dimak ki batti jale de!.

There must be an automatic sensor some where. Genius begins to search for the sensors, it began with a
Wave in front of the faucet,
then below the tap.
behind the tap???..
ah forget it

There must be a switch somewhere, the hunt for the switch begins, and also for my patience..

Am I like being punked or something?, am I looking into a camera?, look around, no one except me.

What If I just walk out, nobody will know its me. what if they had a secret camera in here, i would sound so stupid..

ENTER THE KID BRIGADE.

*cunningly smiling*, ah the kids are gonna wash their hands, I can just copy them.

D*** kids, they had no business in here, they are just talking.

Finally, one kid is doing his thing, he should come in here soon to wash his hands.

Oh, how long does he take, its weird washing your hands for this long, what would the kids think of me.

Ah the kid is approaching, good.. Does he really have to apply soap for such a long time??…anyways he is almost done..now its his turn to turn of the tap..ah I am so close to the end of my misery.

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Kid tries pretty much all the things I tried, and gives up and coolly walks out.

So Your’s truly, follows the leader.

Happy days

There are days when, for no reason, you reminisce about the past, specially the happiness from the past. It’s not that you are sad or anything, just your mind dwells in the pleasure territories from the past. Today has been one such day to me.

Today for no reason, I remembered the two most happy days from my life. The days when you are genuinely happy, unconditionally happy, not thinking about how you are gonna take it in the future, just be in the moment and feel a great amount of satisfaction.

Fortunately I have these two days in my memory bank.

One of them is the day I got my first job offer, I can still feel the high from that day. Even though Its been almost 7 years now. [Saumya, if you are reading this, can you believe its more than 7 years]. I can still feel the buzz you know.  I remember not being able to sleep all night, being all excited. I am not sure if I ever felt that happy ever since.

The second one, has to be another 6 years back into past. The day I my school called up one day before class 10 board results. Let me not dwell too much into it, but I will just say, its been one of the two most happy days in my life. Even though I reached the same feat 6 years later once again, the first time feeling is just too awesome.

So here goes for those happy days in each of our lives.

I hate numbers

Over last few days this thought has been lingering in my head. Have you ever wondered what on this earth prompted for people to discover numbers?.

According to me “numerals” have to be the single most dreadful discovery ever made by mankind. If I were to do a countdown of 10 most dangerous discoveries by humans, the “numbers” would top my list. You’re right, even over the most dreaded nuke.

We have this habit of assigning a number to everything, you name it and we give it a number. If someone says  I am good at a particular thing, we will go ahead and ask him/her to rate him/herself on a scale of 1 to 10. I mean how does it matter, isn’t it good that he/she is happy to be good at something. what difference does a 7 or a 8 make to her. Only thing it can do, is to break the confidence levels and make them eager to get there, by hook or crook.

Its not like we want our life to be at a CMM level 4, where we want to quantitatively manager every single aspect of human existence. Still people attach measurements and a number to everything. Age, weight, height, waist size, salary, time taken to get to work, distance to the playground, years of marriage, you name it we give it  a number.

How cool it would be if we didn’t have numbers, we would have no way to measure anythings, that would make us so much more happier. People would be no longer jealous of how much their colleagues make, no one would feel sad on the number of kg’s they have gained, no one will feel bad at the number of car’s in the neighbour’s shed.

No numbers, would mean, that people do not let their lives hinge on those few numbers, instead would worry about making theirs more holistic. Happiness would be happiness again, it wouldn’t be measurable. Money would be for buying things, and not for checking balances, Size would be for satisfaction and not for comparison, house would turn into homes rather than the number of sq-foots or the count of bed’s and bath’s, there would be no anniversaries but only celebrations.

Ah!, who am I kidding, we are humans, we always will find a reason and then a means to compare, if not numbers, something else it would be.

Give me a look;

I am back with a passage yet again from Milan’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”. This one , I saved to ponder over more, before I post anything on it.

Kundera says “We all need some one to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under

The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eye. in other words, for the look of the public.
The second category is made up of people who have vital need to be looked at by many known eyes.
The third category is the of people who need to be constantly for the eyes of the person they love.
The fourth and the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers.“

I tried to categorize myself into one of those, and somehow I found myself fitting into each of those. I have longed for many kind of looks through my life, and at time it has been public, at times known people, at times pair of imaginary eyes to follow me, and at rarest of the times someone who is a loved one.

Its strange what a pair of eye can do to us isn’t it?, how much ever we say others don’t matter to us, what they think, or weather they care about us does not make any difference to us. I would like to disagree with most of these thoughts, and I have always disagreed to such claims, atleast to me what people think about me matters, how they see me matters, and most importantly the thought of someone looking at me, gives me a feeling of being wanted, needed which is a big confidence booster.

Even though I like to categorize myself into the third category, I am afraid I would fit more into 1 and 2, and occasionally into 4.

So what category are you?.

Materialistic me

Sometimes I am so  materialistic. Let me correct myself, many a times I am so materialistic.

Today I got something which I have wanted for quite sometime now. I wouldn’t describe what I feel as ‘happiness’, but then I am not sad either.

Until the next materialistic figure that excites me, which I am sure will happen soon enough, Sayonara

Kundera’s lightness of being.

After a long time I found a book which interested me till the end, and has kept me thinking about it ever since. There are some books which make a lot of sense once you finish it, and reminisce about the sentences and apply it to real life. Milan Kundera’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” has been such a book for me.

Here are some of the parts which I liked, and some are more thought provoking so would like to post them as a theory of pursuit post later.

Talking about coincidences, the author writes.”Our day-to-day life is bombarded with fortuities or, to be more precise , with the accidental meetings of people and events we call coincidences. “Co-incidence” means that two events unexpectedly happen at the same time, they meet:. Human lives are composed like music, Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitious occurrence into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individuals life“

He has this amazing paragraph about goals, he says “Anyone whose goal is “something higher” must expect some day to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling?. Then why do we feel it even when the observation tower comes equipped with a sturdy handrail? No vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which temps and lures us, it is the desire to fall against which, terrified , we defend ourselves“. We all have our vertigos, don’t we?, when someone puts it such simple words it makes me wonder about all the times I have feared about falling, literally and figuratively. We do know there are so many things which can make us prevent us from falling, and we also know there are hundreds of things which can lure us into doing it. We have vertigo’s all through our life, be it with a goal, or without it. He quotes “Pick me up, is the message who keeps falling, and her partner kept picking her up, patiently”.

Speaking of motifs, and life’s music, he says, “When people are fairly young and musical compositions of their lives is still in its opening bars, they can go about writing it together and exchange motifs, but if they meet when they are older, their musical compositions are more or less complete, and every motif, every object, every word means something different to each of them“. hmm this I have a question, so does it really mean, two people at various periods of their life can never have a beautiful music together?, will the meaning differ to them so much. Practically thinking I tend to agree with this, but my heart says not to.

Author writes, “The pleasure suffusing his body called for darkness. That darkness was pure, perfect, thoughtless, visionless, that darkness was without end, without borders, that darkness was infinite we each carry within us. He himself disintegrated and dissolved into the infinity of his darkness, himself becoming infinite. But the larger a man grows in his own inner darkness, the more his outer form diminishes, A man with closed eyes is a wreck of a man.” Interesting, this is about a person who is used to closing his eyes during moments of pleasure, and it meant so much more to me.

Kundera tries to define flirtation, and I found it really amusing, he says. “What is flirtation? One might say that it is a behavior leading another to believe that sexual intimacy is possible, while preventing that possibility from becoming a certainty. In other words, flirting is a promise of sexual intercourse without a guarantee.” Now kids, all of you how found this one interesting, secretly raise your hands.

Speaking of uniqueness in a person he says, “What is unique about the “I” hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person. All we ae able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else, what people have in common. The individual “I” is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated. What must be unveiled, uncovered, conquered.” Its a really interesting theory, that what makes a person individual, is what we cannot imagine about the person, if it is something imaginable, then thats common. Try this exercise, think of a person who you think is unique, and then try to imagine his/her unique characteristic, now you think of other people who you know have that same characteristic, now the original person does not seem all that unique at all.

Here’s a quote from the book which made complete sense in context of the story, but then still am wondering what it could mean to us in real life, “A husband’s funeral is a wife’s true wedding The climax of her life’s work! The reward for her sufferings!“. Does it make any sense to you ?

Another such quote, which makes a whole lot of sense, but I am not able to comprehend here, ” Happiness is the longing for repetition“

There are many things in the book which I found really worth thinking about, and am still thinking about them. couple of more posts to follow.

My timekeepers

Our time we tend to build up our own time keepers, reminders and alarms. When you think of a cock/hen acting as an alarm piece and think how outdated it is, think twice, because we seem to have many cock/hen substitutes in our daily life.

How many of us use the routine life around us actual reminders?. I remember as a kid my mom using the 6am pradesha samachara on the radio as a reminder to wake me up. There was a time, when I was forced to wash my hands and legs and start studing at 7pm in the evening, and I used to use the 7pm ‘varthegalu’[evening news] as a reminder, that its time to stop playing. Not that we didn’t have watch with us, almost every room in the house has a wall clock, but we tend to keep these small time markers, and trust them more than our clocks.

Many years later, not much has changed. These are some of the many reminders I use daily.

People who stay above my apartment, getting off their bed at 5:00 am with a thud every day early in the morning, I assume either the person is a BIG man, or I have too sensitive ears. [Translate it to my marker to realize I am close to my  own alarm, and just 90 minutes short of it].

The biker who vrooms past my apartment block at 6:30 am [Read it as a deadline for me to get up, if by chance I choose to snooze the 6:27 alarm clock].

The 7am school bus which picks up kids in front of our community. [Read it as a reminder for me to stop looking outside the window, finish my coffee which has become cold by now, and get my lazy ass into shower]

Fresh Prince of Bel Air on TBS at 8:00 am [Time for breakfast, if nothing has been cooked, no more time is left, so go ahead grab a bowl of cereals]

Noise near the kitchenette right next to my cube at work place, [Lunch time, wrap  up the call soon]

Noise in my stomach [you have overshot the time, you have to go for lunch NOW!]

Silence at workplace [are you nuts?..time to go home]
I just realized that, if I were to loose my watch, it wouldn’t be that difficult after all.

Getting rid of

Have you ever watched a movie, where you totally forgot about reality, and got involved in the movie completely? Have you ever had an episode on television help you take your mind of something which was on your mind all day? Have you ever let the people around you hijack your mind off yourself, off your thoughts?.

We let so many things take our mind off ourselves, many times allowing us the happiness of forgetting things that worries us, or at times taking our focus off the happiness we are supposed to enjoy.

When you are alone, by alone I do not mean away from family, alone as in real solidarity, with not many people you interact with in person at work, or at home. All you got is yourself to play with. Its amazing how difficult it is to get your mind off things. You go for a walk, bam! You’re there, you go out for lunch, again you’re there, you go sit at your desk, you are there as well.

How do you get rid of yourself?.

God bless my busy work schedule.

[P.S No, I am not feeling lonely, I just want to get rid of me for a moment]