Killing himself

He was hungry,
He was cold,
He hadn’t had a meal
That wasn’t two days old.

He crept into the house
Silent like a mime,
To steal a few something
A dollar, a penny, a dime.

Unfortunate, his soul,
A wrong moment he chose.
He walked into the house,
Just as the master arose.

A brief struggle,
A short fight,
Too many people,
Smothering his flight.

The cops were called,
In the middle of the night
They came in their cars,
In all their might.

They dragged his body
They dragged his soul.
They dragged him through
Every unknown hole.

They had kept him in chains,
They had kept him locked
They had tried to break him
They had to keep him shocked.

They beat him with fists,
And sticks, all they tried
For each lash on his body
Not once, he cried.

They had caught him stealing
To feed himself.
They never knew they
Caught him, killing himself.

Dated: 25th December 2005

Sorry

There was a time, when I was young, when I was probably the rudest being the almighty ever created. I did not give elders the respect they were entitled to, I was too young to gauge if they actually deserved it. If one has ever conversed in a language that was Indian - Hindi, Tamil or any other regional language, I guess one will understand what I mean. There is a way of addressing the people that are in the same age group and those donkey years older than you are. I used the kind of language one uses to address and fight with ones siblings on everybody. This is when a cousin of mine, god bless his heart, taught me one does not do that and the nuances of the language. The reason I bring this up is this is when I began using the word “sorry”.

Over the last few days, a series of events occurred that has made me question the very use of the word. Again, the events do not matter, as do the questions that arose in my head. This is another effort to convert those useless things called random musings to valid arguments.

The main question is does on really control what they are doing? The answer to that, according to me is yes, they do. Everything one does is a choice. Taking into consideration all other possible avenues possible, the result of each one and weighing them also known as cost – benefit analysis in management parlance, one takes the decision. Post this one implements the decision. This means following a particular path is a result of a conscious decision.

Since one has control over every event, not the result, one had the choice not to do it, but chose to do so; does one need to be sorry the result was different compared to the one he/she expected when he/she chose to walk down that path?

This is where I am not able to conclude. There are two arguments I have and both seem to be equally sane. I will try to elucidate them both. Maybe someone out there can provide assistance.

Each decision one takes can be of two types - one that affects others and one that affects only the decision maker. This is the main assumption I am running with.

In the former case, where the decision I take affects others, I guess I have a responsibility to make sure the things I do, do not affect the other person in a detrimental manner, and even though this mainly contradicts the fact one man’s gain is another man’s loss. To take this further, I guess, only the people that matter to me should not to have a negative return from my actions. Does this mean I can do things I like when the other person is a complete stranger? Well, I am not sure. This is where the society steps in to say there is a limit to what I can do when it affects someone in a negative manner. What this means is, I can inflict pain to an unknown stranger to a certain extent, I can earn his money off him, which is really saying I can rob him of his money without me realizing I have done that, I can cause him emotional stress hopefully unknowingly, but I cannot do all this knowingly.

Does this mean I can do this if I do not care? If I give two hoots about what happens to others, can I carry on indulging myself and not bothering about what happens to others? Can I be selfish regarding my happiness and not give a damn about what it does to others?

When it comes to things that affects no one else, is there such a thing? Is not the “Butterfly Effect” that says, a butterfly flapping its wings at the equator can set off a chain of events that can lead to a tsunami in Japan? Is it not true no man is an island and he/she cannot exist in a vacuum, in a cocoon, alone and without a connection in the world? Is he/she not a social animal?

I have used two main influences in this thought. One is objectivism of Ayn Rand, the thought “no act in this world is selfless”; one that says, “There is a selfish reason behind everything one does”. The other line of thought is the one proposed by John Nash of the “A Beautiful Mind”, “The best result will happen for a group of people when the people think and do the things that are best for themselves and the group as a whole”.

I really seemed to have rambled on about everything but the topic. The question I am asking is “If everything I do is the result of a conscious decision, a choice, can I ever be sorry? By being sorry, am I not belittling myself? Is not a way of saying I was stupid when I made the choice? Is not saying I am sorry for taking the path I chose and I regret what I did? Is regretting something the worst thing to do?

If I never regret what I have done, if I am at peace with what I have done and what it has led to, no matter what the outcome, do I have to be sorry?

Does not being sorry, make me a worse man than I am? These questions were some I asked to my own self and the answers I got were amazing. I have not felt sorry when the effect was on some one I did not care for. When it was in some one I cared about, I was not sorry for the effect on the person, I was sorry because the person telling me I had let them down made me feel bad. When I felt bad because of something I did, I felt sorry. This sorry was not for the target that felt bad, but to me. In the end, I was sorry I let some one mean so much that hurting them hurt me.

The thin line between solitude and loneliness

I always love referring to the dictionary when I have no clue as to what a word means, the reason being that it gives the meaning that is farthest removed from what I am looking for. In fact when I looked up the words solitude and loneliness, they were synonyms. But there exists a world of difference between the two.

Man is a social animal and needs to be with other people. This has meant that more times than not, he seems to be happier when he is in a group, where there are more people, indulging in the presence of one and another and hanging out. This can mean different things for different people. For some this may mean having a cup of coffee at a local coffee shop, for some this may be talking about the movie that they went to last night, for some this can be the hot girl that they are dating, while others this can be a chance to bounce their ideas of each other.

It has always been said that a person can achieve more when he is in a group, where there is a healthy competition. This is mainly because one tries to out do the other. This does not mean that they adopt any method necessary to outperform the others in the group. This means that they shall give all their efforts to beat the other person. In case that they fail to do so, they are not fazed. They are happy that some one in the team has done what was necessary.

As far as the personal side of life goes, it is obvious. Every one seems to need someone that they can pour their hearts to, some one who can listen to them. I remember I have a friend, a very close one who used to use me as a sounding board. What she used to do was nice. She used to come to my place and start talking about the things that used to worry her. All I had to do was, keep listening. When she was done, she was clearer in her head as to what she had to do to overcome what ever was troubling her. More than anything, when you have someone that listens to you, I guess that it makes what you are churning in your head much lighter.

Many a time, I have noticed that the thing that is bothering me is so insignificant; it need not be worried about at all. This is something that I would not have been able to see on my own. Thanks to the perception that I trust enough to share my thoughts, I would be able to see that.

At the end of a day, I guess that it helps to have someone that cares to lend an ear. In addition, to have someone on whose shoulder you can lay a shoulder is wonderful.

Anyone that craves for the above and does not get it is said to be lonely.

Unfortunately, I would not know all this. I have never been able to sustain myself in a group that had more than three people, preferably with one absent.

I have become a person who does not need this. Rather, I guess that I work better when I am alone, when the only one that I need to talk to is I. Is that being asocial? Does that mean that I am a snob?

I do not have answer to all this. All I can say is that I prefer my company to people with whom I do not share any interests. Even when I am with people that I share interests with, I am more silent. I talk in bursts. My mind wanders as does theirs. I am at my most creative (if I can be called creative that is) when I am alone.

I guess that I yearn for solitude. This is a state of mind more than a physical existence. One can be in a fair and yet be alone. I guess there is only a thin line that pushes person in solitude over to loneliness, his desire to be or not to be in the company of others. If he thinks that all that matters to him is he and does not give a damn what others think, he is in solitude. Else he goes about trying to influence what others think about him and gives more care to what others think of him than he does of himself, I guess that he will fall into loneliness when he is alone.

Solitude is you looking at the stars, lying on your back on the grass, with your best friend, not talking a word for hours, and yet feeling that you have been talking. It is when you are happy to be alone, as happy as you are in others company.

Solitude is - knowing you, finding you and living it, Loneliness is searching for you in others and not finding it. There is just that thin line that separates them; that line is in your head.

O Almighty

O almighty above,
Give me a reason for existence,
For having made pain in this world.
Give me a reason for life
When death is all that comes of it?
Why did you create people,
With desire to take lives of others?
Why is it that you create joy,
When that is not eternal?

I take the joy you offer
Without anticipation,
For the time it will last,
I choose to be happy.
I take the life I have,
To live it as I please,
Till death comes knocking
To prevent me from living.

I fear not the coming of the end,
I look forward with open hands.
I tread not a path, wary
Of things coming up ahead.
I worry not if others pass on by,
For I know deep in my heart,
Life is for living,
I shall meet death, not greet it.

Date: 3rd December, 2006

Tolerance

A post after what seems to be ages. I have been making the excuse that I have been busy to write, and that I have to put up with too much. Well, that is true to a certain extent. I have been busy upstairs. I have been doing things that I am not too happy about, and things that have not been as pleasurable as I would like them to be. This is where it all ends. From this day forth, I shall do only those things that I like. That means that I shall be writing, or rather pursuing my mostly pathetic effort of converting thoughts in this head of mine to text on my laptop.

I was talking to an uncle after five years. Considering the fact that I am the only person I in this entire universe who can talk to him on a one on one basis, I guess that five years has been too long a time. I do not want to delve in to the things that prevented me from having a more regular talk with him. He did not do much in terms of influencing me, but to give him credit, he tried. All he left me with is a profound sense of what I am.

Coming to what I want to talk about, tolerance. I guess most of us think that we are tolerant people. What do we mean when we say that we are tolerant? Do we mean that we put up with things that we do not like? Do we mean that we do not care what others do as long as they do not interfere in what we do and at times, even if they did interfere, we are irked, but would rather shut up? Do we mean that we do not care what others do as long as it is not in our faces? This is what we have thought of being tolerant.

I have thought myself to be a very tolerant person. In fact, so many times I have tolerated things that I did not like. Today, I had a rude awakening. So rude that I have had to check the premises that I have been working upon.

I have always thought that not to care and carry on what we are doing is tolerant. Today I realized to tolerate what one is doing one needs to understand. Understand why the other person is what he is, why something that is being followed is actually being followed, why something being done is being done, we have understand the cause.

When someone has said in the past that he is tolerant of people that follow Islam, he has meant, more often then not, that he has nothing to do with them, and would not like to. He did not care what they did in their lives as long as they did not bother him. The minute that they bothered him, he would gladly throw down his tolerance. This can be said of so many things. My mother is tolerant of people that eat meat, even when she cannot sit at the same table as them while she is eating and she cannot stand the smell or sight of anything that has either not been plucked or fallen from something that was once not rooted to the ground.

This is not tolerance. As I understand it, to tolerate is to know what you do not like, to understand why you do not like it and finally think that because you know about it, it does not matter that others do it, you personally have a reason that is backed by reason as to why you are not doing it. This would mean that a person who is a Hindu because he was born a Hindu or a vegetarian who is one because his parents are one would not classify to be included in the tolerant list. This is applicable for all despicable things that one tolerates.

Only when one says that he is a Hindu because he believes in the Hindu way of life and that he is a vegetarian because he thinks that killing animals is not something that he would indulge in, but accepts what others do as a personal choice of theirs just like his, he can be tolerant.

Tolerance can never be a state of being, a state of existence. It has to be a constant effort in understanding the unknown and to test the limits of ones own self to realize what they are, it has to be firmly rooted in knowing oneself, in being true to oneself.

I must know me before I can tolerate others.

Weaker

I tell you a thousand things,
Feelings, fears, and hopes.
No one else knows what I am,
I care not for those folks.

When I was in pain, I ran to you,
To tell you my life is sore.
But I ran to tell you what happened,
Because than life, you meant more.

Times have changed,
And we have drifted in life.
aLone I have faced it
and conquered many a strife.

When I finally ran to you,
To tell you what I was doing.
I realized I had changed
From where we were to where I am going.

Sadly, I return to my corner,
In life, I am now my own sense maker,
Knowing, without you there
I am all the more weaker.

Date: 3^rd December, 2006