n the name of the father...

There are times… and then there are times. If only you had a relay-switch to turn your life off... momentarily so and take in the sights and sounds of the journey that we all call ‘life’, which other times, would have whizzed past into oblivion..

The times when you feel that your mettle is being tested, that the world has lined up against you and that you are merely a guinea pig in God’s elaborate experiment on the String theory. Frustration feeds itself and voila… the domino effect. Things start affecting other things, more dangerously… other people too. People whom you care for and who care for you.

We are all instruments of our instincts. We are designed to act on hunches. The sixth sense, some may call it. Its like being in love. You just know it. Why and how become secondary responses. That is the ‘it’ factor. That what the nike guys want us to do. IT.

Training your mind to achieve goals is hardest thing to do… Its like programming ROM because reprogramming it to achieve a different objective is tough as hell.

Your inhibitions claw you back on the road to salvation. Your fears stuck on the rewind switch in your head. Playing over and over.. sometimes you feel trapped in one of those revolving doors painfully whizzing around driving an asphyxiating sense of nausea.

But you tell yourself, you’re a soldier, your job is The Job; like one of the crusaders; you don’t give a damn what’s right and what’s not; you trudge on and do your job.

You are a pawn cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.

You have a fight on your hands. In your mind, with your mind; fighting it in its own backyard aint easy. But if u came here looking for easy meat, god help you !

Take it one day at a time and pepper your faith with belief to exorcise the demons in your head.

AMEN!!!

" screw you guys... im going home "

- Eric Cartmen.

FUCK THE SYSTEM

SYSTEM of a DOWN

There are many things that make you Indian. Things that are distinctly desi.

A penchant for spicy food, amazing sense of conversion of any currency into INR when shopping abroad, unparalleled love for cricket and of course a tendency to blame the system for the most mundane of problems.

Problems that we can do nothing about or want to do nothing about are attributed to the system. Engineers and graduates remaining unemployed, it’s the systems fault. The phone’s dead. It’s the systems fault. Your neighbor’s son isn’t admitted into the top of the line medical college and you are told it’s the systems fault. The Indian cricket team loses a test match or Tendulkar is out of form, the matches are thrown, it’s the systems fault. Worse, you jump a red light and unashamedly pay Pandu fifty bucks and as soon as you are within an earshot of him, you crib about corruption and curse the system again.

The inexplicable ability to find fault in the system and look for reason everywhere but within is something all of us are gifted with.

What is this system? Who is this system? Why is it in such bad shape?

No one knows and quite frankly no one even cares anymore. But all take pride in cursing it. Why is it so? Do we find solace only in bringing others down? Are we so frustrated that we have to blame everything on some thing that quite frankly is our own creation?

This “system “has been nurtured by our very own selfish needs. When we weigh what is right n morally correct against what is faster to get over and done with, righteousness and morality get chucked out of the window. This is the case with every one of us who bend the rules to fit their needs and then have the nerve to curse it when it doesn’t work for you.

To roughly answer the questions above, the system is a mythical entity of our own creation. The babudom that is very prevalent in government offices today is also of our very own doing. Quite frankly put, the system is US. We are the system. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, students… all components of this well greased machine.

It has already been made ample clear that it is in shambles. Every office is riddled with dishonesty, every company diseased with corruption. Every palm is greasy and every wallet opens out to grease it even more. At least we have come to realize something is wrong. So the next logical question should be ‘what do we do about it?’

Here is the tough part. Introspection is a skill we need to develop before looking for excuses. Instead of passing the buck, we must stand up and be counted. We need to change our thinking, our attitude, ourselves to change the system.

We need to do what is right and not what is easy. Take the righteous route even if it means taking longer. Refuse the touts who can get your work done but at a price. The next time you are asked a bribe, you look that prick straight in the eye and refuse and urge others to do the same. Pay all taxes on time. Pay all tolls fares. Don’t spare anyone who doesn’t.

It’s about time this generation rises from its slumber and becomes active in the struggle to make India a better place to live in. The way that it was conceptualized as a free nation 50 odd years ago. This generation, our generation believes in ‘here and now…’ so its here and it’s got to be now or never. We can’t shamelessly let the corrupt gang rape the system day after day. The youth must rise in rebellion against to system for its own good. Quite like the modern avatar of the exodus where the present machinery is exhumed only to find a better society rise from the ashes like a dazzling phoenix. Its time to do the needful, to do what it takes to rid the nation of this disease. So the next time you jump a red light ask for a receipt. Better still don’t jump the red light. So if you think we will take everything lying down or think we care a damn. Think again. The generation has awakened. The rebel is here. Here to stay

Mirror mirror...

A regular day, atleast for me, begins with the teeth-brushing ritual. Key components for t-b ritual are the brush,paste and of course the mirror. The mirror..hmm.. the weapon of vanity. For all that the guys curse the womenfolk to be vain.. they match upto them inch by inch.. only doing it in silence..like how they read womens' magazines to understand..or alteast attempt to decipher the female thinking mechanism..
Now, as i was saying... the first thing that you do when u are about to shave/bathe.. is look into the mirror... This is by far the most real(-est) part of your day. NO pretences, no mask, no covering up its you baring all.. to..well.. you. That is what makes it real. You look into the mirror and wonder how little you have changed from yesterday and how much you have changed from the previous years. The spectrum is enormous. The quiet moments that you spend attempting to gauge how much stubble have you grown and why your hair is how it is.. is just a sham.. its just your minds way of camouflaging what you are really thinking. Its funny, a lot of people dream in front of the mirror but shy away from admitting it. i was asked this by a very pretty girl..once..in the dead of the night.. which was kept alive only by her intellectual stimulus....well.. she asked me.. "when was the last time you spent 5 minutes dreaming" to which i replied.. i never did. now i realised i lied.. i apologise. i dream or atleast try to.. in front of the reflective rectangle of silica.
Its quite natural. the mirror is a very logical tool to read the present in reference with the past while constructing your future detail-by-detail. That explains why the a broken mirror brings one 7 years of bad luck.
Its also one of the few opportunities that you look yourself in the eye and ask questions, remenisce,reason and retort to your own demons. Simple things like this makes ones life real, One get in touch with the inate yet sometimes dormant human fabric within them.
So that makes a very good reason why buddhist monks in their final legs of acheiving nirvana shun the mirror, because they dont want to be reminded of their human-ness.
So the next time you look into the mirror.. ask yourself and not the mirror..some real questions.

Ezekiel 25:17. "The path
of the righteous man is beset on
all sides by the inequities of the
selfish and the tyranny of evil
men. Blessed is he who, in the
name of charity and good will,
shepherds the weak through the
valley of darkness, for he is truly
his brother's keeper and the finder
of lost children. And I will
strike down upon thee with great
vengeance and furious anger those
who attempt to poison and destroy
my brothers. And you will know my
name is the Lord when I lay my
vengeance upon you."

Reverberating Silence

Ever seen those simpson cartoons.. Where there is a evil homer telling HOMER J SIMPSON to do the thing that is best for him.. And there is the angelic homer who advises him to do the right thing.
Has it ever torn you apart... making decisions that you probably have no control over.. the only control that you have is the pretence that you create to satisfy your control-freak nature.. then crib about how you cant help anything. But u can.. im sure you could.. cant you ? Not so sure now. am I ?
The two sides of the same coin.. the two facets to the same story.. the two surfaces of a plane... action-reaction.. the cause and the effect.. it kills you.. all of this.. thinking too fast.. or thinking two slow.. moving ahead.. or dwelling on.. both have its share of side-effects.. the mind is a one of a kind bitch.. it plays these dirty tricks on you sometimes..

Leaves you with no hope sometimes.. then a mirage flashes in front of you.. you know that its a mirage.. that its not for real.. or probably not the right word.. that it is not for ever. momentary... just like the span of the flashing mirage.. but the hopelessly thirsty then longs for the mirage again.. fully aware that its going to get him no-where..atleast not in a position of that persons choice.
There might be times where you have to roll with the times.. just swim with the current.. its especially tough for some who probably don’t identify with the norms of the times..nor respects the currents.. but circumstance make you fall to your knees.. and if you resist.. then its only a matter of time that the baton comes swinging at the back of ur knees... then you have to fall.. even the might Genghis khan did.. so did Caesar..
They all crack.. its only the duration that differs.. time reduces the egos of the tallest peaks to commonplace rubble.. its only a matter of time..

They say truth is stranger than fiction... true because two dimensional fictional character is painted with black or white.. with the occasional dollops of grey.. but real life has characters colored with the myriad of colors..some of the shades inexplicable.. but you love them.. you don’t know why... they are like those weird wall hangings.. that you love .. they don’t go with your room.. they don’t gel with the color. hell you don’t even have a place to hang them up.. but u love them.. if some1 asks you.. why... ? you look them in the eye and pretend that they are speaking mandarin...

Haiku :
Why are you laughing?
This little game called life is
Deadly serious.


“It’s always darkest before it turns absolutely pitch black. "

- Paul Newman

Nihilism anyone ??

After explaining the paradox of the cage-like freedom, a result of being liberated through the death of God and the nature of all life as a will to power, Friedrich Nietzsche predicts the next step in human evolution, the ubermensch (or overman). Nietzsche's outline for the overman as a possible to solution to the paradox of freedom is prevalent in the film Fight Club.

The overman, says Nietzsche, must be willed: we must not be content with our current state of mediocrity, but strive for perfection. Nietzsche points out, though, that if perfection is accomplished, then the process has ended, and growth ceases. The overman seeks to overcome everything she/he has internalized from external sources, especially society and religion. "The striving for distinction," as Nietzsche calls it, is the process of creating something that is truly one's own (a self); through the will to power, the overman reaches self-realization, but does not stop there. Because of the "will of spirit," the overman continually creates a new self by surpassing (overcoming) the old self: by continually taking risks and always accepting responsibility for her/his actions and vaules, the overman lives by her/his self-created values, realizing she/he is these actions, thus acquiring freedom through growth.

Fight Club's protagonist, "Jack" proclaims that he was "close to being complete," to which his alter-ego, Tyler, responds "Never be complete, stop being perfect; I say let's evolve." Tyler echoes Nietzsche's advocation that man should will the overman, and gives Jack the insight that "The things you own end up owning you." When the film begins, Jack has not yet realized that his life has become defined by external sources and not his own will, but he is introduced to Tyler's philosophy that "Self destruction could be the answer".

Later in the film, Jack tells a police investigator "That wasn't just stuff that got destroyed, that was me": he believes that his possessions create his identity (self), but he beings listening to Tyler, who spouts such insight as "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." Here Tyler refers to the overman's process of overcoming those aspects of one's self not truly one's creation, but an internalization of external sources.

The theme of the overman as self-creating is exemplified in the film: Tyler tells Jack "You are not your job...the contents of your wallet...your sic. khakis," and once Jack realizes that he is Tyler, he sees that he has created his self. Only when Jack takes responsibility for his creation of Tyler does he experience growth (as per Nietzschean guidelines) and understand his freedom from putting society in the place of God as he had formerly done. Nietzsche would explain Jack's creation of a new person by the end of the film as the will of his spirit and his having overcome everything within him, including his self-created self Tyler. Thus Jack, as the overman in Fight Club, takes responsibility for his actions and values, and endures the process of self-overcoming: he calls the end of the film "the beginning," stating, "My eyes are open. Everything's gonna be fine."

"It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!"

-Friedrich Nietzsche