Disclosure

This is a post that is coming when I am without my dearest, my laptop. She is away for sometime so I have to sit online and post this.

I have always thought why is it that we say something to some people, some other things to some other people and nothing to many people. What I am trying to say here is that what do we really say when we are talking to people?

The reason I ask this is sometime back during a conversation, I realized that I was not saying what I was holding near and dear to my heart. This does not mean that I do not say what I am thinking. All it means is that my replies are based on your question. It means that when you ask me something, I shall say what I think about it. However I shall not tell you what I think about life in general.

So why is it that I do not tell anyone what I think? Why is it that my truest emotions are just that, my truest emotions, unknown to anyone but me?

Why is it that some people are able to tell their life stories to anyone and everyone? Why is it that some people do not fret when they put up the daily happenings on a public forum? Why is it that they have a compulsion to share the most uneventful happenings with others?

I have seen that some people do not tell anything. Prime example me. The reason can be that they really do not care what the other person thinks. In this situation, why will I want to tell you what I think?

In other cases, it may be that they are so insecure about what they think that they are not ready to tell it lest their thoughts be ridiculed.

So what about the ones that bare all? What is to become of them? It is possible that they are so brilliantly secure that they dare to bare?

On the contrary, I think that they are so insecure that they need to get recognized. This need is not derived from within but from other external sources. This drives them to tell all so that someone somewhere may give them that security that they themselves are lacking.

This leaves me with the median category. The ones that bare to select few. The ones that they think they are comfortable with. Even in this case, I noticed something. The information is generally given to the people that can either do nothing with it or are really not interested.

When I say that they cannot do anything with it, I mean this; any thing I say about what I think is something that reflects me. This reflection is based more on what you see than what I disclose. In this case, telling someone something is equal to letting them see a small part of you. When this is done, they know you more, they understand you more. This knowledge has potential, not the kind to wreak havoc, but in a more general way. By letting a person know more about me, I have opened myself to their opinions. This is the power I am talking about; the power of knowing me.

I tell you no lies,
I tell you no truth.
I tell you what I think,
As a reply to what you say,
Only if you ask.
My ideas, my opinions,
They are only mine,
I care naught
Of what you think
To tell you dear
Of what I think

Ego

This is more of a continuation of the previous piece. There is no reason that there was such a time gap between the two.
Once both of us, I mean the person I was talking to and me, were done on the fact of being alone in this world, we moved on to another topic. This has been one of my favorite topics for a long time.
We began talking about the ego.
Before I start, I would like to state that at no point in time I am trying to belittle anyone. What I say here is what I think, nothing else.
I know that anything I say here will be more of a CCP (to read as cut copy paste, a typical MBA jargon) from any of Ayn Rand’s books. Nevertheless, I shall try.
That person kept telling me that they were not feeling great about his or her own self.
When I asked how this was possible, the reply that I think I got was this, “I generally feel happy when I make others around me happy. In case there are situations wherein I end up making someone else feel low, I feel low.”
What struck me immediately and what I asked was this, how can one base their happiness on what others feel?
The reply though muted was not clear.
Ego is something that everyone has that makes him or her feel good by themselves. It is possible that there are two stimuli for such feel-good factors.
The first is that it comes from someone or something outside. This means that one feels good about him or her self based on events that happen with other people. The perfect example is during one of the conversations, I ended up hurting a person. I feel bad that I did that, regardless of the fact that what I said was the truth and it was necessary.
The second is when it comes from within. What people understand and know is what drives this stimulus. Carrying on the previous example, I know that I hurt my friend. However, since I know that what I said was the truth and it was necessary, I will not feel bad. Rather, I will feel good about my friendship with that person and myself because it lets me talk the truth and not feel bad about it.
Of these two, I would like to follow the second genre. The reason being, I am supposed to be a rational human being. I am supposed to think and understand what each happening means and signifies.
A rational person would realize that there is only one person who is responsible for their happiness, themselves. By placing others responsible for your happiness, you are taking away the meaning of the word ego. You are removing the “my” from “my ego”.
This is not to say that one cannot feel happy due to others. You can feel happy for them; you can even feel happy because of them. Ultimately, that happiness must be based on something that is inside you, even if it is because of others.

Happiness is mine, so is sadness.
I create them in my head, reasons aplenty.
You can make me happy; you can make me sad,
The fact is simple,
Happiness is mine, so is sadness.

Isolation

This post has been long since coming. The reason is that I have been caught up with other forms of writing, stories to be precise. I have wanted to keep updating this section of the blogsphere, and I got my chance today.

I was working on a story when a friend of mine sent me a message saying that she was disturbed. We began discussing it and as usual, one thing led to another. The topic that I want to touch upon today is isolation.

The reason that she was disturbed was that she was in a place where nothing that she wanted happened. On the contrary, whatever she did not want to happen seemed to happen.

How does one live in an atmosphere where one feel stifled? How does one cope when, in her own words, “you feel like a donkey in a cow shed, where the cowherd is deaf, blind and has no hands?”

What she was trying to say was that she was in a place where she was one of a kind (I think that everyone is one of a kind) and no one was giving her the due that she deserved.

My response, having been in a similar situation myself is simple, isolation.
When I say isolation, as usual, I need to refer to the dictionary to come up with the official meaning and then I will follow it up with my sermons.

For the first time the dictionary has given many meanings to the word, I am looking for. They are listed as follows
• A state of separation between persons or groups
• The act of isolating something; setting something apart from others
• A feeling of being disliked and alone
• (psychiatry) a defense mechanism in which memory of an unacceptable act or impulse is separated from the emotion originally associated with it

Of the four, I have no idea what the last one is. Therefore, I will leave that alone.

Isolation is to mean separation. So taking the third one in conjecture with the first two, isolation can be of two types.

The first is the external isolation. Forces external to oneself cause this. The best example will be the isolation of a particular child in class. When children form a group, it is done on an unwritten code. This is generally based on the likes and dislikes of the majority. When there is a single student in class that is disliked by the others, that person will be isolated by the rest of the group. This is setting that person apart.

On the contrary, it is possible that that child does not like the company of the other children and thus isolates himself/herself. This is the internal isolation where the act of taking someone and setting him or her apart from the rest is done by the person under question.

Now that we have to a certain degree understood what isolation means. I shall try to delve into what causes a person to isolate oneself.

This seems to be against the very human nature of society and the norms formed and followed.

One has to realize that isolation of oneself is a self defense mechanism whereby that person is saying to the world, I do not give a damn to what you all do. I will live my life by my own terms and if you are not okay with that, then you may take a trip to the centre of the earth.

By doing so, one is just rationalizing his/her own existence to himself/herself. When the entire world is on a route that one does not agree to, then one has two choices. He/she can throw out all that they hold near and dear, their own rationale, and follow the bandwagon. Many people take this route.

The other route, albeit much harder is to isolate oneself, and by isolate I mean the figurative sense, and live their own lives.

The figurative sense is that I will live my life as long as it is under the purview of what you prescribe. Once I am at crossroads between what I believe in and what you tell me, I will try to question the reason behind what you say. In case I find a reason in what you say, that the rule has been designed for the masses and I am an exception, I will try to convince you why it is that I have my rule.

The only way that I will follow what you say is if you are able to convince me of the rationale behind it. By this, I mean to say, I will not give up my values, but since I have agreed to be a part of the masses, even though I am an exception to them, I will for sometime put them aside.

By putting them aside I mean to say this, I will do only the things that are common to my ideals and yours. I will choose to ignore the others that are clashing. In case I have a situation wherein I need to do something that is against the system, I will do it in such a way that I am not caught.

At the end of the day, I came alone, I live alone, and I will go alone. I have you here with me along the way, but you are never I.

I am isolated; I am in a bubble, brittle, but nevertheless mine.

Sleep

The day comes to a close,
My eyelids want to follow suit.
There are things I need to do;
Promises that I have given
Or rather made to give.
The dreams that haunt me
When I am awake
Seem to leave me
When I am asleep.
The sleep beckons,
The night says to go,
Things left undone
Not important anymore.
The eyelids win,
The dreams recede,
I lay myself
On the forgiving mattress.
Alone in the day,
Alone in bed,
Alone in the thoughts
That run in my head
I wish to leave now
From the bounds that bind,
I wish to run now
From things I dread.
This life too tiring,
Too hard to bear
Things I want to say,
Never reach an ear.
This sleep is welcome,
It gives me courage
To be what I want to be,
Where I can.
Sleep my friend,
Life seems to say,
Things gone unsaid
Will always be said.
I become real,
In the unreal world,
Dreams that I dream
Are never dead.

Date: 7th February, 2007

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