Senses

This world contains filth, sadness, pain and exploitation as much as it contains the opposites. We crave the opposites but hate the filth. We cannot stand the brutalities and those facts / stories haunt us. We try to forget and behave as if those things do not exist. But they do. It is after all the other side of the coin. Its the absence of something that makes something else so valuable. Hence has to be treated with equanimity because it is as precious or not. 

Also, it is a mind game. We are all diseased and plagued by our minds - so we get what we think we deserve at the moment. If we cannot imagine or believe something better, we won't be able to overcome what is. But for that first, we need to know what even is the current state. Are we even able to objectively see our current states? Does that not get colored by our conditioning? So what is real then? Is it what we feel or is it what we think that we are feeling?

The world is experienced through 5 senses - sight, smell, taste, hearing and feeling - that is real. Not what the conditioning explains those senses are sensing. Can we differentiate? I am sitting on the couch and that is real. Everything else about that state will be a story that I will tell myself or others.  

Memories

As far as my memories go
You were always around and about
So comfortable in your skin
It took me years to know
that you fight the same demons as I do

Control

I use deflection to avoid extreme emotions. I prefer to stay in control of my faculties. And control is an illusion especially in the current context.

Year 2019

I ushered the new year dancing! The evening didn't start as expected but it ended better than I thought it would. So as they say, always show up in life.. it was one of those lessons reiterated.

New year started ok - getting back to work was the hardest part. No resolutions as usual. But want to get a couple of things going. Tomorrow is always another day!

2018

Another year has come to an end. This could be one of the first times when I recall being so cold in the last few days of December.  "I want to vegetate" was my motto since 26th December and vegetate, I did. Palm Springs was tiring as such but beautiful too. I am tired of cold basically. I completed 10th episode of Memories of the Alhambra. So want to visit the Granada station now, just to see it up close. Would be a bit wary of the Alhambra Palace after todays episode.

I have never made new year resolutions. Partly because I know I won't keep them, partly because I did not have a firm resolution to pursue. And so it remains this year too. Though I wish for more adventure and exploration aimed within. 2017 was a crucial year and 2018 continued to show the path. I am a bit tired but I know that 2019 is aware of the path and next steps. I am not going to wait for it with bated breath. There is no need. There is a plan and a place for everything - it will reveal itself.

If only I can escape this cold... 

#metoo

Oh, did I mention my stint with feminism kind of ended the way it started - abruptly. It happened sometime back and the trigger seems to be slipping from my memory. I had a conversation where male bashing happened - probably that. Or no, it was about Tavleen Singh mentioning something about #metoo in villages and how this movement is of the rich & intellectual class.

It led to how only educated can uplift and bring about a thought revolution and hence it had to start the upper strata probably. And then some how the train of thought shifted towards rise of the matriarchal society where kids were the common property of the society since women were allowed to handle multiple relationships. To me it sounded exactly like the patriarchal set up which allows men to have that right. Of course a matriarchal society would consider children a lot more. But it still does not solve the problem of people genuinely getting hurt in relationships. It is just flipped. None of these societies take true emotions into consideration.

A balanced society is a myth unless everyone is balanced enough to be with their equal match. An equal match, a true balanced relationship always takes emotions of their partner into consideration - whatever it is.

And that involves a lot of introspection and is a tall order indeed. 

Weird

A sense of dread, a sense of boredom..
A sense of doing something stupid purely out of randomness
Trying to shut it down
Trying to make it drown

What will it take to entertain

Wait

We are destined to bear the wait for that very thing that will define us.

Each lesson came just when we were ready to learn it.

Never it happened before its time, and that alone keeps me going...

Change

Oh the changes that come about in people, places and things! It is interesting to see that those changes are actually in me. And I am looking at them with new pair of eyes. Will never know if it is as I see it now or is really as I saw it once!

Music

Music is most easily associated with time. As a memory it serves better because it creates almost the same ambience, sound wise.

I am consumed by the need to create a space that defines me & provides me the solace I need from everything.

#SmallLifeGoals 

Blocked!

I am experiencing the worst form of torture, clad as a bout of common cold, that insists that my nose should be blocked at crucial hours.

What could be the most crucial time in a week? Sunday night, past midnight - officially Monday morning - those last sweet hours of freedom before crack of dawn.

Blocked nose demands that I should not sleep and give it company. My head is propped on three pillows trying to help my nasal tract to relax and breath. Yet no sign of relief. My eyes are half closed, trying to form the words in the keypad of my iPhone. And the nagging voice at the back of my head screaming that my morning is pretty much ruined at this point now. How will I make it to the night tomorrow? 

No sleep. Cannot sleep. 

I wish I could be free.

..

Shivering, cold self-consumption

A life lived in parts

Out of sequence and out of turn

Yet makes a mark

Connect

A connection of sorts,
soul stirring, yet balanced
tells to hang in there
A god-gifted sign

So how can we give the future generation, the life that we did not have?

Glorious Day!

Oh the joy of being alive! 

On such beautiful days, I think I finally get what they mean when they say that the best part about life is being alive! To feel and to experience everything. Every bit of it with equal fervor. With joy. With the understanding that we do not understand it all. The point is to live it. With humility and love for everything. Everything we don't understand or question now just shows the extent we need to go to get over it!

The sum total of all your experiences is indeed you! 

Progenitors and Progeny

Parents should be the guides to the way of world. They should handover the knowhow and the knowledge to the progeny. The fact that one can only handover what one knows, limits the offspring's scope but that is exactly what children need to work on. Parents should play the role of "buddy" to the newly recruited member of the planet earth. And children should be thankful to their progenitor for "showing the ropes". But once children understand their parent's limitations, they should work on expanding their "scope" and make most of everything they know. 

Self

The acceptance of self is the easiest act. It simplifies life to no extent. It clarifies the next steps and goals to fulfill like nothing else. 

Collector

Nothing should stop us from collecting the experiences we want to savor and remember. 

Unbelonging

Raging silence of an impressionable mind
That searched for a sense of belonging
In words of wisdom, facts and fiction
To make up for soul stirring conversations

The first ray of meaning came with one
That started awe-inspiring friendship of souls
For equally fired spirits and minds
One that could teach and one that could learn

Transcending every rule of world
Unexplained and understood
Inflamed the mind to finally put
Those silent thoughts to coherent words

Duty to Self

Abandoning the one we love to let ourselves live in sanity is allowed only if that love brings us down to a level where we cannot respect ourself - for possessiveness, pettiness and lost peace of mind. It is better to be at peace than to be in a relationship that is mentally abusive.

Our first and foremost duty to ourself is to rise and become a better version of ourselves. Anything that reverses the process should be abandoned - people, places, things, thoughts, actions and words. Those things inflict a pain to the soul.

We are programmed to gravitate towards things that raise our soul and level of life. We should strive towards them in awareness.