Fear & Perception!

What is being smart? To some clever is smart to others wise is - between wise and clever one can, should it be a pressing need, combine entire human intellect, all that it has been accumulated over the history of millions of years of existence and evolution. Our minds are stronger than ever, thanks to the continuous process of evolution. It not only is the space for us to heap impressions which we term knowledgeable but also the only tool to imagine. Imagination is a wonderful gift that we’ve, creativity, solutioning, literature and all that makes our world liveable comes from the cognitive ability of our mind - it oddly enough is also the place where we manufacture fear!

Fear in its most eliminatory form is ‘worry” - about health, finances, relationships, family, love, prestige and everything else that care for. Interestingly, all of this is always about the future, a future that we aren’t really sure of even reaching. A future that will remain a mystery so long as some sharp brain defies what Einstein had to say about possibilities of time travel. We really do not know .. why do we still fear, then?    

Whether we like it or not, our worlds are interdependent, nothing in today’s time, operates in isolation! Oil prices that fluctuate in the deep deserts somewhere in the middle of the world .. almost instantly affect prices of goods up on hills and down in the beaches for those who drive as well as those who get driven, at the same time.

Economy of one is economy of all - we only contribute in our individual capacities, we do not get to control it completely, much like fear! We only manufacture it in our thoughts.

In our fertile minds we in almost no time pick of piece of past .. apply all that can possibly go wrong with the construct, arrange it an order which seems believable and then start considering it to be a prototype of our very own future - in one word, we - hallucinate, about something which may actually never happen. There is another devil that fuels the fire of fear - I’ve known it by the name of “Perception”

Away from commerce .. all of us also trade in the currency of “perception”, one that we also incidentally generate in our minds, in an absolutely unregulated fashion- it has immense value. It makes many deals, breaks many a possibility and even helps to create & garden support. Yes, you heard me right. 

I truly believe that you can’t have an opinion and be unbiased at the same time. If you hold a view, may well be supported by facts, you have reasons to consider true, still by supporting a side of an argument, dismissing another or all other in one way or the other - you eat on the grounds of neutrality.

“I do not know” is the only unbiased ground that exists in reality .. every other piece of existence has been taken over by some perception or the other. 

Not all perceptions are bad or amount to judgments which are negative or separatists in nature, some also help people unite - in the name of religion, against common fear and enemy! A considerable chunk of our day goes in creating and defending some of these, perceptions. 

It is a bloody mind game: I want to be seen in a particular way, I want to be understood, I want to be praised, the reward should be mine .. etc are the motivators and also the enablers for why we put up a fight against those facts and feelings that paint us otherwise, directly or suggestingly. 

It is all in the mind, really.

From thought to it being a thing - at every stage, we impact and affect ‘people’ .. for the fact that there are 7 billion of us on this planet, breathing, dreaming, creating, fighting, reconciling every moment to achieve & accumulate - and therefore it is important we do not lose sight of that fundamental fact - whatever you do it is about people, fellow humans. The thing to remember here, fear, helps nothing.

So, even if your fear is rooted in perception going bad - it still would not do any good to how things may actually turn out to be. You can only guess and your guess would be just as good as mine.

God created us all equal, with a pair of Lungs and Kidneys (I’ve three .. coz I’m rich) - he built in us senses that respond to feelings more than facts. If we like somebody, we willingly walk the extra mile .. if we do not, moving even an inch is a task comparable to scaling the heights of Everest overnight. Our value systems may be different, we may come from diverse soci-economic worlds, may pray differently. Like beef or detest it vehemently - at the end of it all, we feel the same way. Rain, sun, dust, smoke, snow, mist, humidity affects us all in the same manner - enough reason for us to believe - we’re same.

So how about taking a long and nice walk to the beach, boarding a ferry to drift away from the shore - finding a heavy stone to tie the bag of perception covered in fear with and then drop it in the sea and watch it drown for good?

Think of it!! Haemoglobin levels in your blood determine the volume of oxygen that will be delivered to your organs, strength of your heart will determine how much of a fluctuation will your veins take -it is all within you and very much under control, so drop you fear in the sea, drown them deep and forget about it as you have forgotten about that test you did not do well when you were a kid.

It doesn’t matter - how people think about you! It doesn’t matter how you think about them - what matters is how you contribute to making your life meaningful and that of others. Best thing to do really is living in the moment that really exists, this current moment, this is all you got, the moment that preceded it is over will never come back, you do know if there is a succeeding moment, for sure. We're all going to one day become a load of cold delaying cells .. but till that day comes - make sure you think about matters that are existential and live free of perceptions and fear!

Have a great weekend! 

Friends & Friendship

"Friends are a need and not luxury" is an expression that would garner general consensus, without much deliberation/justification. No matter what age group one is in, what educational background on comes from or caste, creed, color, health status or anything else - everyone has friends, needs friend(s).

That brings me to the vital question - who are these creature we call friends? Are they "objects of agreement", "common ground","extension of immediate society" or "selfish manifestations"? Who are these people we call friends?

Finding a direct answer to this question is impossible, everyone has friends,but still unable to answer this question - why is it so? It isn't a mathematical equation or a chemical reaction that the solver/performer knowns from the stage/step of activity - it is certainly something intangible, which is related to the inner self. We know when we get to meet someone new, we know how many times we met , where and over what - but non of us know for sure, which was that moment , when an acquaintance becomes a friend? It is just as strange as true!

Here is my take on those prominent categories that came to my mind - 

#1) "objects of agreement". All of us lack wisdom, witt, reason on something or the other on an everyday basis - and it is this lapse that earns us disagreements, criticism and on some extreme situations rifts too! It is in these moments , we feel the need to have someone,who would stand with us beyond the call of logic and judgment - and here starts the search of such gullible beings who we forcefully gotten in friendship with - these are truly. -"objects of agreement"

#2) "common ground" :- Many of us hold different views on how something shld be done, but largely agree on the need for the thing to be done - these are people who may take varied routes but there destinations are more often then not common - for this common ground - people call themselves in friendship, a friendship of common grounds.

#3) "extension of immediate society" :- No matter how self-reliant one is , the shear reality of being in a place, with same people, involuntarily gets people to talk, share' thus quite unnaturally accept the faces one spends daily routine with as friends, these friends are extension of immediate society, mostly found at workplace.

#4) "selfish manifestations" : - At the end the most undesirable form of friendship, one in which people are together purely because being with the person in question is profitable - most selfishly untrue in nature but unfortunately is called friendship too - 

If we were to be true to ourselves, we wouldn't be able to deny having friends or being friend to others as part of all the four categories - my only submission is try to get more and more people to become friend on common ground from being friends from the extension of immediate society.

Simply put, friendship is the smile that brings the heart to beat normally, that strength that enables us to compete fiercely, that light which when falls on objects lets our eyes see them beautifully.

With the payer that you earn enough and more friend - I'm ending this.

Love, what is it? from 'the guy I know'

Love - what is it ?- when such questions are posed to 'the guy I know' his already short collection of ideas and experiences of life, almost in a flash start appearing even shorter & hollower, and with such limitations he can't ignore the question, that's not the option for him! To accurately define his mental status on the question of love - 'the guy I know' says, it feels like searching 'love' in Google and it returns - "don't ask me things, I'm not sure about ?!?#?!*?....

With little determination, a lot of  fear & super anxiety - 'the guy I know' makes an attempt. He says, we have all have grown up hearing love stories - some of us have been part of some (some more actively than others ), we have read about it, heard stories of honour killing as a consequence of love, courtesy more sensations & less responsible media. No matter how socially uninformed or not so well read one may be- the idea of love would have certainly got transmitted through celluloid (the srk kinda flicks)

Love is perhaps, most 'talked, thought, read' but least known subject to generation that 'the guy I know' belongs to - to such well fed ambiguity & super charged curiosity, will 'the guy I know' be able to do any justice? Well let's find out. He says, to understand it, let's start from where does 'love' originate from? Is it initiated by attraction or the need to be in companionship or the eternal desire of humans to be loved or idealization? The real root cause is perhaps unknown but we can arrive at some conclusion (may not be concrete) when we associate it with age group - 'attraction' - might drive a teenager or a fist timer to it, while a lonely working fellow might see companionship as the primary reason, for someone who is level headed & generous, might find 'the desired to be loved' applicable to his case but the last one 'idealization' is present in all forms but in different shares.

'The guy I know' is a lover himself & that's the sole reason why I don't mind turning an ear to his response to the question - he says - love is sense of security & content - the person you love slowly replaces the idea of self security with well being of the person you love - love gives immense satisfaction when everything is in shape but when things don't follow desire/expectations the same very love can become even more suffocating than a gas chamber! Loves is essentially a statement of 'care, promise, commitment’ & above all acceptance of your partner in love, in his/her current state! The scope to change the person you love is bleak but love changing both the parties into 'desirable' if fortunate & completely out of gear, if unfortunate, is almost certain in all circumstances!

'The guy I know' is largely in agreement with the statement which says, love is madness, but differs with many on what he considers 'madness' in love - in most occasion, he thinks, when we love someone deeply, we tend to forget that the person we love is also an individual and therefore, the person would need personal space, will have opinions about things & matters, which may not match with your own world view, the person may have other valued relationships like friends, family, career which will still exist - if you are lucky these aspects would 'co- exist' with consent of your love and if unlucky & hence in the state of madness these truths (about your partner) )are likely to defied and rejected and then the madness will cost nothing less than your love- so make a choice, you want to be mad in love - lose your love for madness and then go mad on your loss or be mad enough to behave sensibly and thus remain sane and in relationship?

'The guy I know' is in complete sync with the expression - 'love is blind' - rather in his view, love should be blind to matters which don't reality matter in long run - like 'external appearance' & yes 'past' in fact one needs to turn blind to externals so that he/she gets enough time to see, feel & assess the internals (what's the person made up of - values, principal & views) and needs to turn not only blind but also deaf to the calling of past- after all we are all entitled to have a past and its private to us, you share whatever you share only from the moment your proposal of love is understood & accepted - so don't let 'past & externals' blind you of your love!

Love is most strongest of all human bonding & most important too, being an average middle class Indian, 'the guy I know' thinks every love (if it actually qualifies to be called love) should end in a the association of marriage and therefore he says, before you say 'yes' - know what are you getting into, coz when strong part of you (love) breaks, it leaves you weak (alone & sad)!

'the guy I know', concludes by saying - its lovely to be in love & for its lovely being in - we shld always be in love :)