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

Start over, shall we?

With every passing day the need for a start over seems more and more warranted. There are so many things that need to be set right. Almost everything seems imperfect in retrospect. It's like burden which is becoming heavier by the day slowing me down. You can't just leave the past and start over. It doesn't work like that.

Nothing's ever done.... No matter what you do, or what you pretend, the past is there. You can't ignore it.

JOHN SAUL, When the Wind Blows

It's the past that defines us, that describes us.
It's the past that restricts us, that constricts our path.
That drives us and disappoints us.

The past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.

ECKHART TOLLE, The Power of Now

I want to go back to the start again. I know now what I need to  needed to do. The battles I must have won, the battles I should never have volunteered for. Promises (to myself) that I should never have made. Ideals, morals, fairness are the real vices for which there IS no rehab.

But I can't really go back now can I? Past, clowns to the left of me and jokars to the right, and here I am stuck in the middle with you.

Conversation killer

LOL

I hate it when I get a "lol" in reply... I mean if you feel like laughing then go Haha at least it sounds like a laugh! When I get a lone lol I choose to end the conversation more often than not (it also depends on who sent it and my inclination to put myself through some more lol horror)

Why people choose to use this Conversation killer?

1. To KILL the conversation. Of course if you actually wanna kill the conversation then you can go ahead and LOL. It would work even better than HMMM...

2. You actually say "LOL" out loud instead of laughing in the 'real' world. ( Saw such a creature in some movie/series )

3. You actually believe that it's Cooler to LOL then to laugh.

4. You genuinely have nothing to say and LOL is your way of dealing with awkwardness.

5. You've not heard about the 'cooler' version of LOL which is LAUL.

What is YOUR reason?

Vacations

Who doesn't like vacations?
Who wouldn't? :S

Do we all look forward to go on one?
Yes!

Is there a threshold period for them to last?
Don't think so (truth is YES!)

After the threshold period which is about 18 days and 14 hours in my opinion...

Do you start  talking to people you generally never have time for?
Yes!

You do stupid things just because you're bored?
Yes!

You end up feeling very irritated?
Yes!

You start feeling that all your friends are corporate rats?
Yes!

You have a little too much time to think about your life!
Yes!

Does the last part suck?
Oh Yes!

Do you take rapid measures to fix things which will prevent you from reflecting too much on your life?
Definitely!

Especially after a few drinks?
Of course!

Does that push you further in the mess?
Well, Of course!

Now do you wish for the vacations to get over?
So do!

Does this mean that you're missing work?
Are you kidding me? :P

Extreme Emotions

Can emotions not be extreme?
If yes then are those really emotions?

What really puzzles me is when people ask Why you feel that way?
If I knew I won't call them emotions now would I?
I don't know why I feel like beating some people to pulp with my bare hands and protect some from everybody else.

I can give a long list of reasons but the truth be told they'll just be made up excuses. I don't know why I hate someone or why I love someone. But I can tell you the feelings are never moderate. The feelings should NEVER be moderate. I suck at moderation and feel bad about it sometimes. Not only emotions but otherwise too. I don't know about other things but emotions shouldn't be moderate or temporary. I mean in a world where everything is temporary if you can't even feel a certain way about someone or something then I don't see you having any sort of an identity. You don't have any ground zero.

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.

Polite is Rude

Can one really be polite?

The very nature of the gesture makes it obvious.
You can't be polite and subtle at the same time. So is it really worth it to be polite?
Isn't it like pity? And isn't that rude?

The very idea of being polite is to act in a way which would need deliberate effort.
Does that not make it a lie? And is lying polite?

The very need for politeness is to avoid offending others.
That is assuming that they're not good enough to handle the truth.

NOW IS THAT POLITE?

I don't think one can be polite without being disrespectful.
Politeness is like being rude but disguised.

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 (:

Bombay to Delhi

While waiting for the boarding announcement the things that run through my head aren't about what I'm going to do once I'm there. It's not about the people I'll meet. It's not about my college days. Although these are the things I expect myself to think about.

What do I think about?

Getting up at 5 in the morning and waking everyone else up for the 6 AM cricket match. Getting back home by 11 and then playing a game of Business with my oldest friend. Then a lunch break before we get back to the field.

Those summers just don't come back. The Delhi I left is not the one I keep coming back to. Perhaps I left 'home' long before I went to Bombay.

Not that I don't enjoy visiting this 'new place' and ALWAYS consider staying back forever. I still love going to Khan and drinking up with my favorite friends and will always do :)

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?

Make My Trip

One of the downsides of living away from home is that most of your vacations are used up in traveling back n forth. And somehow friends and family always feel that you could have stayed for longer, I don't blame them. But there comes a time when you want to go for a real vacation. New place. No pending work to take care of (there's always some at home). No worries about missing somebody (It's so annoying to hear "arre tum dilli aaye aur mile bhi nahin"). So I replaced a Delhi plan with Kerala and the trip was totally worth it! More on that in some other post.

So this trip meant I couldn't go home for more than 5 months. Now even for a guy like me it's long enough to start feeling homesick. The Diwali vacations due in another month or so seemed far away so I decided to plan a short weekend trip for the time being. I booked Rajdhani tickets keeping in mind that I've to spend again for Diwali tickets. I also got a day's leave approved which along with the weekend and ganesh immersion seemed like a long enough 'short trip'.

But a day before I was scheduled to leave for Delhi something came up at work and I had to cancel my ticket and consequently the trip as I didn't want to spend 5k on flight tickets. So to drown my sorrow I went drinking. It seemed like usual beer but as my friend pointed out then it had more than the usual effect that day. I joked how could she be tipsy on two beers. So I returned around midnight and there I was on MakeMyTrip.com. I saw there was a 9 'O clock flight to Delhi. I called My roomie and asked if I should just book it. I got a diplomatic response "if it makes you happy then by all means" which was good enough for me then. So there I took out my credit card and Air India Xpress got richer by about 5 grands. I got the confirmation email but what I read got me completely out of the beer high that I was enjoying. It said

Itinerary and Reservation Details

Air India Express IX-143 Departure New Delhi (DEL) Sat, 18 Sep 2010, 09:30 hrs Arrival Mumbai (BOM) Sat, 18 Sep 2010, 11:45 hrs Non-Stop Flight Duration: 2h 15m Non-Refundable Fare Cabin:Economy

Passenger Name Type Airline PNR Mr kanishk arya Adult IX08264821

In case you missed it too it says from DELHI to MUMBAI. I'm sure I read this at least a dozen times. I just couldn't believe my luck. I also noticed that the ticket was "Non-Refundable". I don't remember how many call centers I called that night but I do remember that i found out that Air India Xpress has NONE. They've nothing to do with Air-India except the fact that they use air-crafts deemed unfit by Air India after use. (And there I was already wondering if I can enter the duty free as this was an International connecting flight)

I finally recovered as much as I could and then I started doing some math. I was 3k down for no good reason but if I put in 5k more then Delhi will welcome me with both hands :)

I booked the ticket again after CAREFUL scrutiny. The flight was scheduled for departure at 6 in the morning so I decided not to sleep at all. Instead I reached the airport early and checked-in (How would they leave w/o me now? :D)

I decided I won't tell anyone about this height of stupidity (of course most of my friends knew about this before I caught the flight).

For the record I'm not reckless with money and hence I decided to not celebrate my Birthday which was due next week (Like that was gonna happen) ;)

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.

System Restore

I can't recall how many times I used to do a system restore on my old pc. Isn't it brilliant? You don't like it how it's behaving now then just move it back to a state you did like :)

Shanu mentioned to me how it'll be so awesome to download tutorials to learn stuff like they did in matrix and life will be so much easier and fun. It got me thinking. I say let's wish for something much more 'reasonable'. How about a 'System Restore'? Remember the last time you were totally in your 'groove' ? Won't it be awesome to just get that frame of mind restored whenever you like ? It'll be as close to utopia as it could be in my opinion.

Since any new technology is just not satisfying enough and we always want more so I'll pen down my expectations from the System Restore 2.0 right here. It should also have a software update which makes sure we don't repeat mistakes because something that really makes me pull my hair out is having to see myself in the same shit again and again.

Do you have any other 'reasonable' wish ?

Focus

We keep cribbing how we all are so distracted and are always suggested that some 'focus' would do some wonders. So I made a list of things which always captivate our thoughts and even work can't distract us from them.

1.  Watching your entire life in flashes while looking out through the window on a rainy day.
2.  The woman in red at the bar.
3.  An imminent change in our lifestyle.
4.  Chilled beer running down our throats.
5.  Thought of losing somebody.
6.  Running till you can run no more.
7.  Realizing you can't undo that avoidable screw up.
8.  Hearing somebody describe what you feel better than you could ever have.
9.  Being completely alone in a room full of people.
10. Watching someone's face light up at your sight.
11. Listening to Floyd.
12. Going back where it all started.


P.S. I wanted to write a light-hearted post :S

How Brain Works

Good Days: Things go right. We take the right decisions or at least they seem to be right. We remember how we have done so good in life. How things always work out. How we're better than the rest. How our friends are the best anyone can have. How we've been good to people. How we're proud of ourselves. How others are proud of us. How important we are. How we shouldn't ever change.

Bad Days: We screw up. Domino effect leads to screw ups. Old screw ups re-surface. Old wonders start looking like potential screw-ups. We remember how we always screw up. How it always ends badly. How there's no one to prevent us from falling. How we're a disappointment to us and others. How useless we are. How we can't ever change.

Normal Days: We're just our usual ignorant self.