Dreaming awake

every dream ends
so they say
and yet everyone sleeps

sleeps to forget
sleep to hide
all in vain

i had a dream
so vivid

so true
 

in the harsh sunlight
as i was

standing next to you

What is love?

This is a question that has been pondered upon by thinkers and non-thinkers alike for so many centuries. Each individual either writes about it or the lack of it. So many creative expressions have been a result of this is one emotion. I personally as well have been pondering about it from time to time.

So many attempts have been made to classify love. From divine to lustful, there is an entire continuum on which it finds expression. But again if we can these as expressions, then surely these are a mere manifestation. Then the question to be asked is, what lies beneath/ beyond, and what is it that is the root-cause of one of the most powerful and captivating emotion that man experiences.

People say that love is a state of being. If it is so then, love is just another emotional state. And like any other emotional state, transitory and affect based. By definition, emotion is the affective aspect of consciousness. This again brings us back into the cause-symptom loop, if love an emotion then it’s a symptom and now the cause. However, if we accept this premise we find attribute the seat of this emotion rooted in our neurology and hence hardwired in our brains and waiting for the right set of triggers. Instinctual love, as I would like to call it, doesn’t leave very far behind the animals, who in every mating season are compelled to go through the motions of copulation without the least bit of understanding of the whys.

Can love be rational? If love has a rational base then we can break it down to a mathematical equation. We can perform/ apply the rules of logic to it. We can add, subtract, multiply, divide it and find the resultant. This surely is not the case, as this paints a very manipulative picture of love. Yet, ironically, when we come to think of it, in real life this is the kind of love that we see around us so many times. Transactional love, as I would like to call it, involves give-and-take and book-keeping of all that one person does for the other and hence, an implicit expectation of return.

Popular cinema often equates love with sacrifice. The protagonist is portrayed as a suffering hero/ heroine. Love equals sacrifice equals suffering seems to the equation over here and hence. The more you sacrifice and the more you suffer the stronger is suppose to be your love, seems to the premise over here. Is love the same as sacrifice, if one person claims to be in love with another person and gives up everything for him/ her is that love? Sacrificial love, according to me is nothing more than a compromise. We all have our value system and our set of priorities, if one has to give them up, I would look at it more as a compromise rather anything else.

Religion talks of selfless love. Karmakaand (the ritualistic aspect of Hindu religion) and similar practices across all religion often equate social service and charity with love. Selflessness and acts of philanthropy have there own merits, there is no denying of that, but calling it love is something that is beyond my understanding. Selfless love, means to elicit the same response to all things in the world. As a meta-physical concept this is the most idealistic way ahead, however at the worldly level this surely seems to be the least understood and practiced.

There are so many connotations to this single word. Each school of thought tries to capture the essence of this emotion and bring forth there interpretations. As a free society surely there is no harm in doing so, but this starts to create problems when as a group or as an individual when there are attempts to impose these views over everyone else. This leads to a lot of fallacies, like, the government claims if you love your country then kill others on the battlefield, a number of extremist groups brainwash people and ask them to kill for religion and so on.

Love might still be an undefined concept for me, but as I start to think about it I certainly start realizing what it isn’t. And it might be an anti-thesis, but I have also started to realize that it is this very attempt to define and hence confine it to a selected operational framework that has caused so much distortion, and that too sadly, in the name of love.

I am so excited...

A good way to start the year is by spending time to plan it and making some good resolutions.

One of my resolution finally started to roll out. I joined a workshop on Creative Writing at Xavier's Institute of Communication, this is a six week part-time course with classes happening once a week (every wednesday). Now as a part of the course I had to take a sub-resolution to start writing some thing every day. So, I have decided to give atleast 15 minutes of dedicated (with a person of my kind of attention span, thats really something) time for this starting today for the next six weeks.

And hence my new blog- http://myexperimentalcreativity.blogspot.com/

Capitalism: still an ideal to be known...

One of my long term plan is to eventually move from the corporate world into the social services sector. However, the only difference being that this move will be from one service sector to the other. And will incorporate a movement of the skills that I will acquire and sharpen from the Management Consulting domain in which I am currently working.

This is the very reason by Social Entrepreneurship as a concept has fascinated me for so many years. Its a blend of business and social work, and can give sustainable solutions and not just idealistic talks.

Capitalism is the only system geared to the life of a rational being and the only moral politico-economic system in history - Ayn Rand

I have always been a big fan of Ayn Rand. Her writings have had a great impact on my thought process and have shaped my value system. Individualism as it exists in the modern society need to draw inspiration from such sources if its intended at created a positive and affirmative impact. It might again seem contradictory that one has to turn to individualism to become an change driver but as goes her famous quote on contradictions -

Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong. - Ayn Rand

Its easy to stay put on the face of external ambiguity but impossible to bear internal ambiguity. And the worst part is that the such internal conflicts can only be resolved by checking the base assumptions, which most of the people are plain incapable of doing and which is the cause of most of our miseries.

A life worth living will be one in no ideal is unknown or latent. The unknown ideal will be finally accepted and embraced not just a way but the way of life.

Mera Bharat Mahan...

As the year 2007 is winding up and we are all set to welcome 2008 with excitement, here are a couple of articles which surely set the mood -

The fastest-growing aviation market - http://specials.rediff.com/yearend/2007/dec/05yrbuz7.htm

The No 1 travel destination - http://specials.rediff.com/yearend/2007/dec/05yrbuz9.htm

The most attractive market for retail investment - http://specials.rediff.com/yearend/2007/dec/05yrbuz3.htm

The fastest growing telecom market in the world - http://specials.rediff.com/yearend/2007/dec/05yrbuz4.htm

Who am i ?

Striving for balance...

On a crazy tuesday at work the tought of having checks and balances in life strikes me. Living a fuller life and experiencing everything to the core is what one should strive towards not only at an individual level but collectively as well. And for us poor bachelors organisations should go ahead and implement... "Work-Eat balance"

:x

PS: I am halucinating about food since morning, more so of Nalen gurer sandesh

My first hanging in the air post...

30,000 ft above mean sea level :)

What happens when you are feeling happy from the inside and dont know what to do. And what makes the situation even more difficult to fathom is that this isnt a fleeting, momentary experience after several attempts of denial you realise that this is one of those metamorphic moments that you had always thought about.

There is a hindi couplet that I useto keep rehersing in my mind time and again. Just imaging the time, moment and the opportunity to actually use it for myself...

देर लगी आने में तुमको, शुक्र है फिर भी आए तो
आस ने दिल का साथ ना छोडा, वैसे हम घबराए तो

(der lagi aane mein tumko, shukr hai phir bhi aaye to aas ne dil ka saath ka choora, waise hum ghabraye to)

These lines are closest to what i meant and wished to be my last words and the end of a real long phase of strife. And now as I experience this phase gradually fading always from my life I feel much like a hopeless romantic whom Gulzarhas soo wonderfully captured in his words...

कोई रिश्ता नही रहा मगर फिर भी एक तसलीम लाज़मी सी है ...

(koi ristaa nahi raha magar phir bhi ek tasleem laazmi se hai )

Altought its all over, yet the ackowledgement is bound to be.

So apt and so true...

last but certainly not the least....

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

With an internship and job offer from a leading strategy and business management consulting firm, for a change I can say that I have started making headway in the direction that I forever wanted. A career in the feild of Strategy Consulting was a long cherished dream. And its only day 2 of my internship when I am already waistdeep on a client engagement that I have come to terms with the fact that I am finally there.

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

happy-less...

"Happiness must never be pursued, but should always ensue"

We spend so much of our time, energy and efforts on chasing happiness and yet at the end of each day find ourselves more tired and emotionally exhausted. That one fleeting moment of bliss which we experience at times makes life worth bearing and brings method in madness. And then, the very next moment after its gone we once feel lonely, miserable and cheated. We again go back to the tiring search where lies our only hope. This is an agony that we face and dont know how to get over.

So what is the way out ? (if there is a wayout)

A optimist will say - keep walking

A pessimist would turn into a cycnic

A logic driven person would remain equally clueless

And an emotional person like would write a blog ;)

To each onto his own. Or is it a self-serving Catch-22 ?