GOD: Art thou laughing?

Well.. it's 12:30 in the night and having slept dead for 4 hours in the day, it's not at all surprising that while tarun and his grandma sleep, I stay awake, unable to sleep, and what do I do? I ponder and blog!
A lot of ups and downs recently, life seems like a raisin in a bottle of alcohol! Particularly after last night's power cut, when I and Tarun stayed awake talking till 3 outside the house. I somehow seemed to realize a lot of things, a lot of changes, the overrated nature of experiences and how in the past one year, I went through an unimaginative and a virgin ride and came back with experiences but thankfully no changes to the basic structure! Discovered the art of stoicism and realized the true purpose of it. The realization included the whole perspective of everything in a new light, again rather a long lost old light!

The notion of 'growing up' was rather thrusted in to get distorted, and being serious about things seemed to be the order of the day. No doubt seriousness is a virtue but then things are pretty much what you percieve them to be, problems can be solved just by considering them to be petty. To make a person smile, to make a person laugh are nothing less than achievements but suddenly being serious had appeared to be all cool and shit. The conservative or rather careful approach of 'hoping for the best and preparing for the worst' needs a light and jocular perspective of things to be carried out well. People should be loved rather than suspected, blamed, demanded/expected from. Life is all about having fun and focus, about doing what one thinks should be done ideally. Enough of distinction, I hardly find any difference between ideal and practical, coz ideally they should be the same and the unrealized aim of almost everyone is to make them the same - some keep trying to make reality what it ideally ought to be while some change the ideals accordingly to match practicality! Ultimately it is nothing but whatever makes you happy.

A twisted ego was what I found in my disc cleanup and defragmentation. Ego being something which can never be good on a personal basis is what needed to be re-realized to fix that twisted ego which has now been correctly removed. I was taught the so called practicality from two people i have been most close to in the college, and it was their care towards me to tell me that ego is required in a threshold amount, that selfishness is required to survive in the big bad world, that one should know how to say no, that one should not be like a doormat on whom people might just walk over, but mea culpa, I took it extremely, applied in more than a threshold amount and did not restrict it to the big bad world but applied it to even myself. Definitely, their teachings were very essential for me to survive, but where I went wrong was to not consider the status of my conscience with changed actions.

And as claimed by Tarun and well agreed by me, when situations demand you to change, you should. Flexibility is a virtue and is different from being spineless, the difference lies in a voluntary effort and consent by reason and conscience in one while the lack of self control and maturity in the other. And so in the former, you still remain what you are according to your basic structure despite being changed. And it is really sad and bad to forget the thin line of difference between the two; it's as much as the difference between a doormat that is trampled upon by people and a walking stick which helps people walk!

And this being my blog, I can very well give my basic structure which is to enjoy everything everytime, something which had not been done recently, to laugh and take things light rather than pushing hard and to strive for things, to place myself in the least priority and the more my utility the more happy I am! Feels good to feel the same way again, after having gone off track, having forgotten certain boundaries, forgotten how everything has a time for it, the differences between confidence and recklessness, carefree and careless, prudent and conservative! And God comes to rescue as usual, being a strong but an unconventional theist, I see god in every person, in hope, in patience, in whatever i consider as virtues. I guess even the most orthodox of theists mean hope when they say god! And as of now, I know that God is laughing, being what God is. There are concerns but there is nothing to feel sad/bad/troubled about and hence god is there in laughter, in smiles, in optimism, in absence of hatred, in absence of inflated ego, in a balanced selfishness, in service, in work, in prudence, in patience, in faith, in hope, in happiness.

Obscurity of the far sight..

I remember reading it somewhere, 'An atheist is like a person who is all dressed up but doesn't know where to go'. Being a theist with a somewhat different and customized definition of God, I though use this quote once a while to mock at atheists but the truth is, it seems, that not just an atheist, we all are dressed up, rather perpetually dressing up without any realization of where to go or where we are going. It is scary when realized but we do not have any idea of what's going to happen next. But come to think of it, there wouldn’t be any thrill or fun in life if we knew about future. All fun lies in not expecting (does not mean not hoping) anything because if you expect everything to be good, you won’t be as happy at everything being good as you would’ve been if you didn’t expect everything to be good. 

            Today, i am slightly free all of a sudden, moot memorial submitted - something that took a few nights' sleep and on a positive note, drowned me into work to not bother any other stuff. I feel good thinking about it, wish as if the same enthusiastic focus and drive continues with everything. But to try and look at the larger picture, i feel myopic, almost as if there is no end to what i am trying to vision. I feel very scarily aimless or rather unsure about the aims and objectives to be achieved. I try finding out the preamble to the Act of life, infinite as the long title of this Act is, I try using the doctrine of pith and substance to get the intent of the Creator while enacting the Act of life. And I end up conceding to the point of nothingness. It's just like the opening words of the song 'boulevard of broken dreams' which goes.."I walk a lonely road, the only one that i have ever known.. don't know where it goes but it's only me and i walk alone.."

            Doing anything honestly and earnestly without the concern for the ends or the results is what i perceive as living in depth and to the core. We all know what things might probably end up in but we don't realize our purpose of doing them or rather the purpose of our purpose of doing them. We just keep living without realizing where we are heading to. That's why it's best many a times to just follow carpe diem and let the time take its own course. However, many a times we feel like defying the time from taking its own course but that's how time takes its own course and makes us strive to defy it. So often we lose patience and start craving for recognition, achievements, superficial superiority and give in to competition. This again as usual, makes me conclude at striking a balance between the active approach and patience.

Talking about the place of recent realizations for me, i do concede to the fact that this place can depress people very easily and has a strange sadistic romanticism where people (barring a few exceptions) know where they are going wrong and why they don't like the place, still keep enjoying the dissatisfied feeling and the rock bottom energy levels. But afterall it depends on how you want the place to treat you. Everything in life is quid pro quo. And after moaning about theamount of work we have in such a place, I now do not wish to have free time here, I just don't want not to be busy. 

            Anyway, with the resort of such postings, I try to reflect how disastrous it becomes when I get free and write down all such crap. Now that I have realized the futility of concerning the myopic eye which fails to look at the far-off (not larger) picture, I again try infusing carpe diem but no, how can I seize the day? it is night right now! The only way I can do that is by dreaming of it in my sleep till a 'day' actually starts which can be seized.. (I hope the literal meaning of these sentences would be the last to come to mind in presence of a strong and beautiful latent implied meaning..). 

Life - questioning the basics of basics!

It’s only a few minutes to midnight and i’m feeling very philosophical. Certain happenings in the day, not at all distinctive but casual and routine affairs, yet took me into pondering and musing about life, questioning the basic accepted fundamentals of the conventionalism that life existed in. On the occasion of Eid, i went to visit a few people with my parents, the actual Eid visit was only at one place, rest all were casual ‘time-pass visits’ as i conceive them to be. So the Eid visit was at the director of judicial officers’ training institute, the same person with whom i had my stars when i first met him at discussed githa hariharan v. RBI, hindu minority and guardianship act, 1956 and almost everything of my then-quite-recent English viva which made us get along pretty well with each other. There I met his son and daughter, both NLIU and HNLU graduates, respectively, son a practising lawyer in cg hc and daughter just-about-to-be-a-registered-lawyer in cg hc. Then came there another senior friend of mine, son of one of my dad’s friend and another HNLU graduate who was also a just-about-to-be-a-registered-lawyer in some court which even he was considering. So contrary to the common back-home-feeling of ‘different-from-the-rest’, I felt quite like a sheep following those ahead as all those of my generation there were law graduates and issues of judicial officers. However, I didn’t mind that much as I knew I had just started law school life so still had a long time to let such futile thoughts bother me and besides, inevitably I was repeatedly reminded of the distinction I had because of nalsar! (Yes, that’s how we are considered a different species here and I laoouvvve it!).

Anyways, we moved on to another lawyer’s place for a casual visit. He was another person with whom i seemed to get along pretty well coz we had the mania for cricket in common. Though quite a senior advocate, he had a smart sporty personality and kept asking me about nalsar and a plethora of things about the place and as soon as we struck upon cricket with dad’s initiation we never really seemed to move to anything else till we left their place. It was at their place, however, that I suddenly had this philosophic attack on me and more of curiosity and liberal unconventional thinking than mere philosophy about life. Probably all the talks of cricket reinforced the romanticism of pondering over the existing assumptions of the conventionalism which people call ‘life’. It is one of those methods by which you can have total control over your heart, letting the mind have a bit of excess control and feel as you want to! The first result of that which I could notice – unlike my usual why-the-fuck-do-they-even-exist attitude, I started liking dogs, at least the one at their place – a golden Labrador named Simba. I was reminded of a chat I had with my ‘boredom-mascot’ friend over dogs and golden Labradors and I do admit that dog was fun! Anyway, amidst all discussions of career and achievements and hardships of professional life, I was thinking what life that dog Simba had who could conceive his whole world in a sack which he used to cover himself with due to winters and was too happy playing with it. After all, even he had a life but what purpose was there in his life? We went to a restaurant after that for a dinner from an uncle of mine. The driver stopped the car right in the middle of the road in front of the restaurant and opened the doors for us to dismount while the cars jamming up behind blared their horns. Probably one of the most embarrassing incidents possible! Then came my uncle who, in his rustic manner, pointed loudly at a couple sitting at a table considering it as most probable to be vacant earliest as we waited for a vacant table. (another extremely embarrassing moment, but I tried to be as indifferent as possible as he was our host and probably, after getting themselves known to many in the restaurant thanks to the loud gesture of my uncle, the couple would’ve left earlier than they would’ve normally left and it served to make our purpose easier!) I was staring at the exotic-looking fishes in the aquarium as we were waiting, and again the same question popped up in my mind – what life did those fishes have? Even they had a life after all, what purpose was there in their life? I was getting this feeling of a happy excitement of ruminating over these things and the lost-in-thoughts-cut-out-of-the-world feeling which people generally feel during crushes and on initial foresights of relationships but I was too lost in the curiosity of ‘what is life?’!

All that kept me busy thinking was why do the things exist as they are? What is the purpose of our life? When everyone knows the final destination, and if a person manages to travel his life till his final destination without any problems or through a hard way or full of achievements or being unknown, what is the difference? The aim of life till our final destination seems nothing but pursuit of happiness and trend is of such a pursuit where no one knows what happiness is, no one understands what he/she is looking for but still keeps going on in its search. Probably, happiness or satisfaction is too subjective to be realised when achieved. People say that hard work pays, but what does it pay? Achievement? Popularity? But what about the hardships and ignorance of that happiness which was sacrificed? Why is it considered good when people sacrifice things which make them happy to achieve a bigger goal? What’s the point of such an achievement? Why do people crave for such a superficial happiness? Why anything is considered good or bad? As mentioned in vag’s blog that subjectivity is the only thing which exists in objective perpetuity, but then again, why are certain things or habits or acts considered as good and others as bad? Why was the eldest son of one of my family friends considered as unsuccessful just because he couldn’t carry on with conventional studies as he was too interested in a practical field job in a mechanic garage and why is that job considered base just because it can be done without a formal degree of qualification? Why are things that do not benefit us considered bad? Why is relative comparison so inevitable in human nature? Why anything does not exist in absoluteness? What gives people pleasure and pain and why is pleasure pleasure and pain pain? What makes people in different areas differ in the ambit of liberty in their subjectivity with respect to conscience and every notion and the ‘life’ people conceive to be?

I remember being accused of narrow-mindedness by one of my friends in college when I commented that when people get high their brain stops working. Why were going by thought process and being governed by brain considered good and the otherwise bad? Well, seeing the non-feasibility of such an unconventional life, everyone does adopt to certain codes of conscience and conventionalism, thus, surrendering to the perpetual subjectivity that life comprises of as every single being differs in thoughts, perceptions and ‘conventions’ of life and its aspects but there do exist certain common grounds, the threshold of basic conscience and accepted conventionalism. Having such questions in mind as to reach the limit of being liberal in classification of good and bad can certainly help be optimistic, equally respectful and acceptable of and for others and now I realise why I was feeling so good about thinking on such questions.