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.