Fullness Of Life

I started writing this blog because of the emotional turmoil that raged within me. Nothing is worse than being surrounded by people who make you feel alone & I often feel lost amidst large crowds. There are times when I can’t say the things that trouble me but I’ve always found it easier to write about them. Initially, I had a very cynical approach to writing as I wanted my nightmares to haunt my readers.
However, despite my emotional vulnerabilities; I always kept myself inspired & instilled the light of compassion within me.

I began to decorate my darkness. I kissed my scars, gave wings to my poetic thoughts… Most importantly at the unpredictable junctures of my life when I was plagued with uncertainty; I managed to frivolously danced with my demons.

Pain, fear, experiences and overwhelming situations are great teachers in life. Since World war II, we haven’t been impacted by a situation as serious as what we are facing today, at a global level. Corona has altered our lives beyond imagination. Many countries across the world have announced lock downs and curfews. Borders, flights, offices, everything except essentials have been shut down to contain the spread of virus. While the government has constantly reassured that it is taking adequate measures to contain the pandemic, people are getting paranoid. With no clue as to how long the situation may drag on, there is a sense of fear prevalent among the masses.

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After decades today a pause button has been pressed in our otherwise hurried lifestyle. Let’s take this moment to acknowledge and appreciate all who directly or indirectly contribute in making our lives better. Let’s channelize our minds to remain positive, join hands in prayer for the world to enter into a healing mode. Here are times in life when it’s hard not to feel sorry for ourselves, and this is definitely one of them. We’re grieving for our old way of life, when we could come and go as we pleased, hang out with friends and family, and being in a large crowd wasn’t dangerous and illegal. We’re worried that we might get seriously ill, or that someone we love might get sick and or die, and our hearts break for all of those who are grieving a loved one right now or battling this virus themselves. It’s natural to feel overwhelmed, anxious and depressed, and of course, that is often exactly what we are feeling these days.

Confined within homes, we have come to realize how much we depend on a chain of people who ensure the smooth functioning of a society. Each one like a piece of jigsaw puzzle fits in, to complete the picture. We all work in tandem, complementing each other and completing the loop. But there is one sector of workers whose value or importance we as a society have always undermined. They are the sanitary workers, sweepers and cleaners. Given the shutdown orders, we have a skeletal housekeeping staff for a huge apartment complex. So garbage pickup and cleaning is now being done on alternate days. With no maids too, the entire family is chipping in to help with household chores. It’s only now that people realize the things and luxuries that we take for granted. It’s time we acknowledge their service with gratitude.

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In the midst of so much loss, it’s reassuring to see the signs of new life in the budding trees and the blooming flowers. Spring is all about new birth and renewal, and that’s a message we can use right now. I’m grateful that so far, I’ve been able to get everything I truly need in terms of food and basic supplies. The empty shelves in the supermarkets do fill back up, and the temporary shortages remind me not to take any of it for granted. Even in the face of this contagious virus, people are still producing food and medicine, delivering it to the stores, and working at those stores so that the rest of us can have what we need to live. And immense gratitude is the only possible response. I’m grateful for the small things that make these days so much easier to bear; like getting lost in a book.

But most of all, I’m grateful for all the wonderful people in my life who take the time to stay in touch because there is no way in the world I would get through the upcoming weeks without their support. Sharing our worries, offering each other encouragement, helping each other find some way to laugh and be happy, even for a little while, makes all the difference. So to everyone who is reaching out right now, through phone calls, texts, emails, blogs, or social media….thank you. Because you are a reminder that together, we really will get through this. And I couldn’t possibly be more grateful for that.

All in all, this life is temporary and I know that some days/seasons will always be better than others. Some things will go as planned and some won’t. Some days you will feel like we are drowning and others like we are on top of the world.

We Should always strive to be in a state of mind where you feel gratitude for what you have in life. There are many people who compare their lives to people who are in better positions than them and this makes them depressed and have moments in their life where they think about what they don’t have. Always think about what you do have rather than what you don’t have. . Forget the materialistic things and we should all strive to focus on being happy rather than trying to please everybody else.

When something good happens in your life, remember it and most importantly, remember the details. Make sure you think back on the obstacles that were stopping you from achieving that goal and you still reached it. As humans, we tend to think about our flaws and the bad situations in our lives rather than our accomplishments and what amazing things we have done. Everyone has a place or does something which they enjoy and they take comfort in. Whenever you feel low, have the willpower to go to that place or to go do that one thing which makes you happy. Maybe it’s a certain type of food which cheers you up. Whatever it is, go get it and this will definitely help.

When things seem tough, it is so easy for all the positivity to lose its place in my heart. But as I am beginning to consult life in a deeper way, I am starting to find an endless amount of things to be grateful for.When I see homeless people from time to time, having to sleep on the streets all night, every night, I often think to myself, “What right do I have to show my frustration and complain about the tiniest of things that bother me?”

I live in a world where I get to wake up in the morning, breathe normally, and have a beating heart. I get to enjoy today, and hopefully wake up again tomorrow. I have the loveliest family, the most incredible friends, the yummiest food, that sometimes I feel like we take so many things for granted, including the simplest of things: life itself. That, no matter how we think of it, is the biggest gift that is given to us. Diseases, poverty, famines, storms, and droughts take hundreds and thousands of lives each year, but we are lucky- we still get to survive, we still get to exist, we are still able to dream.

I live in a place where the summers get blazing hot, and the rain sometimes comes deluging down. I feel grateful having a roof over my head when it is cold, hot, windy, or when I can hear the rain beating hard on my window.I get to endure life’s tiny pleasures. The sunrise, the sunset, a peaceful walk in the nature, the comforting warmth of the sun on my face…

The thing is, our bodies evolved in forests. We didn’t evolve to need anything ‘extra’ in order to survive. Why then, do we always yearn for more? Didn’t our ancestors survive without attaining these extra needs? Wasn’t water, food, and shelter the only thing they needed to make it to another day?
When I think about the times I have complained about not having enough, I realize that there are some people who don’t even have access to the simplest of things.

When the situation was normal, I visited a place in Bangalore “Smarter You”. I Iove these events. Hearing people tell stories. Being in the presence of vulnerability. Feeling the support of the community as people reveal their joy, their sadness, their fears. This place helps people improve their quality of living. They achieve this by teaching and helping people nurture certain fundamental habits like Gratitude, Appreciation and Happiness. They have a product called the Gratitude Journal, which helps people nurture the habit of gratitude by encouraging them to journal things down they are grateful for each day.

This Gratitude journal benefits in many ways:::: Stabilizes Emotions, Boosts self esteem, Reduces Greed, Enhances your sleep and also Improves Sleep. This is not just an activity but a habit that one must have in their life like Meditation and Yoga.

But we’re in this for the long haul, and personally, I can’t live in a constant state of worry and fear. So I try very hard to focus on the things in my life that are still good, right here and now, even in the midst of the chaos. And I’ve found that once I stop worrying quite so much about what might happen and yearning quite so much for what I once had, I realize that there are still many things in my life that inspire nothing but gratitude.

Direct Road To Error…

Haste and rashness are almost negative and destructive. They break health, they wreck business. Unreasonable haste is the direct road to error. ‘Haste’ means hurry or careless doing of things. Similarly, ‘waste’ means loss or inefficient doing of things. When we do something in an impatient, careless manner, we are going to waste the efforts and the result might not be as expected. The way of haste is always full of pitfalls. We might lose the things we are trying to get . A man in haste is, practically, a half bling person – often impulsive and headstrong. Such a person is sure to lose the race of life which can be only won slowly an steadily. When we work without hastiness, we can give better results. Any hasty or thoughtless action will lead to ruin.

Emerson rightly observed that ‘Man has require time and nothing more vulgar than haste; if haste is at all to be made, it should be made slowly, as a later proverb enjoins’.The proverb reminds us about doing things with patience and is cautious about not wasting our efforts. We have to take care of our work slowing down and doing it carefully and efficiently. This will help us do the job in a better way. It will also save time. Moreover, when we do something hastily, we are sure to forget certain things and do the job wrong or will make it worse.

As already suggested, haste is vicious and most harmful in business. The old fable of the hare and the tortoise is just as good now, and just as true, as when it was first written. In haste, one fails to consider all the sides to the problem and thus a businessman can ill-afford to do. The proverb also signifies about doing things in an organized manner. It emphasizes the importance of planning. As a Russian proverb goes, hurry is only good for catching files. Rapidity does not necessarily lead to progress. This means, when we start doing some work, we have to first think ahead and plan the work. Only then, we can ensure that everything will go smoothly as expected, without any wrongs.

We, humans, are impulsive in nature, and we are always in a hurry to get things done.

In the age of rushed and hurried needs and wants, the present generation can barely be patient in anything they do. The need and use of patience is more than one can fathom, for it not only makes sure of the right success but also saves us from any unfavorable circumstances. Whenever one thing happens, the initial reaction will be that of anger, if it’s bad. This rushed emotion not only produces a cloudy judgement but also harms a lot of people along the way. The hasty decisions that we take not only makes up for a bad decision but also brings numerous other disasters. So, even if things get a bit heated and the situation is tense, we should always avoid making hasty decisions. Rather, taking a moment to breathe and regain a calm composure, the end result will not only ensure a fair decision but also a safer situation even in the future. In hate, one loses direction and sense of thinking and usually makes mistakes.
If it’s a beautiful day outside, you want to go and play sports and relax rather than doing more schoolwork – when you’ve already had a long and tiring day at school. So you sit with a pencil, your math textbook, and graph paper and hastily scribble down some answers about angle bisectors. When you check your answers at the back after you’re done, if you did it hastily while thinking about playing outside, chances are that most of them were wrong. This goes to show that even if you know about angle bisectors you were doing it half-heartedly. In my opinion, you might as well have not been doing it because it was a waste. Think about everything that you have to do as only having one chance to make it right – if you focus on it and put your all into it, then you’ve given it your best shot, and in the end, that’s what counts. So, try not to be hasty about things that you have to do, because the more you focus on it and get it done quickly, chances are you’ll be soaking up the sun outside in no time. The more we go through life, the more we learn that doing it well and quickly is better than doing it quickly and not doing it well. Making a quick decision means that it’s not very thought out, and that it hasn’t been checked from all its aspects. Consequently, leading to a probable bad end result.

Haste also interfere with health and peace of mind. It may be a symptom of nervousness or debility and in its own true in fostered weaker and ill health. Taking an action without figuring out the conclusions can cause depression. Moreover, the defeat would have mentality effects. The defeat would be disregarded after a long time no matter critical/simple decisions. An unbalanced personality utmost always displays haste. Haste in itself, is sort of morbidity – a disease. The pretense of haste signifies the absence of sanity and self-control.

To be precise haste makes waste means that haste entails much wastage of time, money and energy. A man in haste almost feels exhausted and may, in his later year, complain of some sort of heart trouble.“Time is Gold” which means nothing would be considered as valuable as time. Loosing time and money would be doubled since the person should start from the start point. There are myriad of ways for saving money and time favor of researches and contacting experts in the related fields. By taking our time, we can do a chore carefully, completely, and correctly. In the contemporary world where everything is happening so fast. Everybody rushes badly to get there things done faster. though it doesn’t mean that, you should become impatient and do the things hastily and just mess it up.

To sum up, haste is a contemptible vice. It leaves man more involved, fatigues and pent up “Take time for all things. Create haste makes great waste.”

 

Living With The Fear

“Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.” Vince Lombardi said. There are many different perceptions and reasons for striving after perfection; but in the end, everyone ultimately comes up with the same conclusion. It is not difficult to find people who believe that seeking and living in moderates is the answer to a peaceful life. Such people believe that it is good to run after your ambitions or chase your dreams but if those ambitions are larger than life, it is also important to give them up at the right time and rather dream or chase something that is easily achievable. Obsession is that one phase in your life when you want something so badly that you are ready to give up everything for it. It is an extended form of passion where the desire to win and achieve is many times more. When people are obsessed they keep running after something that they truly want. They do not give up irrespective of whatever happens. Thus, it is not wrong to be obsessed with something that you want badly. Some of the great people of the world achieved greatness only because they were so obsessed with winning and achieving.

Had Helen Keller given up her obsession with education and achieving it and lived a life of moderation, we would have not been able to have the most inspirational story of all times. There may be a precise moment when the obsession for something may dawn over you or it may be a gradual development. However, obsession begins to appear only when your desire to achieve a particular something becomes far greater than anything else. Passion is a positive obsession. Perfection may be dreamed of, hoped for, and sought after. It can be imagined, imitated, pretended, poorly masqueraded, and foolishly impersonated. While the drive to win something or passion may help you achieve something, obsession with a particular goal or a particular something will help you to achieve excellence in that particular field.

Someone once said, “If you like to dream, you will enjoy sleep. If you like to achieve dreams, you will enjoy sleeplessness. “If a person is willing to give up his sleep, his food, his life to achieve what he believes in, he is obsessed about it”. If a person is willing to give away hours of leisure and comfort and instead adopt a life full of pain and problems, he is obsessed with his goal.

The desire for perfection stems from a desire to be happy, to live in an ideal existence, lacking nothing, fully developed, and complete. The only way to be happy in a life obsessed with perfection is to accept imperfections and realize perfection is not something to do; it is something to become next. There are a lot of people who claim that people who are obsessed with something, on being unable to achieve it, act weirdly. Any person who is obsessed with a particular thing will not stop until and unless he has achieved it already. Striving for perfection attempts to improve self-esteem and self-worth; but when that fails, feelings of insecurity, self-doubt, and regret will inevitably ensue.

Be obsessed with what you want and stop only when you have achieved it. Giving up after not being able to get it would get you a life of moderation. A perfectionist, although very organized and detail oriented, even a producer of incredible work, will become overly stressed, resulting in relationship problems, depression, poor health, and feelings of worthlessness. Being obsessed with something and dying to get it will give you a life of excellence. Excellence and success comes to those who go after it with all that they have. If you give up easily, you will never be able to achieve great heights. If you wish to achieve great heights, never give up.

Thought process

A regime change can seldom be brought about by outside interests and foreign invaders when an ambitious emperor, a military dictator, a powerful warlord, or a spiritual leader rules a country with an iron fist. There is no right way to effect a peaceful change that is considered wrong by a ruler. It depends on the perception of different individuals what is right or wrong.The failure to establish sustainable government changes that are accepted by the majority of the citizens of a country are numerous. Israel, Iraq, and Afghanistan are the most current examples of meddling by foreign interests that will not be able to negotiate peaceful solutions.

Generally the answer is got from the societal laws or the prevalent practices or thought process. Even if the issue is resolved the fact remains that to do a wrong thing the ways and means that have to be adopted invariably start falling into the category of what we will call wrong from the societal framework. But still if we do decide that the end result that we willingly want is wrong there can be a systematic way of getting it executed and hence now we have a right way in which we finally did a wrong thing! So, in the end the question rounds up to what is right and what is wrong? If the means that we used to do a wrong thing are right to our mind then we very well have a right way to do a wrong thing.

There is no right way to rob a bank using a gun. There is no right way to have a love affair with someone who isn’t your spouse. The is no right way to “con” an investor out of his money.

Only as a consequence of World War II, were significant regime changes possible in Germany, Japan, and Italy. Other negotiated political solutions brought unhappiness to satellite countries in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union. The brutality and injustice of regimes in Somalia, the Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Burma are ignored for the moment. Verbal denouncements of the leaders of these countries are useless because there is no “right” way to influence corrupt and arrogant leaders to change.

Is there a “right” way to execute a convicted murdered or a serial killer?

Lot of time people justify violent act or behavior by attaching a back story to it. For example, Naxalite movement in India. Human right people clamor of state wrong doing and justify in some way the violent means employed by Naxalites to fight for their right. Like Mahatma Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.” A wrong done to somebody does not justify the violence and hooliganism of the victim. Another example would be – A guy, who has molested a girl, reasons for his act that the girl by her revealing clothes and promiscuous expressions were leading him on to do exactly like what he did but it will not justify his own weakness in character and moral degradation. This reason stated by the guy can never be the plausible explanation of his act. For whatever reason, people and corporations continue not to “do the right thing.” The allegations against Enron, WorldCom, Adelphi, and other corporations have shaken the very foundation of  financial institutions, eroded investor confidence..

Is there a “right” way to sanction Iran where the people won’t bear the brunt of the action taken by foreign interests? Is there a “right” way to end the negative effects of tenure in our educational system?

Why do humans believe there is a “right” way to do everything? There may be a better way to do certain things, depending on how a person defines the word “better” in any context. Likewise, depending on how you define the word “wrong,” how does society know what is the “right” way to treat “wrong-doers?” How can humans determine the “right” way to make the “punishment fit the crime?”

Conventional wisdom is a poor advisor, and metaphors are frequently inadequate. What was the “right” thing to do years ago is often laughed at now. What is the “right” food to eat, the “right” amount of exercise, the “right” attire for a special event, and the “right” education for our youth are determinations arbitrarily made which may be based of faulty, inaccurate, and manipulated data.With the ubiquitousness of the Internet, the easy accessibility to those who desire to ruin someone’s credibility, and the unscrupulousness of scam artists, can Internet subscribers be confident that the information being disseminated is reliable, accurate, and factual? Who really knows?

There is a way to effect change, but it may not be the “right” way. It is to become so successful in doing something well that others want to copy your procedures, methods, and processes. It is a gradual, long term solution, however, and humans are rarely patient.

“Live and let live” is still the best conventional wisdom. Are some folks in foreign locations going to be abused, violated, harmed, and killed? Of course, but that’s the result of obeying Law of the Jungle: the powerful enjoy certain privileges. Is it our job or our responsibility to try to halt the consequences of Nature’s basic law?

When there is no right way to do a wrong thing, the first thing humans should do is try to form a consensus about what are the wrongs that can’t be righted immediately. There are many wrong ways to do what we believe is a right thing!

The heart is the seat of the will

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” . If I have no love in my heart as I pursue what is right, I fail. If I love the object of the rightness of my cause and have no love for those on the path, I have created an idol. When my pursuit of what is right destroys fellowship and unity causing division, I have no love in my heart. I have gone the wrong way.

We take up a cause because we believe it is right and good. We know that it is good and we are passionate about reaching the good result. Somewhere along the path towards our goal of achieving what is right and good, we can fall into the trap of the wrong way.

The heart will produce fruit that will manifest in reality. By the fruit, the wise can discern the motivation of the heart. We can attempt to manufacture ‘good fruit’ but eventually the facade will crumble and we will be found on the wrong way.

In the pursuit of doing the right thing, our way must be the way of love. It is a matter of the heart. Our motivations are born in our heart. A heart that is authentically regenerated and transformed will produce spiritual fruit in one’s life. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” A heart that is not transformed remains under the authority of darkness and rebellion is completely incapable of producing spiritual fruit in one’s life.

Why am I really pursuing this ‘good thing’? Is it to earn points with God or man? What is truly motivating me? What is driving me toward this cause or goal? Keep a journal on your journey and look for fruit. Read God’s word and allow it to minister to you. Don’t treat it like a cafeteria where you pick and choose what supports your goal/mission. ‘Iron sharpens iron.’  Share what you are doing with a brother or sister who will test you and hold you accountable. They must be able to ask the tough questions. Don’t trust yourself because you can deceive yourself.

The way of love ties it all together .
“Grace and truth need each other. Grace ceases to be grace if it lacks truth. And truth loses its power if it lacks grace. Grace without truth sanctions and perpetuates unwanted actions…. Truth without grace is harsh, usually self- centered , and un-Christlike. Grace without truth is deceptively permissive, often lazy and equally un-Christlike… Should I show grace or should I tell the truth?’ Both. Love unites grace and truth.”

Don’t get the wrong idea.  All of my talk about “doing the right thing” isn’t leading up to some religious pitch and I’m not about to start talking about liberal or conservative politics.  Doing the right thing means to me that you try to treat people well and that you always act with the highest integrity.  Simple to say but hard to do. “If it were easy, everyone would do it.”

I believe that life is better if you treat people with respect and you always tell the truth.  I believe business is easier when you try to maintain a set of values about how people will treat each other.  I wish I could say that all my life I’ve lived this way, but I can’t.  Treating people with respect, so that they always feel respected, is tough.  Telling the truth is hard too because it isn’t good enough to just not lie, you have to avoid misleading people intentionally or unintentionally.

If you think that the way to succeed in business is to be cut-throat, to tell people whatever they want to hear to get their cooperation, to stretch the truth . . . I’m probably not going to change your mind, but I can say positively that it isn’t the only way to do business.  My business and many others have been successful while insisting that the people always try to “do the right thing.”  I can’t prove it, but I believe that your odds of success even increase if you always try to do the right thing.

If you are an entrepreneur who is trying to do the right thing but you’re wondering if it is possible to be successful and be true to your values at the same time I want to encourage you.  You’re not alone.  There really are a lot of people in business who think the way you do.  Don’t let the dishonest, stab-you-in-the-back, reputation-less weasels make you think you won’t succeed if you don’t cut corners.

 

 

Tempo of life is too fast..

 

The mind has always travelled faster than the body.Wit and humor are the expression of the ridiculous element of life. Wit is a sudden flash, an electric spark, a stroke of lighting. The successful humorous story can appeal to all of us at all ages. No conversation is complete without them. They satisfy our mental appetite, and enable us to digest the more serious parts of the discourse.

Brevity is the soul of wit’ means that ‘conciseness is at the heart of cleverness or humor’.The saying has a kernel of truth to it. Brevity means being concise or brief. Wit here does not just mean being humorous. It also has a wider sense of being clever or sharp.”It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.”

In dialogues also brilliant conversation should be avoided and those should be ‘smart’ and brief. In the case of a journalist also the style will be photographic and graphic. The newspaper story must be almost telegraphic in its brevity and yet it must tell a complete and interesting story. Public is no longer interested in drab reports of the news. Brevity is the motto in the newspaper editorial column. Wit and humor are important not only in the news item, but in the feature story as well.Thus one should avoid exaggeration and flowery expressions and should practice brevity in speech and writing so that wit and humor thereof are fully appreciated by all..

Most of us are aware of the famous sarcastic speech by Marc Antony in the tragedy drama ‘Julius Caesar’ by William Shakespeare. It had desired impact and turned the tables against conspirators. The political extravaganza ‘The Apple Cart’ by George Bernard Shaw is full of sarcasm and witty brief speeches by the Monarch (The king/queen). It creates the intended effect by remaining in readers’ memory.Shakespeare was a real master of the crafting characters with exquisite subtleties, and the Polonius was an incarnation of vanity and foolishness, and he was wasting his time on the rhetoric and asserting his brevity.We live amid a blizzard of words. Never has mankind been assailed by so much language from so many different media, written and spoken, or broadcast and digital.

A witty remark need not be an elaborate one. It can be brief and at the same time striking. The most humorous flashes of wit are often the shortest. Just like wit, the ability to express ideas in the briefest manner requires much intelligence. A person can go on speaking or writing without anything meaningful in it. There is no point at all in doing so. What he should do is to condense it to a short but meaningful sentence such a sentence can be highly striking. It enters the hearts of the people. It creates the intended effect by remaining in their memory. Such a sentence is lasting and has a great effect upon the listeners. Thus a talented person selects the right words so that the idea is clearly understood by all. It is like a pond that is crystal-clear. We can see what is at the bottom. A long speech or statement will quickly bore the listener or the reader. His mind shuts itself out. This makes the speech or statement useless for its purpose. Therefore, if we want to express our ideas clearly, we must learn to put them in the briefest and aptest way.An intelligent person doesn’t waste a single word and arranges a number of diverse ideas in the most systematic, rational and convincing manner. He is able to make it interesting. The reader forgets their real surroundings and lands into the world of the writer.

Carbon footprints

There’s a issue in our pubescent society today.. An issue of fleeting passion, fading fervour, ephemeral excitement. One day we dream a dream. We tell those who we love most dearly about that dream. Then we dive into the dream, much like an Olympic gold medalist pool -jumper performs the inward somersault with gutso and reckless abandon. Your display of divery gets you the score of average. The next day you wake up, you quit diving.You quit dreaming. The flame that once burned so bright was but a tea candle in a hurricane.

We all know someone whether it be a cynical cousin, a failure of a son,or a disappointing mug we see in the mirror each morning as we consider brushing our teeth,who is slick quitter.U look around u..You r in a office, nay, a cubicle. Its but a four foot high cage of american sterility.Before your finger tips are letters etched upon an electric ball and chain..which is keyboard. The login screen of ur computer beckons you to submit to its whims.

When you think of stone cold faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln carved into the south Dakota mountain side ,is your next immediate thought.. The carefully crafted and dutifully detailed work of Danish sculptor Gutzon Borglum..U r interested in small presidential memorial or you are a stone masonry enthusiast.Surprisingly Mr Borglum couldn’t chisel his way to our history books..

Never quit dreaming. Chisel away at the geology of our society .

Optimistic crusade

I remember being endlessly entertained by the adventures of my toys.Some days they repeatedly died, violent deaths.But as I grew older, it became harder to access that expansive imaginary space that made my toys fun.I remember looking at them and feeling sort of frustrated and confused that things weren’t the same.Depression feels exactly like this,except about everything. At first, though the invulnerability that accompanied the detachment was exhilarating.

I viewed feelings as a weakness-annoying obstacle on my quest for total power over myself.And I finally didn’t have it anymore.But my experiences slowly flattened and blended together until it became obvious that there’s a huge difference between not giving a fuck and not being able to give a fuck.Cognitively, you might know that different things are happening to you, but they don’t feel very different which leads to horrible, soul decaying boredom. Months oozed by,and I gradually came to accept that maybe enjoyment was not a thing,I got to feel anymore.I didn’t want anyone to know, though..I was still holding out hope that the whole thing would spontaneously work itself out.As long as I could manage to alienate anyone, everything might be okay! However, I could no longer rely on genuine emotions to generate facial expressions, and when you have to spend every social interaction consciously manipulating right ones,alienating people is inevitable.

Its weird for people ,who still have feelings to be around depressed people. They try to help you have feelings again, so that things go back to normal,and its frustrating for them when that doesn’t happen. From their perspective, it seems like these has got to be some untapped source of happiness within you,that you’ve simply lost track of ,and if you could just see how beautiful things are.Its a meaningless fog where you can’t feel anything about anything-even things you love,even fun things and since you’ve lost your ability to connect with any of the things, you r stuck in boring, lonely ,meaningless void without anything to distract you from.People try a less hopecentric approach, but reexplaining your total inability to experience joy inevitably sounds kind of negative;like maybe u want to be depressed.

The positivity starts coming out in a spray-a giant ,desperate happiness sprinkler pointed directly at your face .And it keeps going like that until you’re having this weird argument where you are trying to convince the person that u r far too hopeless for hope,just so that they give up on their optimism crusade.

Its just there pulling the meaning out of everything. That being the case, all the hopeful proactive solutions start to sound completely insanein contrast to the scope of the problem.Its like having a bunch of dead fish,but no one acknowledges that the fish are dead.I lacked the emotional depth necessary to panic, or maybe my predicament didn’t feel dramatic enough to make me suspicious. Its a strange moment when you realize that u don’t want to be alive anymore If I had feelings, I am sure I would have felt surprised. I have spent the vast majority of my life actively attempting to survive. Ever since my most distant single celled ancestor squiggled into existence, there has been an unbroken chain of things that wanted to stick around.I had seen the promising glimmer of a slightly less miserable wasteland.

Trying to be nonchalant about it just makes it weird for everyone. And every direction was bullshit for a really long time, especially up the absurdity of working so hard to continue doing something u don’t like can be overwhelming. My feeling didn’t arrive symmetrically. Hope feels even more unpalatable. Thankfully I rediscovered crying before I got sick of hating things.it was not sadness.My brain had partially learned how to be sad again.I had to take my feelings for a joy ride.I spotted a tiny,shriveled piece of corn under the refrigerator and after a few permutations of logic that..the confusing bout of uncontrollable,debilitating laughter that I have ever experienced. My brain had apparently been storing every unfelt scrap of happiness from the last 19 months and it has impulsively decided to unleash all of it at once,in what would appear to be an act of vengeance.

 

 

Dust and pollen sprinkled..

I Can’t speak For the subcontinent but I could speak for the dust or pollen of poetry sprinkled on an uncaring public at large, but unfortunately received by a few people. For 20 years we struggled to tell critics ,we could write in English ,as well as other.Then the next 20 years went in convincing critics that we wrote with an Indian sensibility,whatever that means….

Well here’s a part of my own ,in the words of a fruit…

May It be this biting cold wind, or even the hailstorms with its cruel grin..                                                       I feared nothing, because you my friend;held me away from my end.  Oh! So clear I still remember, The little me with you; in December.      An avalanche so strong and long,   That came along with grueling, sinister song.                                         Never been that next to death, The avalanche that hit and swept.           I hung there and as I wept,                You, my friend found against the snow that crept .                     Hurling stones that keep coming,     Your twigs took it all,without me knowing..                                               Your leaves so cozy and warm,          You hid me from the bees that swarmed..                                              The sun that rises yonder the seven seas,                                             And jogging breeze coming in with ease..                                                  We are one,we were one,to break us there were none.                             But why now, you lie so low? Was it that jagged saw,                                Oh no! Why is it you look so meek?                                                     Isn’t there any help we can seek?     As I fall prey into those beastly hands.                                                      That took you down to the icy land.                                                        I pray for you.Farewell…