Exhaustion- The Flavour of Fear

I never was a fan of Duck, Duck, Goose. The game always raised so many questions. Mainly over my athletic state of being but even conceptually, I never found a more zero-sum transaction. Firstly by not allowing participants to move around it fences them and then randomly with no notice assigns them as this new authority doomed to curse someone else. I really was not good at the game. But this game itself seems like the perfect metaphor for resigned fatigue. 

The "Chakravyuh" from the Mahabharat was regarded as the best strategic maneuver which could not be countered by the supremely skilled warriors of their time. Its true strength lay in how the intensity and skill of the warriors increased as one further dove into the formation. It was meant to be unyielding, unending and unbeatable. While the tactical benefits can be detailed by many skilled researchers, what I think is the sharpest weapon in this is probably the psychology of it. The past few years have been a dive into an "Unbalanced Story". Institutions are failing (always were failing?), people are being manipulated (always were manipulated?) and there is just a general sense of chaos that demands submission. 

The pandemic probably best reflects the reality of these times which otherwise might be lost in the motions of daily life. The beginning of it that supposedly could be thought isolated and remote yet it affected the globe. In the same way we permit circumstances that enable our daily struggles. We allow our attention to be diverted from necessities as means to deal with our own supposed insignificance. War, consumerist pursuits, misinformation laden politics. Nothing but short-term noise that is inherently meant as a speed breaker to disrupt what should be assured freedom. These aren't what we are meant to live for and yet, here we are. 

The nature of the virus to affect some people worse than others and make you fear in your daily view of the world. That's what the inequity in the world has always been about. A world that assumes opportunities are only dependent on a person's willingness and can't see the real barriers that surround and exclude people. And this system feeds on everyone's push for creating more for themselves for the fear of falling out of the larger support of comfort.

The transforming variants, that make vaccinations irrelevant and keep you afflicted with a strange sense of déjà vu. The multiplying problems which our participation creates are uncannily alike to the future of Covid. It is a reality that will always be around and the expectation is not around resolving the problem but a strange sense of acceptance that asks you to just accept it and move on. Something about it feels so strangely surrendering that it makes you think whether there really is any participation at all? Or is it more of just a series of things that are happening to you. In which case how different are you from rocks or trees.

But the result. The result is just a perpetual cycle that completely drains you. It is a staple of listlessness that brings out an unwillingness to participate in your life itself. It feels like an inner revolt where your refusal to fully immerse yourself in your surroundings is the only thing keeping you safe. Forgetting even for a second all the terrible things around seems like a slip into a false sense of security and the fear of that is debilitating. And so there you are in the end. Staring everywhere for a meaning you are not ready to accept and hence, exhausted. 

More Reality for our Morality

I feel I might’ve bitten off more than I can chew here. 

The two aspects that this year have been pushed to the breaking point. It’s been a trying year for the depths of human compassion, empathy, survivalist drive & a sheer fight for will wherever it may hide. The world we left one night comforted by walls of privilege seemed to unravel overnight in front of our eyes. But did it? Was it really ever about one night? One person? One victim? One patient? I think the biggest testament to this year are the two words of absolute terror “Community Transmission”.

The world has been far from perfect, burdened by visions, fears, greed & faith of billions, and ideas of billions before. But through it all this hurtling rock has hummed along. Indifferent & passive to screaming echoes in the void. And yet, this same strange rock contains within it a flavourful melody of anxiety riddled beings. Everyone living within their own confines & a shared reality differentiated by perspectives. Our shout of individuality has been our identity. Somewhere though this singular claim has become probably the most poisonous aspect of our society. We’re living in a world today where our identities are diminished on the verge of being denied. Socio-economic constructs have emerged as larger class barriers & within the confines of these intervals, humanity is pigeonholed with its own sense of morality, subject to its own tense of mortality.

This isn’t another review of 2020. Enough number of board meetings, news anchors, corner-stores have presented enough number of views on it, but probably the only aspect which needs to be derived from it is its unnerving almost militaristic sense of confrontation. The year has thrust into faces of everyone ready to face it, the kind of world we are living in. Biases, privilege have never been clearer, the demands of occupations, lack of representation of the disenfranchised, inequity of resources they are all on display through one form or another. And here we are. At a borderline of time with the option to stare dully at passing sands ready to quietly live in a world where these are blatant truths & are happening with our full knowledge and assent (by silence). This isn’t the world anymore where sinister phantoms were lurking in the shadows and we had to fear systems we couldn’t imagine. The monsters are out in the open and it is hunting season.

In an increasingly diversity gifted world, with civilization capable of showing empathy & genuine desire for brining altruistic change, our attentions are split and purposely distracted as a call to action for imaginary wars & agendas. Issues which might not exist, but are more importantly not asking the populace to contribute anything more than their silence. This silence though isn’t what they’re after. They are stealing voices. Voices which deserve to be heard and have minds behind them with ambitions, desires and fears that are being led astray into constricted buckets to engage those actually waging a war for the truth of the human spirit.

We are mortal beings faced with the daily reminder of our timed existence.

Our moral code exists to justify and canonize our usage of this life but how is this definition becoming standardized? Why is tribalism tied to this idea of self-preservation? The very nature of people is to evolve, change & grow to become better being capable of higher thought that both affirms our existence and the necessity to sustain it. Why are we using history & heritage for destroying rather than unifying?

We need to look how we got here. How our isolationism & desire for validation of our existence derailed into this new fight for decrying whatever does not fit within our definition. We cannot hope to forsake those with us because the tomorrow is “ours”. Time’s arrow moves forward & it will arrive here regardless. Unless that future tomorrow is something that is a shared vision, it will always remain incomplete & incapable of ever being anyone’s dream.

The question of any progress that is unable to be holistic is painfully ignorant. Any progress that embeds pain within it is a pointless scream into nothingness that’s begs for recognition for perceived sacrifice, only there is no recognition for any such pain. There isn’t a voice that replies & acknowledges. There is only the depth of biting silence & the pain of those who suffer silently & even worse, unwillingly to the whims of abstract power constructs. Battles of faith, as abstract textual concepts of great inspiration which demand interference of actual people & lives? Battles of economics that demand sacrifice for value. Of individuals, abilities, capabilities & the environment. Real damage that is meted out for concepts intended to be simple interpretations, to simplify & unite people are sowing the seeds of discord and disharmony.

There isn’t any big change in the offing. There isn’t a scripted response & change that’ll come unless it is built & made. Reality doesn’t bend to imagination. It can be guided by it through effort, inclusivity & determination. It’s necessary for us to relearn that & understand our change will have to be ushered in within ourselves. It will be uncomfortable because it will force us to grow, be, do & seek better.

This is our world. This is our reality and it needs to be changed. Apathy & hopelessness have to be rightfully discarded in this cluster-damn of a year which has rightfully shown the rewards for the fighters of both sides. For those who have picked up their share of efforts & driven evolution, have shown that their vision can & will inspire. They need us to join them. Our best brains need our best minds for building this future where we live up to the magic of our existence. And it starts when we do.

Independence Day

 If there is a fact most of the people are a testament to around me, is that I'm not a man who regularly assumes the best of situations and scenarios around me. Nor am I someone who fetishizes the worst of experiences of as a matter of catharsis for the processing of a series of emotions which otherwise could find their way only through a rather rampant series of dominating motions. I have come to realize that unlike a lot of pop art around us, life will not offer successful climactic artistic and powerful release from the bounding chains of a current reality. Life will not find its heroes emerging from sands as tall marble Grecian structure at least as their physical presence, but they will be as timeless and as important as structures to their patrons. They believe that the world they live in isn't right and by no order of faith they are ordained to a life that should deny themselves or anyone around them of the right to live a life safe and unencumbered by the chains of the modern day polarizing political scenario that demands exclusion from the people and the institutions entrusted with carrying out the will of the populace. 

This is the India most of us dream of. This is the India that those of us who regard as an example of a post colonial country reclaiming itself from becoming the poster child of some banana republic, aspire to see. It is the country those of us who work everyday to not want but end up building. 

Our shouts for a departure towards left wing politics are not for the seizure of the means of production as much as they are for the equitable distribution of the product of creation. Of the assurance and balance of opportunity to life and safety that should just naturally extend to everyone. We run around the circles established by an entrenched structure of administrative and bureaucratic qualifications to ensure that we do our bit to maintain all the requirements and demands of the modern day workplace and the demands of a competitive scenario in a world that has its borders shrinking but at the same time we aren't living in a world that assures a protectionist economy or one that even values its talent within enough to extend the balance of compensation for the sake of preventing a neo-colonial setup. The product of the modern day India is talent, meant to exponentially drive business everywhere. And as we're "progressing" with the current government and political situation, there is a steady dismantling of the structures that set to build up domestic strength. We are victims of our own history. Simply put, our political leaders express the same weakness that we do. We want to mean more, want to do more but are happy with the little piece of earth we get. 

Our leaders are full of hot empty gestures of reclaiming our own religion and our own supposed identity regardless of the fact that we're not a flashback cohort. We aren't going to be shocked in to some ancestral memory because that is not how the past works. You build up a civilization through years of belief and construction of pipeline of talent and dominance. It involves very simply planting trees that neither you nor your children will see to enjoy. It's very simply why our focus on issues at best have ever been tactical. We are awaiting the splinter(s) to divide a union that is awaiting the healing of an identity ignored for far too long. Of a belonging that wants to be named but is constantly lost in either ignorance or in false validation of jingoism, disregarding the real meaning behind the depth of the term. Being Indian. 

But as ever. This story comes with its own heroes. Not of the chest thumping shouters, but of the reactive, active expressioned individuals acknowledging that any definition of their identity is not going to be claimed by a community. It is not going to be declared as an allegiance to a political entity that was birthed from a misinterpreted concept. It is not going to belong to those who are trying to snatch the vision of a civilization from their true owners just because they are louder or seem to be everywhere. It is not going to belong to those who are unable to build it for its future and for the brilliance it can contribute to humanity. It belongs to those who get up everyday and without a question, unerringly look up and know that everyday is a new battle for them to forward the spirit of a country accepting and constructive, favourable to the people for their existence and not for the sheer positions of the powerful and the disenfranchised for their entrenchment. And it is to them that India truly belongs. They who understand where innovation and private enterprise lies within the sphere of human existence. Of what balance means and why correcting not just their countryfolks, but the world is essential. For all of them who stand up and defend that idea of a liberal, freedom loving country not just in India, but across the world; wish you a very happy Independence Day.

Aged Like Fine Whine

This post is created in a weather of chattering keys and teeth. There is a shiver passing through fingers and the mind of every individual who happens to be alive on the fleeting rock hurtling through space as it distances itself from the warmth of random luck and veers closer to the surrounding void of ineluctable darkness.

On the other hand, Netflix is rolling out lots of great content so that is something to look forward to!

The year brought out something which I see reflecting not only around me but in the very fabric of the culture surrounding us and unsurprisingly it took the viewing of South Park to make me realize the sheer obviousness of it. This narrative isn't just limited to the kind of funk I feel at times but it happens to be the core root of most of the things going topsy-turvy nowadays.
"Nostalgia".

In a story arc lasting several episodes a character states "It may seem fun to go back and recycle the past we loved, but we end up with no sustenance". While this wasn't the end of the arc it was definitely the climax which just echoed too strongly with me.

Isn't that the entire discourse around us? The call to a better time, the invoking of cultural influences of the past in the present day. Leveraging advancements and technology to not bring out something new but to recreate what has already been made. And you can see the appeal from the creator's perspective. I mean instead of having the burden of content and delivery they are kind of free from the expectation of content. Interpretation and delivery is all that they have to focus on and the much bigger aspect of creation relies purely on the past free from the terror of new development.

But who is really guilty of this regressive behaviour? You see, I think that onus falls squarely on our shoulders. In a hyperlinked world with an exploding population and a millions of points of diversity with a marked integrated presence of our online personas with out real selves, we just feel lost. There is an increasing sense of alienation of individuals as they float away to their own systems, that any semblance of belonging seems to enticing to pass on. And consequently instead of our past uniting us, we end up uniting for our past. And some might say there isn't much of difference, but I think it is stark! Most clearly you can see it in the entire political landscape around us.

People are not uniting because they all belong to a country but they want to recreate some fictitious past or are so engrossed by this past that they are completely oblivious of the present they are a part of the future that they are creating .

We are so wholly consumed by our own species' records that attempts to do anything new are not what gain real traction. Our media outlets are so busy reporting rehashed happenings and trying to make patterns that they sometimes try to forcefit the present into their own moulds of the past and that would've been okay for a person but when you give that power to organizations capable of reaching billions, you have a very wrong influence capable of poisoning an entire generation's psyche.

It is almost like this mass illusion which people are trying to create where everyone will have their promised past and more importantly the feeling of security and emotions of their past to create some magically insured future insulated from changes. Which isn't just juvenile to hope for but just plain deranged.

I think it is essential we learn to appreciate the reality of today's day and time. Things are certainly better than they were 30 years ago. We are eradicating more diseases, we are able to help out more sections of society and are really progressing, trying to reach the further corners of the cosmos. And our apprehensions might be just because things are changing too fast, but the solution to that does not lie in running back to what felt safe and secure, because that was a very different time! We have to find our safety and security with the new present and reality. And the answer to that cannot lie by any stretch in the past, simply because it has never happened before.

We really need to reach out and include the march of progress in our own culture. We need to capture development and changes and better record them and encourage them. We can't remain stuck to our past because that's the difference between leading our journey into the future and being dragged into it crying and screaming.

I think that is one thing I want to be a part of in 2020. Bringing out some change to people who want to remain stuck to a dogma of their past. That they find the merit in moving above and beyond and carrying their world with them. Not just a rehashed imitation of what used to be.

Happy 2020!

I Started A Joke

"I started a joke, which started the whole world crying
But I didn't see that the joke was on me, oh no."

Well. Here. We. Are.
364 Days. Again. Just. Wow.

My last post was a celebration of the fact that I wrote on my blog at least twice within a year. One would've thought it implied that I'd look to write more this year, but my adoring public(singular) (Thanks, Ma) would have to be disappointed. This year was definitely a Tex-Mex of more ingredients than I could count, thankfully the aftertaste is as palatable as I would want.

This post also derives inspiration from BeeGees' "I Started a Joke". It has a beautiful melody and the lyrics are crystal clear, which is appropriate for the kind of the discourse the song has. The actions, and the opposite effect they trigger. This last year has seen that happen more than its fair share.
Even memes, of this year show, (especially the surprised Pikachu meme) the obvious expectation the speaker should've had of their actions, but missed it.

Pika.....Pi?

Somehow, I cannot help but feel this song isn't as much about the failure but of continuity after the failure. Which is a different kind of peace to have.

If 2017 was about finding your voice, 2018 has definitely been about making it heard, and living past it. Be it any aspect of life, this year has been one of ample opportunities and I could imagine nothing better. There have been euphoric highs and charged lows, but the beauty of it would have to be the transient nature of both and the tranquillity that settles when you realize life's progression is slow enough for you to cause ripples, but too strong to be altered. The fact that you matter, but not enough to take yourself too seriously. Vague? Yes. Do you need to be in a constant state of indecisiveness and crisis because of it? No.

This year has been the existential version of the exercise of invention and it has had its share of hits and misses and for once the most invigorating feeling has been not just the possible exhilaration of success but the sheer power of acceptance and joie de vivre. While anticipation and expectations still are overwhelming entities circling around, for once they seem not all so omnipotent.

A lot went to into making this happen. This was by no stretch accomplished over a day but by constantly moving ahead. It is far too easy for us to abandon ourselves when we need our own help the most and there is no amount of text available anywhere in the world which can make you empathise with yourself. Which is tough to make happen until you understand why you deserve all the credit, and leniency you're willing to extend to others. You haven't done anything to alienate yourself and your misery isn't a consequence or a punishment. It's a side-effect of ignoring the voice that seeks your help to heal itself and so needs to be addressed first by you and then by the help that you need. Acknowledging your reality is the first step that will set you free from yourself.

If you think about it, it isn't even just about us as individual people anymore. World over, people are beginning to pick themselves up from grim realities of the situations they are in and are putting in their backs and breaking them for the good fight. People who are pushing relentlessly for reforms for environment, for civil liberties and rights are mobilizing resources and people for the benefit of society and despite overwhelming odds they are fuelled by the strength of their vision and the belief in the power of change. We aren't alone when we succeed or fail. We haven't ever been. We are just one of the many who are marching ahead with the tide of time and as long as we are doing what we can to  make this place better we are ticking all the boxes we ever were meant to. What's better is that it doesn't seem to be in isolated pockets. It is a constant shower of sparks all around us.

In close, 2018 was a mixed bag. A lot was happening and maybe a lot more I missed out on but, if anything it seems like the right note to start of 2019. Just the right amount of peace, anticipation, serenity and sprinkling of still forming wisdom. I think we're laying a good foundation for us to iterate and change, and if it doesn't work, we're surely ready to roll up our sleeves and work on it again.

Happy 2019!

Looks Like Morning In Your Eyes

My last post was on 29th December. Funny, how exactly 364 days later I write this one. I think this is the ultimate deadline procrastination. Because all said and done, I can get away with avoiding the burdening weight of knowing "It's been a year since I last posted anything on this blog I'd promised myself to really maintain this year.....ooh, salty snacks." To be fair that is how a lot of my conversations have ended in the past one year.

Anyway, while I thought of making this a reminiscent post, I'll do something for a change. I will try to make it one full of hope and try to make a prediction for how great this next year is going to be. Honestly if half the media outlets can still banter on about how this is the year of the apocalypse, It's pretty okay for me to be optimistic and hopeful. The only negative possibilities, if we're both wrong (meh, nothing worse) ; if they're right and I'm wrong (jeez, how does it even matter? We'll all probably be looking to go to the ships in China).

I think the next year is going to be a lot about awakening. Personally, the last couple of years have seen me grow a little more cynical day by day and not willing to believe that the world has infinite possibilities. But, as it turns out, it is one of these infinite possibilities that sees me combining the two most critical human qualities for moving ahead, curiosity and hope.

As a world, we've been stuck in lots of crap. Isolationism is on the rise, intolerance is getting more rampant, we're getting bogged down by some insane distractions that are taking away the focus from facts and issues that should matter to us all, but somehow despite all the murky waters we seem to be wading into, there is this strong Force if you will, that seems to be shining even if as the smallest beam from the small nook that seems like it can't be missed. Also, how poetically appropriate is that, it is only in the darkest situations that you can appreciate even the smallest flash and ray of light.

I think that is something we need to take forward in the coming year. For all the factions, there are insane way and causes that are uniting us. For all the new problems that are developing, generations, of people are cutting across boundaries to find a solution. There is some accountability in some people who want to take up the problem despite knowing futility and do something about it, because of the sheer determination driving them.

People who earlier chose to stay quiet are trying to be more forthcoming, and while now they're getting lost in the stormy screams of a lot of noises, you can make them out like the faintest whispers of a hymn or a clarion call at the distance, that assures you while you might feel alone, seem alone, be alone, you're not. There is someone somewhere in a similar fight somewhere also in thinking the same thing and if not for anything else, it is for them and yourself that you can pick up this fight and take it ahead because in the words of a capitalistic tagline, "You ARE worth it".

Honestly, I think this is what the next year should be about. There is a lot we have to deal with, a lot of spill over, a lot of issues, but none of them are so big that we can't imagine a way to try fixing it. We're creatures in a cosmic wonder, on a blue marble in the edge of a star system in an ever expanding Universe where the concept of time is something which can just boggle us, and yet we seem to be able to fight Mondays every week. I think another set of 365 days or a walk around the local Solar park for our planet, is nothing but an opportunity for us to look back, both personally and in some way as some sort of collective, and remark at how we did do something we feel contributed to the world and yet be charged to only look forward and find the next challenge to meet and tree to climb.

Happy 2018!

Honest Facebook-ing.

Yes. I must not, but I know I will. What can I say? I am a creature of habit. I let the lights be off, I slowly get off my bed and move towards the laptop. The dimmed light shines on my face and shows the darkness. I logon and open the window. Then I type in the search and before you know it I am halfway down the road I took an oath to avoid. Facebook is probably the biggest blackhole out there.

But hey. It’s just for this once, it isn’t like I’m hooked to it or anything. Right? Right? Like if you agree with me. Oh no sorry.

So I click on the tab that says my name. Because at my age having an identity crisis is probably the most trustworthy thing I know of. Of course subconsciously I probably expect this to tell me everything about myself. About how I can live my life and more importantly how I should. I expect it to show me all those who consider me important in an effort to highlight that my existence is validated by the approval of others. I write a clever status, poking fun at an advertisement of some political matter because this is the age where I can be brushed aside as an immature cynic by the middle aged and as a middle aged individual by the young toddler “13 year olds”. Why either figure on my friend list is probably a matter of discussion for another full moon night.

But wait, this isn’t helping. I get it I am funny and witty but that isn’t satisfying the gnawing feeling I am having inside. Like when you’re at a buffet and you don’t have sweet for dessert. This doesn’t feel right. Oh thank the lord and saviour MZ for giving me the option to explore my home screen. Probably seeing others lives will help me feel better about my own insecurities. Because obviously everyone portrays their lives as they actually are. Not like from one high to another. Right? Right? Share if you ag….oh shoot I did it again.

Oh look, my college friend is doing a cross country road trip across another continent. Ha. This is the same guy who failed to get the seat in the metro which anyone playing varsity (in the metro Olympics) should have won. Ha. Yeah, I bet he really regrets that now. Moving on. 

Oh hey cool, a school friend got a new job. No kidding, I thought this guy was hibernating. Haven’t heard from him for ages. Wait, why has my other school friend got married? Wait, has she got married to my other school friend? Are you serious?

I'll just leave this here, shall I?

                                              

Oh okay, here’s my first favourite hipster page. Hahahaha, would you look at that. They captured my pain of existence and nicely coated it with pseudo humour to make it look like existentialism isn’t a crippling condition and in the words of some coach somewhere can be just laughed off. I wonder if that’s just a polite way to accept that trying to solve your problems means an entirely different verb followed by off from the Universe.

 Oh hey, this friend is finally writing. I am so glad. In fact I remember this one moment when we both had discussed about pursuing writing and had similar reservations about it. I guess if she has picked it up now, I might soon too right? Right? Tag a friend who….oh for crying out loud.

Hey is that my arthritic relative? Wow it really shows in this dance that they are doing. I mean arthritis is probably the kindest explanation I can give for whatever they are doing in that baraat.

Oh hey, my colleague from my previous firm is going on assignment to some Scandinavian country. Yeah I am pretty sure I did not want that. He did. I guess that insulates me from feeling a twinge of regret for not having followed the generic path of success. Thankfully I trust my decisions and rarely question myself. Can you imagine anything to the contrary?

I bet I've probably seen the worst of things now. I mean what could actually  be left?..............
The Overdosing Punctuators. NO!!!!!!!!!!! (SWEET IRONY!!!!! NOOOOO!!!!!.....yeah this can go on for a while)

*scrolling on*

Wait, Trump said what? He can’t say that. I mean he can but he really shouldn’t. I mean he has political ambitions right? Doesn’t that mean you have to be careful about what you say? Oh hey, what is this “Go to Pakis..” okay my bad.

Oh hey, its already 2. I should probably head to bed. Oh hey is that the sound of a devil spawn behind me that if I turn around will take away my soul? I mean I don’t really need sleep right?  Let’s explore the depths of my harddrive. Ooh, generic series I have seen probably a hundred times. I bet I can watch a season before I regret my decisions right? Oh well, won’t know for sure till I try.

Image credits: http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-unhappy.html