They say that how you see the world is a reflection of what's cooking in your own head. Fear seeks fear, love finds love and happiness meets happiness. Is that true? If yes, what does a repetitive, unexplained, sensation of being jolted mean? Living in a tectonically active zone, every such jolt makes me stand up ready to run for safety, only to realize that the jolt was only inside my head. I look around, mystified, perplexed, only to see people carry on with their lives and tasks while I just felt a fear for life, a need to run for life, as a consequence of only my imagination and deranged mind.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Out of time
Have you given an exam where you know little? You can't say you know nothing, because you have read something, but you don't expect yourself to excel at the test.
The test kicks off and you go around fiddling with the paper; turning it over, looking for the questions that you think you can solve. You don't solve them right away, but you just glance through them to make you feel you know something, which turns out to be very little. So, you start writing; trying out the simple ones first, trying hard not to falter. You don't want to be the loser who couldn't even get the simple ones right! You take your time, you work them out slowly, you check and then re-check. The goal? Maximize the marks you can get. While you are solving the easy ones, your brain takes the liberty to wander off. You start thinking about the fun you are going to have after the test, you start thinking of all that lies after and it lightens you up.
Half the time is up and you are barely done with the questions you truly know, when it starts sinking into you that this test is important. You begin contemplating the consequences of a low score on this one. Even the thought of the aftereffects are scary and you might actually have to live with it! Panic strikes and takes over. There's despair and few moments of self-vituperation for not being serious about it before, not being serious about it until now! You start hoping for a miracle; you hope against all hope that you come out of this test victorious and not a failure.
And the miracle does happen! You look down at the paper and the questions you couldn't make sense of start looking solvable, parts of the book and the few classes that you attended start hovering in front of your eyes and you know you can save yourself. You want to wait and smile at this sudden transition, this moment of enlightenment, but there's no time for that; you have to squeeze out every second left. You look back at the clock to see how much time is left and you can't keep yourself from silently uttering "F**k". You would like to get up and accept that you are the stupidest man in the room, but there's no time for that. You put pen to paper and start writing, writing whatever comes to your mind, stopping only to look at the clock and wonder if the clock suddenly decided to go faster.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. You can hear the clock and your pulse; are they in rhythm? Is the clock actually going that fast? You don't have time to wait, there's just under ten minutes left. If you had time, you would have wondered why a man is judged by what he writes in those 3 hours. If you had time, you would wonder why the humans didn't evolve to be able to share through electromagnetic waves; that way your speed won't limit your success. But you can't think about it because there's simply no time. Every moment spent thinking and not writing, every eye movement spent checking the time left, every moment spent turning pages and every other moment spent not reproducing your thought seems a waste.
Too much to do and too little time! Now you don't even need to look at the clock, you know it's better to just carry on writing. You lift your head up as you think and look write back at the paper as you realize that invigilators have started agitating. You catch a glimpse of your peers. Some have given up and are waiting for it to end. Some are putting down their final words. Some are going through their answers looking for mistakes. But some, like you, are furiously writing, writing as fast as their body will allow. In them, you seek camaraderie. You know you are not alone, but tremendously outnumbered.
Too much to do and too little time before the time is up! If you know how those final moments feel like, you know how I feel to have just 2 months left before my final semester ends.
The test kicks off and you go around fiddling with the paper; turning it over, looking for the questions that you think you can solve. You don't solve them right away, but you just glance through them to make you feel you know something, which turns out to be very little. So, you start writing; trying out the simple ones first, trying hard not to falter. You don't want to be the loser who couldn't even get the simple ones right! You take your time, you work them out slowly, you check and then re-check. The goal? Maximize the marks you can get. While you are solving the easy ones, your brain takes the liberty to wander off. You start thinking about the fun you are going to have after the test, you start thinking of all that lies after and it lightens you up.
Half the time is up and you are barely done with the questions you truly know, when it starts sinking into you that this test is important. You begin contemplating the consequences of a low score on this one. Even the thought of the aftereffects are scary and you might actually have to live with it! Panic strikes and takes over. There's despair and few moments of self-vituperation for not being serious about it before, not being serious about it until now! You start hoping for a miracle; you hope against all hope that you come out of this test victorious and not a failure.
And the miracle does happen! You look down at the paper and the questions you couldn't make sense of start looking solvable, parts of the book and the few classes that you attended start hovering in front of your eyes and you know you can save yourself. You want to wait and smile at this sudden transition, this moment of enlightenment, but there's no time for that; you have to squeeze out every second left. You look back at the clock to see how much time is left and you can't keep yourself from silently uttering "F**k". You would like to get up and accept that you are the stupidest man in the room, but there's no time for that. You put pen to paper and start writing, writing whatever comes to your mind, stopping only to look at the clock and wonder if the clock suddenly decided to go faster.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. You can hear the clock and your pulse; are they in rhythm? Is the clock actually going that fast? You don't have time to wait, there's just under ten minutes left. If you had time, you would have wondered why a man is judged by what he writes in those 3 hours. If you had time, you would wonder why the humans didn't evolve to be able to share through electromagnetic waves; that way your speed won't limit your success. But you can't think about it because there's simply no time. Every moment spent thinking and not writing, every eye movement spent checking the time left, every moment spent turning pages and every other moment spent not reproducing your thought seems a waste.
Too much to do and too little time! Now you don't even need to look at the clock, you know it's better to just carry on writing. You lift your head up as you think and look write back at the paper as you realize that invigilators have started agitating. You catch a glimpse of your peers. Some have given up and are waiting for it to end. Some are putting down their final words. Some are going through their answers looking for mistakes. But some, like you, are furiously writing, writing as fast as their body will allow. In them, you seek camaraderie. You know you are not alone, but tremendously outnumbered.
Too much to do and too little time before the time is up! If you know how those final moments feel like, you know how I feel to have just 2 months left before my final semester ends.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Pen Pal
"Pen pal? What does that mean?", I had innocently asked my English teacher. Having studied in different schools at different cities, I find it hard to remember when and where exactly did I ask this question, but I have a clear memory of coming across this term in a classroom - or a memory hardened by my belief of it being true. In any case, the answer came as quite a surprise to me. Never before had I thought of a friend whom you had not met; a friend whose face you hadn't seen; a friend whom you hadn't heard; but just a friend with whom you had shared your life and got only experience in return. At first the idea amused me. It wasn't only a 'pal' who hadn't seen you but also a pal who knew as much about your life as you told him (using 'him' as the gender neutral pronoun); who judged on the small portion of life that you showed him; who couldn't shout at you; who couldn't see you create a world that you wanted him to see. A pen pal offered a person to lead another life, probably the one he would like to have led, and still have a friend in that fantasy world.
Despite the appeal of the idea, I never felt excited enough to try to have a pen pal. It was less due to lack of motivation but more because pen pals appeared a thing of the past, at least until very recently.
Fast forward into the present; pen pals might still seem a thing of the past in this world of emails and Instant Messages. Take away the pen-paper based letters from the custom of pen-pals, the visits to post-office, the long wait for reply, and replace it with emails and a new culture begins to appear. A culture so similar to that Pen Pals, that it is hard to believe that it had ever left our side. I am not sure if it was me, who was unaware of its ongoing existence all this while or has this generation revived something that probably should never have been lost in the first place.
So, have I been able to create the fantasy world I imagined it would help me build? No. Why? Because the correspondence didn't begin with the intent of forming long term bonds the only evidence of which were words exchanged over the Internet. Even before I knew I had found a friend in the person typing in those alphabets from another corner of the world, I had shared enough about myself to keep the friendship real and not just based on the person I would have wanted to be.
However, I have had the opportunity to learn more about myself. Written (or typed) words offer the possibility of re-reading your own words - a definite advantage over spoken words. This let me, quite unconsciously, observe myself as a person I knew little of. It let me be the observer of my own life and watch myself narrate it to another. I have been amazed, impressed and even disappointed by things that I have written.
Wittgenstein equated the writing of an autobiography with self-discovery. I would state that a pen pal serves the purpose just fine and probably is easier to come by. In this world where a person sitting in another part of the world is only a mouse-click away, I would urge people to find a 'pen pal' that can help you discover yourself.
Despite the appeal of the idea, I never felt excited enough to try to have a pen pal. It was less due to lack of motivation but more because pen pals appeared a thing of the past, at least until very recently.
Fast forward into the present; pen pals might still seem a thing of the past in this world of emails and Instant Messages. Take away the pen-paper based letters from the custom of pen-pals, the visits to post-office, the long wait for reply, and replace it with emails and a new culture begins to appear. A culture so similar to that Pen Pals, that it is hard to believe that it had ever left our side. I am not sure if it was me, who was unaware of its ongoing existence all this while or has this generation revived something that probably should never have been lost in the first place.
So, have I been able to create the fantasy world I imagined it would help me build? No. Why? Because the correspondence didn't begin with the intent of forming long term bonds the only evidence of which were words exchanged over the Internet. Even before I knew I had found a friend in the person typing in those alphabets from another corner of the world, I had shared enough about myself to keep the friendship real and not just based on the person I would have wanted to be.
However, I have had the opportunity to learn more about myself. Written (or typed) words offer the possibility of re-reading your own words - a definite advantage over spoken words. This let me, quite unconsciously, observe myself as a person I knew little of. It let me be the observer of my own life and watch myself narrate it to another. I have been amazed, impressed and even disappointed by things that I have written.
Wittgenstein equated the writing of an autobiography with self-discovery. I would state that a pen pal serves the purpose just fine and probably is easier to come by. In this world where a person sitting in another part of the world is only a mouse-click away, I would urge people to find a 'pen pal' that can help you discover yourself.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
How many lives have I touched?
"The question isn't who you are. The question is : who did I turn out to be ? Who am I to you ? Are faded chalk marks and scratches on the floor the only evidence that I was here., or did some scribbled note, some fragment of a proof invert your perception of the world, even confirm it, cementing what you knew in your heart to be true with the balance of left column to right? What footprints have I left behind? Do they endure, or has the ocean of discovery washed them away already? How many lives have I touched? Have I touched yours?"
- Charlie Eppes, Numb3rs (T.V. Series)
- Charlie Eppes, Numb3rs (T.V. Series)
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Any thoughts - Part 1
How do you distinguish between what you like and what you want to like ?Irritating question, right ? I know what you are thinking, "This guy's a nut-head. What does that question even mean ?" I won't blame you for having those thoughts because I am not even certain if there is a difference, but I have only a slightest bit of doubt.
A parent wanting a boy but ending up with a girl. The girl wishing to win the parent's love and eventually living most of her life trying to impress that parent, maybe even succeeding, yet doing something for someone else's happiness.No, no that plot is in no way related to me (you should have guessed that since I am not a girl in the first place :P ). All I am trying to do is drive home the point that there are cases where someone unknowingly forces oneself to like an activity or an outcome. But this example does have the problem that the girl really does have the desire to please the parent, which in turn leads her to accept something she might not have. (I did point out that I am just 'doubtful' of this entire thing, didn't I ?)
What I am trying to get at is what if 'some' consequence of an activity is what pleases you but not the activity itself and I am unaware of this fact ? "What's the harm of such a confusion ?", you'd ask. What if your interpretation drives you to do that activity often but get away from the consequence that you were looking for ? Would you still be happy ?
PS : As the title suggests, I intend to have this share a series of posts. If I will go ahead and share all of them is not certain, considering my laziness and a history of short-lived ideas.
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