Nobody Changes

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.  ~John Kenneth Galbraith


Ever felt that the same things go wrong every time?
It's like a curse. We tell people stories about how it happened to us. How we got out of those terrible times and then right then it starts happening all over again. You thought it wouldn't again or even if it did you're all mature and learned to deal with it this time. Does it really go well this time? I doubt it. It crashes your world again and you do exactly what you promised yourself you wouldn't do. It's not that you don't know what should be done because you know exactly. But.. you couldn't you wouldn't because that would mean you'll have to change your ways. You'll have to change yourself. You'll have to own up to all those past nightmares which you had conveniently blamed on others. It's just not acceptable. There has to be a big conspiracy against you. Perhaps it's god himself who hates you.


We are all aware of our strengths, shortcomings and idiosyncrasies too. Likewise, we all can see the Devil within but we can't let go of him because he's internal to us. We turn to him in times of need. So what if he chooses to destroy our life we still can't pay the small price of killing the ego/the shortsightedness/the madness. We live on with our respective devils and it grows stronger and stronger burning us inside.


We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves.  ~Lynn Hall

When do we search for peace?

It's not new to hear somebody or may be yourself craving for a peaceful vacation. As life gets more and more out of control the craving follows. We of course don't really give into our craving. Not until life's back in control or to say when it's feasible(work is sane enough) to take a time off.

So if you think about it we never really let go of our mad lives to experience peace but it's during those peaceful times we fool ourselves. We tell ourselves that we've made this happen as planned. We go for AOL kinda courses when we're most at peace with our lives anyway. Not to say that these courses are bad or good for that matter but the fact is that no one runs for peace when he/she needs it the most. We just choose to fool ourselves later. Can you imagine madness in office or at home and u leaving for a peaceful vacation. We search for peace when we've time and when we've time we're generally peaceful...

Back Home

We make decisions every second of every day during our existence. There are times we retrospect and wonder what was sensible and what was a blunder. At times we even spend a bomb on a vacation just for some peace to clear our head.

I think the best vantage point is Ground Zero itself. The place where you grew up. Where you first dream of everything you want to be and everything you want for yourself (We tend to confuse the two don't we?). The place where people still remember you as the kid who broke their window on a summer evening and then had the courage to come and ask for the ball as well :)

It's the place where everyone comes back or visit to share their life journeys with people who couldn't care more about impressions & reputations. Where you could be that silly little kid again and talk about incidents & ambitions which are otherwise never talked about.

Not often one gets a chance to taste the long lost past again. It marks the end of a journey and the beginning of a new challenge. And until the starting gun is heard it's a carnivale.

Dhobhi Ghaat

Chaos is what it seems from outside. But each individual experiences something unique and yet so similar in ways which outsiders can never comprehend.

It made me wonder. Is life complicated or we complicate it. Are we so afraid of our instinct that we spend(read waste) all our time in calculating every move and analyzing each and everything that happens.

Are we so afraid of falling that we don't want to experience free fall ever again?
Is certainty so exciting that we want to know everything?

Someone told me "things do work out as they should". I do believe so now or at least I want to.

May be the lost capability of taking chances is what makes us miss our golden days (:

I hate Heroes

As a kid I wanted to master every profession. My dream job was the Profession of the Week at that time. Everything was possible. One day I could be whatever I want to be. Therefore I loved all the larger than life characters despite grown ups calling them unrealistic. Now even I hate such characters(except Batman) because that day never came. Because I no longer dream to be like them. Because I've grown up.

So is this what growing up is about? Coming face to face with your own shortcomings? Being realistic?

Or is it about losing the confidence that you once had and now you're just trying to 'fit in' with the ordinary?

Empty

I envy little babies - Innocent, cute, carefree, lovable and loving.

Then comes experience and it takes away from us one thing after another.
May be that's what growing up is - Building your resume, new relationships and stories each wearing you away, making you a lesser version of yourself, emptying you out.

Innocence goes away first.
You can't afford to be carefree.
Love is a sin.

You run from all the things you hate in this world until one day you give in and become one of them and then you ask why do you hate yourselves ? Why do you feel so empty ?

You won the battle but lost the war.

Quality

Duality applies to Quality as well. Good can't exist without evil, Light has no significance without darkness - Higher(good) quality has no meaning without the lower(bad) one.

Extreme of any good quality turns it into a bad one. Like...

• Cynicism helps but then it invariably leads to paranoia. 
• Confidence turns into cockiness. 
• Desire to succeed turns into an unwillingness towards acceptance of failure.
• Strong leader turns into a dictator.
  

Lack of quality won't solve any problems either. So it's as good as a bad quality when one is incapable of doing what he should. Like...

• Lack of light leads to darkness.
• Lack of cynicism makes one gullible.
• Inability to act makes one the obstacle.

People say pick up positives not negatives but what makes you say that they're exclusive? What makes you think that they're distinct? If good and bad were so different then how could a gray area ever exist?

With great powers come great responsibilities

I know this is cliched and seems irrelevant to us, I mean most of us aren't saving the world in any obvious kind of way. But I still feel that this phrase is quite pertinent to our lives. Our qualities determine our strength as well as weaknesses. They bring us great powers which need to be handled responsibly. We need to maintain balance because either extreme results in something that the quality was there to prevent in the first place. This might explain why happiness, triumph, success and every other thing associated with a good balance are so short lived.

Occam's Razor

Either you can be logical about everything or nothing. You can't have it both ways. You can't resort to logic when it suits you especially when it's your dire attempt to justify yourselves. Just because you can justify yourselves doesn't make you or your actions right.

I'm sure this goes against everything you've been taught, but right and wrong do exist. Just because you don't know what the right answer is - maybe there's even no way you could know what the right answer is - doesn't make your answer right or even okay. It's much simpler than that. It's just plain wrong.- Dr. Gregory House

 Yes right and wrong do exist. Just because people can get away by calling it a gray area doesn't make it right. Weakness is not an excuse for choosing the wrong path rather it's a weak act to use weakness as an excuse. Experiences tend to repeat themselves. Ever thought why so ? It's maybe because of YOU. You haven't changed, your actions haven't, your thinking hasn't and therefore the consequences haven't either and you're still wasting all your time coming up with excuses, with justification when the simplest justification is staring you in the face.

Occam's Razor - Simplest explanation is always right.

Well almost always. So why think of complicated stories then ?

Self Preservation

Self Preservation defines evolution.
The ability to defy it defines acing the evolutionary race.
We've the ability to choose.
To choose between life and death.
To choose between pleasure and misery, at times, but these choices are driven by motives much more complex than mere survival.
Emotions defy logic and define us.
We've the ability and the drive to choose misery, the lack of which we find quite troubling.
We've the ability to self destruct.
To shoot ourselves in the foot.
To 'change' everything.
The question is to what end ?
Is it just compulsion to check our own breaking point ?
Is there a point to be proven, to others if not ourselves ?
Is there a war to be won ?
Is there a trophy to be lifted ?
Or maybe it's just to keep us 'occupied' like Leonard did.
May be we'll never know.

The Evil Grin

It makes your heart sink.
Can feel his presence whenever you laugh too much.
Just have to look behind and there it is 'the evil grin'.
The one that's there to make you doubt yourself.
Doubt Others.
Doubt Everything.
You tell yourself its all in the head and you won't be affected.
But you already are.
You can see the domino effect and you just wait n watch.
Tell yourself that next time you'll be stronger and won't let your dreams fall like a pack of cards.
Makes you feel better for a while, sometimes.
But you'd rarely forget that he's always behind you, watching every move, with that evil grin.
Guess that's what god looks like.

Let Go

Remember battling it out in the swimming pool to stay afloat ? Well I do. How the basic instinct told me to come out of the water and put my feet on the ground, To not trust the well proven Archimedes principle.

How something you badly want like a college or a prize and failure takes away all your confidence and you had already lost your life preparing for the same.

How that special someone turned your life upside down 'in a bad way' but still the apparent 'problem' is hardly ever acknowledged.

Someplace you want to get away from, someplace you want to be and putting everything into it for the same. Well its no different then struggling to stay afloat without even letting go.

What does feel good is to let go, when suddenly you're no longer drowning. It does feel good when there's no longer any pressure from within to have an ultimate goal. Suddenly so many possibilities start to appear out of nowhere and some are even good ;)

Even letting go a person brings a lot of 'possibilities' into the picture.

May be being open to things here than imagining better things on the other side all the time is not such a bad idea. May be all the problems are not as real as we make ourselves believe they are. We just need our 'pleasant' surprises to keep us happy and surprises need us to be open to receiving them :)

I Wonder

Something made me wonder. Why is it that people are almost always disappointed. If you fail then you're supposed to be disappointed and if you succeed then its just one step forward which was 'expected', hard earned, not a surprise.
New people excite us whereas old jokes become annoying (this is until we realize 'old is gold' :P ).
I wonder is it because whenever we're looking for happiness from a particular direction, we inadvertently close all the doors leading it to us? Or an alternate view which kind of questions the meaning of happiness. Is 'surprise factor' the real catch ? Do we need that surprise, that 'pleasant' shock to feel happy ? That might explain why we like to do something outrageous every once in a while ? Or is it just me ?

May be we just want to see if we can still surprise ourselves. May be that's all happiness is. It's HOPE that there's more to world and life then what we have witnessed so far and its nicer and worth living for.

Purpose

"We are not here because we're free, we're here because we are not free. There is no escaping reason, no denying purpose, because as we both know, without purpose, we would not exist." - Agent Smith

I* can't remember the last time I was really captivated by 'something^' or 'someone#' (Actually I kinda do remember but don't really want to bring it up here). I think I'm missing the feeling of thinking nothing 'else'. To have your mind fixated at a particular 'thing' or a particular 'one'. When everything else didn't bother me so much. When I didn't question myself so much. When happiness wasn't so costly (and didn't even require taking a cab to Worli). I'm digressing again.

When there was still hope for a 'perfect' something/someone/life. When the 'examination' papers were designed to be cracked. When cynicism hadn't crossed all boundaries. When time wasn't running out (at least from the looks of it). When getting up in the morning(/afternoon) was easier, there was a reason to smile while preparing for the day ahead, there was Purpose.


* I'm writing in first person as I'm not sure how lost others really are as they kinda do seem to have some sort of a plan.
^ Any goal, gadget, plan, accomplishment etc.
# Too obvious man!

Reflection

What happens when you can no longer justify your past ?
When you can no longer identify with yourself ?
You never were what you thought you were and you still aren't and hence you never will be ?
When all the excuses start to seem not good enough ?
When your own reflection starts to aggravate you ?
When you completely lose touch with reality or may be its the first time that reality has hit you, well you'll never know ?
How do you know that all these years weren't a waste, that still all is not lost ?
How could you possibly do things differently this time ?

The path is becoming steeper and where's the hope of reaching the top when you could not reach the other end of the lush green field in your backyard...

'Hope Springs Eternal'

Yes I am High ! But its not chemically induced rather its the wonder of 'hope'. Hope which has ended for me a phase of doubts, about anything and everything, about me and you, about this world and the next. Where did this hope come from ? What inspired me is the mesmerizing act of an individual defying all odds, telling us yes you can.

As the Architect from Matrix said "Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness". Though I wonder what we'll we do without it ? Even the thought seems frightening.

Enough of beating behind the bush... I am here to talk about Saurav Ganguly AKA Dada.

Refused to be a silent spectator in 1991, kicked out. Came back 5 years later with back to back centuries at the mecca of cricket. Establishing himself as the one-day opener. Then came the day when he was crowned with captain's hat. And what did he do ? Well he turned the meaning of leadership on its head. He made what Indian cricket team is today. He's the architect, he's the devil the world couldn't stand and the more he defied them the more support he got and the more powerful he became and the more angry they got.

Then came the downfall like it does for all great kings. The luck ran out, friends turned foe and even the precious 'timing' gave up on him. He had to leave again, many arrogant souls believed that its forever. But he had different plans, He came back and weathered the storm in Africa, where no one else had a clue he showed them light. He once again demonstrated sheer strength of determination which has inspired millions. Finally the legend retired from international cricket with his head high after an invaluable contribution to his country.

Came IPL, again so many controversies, its like they won't ever leave him alone. Bad form was seen as a sin. Everyone waiting for that one tiny mistake and questioning over a decade long of greatness whenever they got a tiny window of opportunity.

Then it was the time for the return of the king. He took all responsibility, he lead from the front. His elegant shots were all back and he demonstrated why he's called the prince of Bengal, the Bengal Tiger and why is he one of the most successful Indian openers ever. He patted his chest signaling his team that he's going to see them through today and he did just that. If there's someone who never gives up then it has to be the greatest Indian Captain of all times AKA Dada.

Human Experiment

I remember watching this tv series LOST about some people stuck on an island. There was this experiment going on there too in which some people were sent there with all the necessities for life and all they had to do was press a button every 90 minutes without fail. They were told they were saving the world. Some other people believed that it was just an experiment to see how people will react to it.

But if you think about it our life is no different. Society tries to make us feel that our life has a purpose and not only that it gives us a code of conduct as well and I must add that we are taught to believe that what we like is not good.. So the end product is the same situation as those guys you don't know whether you are right or not because you want society to be right because that makes you a part of a bigger and supposedly meaningful thing and supports you as well but deep down you know its an experiment and your nothing more than an object...

Couldn't an excuse for Didn't

Couldn't is one of the most over used words according to me. I wondered about its various usages and figured its nothing but an excuse for didn't. If you think about it every usage of couldn't can be replaced by didn't and be justified because couldn't comes into usage not because of infeasibility but lack of will.
Like raising your hands assuming yourself to be superman and then saying I cant fly is as good as saying you don't want to unlike wright brothers who did.
And even if we don't look at it objectively its about the kind of gesture one makes which gives an idea about the intent one might not be in a position to do a lot of things but can still do a lot of other stuff to send the right message.

An Inquiry into Morals

I have always given ethics there due importance but I am starting to wonder does nature really care about ethics?? After all its about the survival of the fittest. Being rigid in order to be ethical is something we cant afford to do in this world. If we have a choice between victimizing ourselves or others the choice becomes obvious unless one can derive happiness otherwise and is capable of forgiving himself when others do not put you on the receiving end of such a favour either, after all if you couldn't take your own side why expect others??? And doing this isn't selfless either after all your happy right... It finally comes down to what you like.

Even if your intent is to deceive I say how the hell does it matter because all that counts is what you do on ground...Right???