Saturday, 28 January 2017

Loneliness

"I am lost. Help me brother. Save my life before my doom. I am lost without your love. Save my soul, seek my room."

What is loneliness. True loneliness. I am an introvert, so I understand solitude. Solitude is nice, its comfortable, we need solitude. To be alone in our own space, immersed in own thoughts, it is one of the best feelings. To spiral down into deeper layers of imagination and analysis. Synthesizing possibilities about events and thinking about new ideas. Everything is good about solitude. But loneliness is an entirely different thing. You need solitude for yourself, to spend some time on your thoughts without any interference.

Loneliness is when you want to communicate and there is no one to listen or understand. There are circumstances when you want to know how others perceive your thoughts, get a feedback, provide new insights, generate contradictory views or maybe, simply understand the complexities that you are trying to comprehend. Inability to find someone who listens and respond is a kind of loneliness.

There is also a different kind of loneliness, where nobody can understand you because nobody is trying to. Most of the times they can’t try because the things are too complex for them. Maybe they are not even aware that you need them to try and figure something out. Maybe you are afraid that opening your mind might be the Pandora’s box will just drive them away. But when you have so much thoughts and questions inside you that you really want to share, it’s really difficult when you don’t find anyone to share it with. You gently learn to keep all these thoughts in some dark corner of your mind and focus on other things. But sadly, with time, things pile up and the only way to deal with them is to ignore them. Consider them as useless and low priority, just because there is no one in your life who have the ability, or the will to understand it. But the fact remains that these thoughts are important. You are just unfortunate that no couldn’t find anyone and that is the feeling of loneliness.

You rarely meet people who have the ability to understand these thoughts. Even when you do, it is rare to establish a level of trust and mutual admiration to finally open up these core ideas which are so volatile and demands intense effort. The funny thing is, they might have the same problems that you face and you can see how similar they are to you and how much they need to be understood. But there might not be a reciprocity in the process because they might not understand yours. With time, you tend to lose hope of ever being truly understood by sharing these core ideas. You build a cage for these thoughts inside so that they don’t pester you in your solitude so that you can be free to pursue other demanding works. This leads to loneliness.

When you are finally sure that you can never share these thoughts with anyone, you tend to detach from people. You will start to find peace in your solitude more often, slowing reducing your communication with people. People see this and feel that you are becoming less social or even anti- social. From your side, people are failing to reach you and you don’t want to waste time with them. This will slowly grow into a general alienation from society as a whole. You finally don’t want to interact with anyone because they are useless. Your solitude will become your sole peace and you will be isolated from all.

That is true loneliness.

When people you expect from, fail to reach you, you become lonely.

“You are high above us all, alone in the sky and you understand everything except how to land.”

Friday, 6 January 2017

Intelligence Vs Beauty


I was sitting in the cafĂ© today and wondering the differences in beauty perceptions between people that I noticed the differences between south and north Indian girls. According to the conventional sense of beauty, north Indian girls are way more hot than south Indian ones, statistically. The moment I thought this, I was hit by this amazing revelation about how our society sees beauty as a concept. It’s a concept that everyone understands, its universal, everyone likes it, respects it, secretly or openly admire it, though still society has a certain hesitation in admitting it.
Why? Sometimes I wonder. It is a really powerful sense that drives our life. Everyone wants to look beautiful. And it’s okay. There is nothing wrong in that. Some people are genetically gifted with natural beauty. But now I see a difference here. If some kid is born with a genetic gift of music, art, literature or mathematical ability, we call them a prodigy. But we don’t call a naturally beautiful kid a prodigy, why? How is a genetic gift of intelligence any different from a genetic gift of beauty? Both were not the result of the kid’s efforts or hard work. Both should be treated equally. I know that people don’t like to treat beauty with same respect as intelligence because they feel that beauty is something that fades with time. But doesn’t that make it more valuable.
Kids are always taught to love someone without going for the looks or beauty. Even though it’s a fact that it is never followed, why do they tell them that. Nobody ever tells a kid to not to consider intelligence when trying to choose a partner. Most parents might actually want their kids to choose the most intelligent ones. Isn’t that a double standard against beautiful people. Why does intelligence get a higher status than beauty if both were obtained from the same genetic lottery?
The people who are born beautiful also face a lot of insecurities. They have a gift that they know will deteriorate over time and they have to make the most out of it within the time they got. Imagine a brilliant person suddenly losing his memory and cognitive functions, imagine a musician losing their voice. Only if you analyze the situation, you will understand the horror completely.
Another is the problem of always doubting whether people are attracted to them because they are pretty or because they have other abilities. They are taught that it is a bad thing if they are just appreciated for their beauty. They are always taught beauty alone is insufficient. Nobody teaches something like that to intelligent people.
All the people I am talking about are people who are born with these gifts, this article is not about those who acquired these abilities with time and effort. Also, when I mean beauty, I mean physical beauty. People keep saying beauty is subjective and all those crap, but I mean conventional beauty, not the internal beauty people keep talking about.
It’s time we give some credit to beauty and people who are born with it.


Tuesday, 9 August 2016

Masterpiece

I have been thinking about arts for the past couple of months...about the beauty it emanates, how it plays with the emotions and rises our thoughts...amazing...its even more amazing because I can't understand most art, I am blind to the beauty and is usually baffled, failing to identify the meanings that are hidden beneath the obvious...I read about art, I listen to it, I see it, but I can't feel it...so that's me.

Now, coming back to the story, I was sitting in this classroom of a school for attending an exam. It was a 11th grade classroom. I was sitting in a chair beside a desk and writing, afterwards something else caught my attention. Art, in its raw and crude form, telling stories, emotions, heartbreaks, ideas, and debates to me. I was like an archaeologist who had found some ancient cave paintings. I leaned in to see it and there before me were pictures drawn with pencils, pens, and compasses, carving of such elegance, designs of such magnificence. I saw a designer, an artist, a script-er, an architect, a lover, a poet, attempting their frustrations or creativity on that slab of wood as their canvas, mostly to escape the boredom of an infinite lecture. Each one of them had a story to tell. I could see many messages to lovers, something I guess that was never said. Many broken hearts that were bleeding. Many gangs with their epic tales of glory. Many equations which gave them a rope to climb out of the hell they went through. Each had a story of its own. And this, I could understand, having gone through exactly these same stages years before. And I felt art, it took me back to memories and emotions attached to it. It made me feel stuff I had forgotten for years. And finally I understand art. What masterpieces couldn't do was achieved by this raw fresh carvings. I see it now. 

Monday, 18 July 2016

Life

Life... Can we decide what we are going to do with our life... I don't know... When I was younger, I used to think that we can become whatever we want to be... Of course... I know... You must be laughing now... But I guess everyone thinks that they have figured out life at least once... Some plan it carefully, keeping checkpoints in a time line, others just face life as it comes, spontaneous. I don't know what I am, or what I want to do or where I want to reach for that matter. I used to plan too, like I should do this, I am good at this, so this should be my career, go ahead and become successful in life... But now, after all these 'education'  and learning,  I ponder over the very definition of success, of happiness, of career, of the basic idea of life.

I am a polymath.  Basically someone who is good at a variety of things. Believe me, it's not always a good thing. I learn stuff very fast, so I get bored very fast too.  It's really hard to just focus on a single thing. It's my nature to learn many things. Not a good quality if are looking for a job, I guess or even becoming a specialist.

Then what should I do with all this knowledge that I accumulate. Why do I need this.

Saturday, 16 July 2016

Liberal Arts

There are so many things that I understand so easily, but there are more things that I will never be able to fully comprehend that deeply, to see the real meanings, to savor the core essence, some things will always elude me, somethings that I wish I could see and enjoy. Reason and logic can make you see what others can't...but creativity and imagination, they make you see what is there beyond...Arts. literature, music, no wonder they are called liberal...it liberates your mind, lets it go free, its a dance of thoughts and emotions, the height of human intellect...to be unbound by rules...It would be nice to experience it, for once to see that beauty, the wonder, to stand in awe at those masterpieces that opens a new dimension of perception...

Tuesday, 12 July 2016

Hurricane

You, my hurricane, you lifted me up to dance with you
and weightless I felt...with dreams and love.
Now that you are gone, I am bereft,
standing in the ruins of my heart.
Devastated, I see emptiness around me,
and I understand with pain, finally,
why hurricanes are named after people.

Saturday, 2 July 2016

Philosophy of Albert Camus




When life obviously has no meaning...it is important to judge whether life is or is not worth living...