Sometimes i wonder just how useful a Rational Thought Devise built into my brain would be. Today is one of those days. I can see so clearly now that the quality of my thoughts determines the quality of my feelings. One day i could be all blissed out thinking life is a breeze, it's all cool, whatever comes my way, i'll totally handle it. The next day, i'll be thinking, really now? sure you're so cool with things as they are? remember how you fell apart at such and such a time when such and such a thing happened? remember how long it took to bounce back? you really want to risk it again? and so on.

So i sometimes wish there was this mechanism in my head that unceasingly performs the following functions:

1. Lets me enjoy the good stuff: "you're really blessed you know! this awesome thing happening to you at this moment might go away later, but who cares? we'll handle it then. don't let the fear of suffering dilute this joy right now. immerse yourself in it! knock yourself out!'' (Situation-appropriate happy song).

2. Warns me at all the right times and never unnecessarily: "watch out. you're perilously close to falling in love again! this is the point of no return. stop! think. do you want to risk your peace of mind for this? is it worth it? is he worth it? think about all that you dislike about him. DON'T FOCUS ONLY ON THE NICE PARTS!" and so on. accompanied by bright neon warning lights flashing madly and preferably an aversive tactile stimulus like a mild electric shock, just to drive home the point.

3. Plays comforter, de-catastrophiser, hope-inducer when point number 2 is disregarded and the worst happens: Ok. so we expected better. "we feel bad now. we feel like tearing our hair out. what can we DO now? we can do this, or this, or this (comprehensive list of viable options). cry. scream. get it out of your system. it's ok! it will pass. it will. we know that. it has passed in the past and it will now. there is no point feeling worse about it. let's thrash it out right now, go over everything that needs to get out of the system, and then let's let it go. let's make room for peace again. it's not the end of the world unless we want it to be." (Automatic hugs, slides of serene woods and peaceful rivers flash into mind.)

Yes. How cool it would be to have this on autopilot! exact shade of what i want to hear at every point. no interference from other silly counter-thoughts. no second guessing. and most importantly, knowing exactly what i am feeling and why.

The Bridge Across Forever

I have just finished reading "The Bridge Across Forever" by Richard Bach.

My favourite love story - and story - of all time is "The Time-traveller's Wife". I am a notoriously slow reader and i always believed that this is because i like to savour every word, every expression for its syntax and semantics. Which i realised was only half-true, because The Time traveller's Wife is a book beautifully written, but it is also a considerably fat book which i gobbled up in under a week. I realised something about books what i hope to realise also applies to other areas of life - they're all very nice for what they are, but when the right one comes along, there will be a difference in ways very uncharacteristic of me.

That book was about love finding itself, and sustaining itself, and growing in itself inspite of the arbitrariness of time. It blew my mind, said to my wildest dreams, "yes, you are bigger than you think", and made me feel very, very sorry it was over when it was.

And then, a year and a half and a sudden and very recent ascension-of-the mind later, comes a slipped lumbar disc, a consequent prolonged bedrest, and an opportunity to catch up on all the reading. Seagull i had read. Illusions and Bridge...i had kept, knowing when i bought them that i wasn't ready yet, leaving them unread for many months, until now, when there was the time, and there was not only the readiness, but what i realised was a desperate need.

And i read Illusions. And Richard Bach, whom i would have trashed as just another superidealistic castles-in-the-air-constructor, became warm validation for what i am turning into as i feel myself rising, constantly rising newer levels of understanding, until i once again reach that place beside the shining Sun where i was transported in a blink that fatefully normal day, from where i saw everything as it really is. Might be. We cannot understand the whats and whys of whats going on up on the terrace...we cannot see. But from the terrace, we have a full view and a full perspective of what's going on below. The secret then, is to climb up.

And then i read The Bridge Across Forever. The story about the quest of the soulmate. And the finding. And the running away from. And the choosing to stay. And the doubting. And the complete annihilation of that doubting by the knowing. And i laughed and i cried and had vivid dreams which was just the way of my unconscious mind of saying, "i know."

I have always been proud of the fact that that my idea of Love is too evolved for this world to handle. And here is Richard Bach and his lovely Leslie Parrish, who first met in an elevator because they were both "going up." And who were evolved and evolving in their ideas and hopes alright, but still had their walls and chains and armours and dragons. How wonderful, how completely JOYOUS that they made the choices to overcome it all, not because they were sure, but because they cared enough for their kind of life to agonise over those choices and to plumb every depth of their - and what is best - each other's - being to take the steps they took. Together. They believed that such a love was worth the pain. they believed that their ultimate growth was worth that love.

Love and Growth - what's the difference really? M. Scott Peck would in a moment of reductionism say, nothing. Both are painful, both imply effort and relentless work. But both, with each other, and for each other, are the joy i believe we have been born to experience. Love for growth and growth with love - and you don't see pain. All you see is wonderful, glorious light, and as Bach would put it, "without the glare". And as i would call it, you would see what you see when you're up there on that swing beside the sun.

The Painting

The title song from the movie 'Kya Kehna' always puts me in a happy and slightly senti-about-the-family mood. I am careful when i listen to it though. I have a very temperamentally-driven relationship with music. Certain songs can only be heard in certain moods or when the wish is to invoke those moods, and then they can't NOT be heard. A guy i was getting to know once asked me what kind of music i liked and i said something like i like all kinds of music and can't stand any kind of music, depending on my mood. He was rather confused. He was hoping i'd say something like hiphop, which was HIS favourite genre of music.

So anyway, back to Kya Kehna. This song always reminds me of happy family time, particularly in this one hotel in Panchgani we used to go to in the summer vacations. It was a spartan place overlooking a breathtaking view of mountains and lakes and was managed by among the warmest people i have ever encountered in my life. But the best part was that almost the whole extended family used to take this vacation, so it really was raw material for some very fond childhood memories with all the aunts and uncles and cousins and everything. Mom and dad used to never come for these month long getaways but a major highlight was always their 'surprise' visit over a weekend. So it was like living in a boarding school in a superb locale with no studies and all your favourite playmates living with you. I remember my 9th birthday as one of my best ever birthdays. Because it fell while we were there and mom and dad wouldnt be around, my folks make sure that the day was extra special so that i wouldnt miss my parents. And boy did they succeed! We used to sleep in these sprawling dormitory-type rooms and on the morning of my birthday, my cousin shook me out of slumber and handed me a package wrapped in beautiful (and obviously exciting) gift-paper. And right there, on my bed, even before brushing my teeth, i opened my first ever copy of an Enid Blyton school book- 'In the fifth at Mallory Towers' which i went on to follow up with every school story by Blyton (a total of about 20), books that practically shaped me growing up. Then i remember my extremely excited and extremely eager to delight uncle hold my head from both sides and shake it violently saying 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! SOMEBODY BREAK A COCONUT!" :)
And how a freshly baked cake came from this quaint village bakery we had hunted down and we ate it with diced mangoes. It was a magical birthday.

Today while coming home i heard the song in the bus and i realised how much i miss those vacations at Mount View Hotel. Since a lot has changed and a lot will change in the scheme of life, i was playing a llittle game with myself about what i would want before bidding thw old days adieu. And i found myself wanting that holiday. Hypothetically, that would mean rounding up all the aunts and uncles and cousins again, only this time there would be the cousin's wives and kids with the cousins, so it wouldnt be exactly the same. And then a wonderful thing happened. Instead of feeling bad that the exact same picture could not be painted again, i felt EVEN MORE thrilled about the additions to my picture and suddenly wanted that holiday even more.

Ands that made me realise something that i am so happy to realise for the sake of my own mental health - a lot has changed, but, evidently, for the better. :)

Sometimes we know that something is inevitible even if we are hoping against hope that it doesn't happen. Like the imminent break-up of a wonderful but deadend relationship. Or like the onset of the unbearable month of May in Bombay. Or like the latest - an official decision to accept American spelling in University exams.

I was pretty much heartbroken but i cannot say i didn't see it coming. The schools and colleges of India will now overlook the bastardisation (or should i say bastardization) of English by allowing American spelling to go in written work. Apparently this is because 'the world is shrinking and we must move with the times". So basicallly when the world shrinks, words like 'colour' and 'honour' must shrink too, and become 'color' and 'honor'. Yikes. I'm cringing even as i write it.

The computers and the internet have brought about the change, they say. SO? The computers and the internet have also brought porn. Why don't we just make that legal too? Ok, ok, maybe i am overreacting, but the excuse is still lame. Just because Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are American the whole English speaking world does not need to drop its u's and replace its s's with z's. Or should i say zee's. Yikes.

Anyway, what to do but to lapse into our own Indian version of the language. Might as well.

The importance of people

Sometimes you feel you don't care one way or the other what the hell people think or don't.

But that doesn't matter. This isn't about that. This is about what happens in the in-between-ness of people, and like it or not, a lot is accomplished in that space. A lot. Enough to end up defining the people themselves. And more.

In Blood Diamond, when asked whether he believes people are innately good or bad, Dennis Archer replies, "People are just people." But for the circularity of the answer, one would be impressed.

I believe people are innately good. It is not a polyanna thing. It is simple logic, from the way i look at it. It is science. It is the law of evolution and natural selection. And anyone who really knows about evolution knows that it goes beyond self preservation and into such complex processes as social cooperation and altruism. In a previous post i mentioned an insight that goodness and honesty arn't virtues we need learn and practice. Once we see how natural they really are, once we realise that they exist to keep things clear and uncomplicated, that they are practical in a way no technological utility has ever been, we wouldn't not embrace them. There would be nothing so foolish as not to. there isnt anything so foolish.

this is why when i see people who are screwed up in the head (and almost everyone is, to some extent), i feel bad because this is not who they are. and i feel worse because they dont even believe that. there is just a sorry dearth of faith in human goodness and potential and potential for goodness in this worls, and that is where the tragedy lies. and this is why, though i am not exempt from occasional screwedupness-in-the-head, i have to become a psychologist.

2 years later

I am still excited about living with myself :)

It's a funny thing, having to live with yourself. Well, actually it's not funny in itself, in itself it is the most normal thing there should be in a way that it couldn't get normal-ler than that. What's funny is how people go about doing it. It seems to me that the 'normal' way to go about it is to fool yourself into believing you are living with yourself while all the time neither the person living nor the one they're living with is you. And i don't think it's a matter of awareness. I have a feeling that even when one IS aware of this cohabitation of the aliens, one is hardly shocked, because one knows this is 'normal'.

Which brings me to the question - do you lead your life or does your life lead you? one friend said that you let life lead you (not like you have a choice) all the while pretending that it is you who is doing the leading. At a certain level, that would either make you a hypocrite or a really stupid person. At another level, there is a yearning for a bit of harmony between the two (i mean between you and your life, not being a hypocrite and being stupid)so that both want to walk the same path anyway, and then it is no matter as to who leads whom. that, i suppose, would be asking for too much.

Too many people i know and have cherished are allowing themselves to just follow a life script. there is zero resistence and, on the contrary, there is an eagerness to get on with it. suddenly there are these blinders they're looking through, and all they can see is that there is this path they have to tread, and they won't even allow themselves to dare to look around. Because, by looking around, they may discover greener meadows, but lonely ones. But the best part is that is it all so NORMAL. nothing revolts inside them. if it does, something stronger supresses the uprising. And so there they are, deliriously happy on this scripted journey through life, having to face none of the conflicts or misgivings that one in the open meadows might throw at them.

It's so tempting to just sit back and allow yourself to be led by life. What terrifies me, however, is that one day, when i open those fancy carriage curtains, i might discover that he life i was being led by wasn't my life at all.

Thrill

Today i realised that i am bloody excited about the prospect of getting to spend the rest of my life with myself.