The sculpture- Construction apace!

I would like to dedicate this blog to Shweta. During the course of a conversation with her, I thought of some of the thoughts here. Thoughts on these lines or profundity have been scarce of late and I thank her for giving me an opportunity to think such in answer to confusions or in proposing further confusions in the confunded mind on another.

Q: What does a relation mean to you?
A: Honestly, I dont know. I feel a certain way about people I meet. There is no form or shape to the feeling. It is there- how, why or what is a pointless question. I feel all the quantifications and qualifications of how you think of a person or a thing is over rated. In the end, it is always about oneself regardless of what you consider of the other person.

Q: There is absolutely no reason for a 'no' to a relation. Is there a reason for a 'yes'?
A: Everytime you search for a reason for something, you are letting go of instinct and searching for logic. Instincts are powerful and indicate the way you want to act momentarily. It may be right or wrong. Regardless, searching for logic is stepping back and viewing the situation from an observation platform. So, when a person asks you to reason out emotions, stepping back on an emotional scale is impossible. You are intricately interwoven in the situation. Removing yourself from an emotional situation is what the yogis try to do and achieving it takes more than the momentary loss of consciousness and conscience. So if there is no reason for a 'no' there need not be a reason for a 'yes'- they are mutually exclusive when it comes to interpersonal relations. 'No' or 'Yes' are a matter of instinct!. Do what you feel.

Q: Can this work if two people do not meet on a common ground and find meaning between the two of them?
A: When you have a block of wood in front of you, and you want to create a meaningful sculpture out of it, there are two things you can do.
1) Decide on what the sculpture should mean to you and design a shape according to your idea. Chisel away at the block of wood to acheive the shape. In short, decide what the relation means to you before you get into it.
2) Start chiselling away at the piece of wood with a shape in mind. Midway, realise that there is more you would like to portray in the wood and change your idea around it. In short, there are always curve balls that you dont read in life, bend to them, glance them away, and confer/ realise a meaning in the shape in front of you.

If there is anything I have done properly in life, it is the second option- Finding a meaning or purpose in the shapes and forms of life at every turn and corner.

It is a sculpture that I am going to start. I do not have a defined idea in mind. But, at the end I am sure I will find a meaning in it, as I have always done so far. Here is where I raise a cup of coffee at the shop and toast to life ahead and the sculpture, whose construction is apace!

Truth

I dedicate this blog to Krithika Venkatraman, with whom during the course of a particularly long conversation, it dawned on me that truth is the convergence of reality, narration and perception.

The only person who can ever know the complete truth and nothing but the truth has to be the person(s) who experienced an event. When he narrates it, he tells his version of the event or what he wants to talk about the event. Perception of the listener relies on the accuracy of the narration, willingness of the narrator to tell everything, the neutrality of narration and finally the idea that he wants to leave the listener with.

Why is it necessary to make this distinction? I feel we go through multiple incidents and listen to multiple incidents, taking sides based on what we hear or what we want to believe. There is something to be said for " Don't judge until you put yourself in the other person's shoes". True, everyone is entitled to judgements and opinions and their own thoughts, but let it not be the be- all, end- all decision in classifying a personality. After all, what you heard was what he told you about what happened.

Every coin has two sides and when you want to know the coin in its entirety, you flip it back and forth and also look at its sides. Likewise, every situation has multiple views and even further views that are blurred by narration and perception and repeat- narrations. It is extremely intriguing, that we could complicate the simple concept of truth into multiple dimensions. How do we ensure that truth is passed in its entirety? Is it possible at all?.

Since the reason for communication is to inform others of our views, perceptions and experiences, it turns out that the absolute truth is not passed to the receptive ears. It is colored by what we believe, how we reacted, and what part of our reaction/ experience that we want to portray. Sadly, truth is not what you believe it is. It is one dimension or a view of the absolute truth that we hear. What you see, you can believe and what you hear, take it with a tad bit of salt.

 

My Human set theory

The universal set in any personal experience is the union of a persona, a philosophy, personnel, action, reaction, past, the space and the people we come in contact with during the event. The length of the event is immaterial. More than our persona, we seem to be shaped by the rest of our universe. The more we socialize, comparisons with other people make us draw an intersection set, where common interests draw us to each other. The hope and glamor of the intersection set and hence the commonality in all of us is that we try to fill the intersection with the universal set. If the judge in the reader wants to indict me of such a 'crime', I shall plead guilty.

There is a lot more credence to minute scientific differences in humans than to major perceived differences in personality. Typification and preconceived notions are as rampant as humans themselves. In the current scenario of social networking, globalization of ideas, grouping of societies by race, color and religion, how do we stand a chance at asserting ourselves as an individual? Is it really so easy not to compare one against the other in the deep recesses of our mind and decide based on our perceptions? I personally find it difficult to make any sense out of individual interactions. Sub- consciously we have all decided to act out our lives in a particular fashion and we deem it to be the perfect one. When we see someone else doing the exact same thing, we tend to dream about the commonalities and not about the differences; after all we understand characteristics only when we identify with them. What does that mean to friendships and promises of 'I do not care what you are'?- As I sit in the coffee shop and sip my coffee, the flaw in this non- judgmental attitude becomes a bit more clear. Forget everything about the color of the skin, nationality, or the belief principle. It truly boils down to what this person means to you; what this person's thought characteristics are. After all, unless there is at least a mental connection and an emotional connection, no relation would flare up. Both these connections being so fickle and finicky, it is perfectly rational when someone relies on their judgment to make a decision regarding a person. I may not like what you think or do or how you view life, but only when you tell me what I do not want to hear. It does make me vulnerable to those smooth and oiled voices of those who would tell me what I want to hear. But, remember charades can only last so long. In the end my friends are not my universal set, speaking mathematically. My friends are those in whom I identify myself or the potential myself. They are not facsimiles, but ones with a different universal set from mine, with a different set of experiences that shapes them into a unique person. Here goes my morsel towards hypocrisy- I do not care what they are. I LOVE THEM FOR WHAT THEY MEAN TO ME. They are not me; but they complement me in a way that make my thoughts wholesome.

Yin-Yang- As I see it

i like the yin-yang
Bharti: who doesnt
:P
me: i find it to be intriguing and an extremely complex concept
it is amazing
if you look far enough there is always the yin-yang that controls it
Bharti: hmmm
temme more
me: as in if you are to believe dan brown, yin yang seems to indicate the opposite sexes and how they complement each other and how they are needed to run the world
but the truth is... there is yin and yang--- presumably the male and the female
but also, there is yin within yang and yang within yin
which makes it extremely interconnected
though a fundamental literal understanding would tell this, yin yang basically syas opposites always co-exist
without a posit, there cannot be an opposite
though this is elementary, there can be no posit without opposite
thats the beauty
so if you look hard enough, you can always find the opposite of a postulation.
going back to the good and the evil thingy,
good within the evil and evil within the good
Bharti: :)
agreeeeed
me: same with the male and female.. which was also sorta explained by siva-parvati as a single embodiment in Ardhanari
likewise, light gives shadow and shadow cannot live without the light nor can the revrse happen

me: this is basically what interests me
the concept of contradiction within the space of a single breath or a single entity
and i love it
!
Bharti: hmmm
me: seems to get your brain wheels turning

the way i see it, a human lives his life inherently and intuitively knowing this
but he does not consciously become aware of it until after going through the different stages of life
we come into the world thinking we are separate- the male and the female
and as time goes we understand hormonal variations
and then we understand people are different again and that men and women think different
as time still moves on, we understand how men think like women and how women think like men
- getting into each others shoes or by just thinking like themselves
Bharti: i so agreee
i ve told u time n again
sex is jus a anatomical diff
me: time passes on and with marriage and procreation and child birth, compassion as a female thing is lost
its a general term for humans
!!!!

and then you look at other people growing up grappling with the same ideas
and silently laugh at them, cos you know we are all the same... but they are still trying to find themselves out
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
awesome


This post is dedicated to Bharti Kannan, with whom I had this conversation.

A game

There have been many things that this year has brought and left with. All the cliches that you can tag it with like good, bad, happy, sad will never describe it adequately. There are multitudinous reasons why I would remember this year forever and a few more why I would forget it for good. Nonetheless, I am me for having lived through another year. Everything we have done or will do seems to be part of a cosmic game- or is it? Feels more like we are the inventors of the game of life and we are the players in it too. The game is not really that simple, just because of the number of players involved. More importantly, it is not simple for the fact that a human response is never dictated by the situation, but is more dictated by our perception and involvement in the situation. The purpose of the game is not to win- life is never about winning. What is a victory today might be a failure few years down the road and vice versa. The purpose of the game is neither not to lose. It is just to live and learn. For now, let us just call it the game of emotions.

At this point I would like to dedicate this post to Shweta, whose statement gave me inspiration and direction on this blog. Things that are seemingly innocuous are designed such that you get to know the other conversant or object of research better. This particular trait is true in every aspect of life and I never really saw it that way until a few days ago. The response of a person is always dictated by logic and reason- nay- it is also dictated by emotions. The contribution of these factors to a decision/response is the ultimate variable and fluctuates between a maxima and minima whose limits are unreadable. Emotions seem to exclude logic, but logic does not necessarily preclude emotion. When the response is so variable, how are we even going to stereotype a person. That is another point where the game is complicated further. The response can never be typified and if you do typify the response, you are sent back several paces in the board. You relearn what you need to and then come back to a spot in life from whence you can stare forward and steer clear of further pitfalls.

Wisdom, logic, clear thoughts, and a perspective help you to move through the board game. But they are not all. Sometimes the presence of emotions and sometimes the absence of emotions help you to move forward too. If emotions vary between 0 and 100% on issues, how do we know what will help us move forward. The simplest explanation seems to be when the mind emotes to a huge extent, ( when emotions tend to infinity), our response has to be dictated by logic- learnt that from experience. Similarly, when logic pervades our fiber, we better decide so. This solution is never an exactitude. When people and other people's emotions are involved, we probably need to use a little emotion in our response. Just writing this blog or reading this post is never going to ensure our response, as it would just be a typification then. And I would like to run away from typification in this sense.

If this game is so damn complex, why do we play this? What do we gain from it? Day after day we pose questions and set up experiments that helps us understand the game a bit further. But do we really understand? Where do we really stand in it? Do we understand the number of paces that we have moved forward or backward? How do we know if we have come to the end of the game? That is just it. The game never ends and it grows interesting each day. WE LIVE IT AND LOVE IT as every single day passes. Understanding people, emotions and life is the ultimate intellectual conundrum. Understanding the human body, the numerous diseases and the laws that govern motion and reaction are easy. Understanding everything else is impossible. It is tough even to explain a question in terms of emotions and life that you will not even see a request for financial aid as a written proposal of research in emotions.

We do not research it. We do not question it. But, we experiment it, toy with it, question it. What is that 'it'? 'It' is something inanimate and animate at the same time. 'It' is humongous and tiny at the same time. 'It' is what we all strive to understand. Is 'it' life or a livelihood; emotion or logic; energy or application of energy? I do not know. I am still trying to understand 'It'- the game

Measure of Happiness

All said and done, we do not live for love; we do not live for others; we do not live for the rest of the world and peace in the world; Whatever we do and whatever we undertake is for ourselves and everything makes us happy. When some action makes us happy, we take it for granted because that is what we wanted. When some action fails and makes us sad, it sticks out like a sore thumb in our memory and we think of it more often. For the actions that made us happy, it is not that we forget it, but it hides behind a veil in our memory and we search a little for those memories. It is not very often that people ask you if you are happy. They ask you if you are feeling down or sad when they feel like it. When someone asks you if you are happy over a given period of time, it seems to dredge up thoughts. The quality and emotions of the thought seems to rely on our most recent memory. If sadness or doubts are the most recent memory, we tend towards a depressive state or self doubting or self-loathing and/or sympathetic state. If happiness is the most recent memory, we never seem to care anymore about it. We just move on without mulling over anything. Happiness seems to be one of the most highly rated/highly wanted emotion in this world and in spite of that, it is also the one thing that is taken for granted the most.

If we do take it for granted, by what measure do we say that we are happy. If its the most wanted thing in life, we certainly must have a measure to tell if we are happy or not. Would that measure be something material like money or clothes or food? or would that measure be more abstract in terms of friends, philosophy, satisfaction? I certainly do not think so nor have I been able to point out my measure of happiness in those terms. They just seem to be factors by which others think we are happy. The inherent happiness or sadness in each of these factors is only known to us. The way we weigh happiness today seems to be by accomplishments and big ones at that. Everyday accomplishments take the side bench on our trip to accomplish the greater things and what happiness we should feel for the smaller accomplishments of the everyday routine life have evaporated into nothingness because we do not give it the thought it deserves.

In absolute contrast to enjoying every small thing in life, if we go down to the level of enjoying mundane things, the special nature of the big accomplishments are lost. Either way, whether we smile for routine matters or for bigger surprises, we do not seem to know a measure of happiness, nor do we care to measure a singular important entity like happiness. This seems to be a paradox from where I view it and would definitely seem to be a better situation if people could objectively talk about an emotion like happiness. I wish I could point out a measure of happiness that would seem to fit all considerations. But,happiness being such an abstract thought would depend so much on individual perspectives.

If there is no measure for happiness, we would not know where to stop in its pursuit. Each small thing that seemingly would make us happy would only increase the necessity for further things in life. This would precipitate as a huge race and the final marker indicating happiness/victory would never arrive. We essentially would be where we are currently- in pursuit of material and metaphysical milestones with the hope that they would lead to happiness. When we reach one milestone, the road stretches further and we do not know if we want to stop our journey or continue. We do not know if we want to see further nor do we know if we are happy with the milestone reached. The only real search in life is for happiness and the target is invisible. If the journey is happiness, then the journey is never-ending.

The question now is should I feel happy for having written the blog? or should I feel sad for not having found an answer yet?

Evolution of knowledge

There is never a single moment that the world has slept. It has lived, breathed, perspired, toiled, sweated and grown. Inexorable and ineffable, we have watched it grow without some understanding at first and with a slight understanding later on. What we know seems to be a drop in the ocean and the mysteries we are yet to understand are endless. And it shall remain so for the future generations that shall live on this earth, for growth leads to evolution and evolution leads to convolution of current knowledge and that leads us onto further searches of knowledge. In a strange thought of paganism, we have probably been made in the splitting image of the Earth- Mentally and metaphysically and not physically though.

We change from birth until death and whatever change we have made is subject to further changes. We live or try to live, we breath and that is a given, we perspire and toil to feed us and others, grow in stature and strength and finally without understanding ourselves, and without realizing our dreams, we die. The energy within us does not die though and it is conserved around us and we pass on the energy to someone else and that is probably where the concept of 'rebirth' occurs. Since it is the same amount of energy that has pervaded the universe from time immemorial, there has to be the process of rebirth. We sure know or we do not believe that such a thing occurs in physical form. But the ideas and thoughts we perceive and provide stay for generations to come until they are abolished to obscurity for the future generations will always know better than us.

Knowledge grows from strength to strength, but ancient knowledge does not diminish in value. The knowledge gained over the past centuries will not mean a thing to the future unless we know why and how the knowledge was obtained. Till the end of our life, we try to learn this aspect and the irony is that at the end, we do not want to pass on all of it. The future is better off when it learns for itself. This is not about the change that occurs around us, but the constant that pervades the universe. For thousands of years billions of people have lived on this earth and we still do not understand every single personality that lives within our reach. Statistics could very well argue that if knowledge of people and knowledge of psyche were passed on from person to person, we would know everything to know about others and there might not have been war or peace; opinions or arguments; good or bad; perception or absolute.

Every which way we turn, we are faced by perceptions and opinions. It is up to us to learn what each one of them means and how each one of them impacts. Whether we shall contradict those opinions or argue or ill-treat others depends on us and the knowledge we gain while interacting with the rest. The knowledge is neither set in stone nor written on water. The knowledge is again a perception when we learn it. The only way to then make knowledge absolute is by constantly evolving it and ourselves, in which case knowledge is not absolute again. We shall go through these circles forever- of knowing and not knowing and of appeasing and letting down people. At the end, it does not matter at all, because the knowledge is good only when you learn it yourself.