Wish u a gr8 2010

Wish you a great 2010.
May it kick off a decade of joy
and days content.
Exorcise memories that haunt, without lament.
And see adversity faced with strength.
Happy New Year

New Year Greet

Wish you a great 2010.
May it kick off a decade of days forever content,
and nights just as swell.
Be good, do good and feel good.
Make your world a better place.
Happy New Year.

Happy 2010

In 2010 Aspire,
Inquire, Perspire n Desire.
Hit the high and low notes with equal ease.
Get to know what brings you peace.
Give voice to your passion.
Ensure it makes an impression,
So that the moments of 2010,
bear the stamp of your intent,
for a life fulfilled and content.

Stay true to yourself and your goals.
Believe, and you will achieve
Your destiny to behold.

Wish you a great 2010.
Be good, do good and feel good.
Make your world a better place.
Happy New Year Bay2.

Whither thought ?

All of us think. But its how we think and what we think about that makes the difference. How thought makes us feel. The memories it provides through recall, signposts of what we have become. The one process that defines who and what we are and, if one is aware enough, perhaps may even provide an understanding of why we are the way we are! How does thought emerge has been a vexed question to which I'm still searching for an answer.
It is one of the foremost anxieties during my depths of depression. A blank mind groping for any trigger to thought. Conversations are mono-syllables, interactions dreaded coz there is nothing to say. No thought or response comes to mind. Whither thought? Unanswered, it just confirms my sense of worthlessness.
3 months of anti-deps and one surfaces out of the pits of despondency and uselessness. Thought is focused on WHY. Why am I the person I am? Just who am I and what made me this way? There's no recall of the large part of life lived. Nor an understanding of the person who lived it. Attempts to make sense of it all keep coming to naught because of a seemingly ingrained apathy that haunts this quest for meaning. And awareness of that only magnifies the deficiencies of a lif lived, ignorant of and apparently bereft of feeling. WHY?
A question asked maybe too late in life. Because the awareness dawned very late in life. It took 48 years and a life in shambles to start an introspection of who I was and, the dawning of hazy realisations and half baked hypothesis as to why I was that way. A search sifting through stray images from memory that denoted milestones on the journey, but no residual flavour of the experiences that went into shaping the traveller. The thoughts that resulted in the awareness were just a collage of images. Fragments of moments providing a hazy record of events from my life. No sense or feeling evoked or attached. No continuum and oh so many gaps in memory.
The thought process stays focused on recall of a life and all one gets is the sense that, the better part of life and experience has for some reason, not registered in memory. Even the scalding acrimony that ripped the marriage apart, that was so torturous to live with then, doesn't evoke any emotion on reflection. Just hazy images without substance or the intensity of near hatred felt then...A strange apathy.
That's all my thought process delivers to me. There's no flights of imagination, no feelings aroused, no desires or wants triggered. All that thought seems capable of is to continuously remind me of the hollowness of my being. The mind seems cloaked in an anesthetic veil, numbing all the sense of my experiences, blocking all semblance of feeling.....WHY?

A reminder on an Anniversary

7:50 AM....Missed Call
*:10 AM....Forward of a msg received....with a footnote:
Stayng in touch a big mistake my life will get better frm this moment u r d bigst hypocrite evr



.....Y repeat th mistake?

The Power of Silence

Arun - BE MORE & MORE SILENT, WHENEVER YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY. JUST SIT SILENTLY DOING NOTHING. NOT EVEN MEDITATION. JUST SIT SILENTLY FOR NO PURPOSE FOR NO REASON. SLOWLY, SLOWLY SILENCE GROWS. IT BECOMES AN OVERWHELMING EXPERIENCE. AND WHEN SILENCE HAS PERMEATED YOU THROUGH & THROUGH, YOU WILL KNOW WHO YOU ARE & YOU WILL KNOW WHAT THIS LIFE IS ALL ABOUT. IN KNOWING IT, ONE KNOWS GOD.......OSHO
Me - Will knowing yourself change who you are? Can stilling the senses, a cloak of silence change what those senses contributed to creating? Will understanding why it is change anything?
Arun - I think it should change our attitude towards life, I reallydon't know, as, I'm not yet there, but, I really want to know myself.
Me - Attitude towards life is the key. How one desires to interpret, interact and ones capacity to react to/in all the motions called living. Ones needs and objectives define that, and they vary.

The futility of Rapproachment

I suggest you vent your frustrations elsewhere in future. If you can't appreciate the context and perspective of conversations and start out on personal slanging as the only basis for emphasing a point, then its sad.
Your report has been mailed.
I don't think we'll ever bury the past. Its best we don't stay in touch. No name calling then.

Staying in touch a big mistake. My life will get better from this moment. You are the biggest hypocrite ever. Thanks for the last deed.

A birthday wish

Moments are the essence of life.
Seize em, and live the Thoughts that make em.
Let em slip away,
and you find yourself
wishing you'd done more,
to spice up days like today.
Happy Birthday.


U GIFTED A HUGE SMILE TO MY FACE. CERTAINLY TRY TO KEEP THAT IN MIND.
LUV U LUV

What is...was meant to be.

Conversation, on a personal level, even in close relationships, is difficult. "Say something" and there's nothing to share. An uncomfortable silence that brings sharply into focus inadequacies of being, on the emotional front. Even the riposte question inquiring about some facet of the others well being is just an attempt to salvage an awkward moment and not out of any felt need to know. An awareness of this insensitivity doesn't lead to understanding of how to generate feeling and memory from the life ones known.
How can life not have touched one and resulted in no residual feeling, just still snapshots of some moments, empty of felt experience. Why? When I know that I lived and felt then, very often with an intensity I then believed to be a passion for truth and a strong dislike for hypocrisy. Where has all that energy gone? Was it just manic energy? My brain chems ruling me?
Who and what I am seems configured more by my aberrant moments that skew my persona and make it difficult to get a fix on my base nature and abilities. The resultant me though is there for me to know and see. Uncaring, unfeeling, a persona best described as dull and boring. A capacity to do nothing for years on end and feel nothing, no guilt or shame or trigger an urge to change what is. An awareness that creates only the knowledge that perhaps What is....was meant to be. There seems to be no other explanation. Is it just Reaping as one has sown, albeit much of it no longer in memory.
One is constantly waiting for something within one to awaken. A need, desire, feeling, some energy that would spur one into action. ...Nothing stirs. Why? Its difficult to make oneself want to, when there is no felt need, no driver. One must FEEL like doing something. How does one make that feeling happen? How does one create purpose, without felt need?

Choices

We don't get many chances at making something of our lives. Too often we don't even realise or recognise that we need to, thanx to the comfort zones we create for ourselves. Here, the world is known, safe, peopled by like minded souls and activity is on our terms, giving it shared meaning.
We adjust and adapt to the real world from this cocoon. The realities of the real world oft forgotten or just ignored. Dwelling in the known, with a support system that's our very own, is comforting. Ones thoughts get conditioned to perpetuating this space and the choices one makes are dictated by the sense of feel good, very often overlooking opportunities that a future beyond the here and now would necessitate. Life is what you decide is happening and tomorrow is another day.
Living for now, in the present, is an evergreen mantra. But your present was your future once and will be your past tomorrow. The choices you make in creating what is in the here and now, will define what will be, your future.
None of us really wish to grow up. If only time could stand still at this age of our lives. Discovering ourselves, savouring the fruits of freedom and enjoying taking the decisions and the responsibility for one's own life. Living the meaning of doing your own thing. The college years are truly the best and what most of us wish to be the longest years of our lives.They are also integral to making you who you are and will be and what you will become.
This time, moulds you for the place you seek to create in the real world. If you let the safety of your cocoon keep you unaware of of the rules of the game and the attributes of the players on the outside, adjustment and adaptation becomes selective. You must equip yourself for handling people and situations unknown. One's circle of friends can be the biggest strength as also the greatest drawback to that.Bonds should strengthen not tie one down. Relationships have an uncanny knack of doing both. And they are the basis of comfort zones. And that's where an understanding of space becomes vital. The space to do your own thing and not just conform to common accepted visions about life that usually bring people together. At the end of the day, we are all individualistic and it always will be to each their own. It is only a matter of the choices one makes and the basis for those choices.
The responses to friends, situations, choices must be determined by who and where you want to be in the real world, when the real and total responsibilities of your life are on your shoulders. Where you seek to actualise the dreams you had for yourself and make sure they are achievable and not just sacrificed to experience a few years of feel good moments, that do at this time feel like the best time of your life. But move on you must into the real world.
Let this period be remembered for the good times, strength and people who supported you and gave you the courage to achieve rather than have to reflect back on it saying "If only I knew then what I know know" That stems only from the knowledge of who you want to be. If you don't have an idea about that by now, then its likely that's how it will be. We don't get many chances at making something of our lives.

Observation

Arun - Is it possible to simply observe something without evaluating it?
Me - Yes. Observation is an acceptance of what is as the way it is. Evaluation is when you try to understand why it is the way it is. If one doesn't feel a need to understand, one is just an observer. If one has a propensity to know and understand, evaluation is online with observation.
Subjectivity is when evaluation clouds observation. Objectivity is the considered "neutral" opinion after observation and evaluation.
Just observation is possible when a superficial sensory recording triggers no thought or feeling.

Just observation without evaluation is true objectivity.
Arun - But is it possible? Don't we attach an adjective to everything we observe? Can one see something and yet not think about it? Give example.
Me - Observing is describing something by recall from the record of learnt information stored as factual memory. Just syntax. One attaches adjectives when cognition and evaluation start. You see strangers, new sights every day. First observation is only a record of the factual descriptive features. Adjectives start when interest is aroused and thought and feeling come into play.

Be who you are...

If the perceived intent of others guides ones thoughts, then one is letting ones will and self image become subservient to anothers actions. When you know who you are and what you are capable of, you define and adapt to your environment and not have others dictate or affect the postures you adopt. You are what and who you are. Don't let the world forget that.... And you either.

What is....

There is a life worthy of recall,
but no memories to relive it.
No thoughts triggered,
by experiences in the present.
All those moments growing up,
now lost to oblivion.

Relationships forged, stand hollow without feeling.
No memories upon which
to reclaim a life now wasting.
Intensities I once know I felt
have evaporated without a trace.
I wonder how and why I've evolved to this state.
No thoughts, no feelings......
just an empty sensory shell.
The only explanations I have
centre on my genes and my bipolar self and
a lifetime of neglect in attempting to understand oneself.

The lack of an emotional frame
had a grounding in my upbringing.
About the absence of memories, I have no bearings.
Was feeling all through life
just superficial and sensory.
Here and now moments,
that despite felt intensity,
just never got etched in memory.
The emotional impact, all too transitory.

Explanations there must be
about the contributions to this state of being.
Remedies, barring lithium and anti-deps,
continue to elude ones thinking.
Is it only the brain chems?
Or was it in the genes?
Or was there more to the flaws,
something ingrained in the psyche?
What one did and became,
reflected in aberrant personality.

The experiences of life
have been robbed from memory.
Only half-baked hypotheses
as diagnosis for this callous eventuality.
The bottom line,
What is ... was meant to be.
Not fate or destiny but
the consequences of how this life was lived.
Why?...Well that hasn't unraveled fully still.

A birthday wish

The years to date have made you what you are.
Here's wishing that's who you want to be.
May the years ahead perpetuate that sense of being
and see your wish frame fulffilled.
Happy Birthday.


Thanx hun, u make it very tough 2 luv u & not 2 too..

Its just this...

'Twas coping with the here and now that resulted in what is.
'Twas meant to be.
Its coping with the here and now that will define what will be.
Bottom line - For what?
Its just this....

Learning how to feel

Me - Both sides of the Nature vs Nurture debate are clear about the what and why basis of personality. Prescriptions are basically maintenance strategies. There are few remedial learning options. Can one learn how to feel, attain the acceptable level of emotional response associated with generic felling - this is a real issue for me.
Arun - You can only learn, that would provoke thought, but whether you can put energy into it to make it an emotional response depends on your intensity of learning.Me - Intensity of learning and ability to put energy into thought....Elaborate.
Arun - The more effort you put in learning, more thought provoking it is. More of thought means more of thinker. The more you are, the more you feel.
Me - The issue is how to provoke thought. How to create interest. Effort needs a stimulus. Proactivity on all these fronts doesn't come naturally. Awareness of this exists but action?
Arun - There must be something which you always wanted to do, but couldn't. It may appear very trivial and foolish now. Start from there--may put you in a different frame of mind and bring back some enthu. Sit back and think what was your passion, and don't tell me there was none, coz thats impossible. Do it now!
Me - The stuff that I want to do seems to stem from what I wanna be. Gregarious, lively, curious, inquisitive. I don't have deep desires, unfulfilled wants, ambitions. Maybe a thought to be a caring, feeling, passionate about things person. I'd need to be somebody else!
I really dunno. Do it now you say. Nothing really comes to mind. Memories either.
Arun - First you have to come out of your cocoon and meet people.
Me - Conversation openers need to be "sense" triggered. Wanting to know - care and concern, curiosity. Wanting to share - the emotions you feel. If the emotional frame is dormant you are just a mute observer, reacting to what you're hearing. When there is no spontaneous thought articulated, you try to create some interest, but even that is linked to need, which is also rooted in emotion.
Interaction becomes forced and threatening. The approach more towards seeking acceptance and a dependency on inclusion. The chances of clicking, slim.
Arun - You can't start thinking with a conclusion. It becomes a dead end.
Me - Conclusions are based on reflection and learning from experience. New thought requires new experience and new motivation. When the latter is innate, it helps. Importing it is the prob.

Emptiness

If there are no moorings, you have no bearings.
Values, belief, purpose have fickle grounding.
Knowledge and experience are no compass to life.
They tend to be but impressions formed
adrift on journeys without direction.
And now,
Thought needs to be called up and
emotion rarely rings a bell.
Superficial solitude.
The protective husk of an empty shell.

Feeling

Me - What is feeling? What contributes to a state of mind? Overtly its the brain chems. Seemingly guided in large part by heredity and genetics. Do we inherit a framework or capacity for feeling. Are brain chems, and therefrom feelings, gene pool dependent?
Arun - What is feeling?.....its an emotional response to a situation. The difference between simple thought and feeling is that its loaded with energy, which could be either -ve or +ve.
What contributes to a state of mind?.....Your thoughts determine your state of mind. More later
Me - An emotional framework must have a basis. The foundation for which lays the propensity for thought too. If the emotional frame seems dormant, there's a glitch in thought and feeling.

What is emotion? Thought triggered energy manifested as feeling.Sensory feeling is an instinctive response triggering reflexive thought, part of the survival and basic instinct framework - the foundation of thought and emotions? The quality of energy triggered, +ve or -ve draws on the nature of instincts aroused in a situation.Instincts could programme thought responses, both innate and developed through life's experiences.Ones quality of sensory experiences determine the instinctive, and therefrom, the thought and emotional responses.
In this scenario, the sensory experience is the basis for thought.A Maslow like hierarchy could be applicable to the emotional framework too, vis-a-vis instinct and thought development.
Arun - Feelings by themselves are not gene pool dependent, but yes, the thoughts that arouse a feeling are surely affected by parental conditioning and peer group.
Me - Aren't thoughts brain chem dependent and thus gene pool dependent, with moderation from parental and peer influences?
Arun - No I think its the other way round. Your thoughts stimulate a particular brain chem.
Me - But the primary capacity or framework is inherited. We build on innate abilities that both, unleash and limit our potential. The LCM is the construct of elements of this framework. And the Highest Common Factor would be particular genomic combinations that define why we are the way we are!
Arun - Well, I don't give such high marks to genetic influence.
Me - So whats your take on it then?
Arun - I guess milieu exterior is more important than milieu interior.
Me - Adaptation to environment is the first need. Its a skill learnt not by trial and error but built on innate sense and sensibility. This core learning ability both guides as well as moulds you as you adapt. But your responses are primarily guided by the innate ability. Experience may overshadow it with time.Maybe that's why there are dilemmas in the real world.
Arun - I feel ones responses are guided by what one has learnt and by ones acquired abilities and not innate.
Me - Why then are learning and skill acquisition differential abilities.Whats the basis. And why are family traits discernible?
Arun - An apple is an apple because of its genes (milieu interior). How juicy it will be depends on the ground its planted on, and how much the planter takes care of it (milieu exterior)
Me - How much do you think the value addition to its core genus comes from the exterior milieu? Its recognised primarily for what it is. An apple and not a juicy apple.
Arun - Can you have an apple orchard in kerala
Me - Can a keralite be a marwari!
Arun - I dunno about that but some of them have become delhiites!
Me - But are still called mallus. It all in the genes bro!

Irritability

All of us are basically self-centric. Irritation sets in when elements of this self-centric perspective are not understood by our world. ...How can it be when everyone elses perspective is largely self centred...... That's why hindsight.

Its just this...

Who we are is about the choices we make.
That's why what is, was meant to be.
Choose to do what you wanna do,
then what will be,
will be what is meant to be,
not what should be.
Its just this....

Happiness and bliss

Arun - Security = Happiness
Bindaas = Bliss?
Me - Yeah! I think that's an apt approximation
Arun - Okay lets go into the meaning of security....This is not only for intellectual discussion. I want to go into the depth of it.
Me - When thought and action are not triggered by threat perception. Threats tend to be perceived from deficits in aspects that at some stage of experience provided a sense of comfort, a feeling of equanimity.
Its a belief that having a certain set of ingredients in ones environment will counter any negatives and deficiencies, and are worth aspiring to.
Arun - Well I'm not happy with your definition of it. What you are describing looks more like being in a comfort zone. It ought to be something beyond that. One may be in a comfort zone and yet not be happy.
Me - Vocab is a problem when one tries to describe something that one does not actually have a sense of. Happiness is the icing on the security cake. That added extra can't come outside a comfort zone. A comfort zone is both about security in the known as well as the confidence it creates for risk taking ability to explore newer comfort scenarios.
Maybe activity to sustain the known comfort elements is contentment. Discovering the newer facets brings joy and happiness. When this cycle becomes a continuum, its bliss.

Me - Is happiness more an individualistic perception or a reflected glow. How much of being happy is in seeing or making others happy? Creating vs. contributing?
Arun - The moment you are Not, that moment, is a happy moment.......Howzzat?
Me - Being is a presence and not the absence of a presence. I think that the moment that you ARE is a happy moment. U ARE when you feel fulfilled. U ARE when you realise what is.

Discovery

WE discover who we are through observation and reflection.
Introspecting WHY we feel a certain way,
stems emotional disarray.
Order oft comes from just how we think about things.
Attention to societal responses to your actions
provides cues to who they think you are.
If the greetings are warm,
you're on terra firma.
Take time out now and then,
Get to know who and what you are.

Happiness ...(contd)

Arun - Happiness and bliss.....different in quantity or quality?
Me - Happiness is a set of quantitative elements that can contribute to a qualitative state known as bliss. The quality and quanta of the elements take em to the next level, bliss.

The senses are qualitative interpretations of quantitative transactions. Relative responses collated from stimuli experienced over life and recorded as feelings. When you feel secure in a situation, there are elements that contribute to happiness. When the quantitative reality leaves you without a care, able to do whatever it is you wanna do....bliss.

What is

Whats possible is what you see happening around you.
Whats probable is you projecting your capabilities to do.
Wishful is desire that you had it in you to do.
What is, is what you do.

Who we are

The material is what we know best.
The spiritual is a quest.
Both occur in the here and now.
Its for the individual to know where he'll rest.
The choices are made on aspiration.
The consequences determine continuation.
But the core is the life lived.
Whose lessons subsist
and define what is, in the here and now.
The past is very real.
Its who we are.

Happiness

Arun - Happiness is an experience that you wish would never end? Is that it, to be very precise?
Me - Something never ending can become monotonous. I don't think one would wish for that. Need to decide if it is to be a sensory state reflected in a state of mind or just a state of mind.
I think happiness is like aesthetics, where beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. There can't be a generic construct. So there are likely to be as many perceptions as people. Maybe its just that, a perception. As lasting as the attention span. And the absence of negatives in the intervening moments gives the impression of a continuum of bliss.

The genesis of the here and now

Me - Was there a guide on the journey to arrival at the revelations of the here and now?
Arun - No one in particular, but you know how voracious a reader I am.
Me - Then we must articulate the postulates and hypothesis more cogently and put your name to it. "The Discovery of Being - Its just this." And a footnote saying the Seeker is the Sought.
This is a serious suggestion.
Arun - No, its not an original idea.
Me - Is creation about the big bang or evolutionary. I think its the latter. About interpreting, understanding, sometimes adapting the pre-existing, to contextual realities. There are no original truths. Just realisations arrived at as truths perceived by seekers facilitated by other seekers. The discovery of Being is an individual experience on a much trodden path.
So look at the path to your realisations as maybe another oasis on this beaten track. Or just a travelogue.

Me - It took the sight of an apple falling for Newton to postulate the theory of Gravity. Strange that crapping every day and seeing his turds going down didn't trigger realisation.

Enjoy what you do

When its something you like to do
Thoughts go racing ahead of you.
The worlds a better place
as you create your own apace.
So what if its in Timbuktoo.

There was this girl from Timbuktoo
Who enjoyed whatever she'd do.
The fruits of her labor
made for a life of endeavor
And some really happening moments too.

Its just this...

Me - Acknowledging and accepting that its just this makes heredity, genetics and evolution the authors of the script of life. They determine the activities for material survival and attempts to upgrade what is. Its the motivation of your genes that outlines your capacity to learn and adapt to circumstance and opportunity and keep trying to make what you think should be, what is.
When that comes to naught the seeking starts. Knowing that its just this gives you some heart but also a realisation that it matters where you were born.
Arun - What do we seek?....Happiness
Why do we seek?....Because we are unhappy.
Is there any object or entity that shall provide everlasting happiness?....No
Moral of the story.....stop seeking for the non-existing. Enjoy what is available here and now.
This is the gist of what I have understood after so much seeking.....Tell me if I'm wrong.
Me - No you're not but it sure helps if one has a conception of what happiness is and means. I suppose transitory feel good is the closest to enjoyment and maybe its just this.

Happy Birthday Luvee

There's much to wish for
Maybe more to forget.
Perseverance shows the way
when hope plays stingy.
The mists must inevitably clear
once faith ushers in cheer
for time always heals.
Pessimism fades away
And the road ahead springs to life
on the dint of efforts and
wishes sincere.

Remember these times
just as trials of patience and
lessons in fortitude.

Just stay calm and cool
and know that
at 50...
You're nobody's fool!
Happy Birthday Luvee.
Many Happy Returns of the days to come.

Its just this

Its a journey you can't afford to miss
On roads still shrouded in mists.
The fog of ignorance
provides sustenance
on the chilly plains of what is.

Pour search for the path to bliss
sees you staring down many an abyss.
Chasing an obvious fact
can cynicism attract
before arriving and knowing its just this.

The search for self....(contd)

Me - How does one know that the concepts of a supreme being, oneness with the hole, the seeker being the sought are not just in the realm of thought of "realised" individuals and hence unreal too, being just in the realm of their thoughts. Faith and Belief do require a basis beyond hope, which usually is just a projection of what should be.
Is Unconditional acceptance the only path to improving the quality of this life? Surrender to the unknown in the hope of knowing what should be? Or what could be? Or what will be? Or what is?

Gimme a yes or no. I can think of starting from maybe then at least!
Arun - Is there any harm in following a guide when you visit an unknown territory?
Me - Point well made. The issue is one of reposing faith in the guide and his knowledge of the territory. Taking their say-so of the unexplored domain. Again on faith. The destination oft a utopian description rarely perceived by anybody but them. How does one know when the journey will end, if it is to end. And one stops exploring.
Arun - The journey stops when you realise that there is nothing to seek.Till then you keep seeking, whether on you own or following someone!
Me - Frustration and realisation are two sides of the same coin?
Arun - Actually the same side of the same coin.
Me - Whats the flip side then. There must be a tails you loose side since this doesn't seem to be a win-win scenario.
Arun - Hey, it's only a win win situation! You are exactly where you were, not losing anything, and yet gaining the insight that there is nowhere to go! Its all here and now.
Me - So to each their own in any which way they choose. If you don't see the light, you'll just keep flogging yourself and the world, whenever you have the blues!. And you make life a maze of here and now moments, trying to find an exit or, understand that running the maze is the here and now and when you do find the exit you're likely to know after all that its just this.
Arun - No path, no journey, no destination, only awareness of here and now. No following, no seeking, no austerities....only finding bliss, here and now but, don't ask me how.

Perseverance

Everyone's trying to make their world a better place
as they deem fit.
Perpetuating one constant myth.
That what you behold
will see many truths unfold
if you just apply your mind to it!

The search for self

Me - If the search for self is meaningless
And its just best to be.
What then is the basis for change, improvement of self and self image?
Arun - If the search for self is meaningless, And it is best to just be......
Yes. That's right. Actually all seeking is just escaping from what is to what should be, and, you know that is actually endless. The seeker is the sought.

What then is the basis for change, improvement of self and self image?....
Absolutely no basis. Any attempt to improve self and self image is again an exercise in vain, coz both are unreal, existing only in the realm of thought.

Thoughts

Thoughts
I thought
Think about it
I'm thinking
I think
Thought out
Belief

Progressive thought?

Thought

Me - Thought is ultimately just a means of communicating sensory input. Language provides it form. As dredged up collages of experiences recorded, accumulated, indexed and filed away as learning, beliefs, feeling, want and desire and for the large part, just information. Depending on the the trigger that caused record of the situation.
Thought is just a new collage assembled from the files of past experience. If a new recording takes place in the present, it'll provide scope for language to a new thought for some experience in the future maybe.

Teaching again

Know that what ye now embark upon to speak,
will help many a young mind feel complete.
You are about to give voice to aspiration
and the kids will bless their stars.
All the best

Paradigm shifts

Me - Thought is governed by situational triggers. Its content and quality is largely an evaluation of past experiences in the context of current feeling. Over time the actions resulting from this process of evaluation come to represent your paradigm of beliefs, seen as your behavior.
A paradigm shift occurs when feeling in the current context triggers evaluation of your past and results in a behavior altering response in the present. So is it the situation or feeling or thought that causes paradigm shifts?
Arun - I may not be expressive but I'm receptive. Go on n on n on!
Me - Thought is governed by situational triggers. Its content and quality is largely an evaluation of past experiences in the context of current feeling. Over time, actions resulting from this process of evaluation come to represent your paradigm of beliefs, seen as your behavior. A paradigm shift occurs when feeling in the current context triggers evaluation of your past and results in a behavior altering response in the present. So is it the situation, or feeling or thought that causes paradigm shifts.
Arun - Meaning thereby that your past shapes your present and future?
Me - Yup. Whether you see it as sad but true, or whateva, or great so what else is new or I didn't know that! reflects your attitude to life.
Arun - No that's not my attitude to life, its a new realisation.
Me - Paradigm shift?
Arun - Am trying to shake off this shift. Don't really like it.
Me - If you keep only what you like, it doesn't make you more likeable to yourself. Only more comfy dealing with what you don't like. Kinda escapist.
Me - Your self image is also based on your past experiences and feelings. Any attempt to improve it only means visiting your past in a new mirror. Actually I think the whole thing is appearing lopsided - its not the past which has shaped your present, but its the future which has brought about this kind of present. All the acts done in the past were actually done keeping the future in mind....Think about it.
Me - If one had a clear and consistent purpose in life, yes.Otherwise the future is just your past looked at and reflected in a new mirror in the present. Incremental actions attempting to qualitatively upgrade a self defined material status quo, which most see as the purpose in life. Self image derives from the approval of and consequences of these acts.
Approval plays a big role in reassuring ones sense of being. The basis, feeling articulated by thought. Since thought is a relative evaluation of the past, being, becomes a dependent entity linked to what you did. This again is the basis for what you wish or want to be. If your past dictated your future consciously, then self image is healthy.
Otherwise your just caught in an activity cycle like the electron spinning around with increasing speed, hoping to attain critical energy to break free. But still in the loop! Or to come into the orbit of another atom whose attraction provides the necessary impetus to leap over to a new state of being.And that results in a new identity.

To be or not to be

The freedom to be is available to all. Those who exercise it live fulfilled. Those who can't for want of means, exist. And the hapless many waiting for the right moment just trap themselves weaving webs hoping to snare risk free opportunity.
"Welcome to my parlour and we'll experience the meaning of being."

To be or not to be rarely sets you free.

Flight of fancy

I don't seem to have a conception of joy and fun. No desires or wants that seek fulfillment. I ask myself what it is that I want the most and I draw a blank. What don't I want?.....A whole lot of the who and what I am.
That helps put what I want in perspective. Just a pipe dream of a persona that can never be me. A wish frame that sees me as a gregarious, caring, feeling, man about town, the soul of a party, the one whose word counts. Sort of utopian. Its all of the stuff one has never been.
Its not an aching wish frame.More a far fetched entreaty that surfaces in a rare mellow moment of extrospection. Doesn't linger long either. After all, what is, was meant to be.....Just this!

A Wish

Though stuff mostly makes sense
There's oft a veneer of pretense.
Maybe some day
one'll discover a way
to rid one's life of common sense.

In a hole

When ones opinion of self ain't too good
There's a tendency to put on a hood.
Await redemption,
through circumspection
Hoping Salvation might yet be understood.

Marriage

When we opted for domesticity
The whole future we didn't see.
The roles to be played
all for getting laid.
Now make marriage a seminary.

Evolution. It's just this....

I'll just have to construe that the silence carries the sound of a maybe. Not a total eclipse. Still a view that is blinding. I'll look away and leave you to carry on shining.
It's not about stepping in and out at whim.
Nor absolution for many a mortal sin.
But thoughts from moments that subsist.

They now give rise to a sense that
What is, was meant to be.

Space

Me - Activity spawns occupation. Idleness creates inspiration. Parallav errors tend to occur when the fruits of these labours are viewed in separate dimensions.
Wassup!
Arun - Nothing on the sunny side, but I'm involvedin other materialistic pursuits like, opening an internal pharmacy in the clinic, and am also involved with a mlm company. All this to be able to change to a bigger house!
Me - Paradox - One keeps chasing space only to loose what little one has in the process.
All the best for your expansion ventures.
Arun - You are abs right. Thanx.

Evolution. It's just this....

Am I to presume that there's no common ground left and that we now inhabit different galaxies. And that any points of intersection hereon will only call for demonstrations of civility. A simple yes or no would help define the nature and quality of interactions, for posterity. Sounds obtuse but at least it'll take away cause for any further grief.

Evolution. It's just this....

Are we at a stage where conversation is just difficult or, its just become meaningless! Whichever. Seems a sorry state to have evolved to. That's life I guess. It's just this....

Anxiety

Strange how a deed gets construed to be done
when the intent was only to inform
a state of mind that had cropped up
that left one feeling undone.
Communicate that sense
and get no response with time,
and ones left with a feeling that you've said something to offend someone.

You've put me in a quandry! The only person I share and communicate with is sorta out of bounds. Not that I was very thought provoking but now there's a hesitancy to provoke thought!

Opinion

I don't think that I'm lazy.
Most times I'm just sorta choosy
about what keeps me occupied
or even stultified.
And yet life makes me uneasy.

Fundamental Questions

Armchair psychology provides one a framework that gives some understanding of what is. Even convinces you that what is, was meant to be. The destination and all stops in between mapped out by Freudian needs.
Sometimes I wish I knew then, what I know now. I'd have tried to learn how to dream.Maybe experience an alternate reality where a man is what he believes himself to be. Not what he just turned out to be. What was might never have been, or at least, taken on a different sheen.
Then again, though I'd end up as someone quite different from what I am, the search for who I am would still be constant.With maybe a separate set of personality issues crawling out of the mind scape, begging discovery.
The fundamental questions "Who Am I?", "What Am I?" are always a bummer trip. They rarely change what is. At best, they keep you out of therapy.

Nowhere Road

Most of us have a need to stand out and be noticed.
And at the same time feel we are accepted.
The former's about making a difference
and the latter's about conformance.
In between lies a life confounded.

Hanging around neither here nor there
The world arounds not likely to care.
With no plans beginning
Don't matter where its ending
On this journey to nowhere

It is just this

Me - Checking my understanding - have you calibrated your process of thought to exclude the WHYs, the HOWs,the WHATs and the WHENs? Is that at the core of not thinking
Arun - It simply means to live with what is, rather than what it should be. It automatically reduces thinking because our thoughts are always bearing either in the pastor the future. Trying not to live a life of regrets and dreams.
Me - How do you island yourself from what others wish you to be,as per their determination of what should be....without causing animosity!
Arun - If it does cause animosity, you accept that also and just live with it!
Me - Now that's really living the "Grin and bear it" mantra online.A life without regrets and dreams must show up as one sourpuss demeanor!!

Bon voyage

Into the silence read no meaning.
It's just echoing what I'm hearing.
When words dont get spoken,
the mind has its moments....
Craving possibilities that might have been.
Reality surfaces...
communicating distances.
Yet the thoughts that hold sway,
see you forever gay.

Never let your spirit be broken
by the torment you've inherited.
I only hope these trials by fire,
fortify your being.

Life has its moments and loads of intent.
Bubbles burst,
no cause for lament.
Achievers are those who learn
to harness discontent.

Apathy

Emptiness fills the life that was.
Stray memories surface in the void of a life that is.
Is this famine of my own making
Or the senseless harvest of my brain chemicals and genes.
The strangest thing is that it doesnt seem to matter at all.
No misery or guilt or self pity or joy.
Its just words like apathy that
seem to make some sense of it all.

......Happiness

Me - That wasn't a hypothetical question. Knowledge only seems to seed an awareness of the fallacy of being. Must one first believe to be able to create meaning. Or see meaning to believe.
Arun - I'll come back to you after some time regarding your posers. I'm trying not to think nowadays.
Me - If your not thinking, the I guess you're thought out. Don't disturb the status-quo if you think (ooops!)it ain't worth it. Its just this n that after all.

In pursuit of Happiness

Me - What does it take to know Happiness. Does it involve a capacity to feel? To know what you want and why, and what you'll do once you find it? If you draw a blank on all of that, Then?

Hindsight

I never had any aspiration.
So no ambition.
Navigation was by intention in a situation
guided by the innate configuration
of procreation and education.
Evolution saw a predisposition to sensory excitation and
obfuscation in interpretation of the institution that is life.
The cycles of mania and depression
blurred ideation and personality.
I suppose there's an explanation to this state of being.
An amalgam of a Freudian hypothesis and
gene induced brain chemistry.

A half a century of patchy memories.

Frozen

Why is there no desire to do anything.
No triggers according life some meaning.
The conscious seems depressed,
the sub-conscious repressed
Takes mania to get life high rolling

The purpose of being

Existence is just empty moments unfolding.
Thought has no direction and triggers no feeling.
Memory is but a collage of images bereft of their inherent experiences and
One wonders about the purpose of being.

If this is what was meant to be,
then life has been kind to me.
No desires or wants
or a decision that haunts
Just self serving monotony.

Exploration

Relationships start as an exploration of feeling. New frontiers keep the spirit of discovery alive, till the terrain is mapped. Once that is done, the journeys soon take on the shape of familiar and monotonous commutes. Once knowledge is acquired, desire is quenched. There's want of feeling. If you try not to know what there is to know, you may still be exploring.

Thought

If the plan is to make your mind bold,
Best you start putting thoughts on hold.
For if they run away
n leave desires to stay,
You'll have urges that keep bitchin to unfold.

No mind

The progression from chaos to order:
Mindless thought
Mind, less thought
Mind less thought
Thoughtless mind
Thought, less mind
Thought less mind

Thinking....(contd.)

Arun - So, the conclusion is that all thoughts are stale? If you don't have any new experience, no new thought is possible? Does that mean we are always living in the past?
Me - Living not in the past, but in a continuum where all moments reflect other moments past. The future will be a present that was in your past.
The future is a present that was in your past. Fate dangles a contingent carrot of new or newer shades of past experience, based on planetary position. Rebirth is seen as penance for past sins. The present continues as observation and accumulation of sensory input which, if reflected on, can create knowledge...else trivia that crops up later as deja vu moments. Reflection is the start of new experience and new thoughts emerge from application of knowledge so acquired.

To practice what you preach one must create opportunity. If that comes in an extant situation, you are held up as a role model. If it results in new paradigms, you are an explorer. When you preach in the hope that others will practice and maybe see the world in new light, you are a philosopher. Thought can beget action or inventive action or an anticipation of action.
Arun - Tell me if I'm wrong - all thoughts belong to the past. The past is dead. What is dead, is unreal. We are living in an unreal world. Please be short and simple.
Me - Thinking is a current activity whose content is largely influenced by the past, though not absolutely. The past may be unreal now, but it's not a hallucination. It's just dead, but kept alive in memory by thoughts. They are unreal to the present reality but are the primary framework to understanding one's current situation. New experience provides new thought and a basis for cutting free from the unreal past framework, where the credo usually is practice makes perfect and, an acceptance of what is. Living really, means doing differently....
Its tough to be short and simple, more so when one has all the time in the world!
Reflect at leisure. Understand that assimilating thought takes as much or more time than generating it!!

Time and spatial reality is based on physical laws and and is governed by temporal cause and effect. All other realities stem from metaphysical exploration of this reality. And issues of real and unreal reality crop up. The metaphysical is but hypothetical in the real world perspective and from that standpoint is also unreal. Which suits it!!

Does thinking begin or end with a conclusion?
Does arrival signify the beginning or end of a journey?
Are emotions the start or endpoint of feeling?
So too thinking.....

Coping

If you find it difficult to take responsibility for your situation,then you'll always see yourself as a victim of your circumstances. Hardly helps with coping and stabilising.

"I'm not talking to you. Get Lost.".....

The chips are down and the world seems brutal.
Conspiracy theories know no equal.
Like misery is dictated
suitably orchestrate
And Gods chosen to be educational.

Now that would seem pretty unfair.
With the cupboard of joy already bare.
And if destiny sees fit
to squeeze the joy limit
Maybe next they'll ration the air.

Are there any lessons worth learning
apart from coping with all the churning.
'Tis that adversity and trouble
always seem to double
If faith and hope become notions sans meaning

There lives on a lady in Ranchi
often prone to getting quite edgy.
The lack of occupation
fueling her frustration.
So cribbing becomes alternative therapy

Thinking

Arun - Does thinking begin or end with a conclusion
Me - Thinking begins on someone elses conclusion. It begins as an observation taken to some conclusion. Preconceived conclusion as the basis for thought is dogma. Thinking is but an iterative application of knowledge to an existing body of knowledge. If it results in new beginnings or endings, thinking is the beginning of the conclusion.


Me - Preconception - when thinking begins with a conclusion
Deduction - when thinking ends with a conclusion
Academic masturbation - when thought is always in motion without a conclusion
Arun - Is it possible to have new thought or, all thoughts a rearrangement of past thoughts and experiences?
Me - Without a sensory trigger there is no thought. Thinking represents the culmination of sensation and the beginning of its evaluation. The medium, language. That's the first constraint to expressing articulated thought, thus limiting the dynamism of thinking. Second, barring facts, all sensory reception is relative. Experiences thus limit the evaluation and its expression and hence the variety of thought.
Given the structure we seek to impose on life and, the finiteness of experiences, most of our thoughts are likely to be deja vu experiences only. The better your vocabulary, the wider the scope of evaluation of sensation, which is thought. The wider the range of experience, the more shades and intensity varying.
Standardised education, with little scope for experiential learning, compounds cloned thinking. New thought requires new experience and language skills.

Etiology of "bum chums"

Me - Those who put up with all the shit that passes between them daily, are sat on and called asses but, still still continue stay cheek to cheek.
Arun - Whats with you nowadays...getting up so early?
A friend is one who walks in when everyone else walks out.
Me - Circadian rhythm changed on its own. The mind is a bit more alive and sleep comes earlier, as does rising. Where the mind leads, the will follows and sets the body pace.

"I dont want to talk to you. Get Lost."

If you want to be a Soft Skills trainer, you will first have to grow your own EQ and improve your Self Esteem and Interpersonal Skills. It takes a Positive Attitude for Creative Problem Solving with Adaptability and Flexibility. And of course, you need to understand Communication. Youcant expect to teach these skills without first imbibing them!

Relationship

Relationship - If you play warden in it, you are likely to end up a prisoner in it. If you take an emancipated stance, the freedom and not knowing will probably suffocate you. The middle path of managing will see you compromising and sub-optimising.
Relationship is actually a very honest word telling you it's "A no shit peril". Guess we don't spot the anagrams in life too well!

The experience of thought

When I'm low, the moot question always is: How does thought originate. The mind is usually blank. On even keel too, the flow is slow. Thought comes activity triggered, rarely stray.
The absence of recall provides few proactive triggers. Thought comes for the sake of thought. Leaves me wondering if its just semantics or rooted in some experience....Back to the lack of feeling.

The first Reflection

Take a look.
See anything new.
"Do I know you?"
Look closely
"For what".
See what is, maybe see what could be.
"I don't have the time for this".
Come on! it'll only take a minute.
"Don't have the time".
"Gotta brush."

Quality assurance......a need for procreation

When you haven't made much of your life,
all one can bank on are has beens.
And when your brain chems conspire
to deprive you of large chunks of memory,
you miss the one life you've lived.
May not be too much to talk about...
but that's all you ever have.
All you've got now is
a patchwork of imagery
of the path taken to growing up.
What you don't remember, you don't miss.
What you do remember, sometimes makes you wish..
That the procreative urge,
had a quality assurance filter built into it.

Here n now

When the reference frame is the here and now and the attention driver is random thought free falling.... The paradigm for life that evolves is: Just doing whateva it is you're doing.

Our days

There was an era in our history
that epitomised life with liberty.
Mood altering was the rage
Camraderie the gauge.
Until an ill fated encounter with domesticity.

What we presumed was release and stability
became a confine for posterity.
The twilight of the golgen years,
soon accelerated our fears
and made us cynics extraordinary.

Musing

When there's nothing you wanna do, or need to be doing, time ceases to be an issue of any consequential meaning. It just drifts along and passes you by....Goodbye to the time of your life.

Quotable quotes

I suppose many of us have this desire to coin a profundity that will go down for posterity as a quotable quote. You rack your brains hoping the right words will fall in place. But translating insight to adage is not easy.
Been at it for years without success. The heart is usually in the right place, but the mind is g(r)azing else where.
Here are some on the parenting experience:
1) Parenting is a selfless pursuit of helpless devotion that sooner or later becomes a helpless pursuit in selfless devotion.
2) Parenting is tough....like an uphill climb. And then you reach the top.....only to look at a downhill slide.
3) Parenting is an occupation where responsibility and accountability increase while authority decreases, with time.

Feeling

Making love is the highest common factor of feeling. A tangible arousal stemming from giving, sharing, sensing, wanting, touching, seeking, feeling, holding, caressing, eyeing together.

Angst

No real memories as a locus for thought.
Hazy recollection without feeling is all I've got.
In intensities experienced during creation
slowly dissipate on reflection
A seemingly coloruful life without even a black and white plot.

Nothing to show for
nor to pine for.
Secure in the knowledge that
ending it all is an easy option if called for.

ChoudhuryNama

The funniest part of being fat
is the sensitivity to being called just that.
They must've seen themselves in the mirror
N recoiled back in sheer horror.
Left clutching vanity as survival tact.

Back to mirror mirror on the wall
Asked whose the fattest of em all.
The mirror in reflection is tongue tied
When Fat, Fatter n Fattest can't be applied.
Shouting Fat n Furious ain't a mirror's call.

ChoudhuryNama

Obesity Food Products have chosen Debu as their brand ambassador for her single minded devotion to food. She's visible proof of efficient retention of food value by size and weight. A model for recycling committed to left over consumption. Thus achieving without error, the continual expansion ability of self and kids body mass.

ChoudhuryNama

Balus become this real suffering guy.
Weighed down by issues fat and wide.
Their names Debu, Minu, Chunu so petite
seeing them even Amazons skip a beat
Now Balu's offering 10 lakhs to cut em to size.

Amongst the foodlore in the family
Is Debu's fascinating experiences with gluttony.
The resultant three mountains of lard
Present sights that make one squint hard
More so since she's eyeing Munu's matrimony.

Ek ajeeb dastaan motape ka.
Ma ne khila-khila ke betiyon ko phulaya.
Jab mukabla karne lage hathiyon se
Tab Ma ka dhyan gaya shaadi pe
Khate-khate intezaar hai haath pilay hone ka.

Jahan kane pe hi zor diya jata hain
Wajan to behisaab badna hi hain.
Hawai jahaj se safar karne mein
Bakalwala daboch diya jata hain
Isliye inse do ticket khareedwaye jaate haiin.

ChoudhuryNama

Meanwhile Sapna's small town visions of glamour,
weren't dimmed even by the Paris clamour.
Along came early motherhood
with a boy looking so damningly good
But the small town girl just didn't adjust to the Parisienne quarter.

The pretty young mother returned to Pondy.
Living up the life missed between Jabalpur and gay Paree.
The toast of the town she became
To the Page 3 crowd she was fair game
A lifestyle inviting talk soon of alimony.

The Dream Girl rues opportunities lost.
Her nostalgia we hear at great cost!
Reminiscences with her added spin
Take after take...they just keep reeling in
N soon we are reduced to a heap of compost.

'Tis the crowd that peoples Page 3
who are her powers that be.
When coming across a cute dandy
Personal anecdotes are always handy
With lifestyle advice doled out on the side for free.

Somewhere down the line
Her age stopped toeing the line.
Were it not for Jaya's honesty
She'd still be in her forties
Breaking bread (n our heads) with some Kollywood celebrity

Me, My self

I started really discovering who and why I am only at 48. A life in shambles, with nothing but failure on all fronts staring me in the face. Husband, father, employee, son, all roles wherein I truly sucked. A fact I came to realize post April '07. After 48 years of an impulsive, unthinking and quite destructive ride.
Its been two and a half years now trying to make sense of it all. There are no pleasant realizations. A lot of what may appear to some as avoidable justification. But for me, its given real mind opening clarity. And that's where it all starts. From within my Bipolar mind.
A quarter century on a roller coaster of manic depressive cycles every three years. Rampaging through life, philandering to the dictates of a fractured mind, with intolerable consequences. And things finally came to a head at 48.
All I can say now is that what is, was meant to be. Why! is also clear to see. That doesn't ease the pain of those suffering nor does it absolve me of perpetration. But it charts the road ahead more realistically.
My bipolar cycles still plague, albeit with reduced intensity. When a low hits, the brain keeps reminding you of your inadequacies. A mood of helplessness sets in that totally freaks me out and the anti-deps take a couple of months to sort it out, and get me back on even keel. There seem to be no more highs though. When I'm low, the moot question always is "How does thought originate?" The mind is usually blank. On even keel too, the flow is slow.Thought comes activity triggered, rarely stray.
And when I'm back to the land of the free, I'm content applying my limited usable knowledge n skills to cutting and pasting stuff from the net mainly. That's about it for my originality.
The absence of recall provides little memory and feeling for proactive triggers. Thought comes for the sake of thought. Leaves me wondering if its just semantics or rooted in experience.
The lack of feeling is at the core of my problems. Nothing really touches me. Why? The fallout of my upbringing and life, I guess. I cannot learn how to feel.
I don't indulge too much in rational thought, even when a part of me rears up seeking meaning. The purpose of my existence, or the reasons for its continuance are not really thought provoking. I limit thought to the here and now. It matters not what I think or feel. I just drift through moments real.
Time is just a point of reference in the passage of the day. A constant that creates routine in its wake. Built around moments centered largely on inactivity. A reclusive and quiet life without a purpose. Which provides though, a sense of security.
No desires or wants or expectations that threaten. Living at a low level equilibrium. Why? A fact that I often question off and on.
I'm aware that I've caused lots of misery. Can't change whats done or, my inadequacies. Many see them as just my assorted fancies. But to me it was just an impulsive, unthinking ride.
Life is still as meaningless as ever. Qualitatively different and minus the drama. Secure in just going through the motions, unfeeling. And that's my life!! Not an experience I'd like to go through again.

ChoudhuryNama

Geeta's eloping on her threshold to matrimony
Put the family into a major quandry.
With family honour at stake
And to quell any chance of debate
The chosen son-in-law came in with Sapna to the family.

The episode also raised Ma's parochial hackles.
Dada's footloose n fancy free ways went to shambles.
Fancy beaus on their knees
took to cooking for Ma Bengali meals.
Not good enough though to adorn the red n white bridal bangles.

So this handsome hunk got domesticated.
Another marriage decreed by elders starting ill fated.
A tradition of poor choice,
has always been a Choudhury vice.
Yours truly too doesn't stand vindicated.

A notion

There's this lady in Ranchi
whose sobriety is a matter of envy.
Asked how she kept her cool
In suffering many a fool,
"At heart they're convinced I'm an Aatankwadi."

My Rock Star

She's come for her vacation to Ranchi.
Looking to spend quality time with Mummy.
They'll make moments swell
create memories that ring a bell
feasting body, mind and soul for posterity.

And the rocker asks of her Mama
Are these times better than those of ABBA?
Sweet chile of mine she says
ain't nothing that compares
to the sight of you belting out Wolfmother or Metallica.

So continue this saga you must.
Starting with Ragas, we placed in you a trust.
To give the world a rocking voice
That'd become both peoples vice and choice
and have the world collectively biting dust.

ChoudhuryNama

'Twas Geeta who eloped with Darshan Gandhi
N fell further in love with all things Punjabi.
Her iron hand pecked Darshan and d mundaas,
N chose for em "Sohni".
But alas now the boys have no time for Mommy.

Dekh Jaya humne kitna kiya bachon ke liye.
Bilkul ek ek paisa jod kar ke.
Aur in dono ko bas yeh hi hai suji
Apni sari kamai EMI mein chada di.
Arre Geetadi yun kaho ki aapki parvarish ki vat laga di.

Pehli sardarni se humne karayi pehchaan.
Jab tak baat chali hum the mehmaan.
Shaadi jo hui,
Saas bahu behen yun bichdi
Chonkaa diya humeh yeh matlabiyon ki udaan.

Thence was revealed Geeta's book keeping acumen.
In her funding of Jaya's B.Ed education.
Baba's money for Jaya she had pocketed
The pittance she gave Jaya was now targeted
As the cause for her supposed financial deprivation!

No matter her property worth a crore in NOIDA.
Holidays on the continent that seem to suit her.
But she never lets Jaya forget that hand to mouth existence
Payback for the "sub-standard" bahu's non deliverance
Hence all things Jaya suddenly became anathema.

ChoudhuryNama

Pan-Indian though the family is,
The ethos is rooted in Sylheti bliss.
Bitchiness the norm at gatherings
Marriages become maudlin meanderings
As siblings refusing to age
Fuel assorted identity crises.

For Dada adjusting hair on a balding pate
Is a 24x7 activity to cover up age.
"So dear! Kaise ho"
"Kya kar rahe ho"
As the hand shifts hair neatly into place.

He's a grandpa with a new bride.
One that chews paan n spits left n right.
With murky connections to Amar Singh
N a schizo daughter doing her bidding
Compounding Dada dears nervous plight.

All Dada's liquidity is tied up in property.
Maybe that's his case for living so miserly.
He keeps tabs on consumption
Food, groceries, liquor no exception.
For him in matters of money there is no impropriety.

ChoudhuryNama

Partition is now a distant memory.
For Ma n Baba it turned their world topsy turvy.
She came from landed gentry
He a gold medalist then from Calcutta University
Starting all over in utter penury.

A further twist to an eventful life.
This scholarly man enlisted in army rank n file.
Their quality of life spiralled downwards.
The first generation learnt afterwards
through Ma's reflection on a more joyous time.

Ma's life had many moments extraordinary.
Consigned as she was to a life in purgatory.
Age 1 n trying to suckle her dead mother on the pyre.
Her Grandmother arrived to this trial by fire
And is said to thereafter have lost her sensibility.

Rani's formative years were spent in the lap of luxury.
A benevolent zamindar father n a village doting on her sincerity.
She was cloaked in an aura of goodness
Her simplicity just knew no harness
Virtues in her we saw lifelong n know brought divine ecstasy.

Jabalpur n Delhi remain etched forever
Jharna, Randhir, Geeta
Sapna, Devdutta n Jaya
The brood enshrined in this saga
The annals of this ChoudhuryNama.

One characteristic all of them shared.
Good looks that turned many a head.
Only Randhir(Dada) temporally enjoyed the fruits of this virtue
Though for the others attention did at times make it an issue
With more regrets later for not knowing the value of what they had.

A Diwali greet

Dooan hamari jinki khushi ka sahara aap hain
aur kinke jeevan ka maksud bhi.
Be good at heart and clean of mind always
so that prayers are never necessary.
Bol Jai Mata di.

ChoudhuryNama

The lives n times in d Choudhury family
Penned by d son-in-law Malayali.
Here blood ties get cooked when it matters,
marinated relatively in the choicest batters
N are served up with pungent Bengali, Punjabi n Oriya chutney.

So what are my qualifications for writing this tale.
Vendetta it could be said now that I'm beyond the pale.
But the inspiration is drawn from Balu's belief
That my life holds just a limited brief
N beyond Angrezi I've got nothing worthy for sale.

So how into the family did I come to be?
I was smitten bu Nivea(Jaya) the youngest beauty you see.
N when I went to ask for her hand from her father,
A man "Kaccha" clad glowered back in silent anger.
That nearly sent me into a fit of apoplexy.

The Nasty Chronicles of Arko

Knock knock
Whose ther?
Orko
Orko who?
Na ji na. Main kehta hoon.
Main ek chota sa nanha sa
Sindhi bachha hoon.
Padai mein gol par
ladki patane mein master hoon.

Knock knock
Whose there?
Arko

Kaun hai Bay2
Mama....Orkoi hai.
Orkoi hai ya Orko hai?

Mama aap bhi na Oroko
Arko bana dete ho.
Kaash Arko ko bhi Orro dikhte

The Nasty Chronicles of Arko

The life b times of dear Bay2
while studying Pol. Sc. at D.U.
Seem torevolve round an important friend
who has her bucking every trend.
Got us worrying if she's gone lattu.

The guy is shorter than her.
From a Bong Dad n Sindhi mother.
He has her playing coy kitten
Can't see why she's so smitten
Maybe its coz Arko's an armchair philosopher!!

We now watch this drama unfolding.
Still clueless about beginning or ending.
Bay2 claims hes a theatre buff
So lets see him strut his stuff
An audition of Arko running n screaming.

There's no way that he'll resist
after all we surely will insist.
That he's cut out for the role
what better way to kholo the pol
And show Bay2 he's just a sexist.

Unfit for Mask, Hindu's Drama Society
Arko went begging n pleading to Alkazi.
I've learnt the ropes studying at Sriram,
Have decided that studying is haraam
Don't mind even raping a dead body.

Purpose in Life

I feel miserable after chewing you out. But its a necessary evil and not an attempt to bum your trip. Why does it happen when you seem to be enjoying yourself. 'Coz those are the times when the lack of achievements on other fronts comes up in focus. Without tangible success, your life seems to be taking the path of least resistance. Enjoy and feel good. Nothing wrong with that provided I also see you work to achieve in fields you know you are good at and not sacrificing them for enjoyment dictated by the company you keep.
'Tis a shame to waste talent nurtured for so long which was once, by your own reckoning, world beating. And why?. 'coz its more fun to hang out and explore new avenues, just for kicks.
You are at an age when the priorities all start with F... Fun, Friends,. Freedom, Faith. What you forget are Focus and Future. Don't end up cursing Fate. That refuge of every self confessed failure. Statements of intent postpone realities.
Parents only seem hell bent on spoiling the good times. Why? Don't I have anything better to do. Barring securing your future, No!. I've nothing better to do.
No evidence yet to show that you'll be on the stage you said you always wanted to be on. Rather it appears you're giving it all up for the sake of the company you've chosen to keep. Friends are important. They are the world during adolescence.... This the high point of life. Sadly, prone to blinkered vision as only hindsight will show you, down the line. I get cheesed off when I see you refusing to see that. The thrills in life need not end up compromising your purpose in life.
Dont live adolescence as if its the last fling at life, and not a preparation for it. Don't think and let emotions colour everything. The worst calamity is to have eyes and yet fail to see.
My threat is a guiding light to ensure that you don't get to the "if all else fails stage". If it does, I will carry it out. No matter if you cut me out of your life.

Best wishes-Rendezvous drama comp.

No one else has what it takes
to define the American Standard.
But this smart, chic, brainy sexy girl,
whose to decide the tie.
You can and will.
Its all about you, and Faith
\m/

Rights

You can talk about rights to scold you when you comprehend the wrongs that can be attributed to you, all for valid reason. Best you drop this fallacy. You shall be talked to as you deserve.

Surrender

Got angry at you after a very long time. Sad that money issues was all that registered on you. Our concern, wanting you to do good and to stay informed, you see as nit-picking. Am I such a pain now?
I couldn't establish a rapport with you.
My shortcoming I guess.
Whats done can't be undone.

Its up to you
to let it be,
or maybe wonder why

Or just cut free of me
and find your peace.

Generation gap

Can't be responsible for anothers reactions. Can't limit anothers expectations too. 'Tis enough getting the most out of this life without having to cope with care and concern issues too...Weird huh!
If you don't learn how to cope with your parents then I'm afraid that you'll end up just coping with your parents. And thats from first hand experience.....Just sharing...No pressure

Happy birthday Arko

Growin old is mandatory. But growing up is optional. Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. Happy last teen birthday

Expectations

No one is trying to corner you or hold you to account for your activities, or lack of them. The expectations are only those you gave us to believe were your own, of who you wanna be and achieve. If you think that's changed......
You keep saying your just a normal kid..... Then review thos expectations. Yeah, you are a normal kid, but one with a talent that most normal kids don't have......Its for you to believe.

Feeling

Its all in the mind. Its all about feeling. Like happiness that manifests the state of mind. The burden of being is the lack of feeling and that impacts the quality of life.

Awareness

At a basic level, awareness comes from triggered thought, in hindsight. That trigger, whatever it is, usually gives one new insight to what is, which may modify ones response to one's environment. This awareness can redefine one's world view or just help in coping or understanding one's life. That's up to individual capability and motivation. But awareness makes one aware of one's capability.

Straight talk

Some straight talk. The hope that DU would basically be a platform for your music seems to be fading. Amateur theater is at best personality development and resume building. So academics has to be the primary focus. Whenever the subject comes up, you get cheesed and go into a shell. I think you haven't created an interest for the subject yet. No real understanding can come without that. Studying because you have to gets average results. Own Pol. Sc.. You don't have a choice.
Study strategy must help you to critique, not just cram knowledge. Focus, and you'll find time for fun too. Focus can be multi-pronged BUT prioritised. What do you wanna be doing 2 years from now. Is your present activity cycle gonna get you there. We breathe down your neck only to focus your choices.
Generation gaps are and will be a constant. Both sides feel the other doesn't get it. Kids want space. Parents performance. The twain meet only through achievement. No better way to get space.

For Bay-2

The choices you make in whatever you do are what life and memories are made of. My only expectation is that you never have to look back at your life with regret.

Surfacing

Me - Just coming out of a low with the residue of feeling useless. Been there before. To the same hollow self. Who and What am I really?. Crazy question after 50 years of life. Clueless.
Arun - What I have realised is that the search for self is useless, so I have stopped searching. Just be and bask in that being. No point trying to find ones worth because, the parameters of worthiness are again made by society, which in any case is itself worthless. Just be, don't try to be!
Of late I've realised a few things and that has made my life simpler. The art of unlearning.
Me - If I just be, I find I'm a zombie like cipher. Uncaring, unfeeling. Mind, intellect, learning and memory absconding. A messed up life and no desires. Tough to bask in that.
Tell me more...
Arun - 1. Become an ordinary person.
More follows. Just chew on these statements without necessarily commenting on them. To read it is not the same as realising it. Its an altogether different dimension!
Me - I am the consequence of how my genes responded to life's experiential learning. I became bipolar. I wish I could become an ordinary person. With normal capabilities. Confident that all that is required of me is to be good and do good, and have the faculty to discern that. Just be a normal ordinary guy with caring, feeling, intellect and reason. Worth is a search for those faculties that my brain chems and genes seem to have put in doubt. What I wrote about my being are real tangible issues. Its weird and tough for a ordinary person to grasp.

That wasn't a response to the message in what you wrote. That was helplessness. That words, even visuals and other stimuli are recognised, but there's no thought response. Just a blank mind.
Arun - What ultimately matters is....what is and not what it is a consequence of. You are lucky in a sense that you don't have to worry about your future. You only have to stop looking at the past. You can afford to be in the present without bothering about any liability whatsoever. Don't try to analyse whether and why you are bipolar or unipolar. Live this moment.

Wassup!

Arun - Life is what is happening! While we are busy making other plans - Beatles
Me - The world is the same in a relative way, but you're older. Shorter of breath, one day closer to death.
Yet you run and you run to catch up with the sun....but its sinking...... - Floyd

Clean slate

There's no misery. Nor joy. Just senseless impulse fed moments intruding on vacant gazes. Memory but a collage of moments, minus feeling. Why didn't life register?

Father's Day

Bay-2 -Since I was born till the time I sang I am eighteen, you have always been there for me. Times are changing but I know, like the eye of a tiger, you'll be watching my back. Happy Father's Day, Luv u.
Me - Great to wake up to your words showing faith in me. Not being there is never an option. Where, When and How are the only choices to make. For you are the only reason for my being. Keep the faith. Luv you too.

Bliss, pleasure and peace

Arun - Difference between bliss and pleasure?
Is peace a no mind state?
Me - Pleasure is a more physical sensation. Instinctual feel good. When the mind also perceives them as feel good sensations, one gets a blissful state of mind.
A lobotomy produces peace as a no mind state. Peace is the state evolved to when the mind auto-pilots your life, leaving one free from distractions, to do your own thing.
Arun - Can peace be defined as no regrets, no worries and no wants?
I'm just trying to understand the basic meaning of such heavy words.
Me - Peace evolves after one comes to tems with ones regrets, worries and wants. Knowing why they arose and how they made you what you are. Accepting they were meant to be, because of who you are.
That knowledge, understanding and acceptance is the basis for peace. As who you are becomes clear, what you can do and why redefines your wish frame to whats achievable. Do and so be you. At peace.
Arun - I think this is too morbid a definition of peace. It sounds more of being resigned to fate. No, I don't think that's what peace is because, once you have achieved peace, you should get a feeling of having got something and not that you have just compromised with the situation.
Me - "What is was meant to be" is not fate, but the life position one creates through the interactions of ones persona with life. If one achieves what one truly wants in the process - Peace.
Peace is achieved after one sheds the wants and desires that distract. That happens only when one is clear about what to expect from, and can give to life. Thats realisation, not compromise.
Peace is a worldly sensation before it becomes a spiritual pursuit. If you don't achieve the former, there's not much chance of being on track for the latter.
Arun - Yeah! a hungry man can't be spiritual.

Peace vs Bliss

Arun - Are peace and bliss synonymous? Can one be there without the other? Is the peace of a cemetery the same as the peace of a garden?
Me - Peace - a mind state beyond distractions.
Bliss - a pleasant distracted sensory state, more transient.
Bliss can be a stepping stone to peace but is not peace in itself.
The aura of cemetery and garden in the context of peace are immediate sensory perceptions. The mood and feel of the perceiver determines the appropriate contextual view.

Emotion

Its strange how the outcomes of ones actions bring no lasting joy or remorse. Yet a relationship centered ad has your eyes brimming in a flash.

Nature and Harmony

Me - We seem to take nature for granted. Part of the scenery. Its actually so beautiful. You see the same view over and over and yet, each time you look at it, its quite captivating.
Arun - That's because we and nature are part of the whole. Only when we are in harmony with nature, its charming. When we try to conquer it, it creates havoc.

Its good that one is impervious to monotony and routine. Time keeps pace with one. There's no need to keep track of it. Though each day is the same, yet each provides a different feel. I don't know if that's harmony or just me, instinctively getting on with my life, quite aimlessly. Without a purpose. The end results appear quite similar though.

Marriage

Me - A marriage can be happy only when you let each other do their own thing. Unfortunately, that's what being single is all about!
Arun - Ain't it too late in the day to be realising that?
Me - The problem with hindsight

The futility of hope!

I just hope that nothing happens to alter the rhythm of this life. Its so effortless.
Then again.... What will be was meant to be.
See the futility of hope!

Time out

Me - Gotta sec?
Then take a minute,
to get the bearings
of this hour
that's gonna go into
the making of your day.
At the end of the hour
ask yourself
if you gotta sec....
It'll take just a minute.
Arun - I see that creativity has started.
Even a small dot can stop a big sentence. A few more dots can give a new "continuity". Amazing but true. Every ending can be a new beginning....WOW.
Me - Just a case of thought making sense enough to merit sharing. Often creativity only gets you on a roller coaster of imagery thats but a blur.

2 b r not 2 b

To be or not to be is not a choice addressed by many. Most people are wary about asking fundamental questions. They oft highlight ignorance or demand a cover up by denial.

Freedom

I guess the key to it all is unfettered thought. With constraints like life, one can't free ones mind. So also it was written. Yet we seek to understand life in the hope it will set one free!

Instinct..Intent..Desire...Action...Meaning

Me - My understanding of my "suffering" in this life, still leaves me skeptical about a supreme being. Guess me in the next life is not gonna have it easy either!
Arun - If you believe in another life, then the bottom line is the karma theory. Your past has bred the present and present will shape the future, all depending upon the intent of your deeds.
Me - That was just an attempt at humour. I don't seem to really have any strong belief system. If there was any intent to my deeds, I'd have broken out of the here and now space by now.
Intent is just reflexive instinct guided by sensory satisfaction or comfort level or self preservation in a situation. Instinct that evolves from the sensory learning from past situations.
Arun - To put it simply, intent is an attempt towards desire fulfillment. Why so verbose?
Me - Instinct is a feeling that evolves to desire when it becomes a craving. Intent fulfillment of instinct is a satiation attempt in the here and now. Desire is baggage you carry.
Arun - Again, to simplify...instinct begets desire begets intent of action.
Me - Again, to simplify....instinct begets desire....Both beget intent of action whose end results are qualitatively different. Operating plane is ones choice or evolved to.
Arun - The last line isn't clear to me.
Me - One chooses the plane on which one wishes to operate. Driven by instinct or driven by desire. Some of us don't have choice as we evolve only upto instinctive capability.
Arun - But how does the intent differ in both cases?
Me - Intent fulfillment of instinct is a satiation attempt in the here and now. Sensory, immediate. Desire fulfillment calls for intent that is more cerebral.
Arun - Frankly, I don't see any significant difference.
Me - Is intent evaluated on occurrence or content? Is basic instinct as a decision rule for intent equatable to logic and reason?
Arun - Please make it simpler.
Me - Intent to deeds. Is intent based on basic instinct and fulfillment thereof at the same level of desire fulfillment as intent from logic and reason. Is there no difference in intent!
Arun - I think we may be talking of different things. What I mean by instinct is not basic instinct, which, in any case has to be fulfilled, intent or no intent. There you would more impulsive action rather than intended action.
Me - My scene. When you don't have wants, needs or desires. When you don't have any expectations and your responsibilities are taken care of as best possible, then there are no triggers for action.
Arun - Utopia.
Me - Utopia!.... Seems quite meaningless at times.
Arun - That's even more of that!
Me - Just thought that maybe, I was missing something. Need a bit more conditioning I guess.
Arun - Don't try to find a meaning in everything. Sometimes you have to create meaning.
Me - Any clues about where to start. In the context of my mind set and capability.
I think it's about creating interest first. But how do you create interest if there is no felt need......Back to running around in circles!

Peace

Me - We seem to recognise peace and happiness only in their existence as feel good sensory forms. The absence or non registering of sensory inputs too creates a peace plane at least.
Arun - Repeat that minus any mistakes.
Me - We seem to recognise peace and happiness when manifested as feel good forms. The absence or non registering of sensory inputs also, can create a plane of peace.
Maybe that's why all the seers and thinkers take off for the Himalayas!

A responsibility for the unknown

I get a sense about what a quiet, peaceful life means. The peace only gets ruffled when one drifts into thoughts, scenarios about my family's future. A responsibility for the unknown.

Learning

If we don't question, there's no learning. If we question, ignorance seems to grow. If we just do it by rote, we divest ourselves of our education......Its all about learning.

What is...was meant to be.

What is was meant to be. Ones personal agendas got factored into the making of what is. If what you wish is to be what is one day, then what you should do hereon in should be, what is meant to be.
By the way..... that wish fulfillment is what is known as a Catch-22 situation. Damned if you do and Damned if you don't. So just do your own thing and let your spirit soar. Chakde

Screwing Desire

Me - I don't have any desires. Your world view is immediate. Here and now. An absent emotional framework. Belief and value system rooted in apathy. Don't care. Nothing touches one.
I never really knew desire. All one had were wants and urges of the animalistic kind. No corrupting knowledge either. That's how Ive abstained from desire. Screwing desire basically means screwing oneself. We have had our happiness screwed often enough and coped. The finer points of strategy however, all hinge on abstinence. Hey! you're screwing yourself anyway.
Arun - I think the bottom line is to live in the here and now. Now I have to learn how to do that!
Me - Frankly, I don't think you can. Calls for unlearning too much. It's an escapist route for those who don't know where they are going. Thought instinctive, consequences immaterial.
Arun - But that's the best selling mantra!. Let me see
Me - The appropriate sign off should be Dekha Jayega.... Njoy.
Arun - No its not dekha jayega., it's dekhenge.
Me - No re. Dekhenge implies an intent about a point in the future. Cross the bridge when you come to it is fine so long as your ignorant about bridges likely to be on your way.

Peace vs happiness

Arun - Peace vs happiness.....quantitative or qualitatively different?
Peace begets happiness or vice versa? Or they are twins.
Me - There can be peace without happiness and vice versa. Peace is a mind state positively impacted by sensory triggers that create happy states of mind. Feel good vs good feel.
Peace and happiness. Are they an end. Or the fruits of labour. Are they conditions for process efficiency or pre-conditions. Are they generic absolutes or customised havens.
Happiness - the state of mind when desires are fulfilled.
Peace - the mind state when there are no desires.
Arun - So basically desire fucks them both - that's one conclusion.
Now lets think how to fuck desire!

Being

Arun - Since last so many years, I had this knowledge that desire is the root of all suffering, now I have understood it. Knowledge and understanding are so different!
Man's perpetual desire to be something else, other than what he is, and his desire to have something else, other than what he has, has made him a machine, who always acts under the influence of circumstances, and not from his own whole being. Man first has to be and then only he can do, otherwise all else is happening.
I'm getting a few insights today.
Me - Genes + circumstances + experiences + beliefs = what he is.
Life + comparison + evaluation >> Desire or purpose or comfort zone = who he becomes.
Being is approval dependent, outside in.
Without appropriate knowledge and usable skills, he is marooned in a societal space where reflexive activity and acquisition are the success norm.
To be, you need to who you are.

Peace and Happiness

Me - Clarity about what you want tends to make for uncompromising scenarios. Wistful thoughts are the only beaten paths that life allows you to take. Its either your way or the highway.
I don't wonder whether life would've been different. I'd have to have been a different person for that to happen. Problems of coping with drudgery arise only when you have options, but no time.
Arun - What I want, or for that matter everybody wants, is peace and happiness. I don't understand whether that lies on my way or at the end of the highway.
Me - Peace and happiness. The fanciful, intangible constants of our lives. If the milestones don't tell you if you're on track, maybe its time for a GPS overview, to get the lay of the land.
A man decided to follow his dreams. Problem was that every time he woke up, he lost his way. Didn't give up though..... Last heard he was sleep walking through his dreams.
Arun - I think almost everybody dies without ultimately attaining peace and happiness. Is the whole of humanity walking on the wrong path?
Either we are all on the wrong path or looking for wrong things!
Me - Where the search for peace and happiness is conscious, one charts one's path. You have an inkling then if you're on the wrong path. For most of humanity, peace and happiness are incidental by-products of life.
Arun - I think the simplest thing to do is change the definition of happiness. Accept what is as ought to be and take pleasure in that.
Me - Bingo! You're lucky that you can introspect about arrival to peace and happiness of choice. For most of us, these are higher order needs that rarely come into focus. Not every one knows what they want

freedom from ritual

Arun - Why has life become a ritual! Why are there no mysterious moments? Where has all spontaneity gone out of our lives and, why?
Me - Just shed 100 days of hair growth after a futile attempt to recreate my old long hair look. Acting on impulse for meaningless change does keep one looking at oneself. More later.
Arun - The whole problem is of the missing impulse. Have just become an automaton, I think. Just like an electron moving around in the same orbit always.
How does an electron gain energy to jump to the higher orbit? Do you remember.
Me - Attraction to the orbits of other free floating atoms. Calls for interactions, collisions and a great leap forward. Just another orbit in the same sub-atomic plane. Polygamy?
Removing uncertainty is a life focus. The novelty of creating the familiar lasts a while, till you realise that upkeep and holding your fort is a brick and mortar activity.
You are a prisoner of your own security needs. The rituals of familiarity now breed contempt. Mystery, spontaneity are individual trips as is self actualising. Free your mind.

The impact of hindsight

Me - What is...had to be because of what was. That general direction we charted for ourselves with coming of age inspiration. If we knew then what we know now, life could have had possibilities.
Arun - Past begets present begets future. If you live in the ifs and buts of the past, you fuck up both your present and future.
Me - That wasn't about a wish frame, but a realisation that what is was bound to be. Hindsight doesn't change anything but allows for scenario building. The present was the future once.
Arun - Hindsight makes you smarter, careful and wary of what could go wrong and where and how not to let it happen again.
Me - Is that the expectation or does the hindsight continuum thus far, have any evidence that one is continually evolving as a smarter guy. Getting it right more often!
Hindsight oft provides perspectives that rationalise the current status quo. Would be difficult to live with oneself if they didn't. Moral: When in doubt, just do more of the same.
Arun - And make the same mistakes again? No bro. You don't burn your fingers again, that is if you have gained some wisdom from hindsight.
Me - You're not getting it bro. There is no again. Only more of the same. The start point was, What is, was bound to happen. On a highway with no exits now. Lane driving keeps you sane.
All the wisdom from hindsight only helps you choose which lane to drive in. Some of it comes to resemble baggage too, at times. It allows for reflection as a pastime though.
Arun - A baggage of wisdom gained by hindsight makes it easier to have better foresight.
Me - For what? Lot of stuff is nice to know. What you need to know is limited by your choices, in spite of hindsight. The mind is but an optimistic playground of hope. Cocooning reality.

The lifecycle of repetition

Arun - I get sick of doing the same over and over again. How come you are not sick of doing nothing over and over again!
Me - One is doing nothing 'coz there's nothing that one wants to do. No urges or desires. So no reflection and evaluation of one's inactivity cycle. Would seem a dull life to most....
Depends on what one expects from life. When its nothing......doing nothing becomes but an impulse driven daily routine. The ability to cater to impulse is the key to wellness in routine.
My placebos won't work in your domain. Occupation provides activity...and vice-versa. Then you start tiring and get occupied with "So where do we go from here!" I think you know.

Freedom from bondage usually requires third party intervention. And that comes only when survival is an issue. Your life exemplifies modern day bondage.....Time out time!

Purpose in Life

The ease of this life, makes the living of it easy. The continuance in this state is the "For what" legacy. "You must have a purpose in life." For What?..... Back to easy living.

Thought

If you stop to think....you're just a traveller.
If you think.....then you really go places.
And if you don't think......then your vista is always a clean slate.

Hindsight

Irritation sets in when one's self centric perspective is not understood by your world. How can it be, when everyone's perspective is also largely self centred. That's hindsight.

Free your mind

Relationships are built on expectations. The very reason why they fail also. Each one of us needs our own space once in a while. But matrimony can be confining. Lakshmi...free your mind.

The meaning of life

Me - If there's a point to my life, it evades me. So also appears to be the case of my death. Would be pointless. Saala, it has taken 50 years to discover this! What a waste of time.
Arun - As they say in Zen....don't seek any meaning, just live. All answers will come when the time is ripe.
Me - I guess that is the default life position. Live and acknowledge life in its moments. The time of ones life is here and now. The sensory comfort is meaning enough. No questions, No answers.
Arun - If you are really living life that way, you should not have any complaints. You are ideally placed, I think.
Me - There are no complaints. Just a sense in some moments if this is all that ones life is about. It defies conventional wisdom and yet you feel one is ideally placed! No thought, No sense.
Arun - People living by conventional wisdom don't seek the meaning of life and death.

Bliss

Arun - Hills, grass, and a few moments to myself. ....You are savouring what I'm tasting.
Me - Bravo....And may appetites and appetisers be such transient moments of bliss...Ad infinitum.

Been 3 weeks. Already seems like one never left. The only regret is losing my daughter. I'd wanted her to hear my side of it but.....Sad, but not an ache. And tomorrows just another day.

A thought

If one were to begin asking oneself the many questions one should be asking oneself, its likely the answers would only be of academic interest, in ones current situation. Thoughts are free in a taxed life.

Happiness

The pursuit of perceived happiness has guided most of our actions. Having tasted it, the flavour starts fading fast. The fresh perception pursued then, is oft more esoteric.

Me - We know quite a bit about our friends. Are also able to give animated profiles of them to third persons. Yet we rarely share/update this knowledge with each other. Comfort in/with who we are.
Arun - From the Age of Reason to the Age of Fantasy

Frivolous liberty

So what should we look at now, the mind asks. Such frivolous liberty. This is where the moment is at. And hopefully continue to b, with the dawning of the age of cannabis.

Inner voice

Arun - Have you ever heard your inner voice? I really don't know what it means - is it intuition?
Me - Can't say I have. But I take it to be the voice of ones conscience which flags up "right choices" in moral and value dilemmas. Instinctive like intuition, but more than just a feel.

Your inner voice could also be your alter ego. Feels the need to be heard every time you trample over what you wanna be and do, in doing the things that you do. Not every one has an inner voice or for that matter an alter ego.
.....If you hear thought that you don't recognise as your own....Well, somebody's trying to tell you something. Worth a listen to.