Dichotomy

I am about to right something for my blog after quite a long period of time. The reasons for this range from reluctance to scarcity of time. Whatever may be the reasons for not writing something, it doesn't stop the various things to happen in life. Sometimes I feel that nothing is new in life. There are certain sets of different feelings which overwhelm you at different points of time. Something happens and you feel that you belong to no one in this world and after sometime you feel that entire world is only for you! Anyways, I want to share my thoughts today on a different topic or rather should I say dichotomy in our lives! Dichotomy; although I have used this word out of ingenuity but at the same time I have exposed my educational background for questioning by certain highly educated and sophisticated persons of our time who think using word like this is their prerogative. Anyway, I feel I got distracted in the beginning itself. I want to discuss the inherent human characteristic of conviction in what they believe. Prima facie there is nothing wrong in having conviction. Instead it is a sign of thoughtful minds. Without conviction one cannot even learn to walk. But when the conviction is not accompanied by thoughts it becomes orthodoxy. Everyone feels that in this entire universe only he is right. So who is wrong? Dichotomy creeps in when we think in one way when it comes to us, and different altogether when it comes to others. Although I feel that my mind is logical but I too am a victim of this dichotomy. It is so painful to understand that others may also have certain impediments and reasons in their way. Although a person may feel what I am saying is right but at the same time he may not be able to act on the same. Does that make him a non believer? I think not... but my hatred would say yes! This is again a dichotomy a duality in my behaviour.

Let’s leave it. I just uttered all this to curse myself in front of others... It helps a lot in purification of thoughts and mind.

The other thing which I want to highlight is that as a socially bounded creatures we behave in many ways with our fellow human beings. Of course there is again an existence of dichotomy in our behaviors that we pretend a lot when we behave with society. But most will agree with me that his pretending comes down considerably (it never gets eliminated in mortals) when we are in front of our loved ones. And here comes another problem of hurting them. Since we are just what we actually are (or most near to it) when we are with our loved ones... we often insist on making them do certain things which we like. I am not saying the what we insist upon is entirely unreasonable but still why do we presume that others will be in possession of certain amount of courage and willingness for doing the same? This insistence cause friction and hence we hurt the people we love most.

Today due to scarcity of time and my mind’s engagements in certain other things, I am able to right only this... rest later sometime.

Unique Dilemma

This world is full of people who are really tenacious about the things they like or about the convictions they have in their mind. I wanted to discuss this topic more explicitly but certain constraints prevail upon me at this point of time, which have forced me to make this conversation veiled. Although the representation of the facts may be veiled, but the characteristics are not. Hope my readers (again I would say that I hope there are a few!) will not mind it much because one should be interested in the essence and not the way things are descript. I have a strong conviction for an idea of leading life the way I want it to. And I believe everyone do have such ideas. But due to some natural distinction in characteristics from ‘people’ at large, I have something different in my mind. I know that everyone believe that he or she is the unique person and to a great extent it is true as well. But it is also true that despite of it that person dwells within a defined boundary of characteristics. The people falling within those closed boundaries are homogenous in terms of those characteristics. Your uniqueness then can be measured in terms of the population of those closed boundaries. Although again I would like to add that a person is again a unique being even in that closed boundary as within that closed boundary the ‘other’ characteristics may differ. I have made this entire preface just to prove the contradiction of uniqueness cum homogeneity. I too belong to a closed boundary of characteristics meaning thereby that I too am not an altogether unique person in this world. Further I have certain ‘other’ characteristics which make me distinguished from the population of that closed boundary. The height of contradiction or irony is that, although the qualities which are very rare in the closed boundary to which I belong are generally accepted and respected in the world, but at the same time the general qualities of the closed boundary are looked with awe or disgust. Those readers who are used to of reading and understanding the things in general terms would have realized the difficulties which I might be facing! The result is that I have lost the sense of belongingness to anyone. The moment I disclose my certain features which are common to a particular group of thinking and/or behavior, I loose the sympathy of all other people, and when I happen to divulge/show my those characteristics which are unique to me (and I have realized that those are very very unique to me) although I earn some respect of few people within and outside the closed boundary… I loose the belongingness to both. My tenacity is also coming in the way to my happiness, as I guess! Tenacity in the sense that, I want to retain both type of characteristics. And the end result is that I feel that I am altogether lonely in this world. I feel that people are laughing at me. I feel that I belong to no one in this world. But despite of all this I am not able to leave my so called ‘tenacity’. People may call it audacious but I call it natural! Really don’t know if I am right or wrong!

Detachment

Contrary to my last post on attachment, I am tempted to write about detachment. Literally it means non-attachment. But empirical meaning may differ. Further a question arises, what are the paths which may lead a person from the territory of attachment to the territory of detachment. The ideal path goes through the judgment of un-prejudice and objective mind. But that path is seldom found by human being. The other goes through the forest of bitter experience and most of the people stray here. Personally speaking, I have myself often taken the second path or perhaps I am led by some un-seen force to that path. Anyhow the result is that one has to go through lot of troubles in realizing that the attachment which you had or have, been unwarranted for. But that does not guarantee a total detachment. Despite of all the bitter experiences in the way our heart refuses to believe that it was wrong! We often try to search and often succeed in fooling ourselves. This inherent weakness in the heart of every human being except a few ‘lucky ones’ is so strong that one has to fight life long to remove it! Only few succeed. And remaining are dragged in a futile war with non but themselves.

ATTACHMENT

I have always heard from religious people and read from scriptures that attachment is the root cause of individual soul’s misery. I always tried to keep any kind of attachments away from my heart. And like many people I was able to falsely satisfy myself that I have succeeded in my aim. But subsequent to attaining the height of my false belief, the circumstances showed me that I was not right. I was as oriented towards various worldly attachments as anyone else. Then the hereditary feature of humans activated itself inside me. This is the feature where by people satisfy themselves with the status quo and try to justify their stand and ability. And then again I tried to prove myself better than many others by saying that I was just a victim of circumstances… by saying that I was just following what God has forced me to follow… by saying that I have not created any further attachments by myself… by saying that I was not going further deep into existing attachments and was keeping myself away from certain subjects about which I used to feel are more attracting and alluring to others. (Before I proceed further I would like to clarify that my basic premise of treating attachments as a root cause of individual soul’s misery is not just a result of blind faith in what I read or hear… it is to a great extent is a result of my empirical study of human nature and real life observations.) However it seems that God has vowed to prove me wrong all the time… I am not complaining about my bad luck nor do I intend to say that God is unjust… But the fact remains that I am being proved wrong repeatedly by circumstances. Perhaps it is the illusive grace of God about which I have heard and according to which He does not allow bigheadedness of His seekers. As a result quite obviously I was made to realize my mistake in practical. And here I stand no better than an ordinary man who does not know the result of worldly attachments. Instead I am worse than that ordinary man…. Because that ordinary man who does not know enjoys his being attached to world… but I cannot. Hardly I feel satisfaction because of this. It is getting more and more difficult to see the one’s dreams shattering before one’s eyes. I don’t want to sound depressing but it is reality. Suggestions have been made by many to skip this but hard to put into practice. Don’t know what to do.

Fear

Fear… Fear may take many shades. Since the time immemorial, man has been afraid of many things and phenomenon. Even after acquiring this huge knowledge there is no quantitative or qualitative change in that fear. Only the subjects of the fears have changed. What I believe, the source fear is unknown and uncertainties. Entire life of man goes for making things certain… or at least making the impact of uncertain events certain. The enterprise of making fear of unknown vanish is really big today, as can be seen from the growth of insurance sector. Still we have totally failed to negate that. I mean no one can get insurance for the risk of a failed career, or for loss of honor. Further insurance is not more than a compensatory mechanism. Ultimately even today’s man is as helpless in fighting the fear as the cavemen used to be. Fear, I feel, also originates out of our desires… coz we believe that these desires no matter how small they may be… needs to be fulfilled. We desire and they become so important for us that we do not want to see a future in which they remain unfulfilled. It may sound like a pessimist but entire life of man is a battle trying to win the situations which may lead to the birth of fear and the end result of battle is defeat. But one thing is also very interested with this fear… no single fear is permanent. Once we face a situation about which we feared we come into a real battle ground and fear is no more. This also exhibits my concern, just for the uncertainty… not a concern for the real battle. Or not?

Change in Mind... not change of it..

I have presented myself before my reader…. I hope there are few… after a long time. Lots of water has flown down the Ganges since then. And similarly lots of thoughts have passed through my mind since that time. Sometimes I think of the decisions I have taken in my life and then I think whether these decisions are right or wrong. Earlier it wasn’t the case. I used to have a rigid kind of mind which used to get closed the moment I have taken a decision. There was no point of rethink…. or perhaps there were no such decisions taken by me which had a long term bearing on my life. So there was no need of rethink. But now the time and circumstances have changed and it’s the time to take such decisions which have long term repercussions. Right from the day this time came, my situation became messy. Messy because of the fact I have mentioned about my past habit of decision making. I don’t find myself this much able to have a correct and perfect decision in the first place and then my past habit restrains me from revising that imperfect, incorrect decision. One may think it is not such a difficult task to change one’s mind…. but it’s not the case with me…. or at least it seems so at present to me. Don’t know how to handle this situation………….

The Failure…..

“It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose.”
As the above quotation indicates sheepishly, people are really like this. Quick to console the others, but themselves are quite inconsolable. What if you were in the same set of circumstances that led to one’s failure. I find myself many a times in the same kind of awkward situation when I have to console a friend or an acquaintance of mine who has just faced a failure. The failure, had it occurred to me, would have shattered me into pieces. Then how can I lie to any of my friend by saying that it just doesn’t matter. Totally direction less in this regard…. Don’t know how to proceed in such matters…. I just can’t say the things to others with double standards embedded therein….