Excerpts of a conversation between Earth (E) and its Inhabitant (I)
E: Why do you look so worried?
I: I am not worried on the account of anything material. Its my conscience.
E: I want to know the reason behind this strange worry
I: I don’t get worried for the love of it. I mean, I have seen it all. I have lived my life traversing the sinusoidal wave of joy and sorrow with equanimity. Now, I have come to a stage when nothing excites me. I don’t quite love success or hate failure. I just do it. But....
E: You sound very strange. You suffer from fear psychosis, the fear of not having to anything to cherish, not having anything to fear. You must be a well to do man of means and jobs and that’s why you found something to worry upon.
I: I see that as an affront. I am not a poor man and by worldly standards I am qualified to be called a man of riches and intellect. But that’s not the point.
E: That precisely is my point. You have more intellect matters to worry about. Don’t I see where you come from? Brother, I have seen plenty like you.
I: You don’t have to be so rude. Do you think I am ordinary? You think all my concerns are hypothetical. I thought my experiences were unique and extra-ordinary. My joys the worthiest and my sorrow the deepest, how impudent you can get? I always prided myself at the mere thought of calling myself an intellectual.
E: O, I am sorry, I didn’t mean it. All I said that your problems aren’t new to me. Your lives are similar if not the same, though there is a high possibility that it would be the same, I won’t say this because it might upset you. Why everyone thinks he/she is unique? Of course everyone is unique like everyone else. You have to come out of that arrogant self important feeling. You don’t have to be yourself as they say it.
I: Now, that is something. What do you mean? I always thought there is merit in being myself?
E: If you want to conquer something you would need complete freedom. And what is this freedom worth if one is not seeking freedom from oneself. Only this kind of self-mastery will give you eternal happiness. Everything else joy, happiness, family and love are fleeting.
I: You think?
E: I do. All you need is faith. Faith will then bring miracles. Your life will see a turnaround.
I: Can I die a happy man? Can I say with pride in the heavens that I lived a worthy life? Will there be no pangs? This whole idea of submission to a virtual nothing, life of renunciation scares me.
E: No, you won’t die a happy man. You will still have a pang or two. That is what makes you human. And your pain might as well continue, I haven’t seen life beyond me so I can’t say much.
I: (puzzled even more than before) How would you conclude this conversation?
E: What has ever concluded on this earth that this should? This too shall go on. Forever.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
What’s love without madness?
I thought for long after getting instigated by Friedrich Nietzsche’s moving line where he says “There is always some madness in love” to think for it myself. I might as well write something about it and think along the way. Well, is this so difficult to answer? No but still I will dedicate a blog to it.
In all the three phases of love as I see it Courtship, Prosper & Decay, there is an element of madness written all over it. For those who don’t quite agree with my classification of phases, I am sorry! When a boy sees the girl for the first time in his life, he makes up his mind to pursue her till she gives her assent amicably. So he goes about waiting on her at the scheduled time of the day and wittingly finds her in the city’s markets or her well-known visiting places. He would then write her a letter (excuse my incongruous letter), hoping for a reply or a positive shift in her attitude. You may say there is some method in his madness nevertheless he gets welcomed into the world of mad. The only silver lining in the cloud being her delinquent yes is enough for the boy to swim deeper in the sea of madness.
Together they see heaven on earth, comforted by the sight of each other they walk hand in hand swinging amorously at the song beating in their hearts. There is mad whirl of pleasure in seeing each other every day, eating together and talking for endless durations. The madness in boy is kept in check by the arrival of the girl in his life but this apparent loss is compensated by increased madness coefficient in the girl. There is no madness like love and there is no love like the prosper love. And just when you thought they lived happily ever after, enters God with his balance sheet of each person’s stint at earth, reminds that the time is right for a change in fortunes. Madly enough did they build it together something that gets destroyed by the act of God in a strong message of vengeance for garnering too much happiness in too little a lifetime.
This phase is characterized by madness of the highest degree. One loses interest in the world around him and is yet to come to terms with the new realities of life. While it aches to live such a life one is unwilling to take any extreme step as sudden bouts of maturity attacks are a common phenomenon preventing any end to this tale of misery, skullduggery and madness inflicted by a supernatural act. With age also comes greater endurance to live through all of this despite all the madness putting on a pretentious face masked with fake smiles & hollow laughters. Anything but a failure, they go on to live and perform all the murky duties of a man. Now the question arises why don’t they look for happiness which is by the corner at the doorsteps and blah blah blah....
Does it still perplex you? Remember Cheap Happiness or Noble Suffering?
In all the three phases of love as I see it Courtship, Prosper & Decay, there is an element of madness written all over it. For those who don’t quite agree with my classification of phases, I am sorry! When a boy sees the girl for the first time in his life, he makes up his mind to pursue her till she gives her assent amicably. So he goes about waiting on her at the scheduled time of the day and wittingly finds her in the city’s markets or her well-known visiting places. He would then write her a letter (excuse my incongruous letter), hoping for a reply or a positive shift in her attitude. You may say there is some method in his madness nevertheless he gets welcomed into the world of mad. The only silver lining in the cloud being her delinquent yes is enough for the boy to swim deeper in the sea of madness.
Together they see heaven on earth, comforted by the sight of each other they walk hand in hand swinging amorously at the song beating in their hearts. There is mad whirl of pleasure in seeing each other every day, eating together and talking for endless durations. The madness in boy is kept in check by the arrival of the girl in his life but this apparent loss is compensated by increased madness coefficient in the girl. There is no madness like love and there is no love like the prosper love. And just when you thought they lived happily ever after, enters God with his balance sheet of each person’s stint at earth, reminds that the time is right for a change in fortunes. Madly enough did they build it together something that gets destroyed by the act of God in a strong message of vengeance for garnering too much happiness in too little a lifetime.
This phase is characterized by madness of the highest degree. One loses interest in the world around him and is yet to come to terms with the new realities of life. While it aches to live such a life one is unwilling to take any extreme step as sudden bouts of maturity attacks are a common phenomenon preventing any end to this tale of misery, skullduggery and madness inflicted by a supernatural act. With age also comes greater endurance to live through all of this despite all the madness putting on a pretentious face masked with fake smiles & hollow laughters. Anything but a failure, they go on to live and perform all the murky duties of a man. Now the question arises why don’t they look for happiness which is by the corner at the doorsteps and blah blah blah....
Does it still perplex you? Remember Cheap Happiness or Noble Suffering?
Friday, March 4, 2011
Cheap Happiness or Noble Suffering?
So I ask this question to myself from time to time, which is better? Cheap happiness or Noble suffering? Well, they say life is about choices we make and those choices do add up to our lives where the sum is greater than the parts. My predispositions have always been human when I have given in to the demands of the matter. But there have been incidents which are still fresh in my memory when I outdid myself and opted for the noble. The noble matters have a way of coming, they wouldn’t even knock on your brain doors, and they would rather wait at the doorsteps silently without raising alarms hoping for you to get rid of the ignoble thoughts so you could embrace it wholeheartedly.
The pleasure of doing things noble is hysterical as the conscience is clear, head is straight, will is empowered and satisfaction immense! I am not babbling something because I had to write a blog due for the month of March, this feeling has taken abode in my head for sometime and I have been thinking is it only me or is there someone else too? Allow me to make myself clear on this. What sort of happiness is that which is only meant for public consumption? That you don’t quite like yourself? And what is happiness begot without a fight? Man like me is too disgusted with the idea of anything cheap that he wouldn’t ever go for it, so what if it gives happiness! I think happiness is exaggerated; the sole purpose of living should be doing things noble. Happiness makes a man content that leads to inertia coupled with arrogance. He that is happy is either dead or a fool. I look at them and smile, this smile is not the same as theirs not because I have assumed a moral dictatorship over everyone but due to the fact that I count one more man down pursuing the path of cheap happiness which makes my noble suffering even nobler and just a bit more difficult.
Noble suffering also has purgatorial undercurrents. It purifies your soul of all the sins and keeps you clean. That for me is a bonus as I am not a man of strong religious conducts. Such a living also insures one has least number of undesirable contacts from the outer world, keeping the list to bare minimum. Trust me all of this won’t get you ostracized and you can easily get by for a large part of your life, even amidst the corporatization of emotions and feelings. What will thence remain with you will be a complete diary of noble sufferings which would till that date gladden your senses, your rattled physical self because obviously you have suffered and if you are lucky one or two close acquaintances who had the strength of character to stand by you withstanding your idiosyncrasies. I wish I could practice even an iota of what I write nevertheless a beginning has been made.
The pleasure of doing things noble is hysterical as the conscience is clear, head is straight, will is empowered and satisfaction immense! I am not babbling something because I had to write a blog due for the month of March, this feeling has taken abode in my head for sometime and I have been thinking is it only me or is there someone else too? Allow me to make myself clear on this. What sort of happiness is that which is only meant for public consumption? That you don’t quite like yourself? And what is happiness begot without a fight? Man like me is too disgusted with the idea of anything cheap that he wouldn’t ever go for it, so what if it gives happiness! I think happiness is exaggerated; the sole purpose of living should be doing things noble. Happiness makes a man content that leads to inertia coupled with arrogance. He that is happy is either dead or a fool. I look at them and smile, this smile is not the same as theirs not because I have assumed a moral dictatorship over everyone but due to the fact that I count one more man down pursuing the path of cheap happiness which makes my noble suffering even nobler and just a bit more difficult.
Noble suffering also has purgatorial undercurrents. It purifies your soul of all the sins and keeps you clean. That for me is a bonus as I am not a man of strong religious conducts. Such a living also insures one has least number of undesirable contacts from the outer world, keeping the list to bare minimum. Trust me all of this won’t get you ostracized and you can easily get by for a large part of your life, even amidst the corporatization of emotions and feelings. What will thence remain with you will be a complete diary of noble sufferings which would till that date gladden your senses, your rattled physical self because obviously you have suffered and if you are lucky one or two close acquaintances who had the strength of character to stand by you withstanding your idiosyncrasies. I wish I could practice even an iota of what I write nevertheless a beginning has been made.
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