A life less complicated

Everyone wants something, even the enlightened ones who seem to want more than most.

Sometimes I wonder if its this trait that makes us want to do more and more until what was important earlier is replaced by some other ideal. There is no absolute right or wrong but there is just perspective.

I had an interesting taxi drive - a retired Chicago taxi driver who now drives an Uber taxi. Over a long drive he explained how he is a history buff and was keen to understand India and Pakistan as to why we can't get along. One thing led to another and we were soon discussing perspectives of Greek philosophy of rational logic, Jewish beliefs, Chinese and Indian beliefs.

Its strange to think how much knowledge exists and how it is stored and perceived. This person can hold forth on various beliefs but refuses to acknowledge the differences that exists today between cultures.

Our minds almost shape beliefs to be what we want them to be and build buttresses of logic to support them. Selective cognition perhaps.

Just the thought of a life that does not involve all this chaos seems like a goal. But then again, we are not meant to be peaceful.  

cogito ergo sum

Sometimes a chance comment can spark off a train of thought that can make you consider where you are and what has changed in your life.

One such comment today made me realize what I had stopped doing. I like to write. Should I say - I used to like writing. Gradually the business of life claimed my time, or so I led myself to believe and stopped writing. It was not a thought out decision and it certainly was not intended, it just happened.

In conversation today, it came up that I was no longer writing and definitely no longer in touch with that part of me. I saw this blog with the last post 2 years ago and my earlier blog. Spent some time reading my posts from way back. I couldn't recognize the writing. It made me think - how easily does 'life' claim you. Not for it the abrupt ending that Death brings. Just the meandering away of intent and focus. It is this which I admire in people who simply write - and have written since the time I have known them.

Life has brought across several memories in the years past, there are thoughts and ideas and beliefs formed, however those have returned to their ephemeral form. Sometimes when you sit back and try to capture those will-o-wisp's, they just filter through your thoughts and are gone, leaving behind just a faint trace of that time.

In this day of 140 character expressions and SMS language, I might be an anachronism. I prefer to write my sentences. What I want to see is if my affinity for putting thought to word has atrophied or if it lurks in some vestigial corner of my mind which has not been claimed by the need for day to day interaction.

So, I will force those creaking mental muscles into use and start all over again.

Cogito ergo sum.

is it just me?

Sometimes life just becomes that which you sub-consciously dread. You end up focusing on one area of your life and watch the other parts slip through your open fist like sand running off.

Early mornings, late nights, irate clients, short fuses, deadlines to meet, strategies, counter-strategies, wondering if the ladder is against the right wall. These take up all available space in you. Soon you wonder where is that early morning walk, 5 minutes of sitting down with a cup of tea, not heeding the ping of your smartphone announcing the next 'crisis/most important thing/necessary action'.

There is a certain sense of purity in simply letting go, the brain stilled of thought, the joy on your childs face seeing you after a while, the crispness of the air in the middle of trees, the feeling of making something with your own hands that is just lost in our mad rush assisted by the skates of technology.

Perhaps the answer is still within you, submerged in all the layers you throw upon it. Perhaps the answer is simply that 'this too shall pass'

Lessons from a child

There is something totally innocent about how a child perceives the world. Being able to accept things and move on to the next without thinking about something which is in the past endlessly.

Maybe our mental fibre becomes less elastic as we grow older.

Development

As I look out of the window I see very little greenery around. What is the price of our development? An area couple of miles square is home to atleast 500,000 people who might not ever get to hear the melody of a myna or the chirrup of a sparrow.

Crammed into ever decreasing personal spaces, jostling towards our workstations like salmon heading up stream for some vague purpose wired into the primordial recesses of our minds. Is there something which we are missing in our maddening rush for development?

Every interaction is dissected; every word, a carefully constructed artifice, how do I score a point, put someone in their place, show who is the boss, this is not development. No shared coffee, no laughter from the heart.

Is this development, sometimes I am not so sure of that.

Steps

4 mi run/walk, 20 pushups, 20 sit-ups.

A start?

Float

How often do we simply float through life and not realize what is happening. Days blend into weeks, then into months and then to years. Life becomes a series of small events that flare up briefly like fireflies at dusk and disappear almost as soon. The simple pleasures of existence or the banality of it. I think it depends on which way you look at it.

I struggle to think about what the people trapped in a building on siege a year ago would have felt. Their lives which probably had achieved a lot more held against the whims of a few people who had'nt achieved anything in life. Who even remembers any of the other killers? What would their victims have traded for a mundane future?

Memories are what remain, of shock, disbelief, anger directed at various people - the media who plunged into gory detail often doing more harm than good, the chest thumping fanatics who disappeared when the rubber had to meet the road, the sheer futility of it all...

Life as they say goes on, babies are born, people die, memories remain and we like fireflies flare briefly in the dusk and move along.

What do I have to lose?

15 kilograms of lard to begin with – 33 pounds.

Dragged myself to the gym and had an assessment done. Lots of work and I need to focus on getting it done.

The instructor/physio at the gym was quite cool about the whole thing, the flunking of the various fitness test – is it the marines test of how many sit-ups, pushups and squats you can do in a minute?

Anyhow, I have my work cut out ahead of me.

Frisk me

I find this whole drama pertaining to Shah Rukh Khan being detained in a US airport for an hour of questioning slightly nauseating.

There is definitely a certain amount of profiling which gets done to determine frisking, this can be biased. However, to make such a big ruckus about it seems more self serving publicity than genuine outrage.

As a sovereign nation, the US has a right to dictate what it’s security policy should be and really should not need to apologize for enforcing that.

For all his newly minted doctorate, Shah Rukh Khan is simply an actor (hammy in my opinion, but an entertainer). Delusions of grandeur might be more the case or even clever marketing.

Someone of Abdul Kalam’s stature, which is more than Shah Rukh or most of us can even aspire to become, accepted the frisking as part of his travel.

Its time we grew up.

Knock

He lay on the thin mattress, his back feeling every bump on the uneven floor. His heart pounded in a frenetic rhythm as he tried to clamp down on the uneasiness that spread like a stain from his belly.

This cannot be happening to me, shrieked his brain, sounding like a drawn out wail on a cliff top. The panic grabbed his heart as he heard footsteps pounding up the stairs, faster and faster bringing his doom upon him.

He willed the door not to open, half knowing that it was flimsy protection at best. His intuition did not fail him as the door slammed open letting the sunlight flood through.

“Yes” she said.

Peace returned.