Is it our right to do it?

It's was a day of almost perfect victory for the Indian cricket team today. Almost immediately after the match, all of the five senses, of anyone in Mumbai (and it might not be too much of a long shot to include all-of-India), were instilled with the joys of the victory. You could hear the fireworks, you could see everybody cheering and going berserk. The celebrations were probably as much a success as the victory itself.


There is a careful consideration to be made, however, in what we cheer: Is it our victory we are cheering, or is it the loss of the opponent? In today's case, it is specially true that we may be cheering the loss of Pakistan more than we celebrate our own victory. In a sport, as in life, for they are much too similar, it is important to bear in mind that we may end up on the bottom of the ladder just as soon as we got up there. Our victory may just be temporary and that should we be on the other side, we wouldn't feel to good about others cheering our loss.


I do want to however make sure that the moment is not lost: We must celebrate our successes, and if we feel the need to be vain, we must gloat. We must magnify our strengths if our conscience makes us. We must delve in vanity, we must feel proud or we must simply kiss the soil underneath and pray to a god above. But we must also be careful to tread within the boundaries of our security. This foresight is one that is Gandhian: "Do unto others," and this is an important thing today, most of all.


Let's cheer our victory and not the losses of our opponents. For if we won fair and square, they lost fair and square: and, well, there was a 50/50 chance. If for whatever reason one feels that he is compelled, by his consciousness or conditioning, to celebrate the losses of our opponent, he must by all means do it. But he must realize that in case that he was to be on the other side, he mustn't feel contempt for being on there.


For we all may not agree with what you do when you cheer the losses, but we may not even care about defending your right to do it. In this "need" to celebrate another's losses, one might be misusing his freedom - or the lack thereof.


And of course, Go India.

Of luck and what we make of it.

I had a rather interesting conversation with someone yesterday, which made me realize how important a part luck plays in our lives. Lately I have been really feeling that whatever a man achieves is of his own doing - whether it is beneficial to his life or not. But many a times, lot of us are at simply at the right place at the right time, or know the right things, or have learned the right things to know how to make the best use of it.


If somebody is educated, it follows that he or she may be able to better utilize and appropriate the opportunities provided to him or her. But at the same time, when one is not educated or a degree-holder, the same might be true. Luck does, indeed, play an important role in the life of each one of us, and to not acknowledge it is mere blasphemy - not of religion, but of our own existence. 


On the very basic and scientific level, our existence, our coming to create the world as we know and the evolution of organisms itself may be attributed to either pure luck, or "survival of the fittest". This fitness, is innate to many of us, and to many of us it's not. Some are born weak, and some with herculean energies. If luck isn't what brings about these discrepancies, then what does?


Even in having the ability to think critically, sometimes things just strike the right chord, and conclusions follow - for example, if newton never discovered gravity, another scientist would have, and that is not to say that he wasn't a great mind, he did after all not discover everything that this world has come to believe (or scientifically prove). Being the best, being talented, being a polymath, or simply being happy - when many of our species aren't as lucky, I can attribute to pure luck. (and to the idea that there is a great force beyond us), but perhaps, our acknowledging that may also be pure chance.


In an effort to explain myself to those who believe that they are self-made, I only want to point out that the belief in yourself to be great, rich, earnest or famous, as much as it might be by the power of one's own will, the belief itself might have come about by a chance. If not so, then why are so many others (who may have read the secret or you can win) still faulter when it comes to believing in themselves? 


I do stand by that what comes to you is luck, but what you make of it you can attribute it to your own willingness to make something out of it. But that thought, may itself be pure chance. A one in a million miraculous chance. And you should feel damn well lucky to be that chance.

The david copperfield man

I had a rather strange dream last night. There were two men, evidently dressed in a suit and a top hat, much like you see on the sixties movies.

One of them was called david copperfield. And for absolutely no reason whatsoever - specially since i have not read the book by charles dickens - i believed that man to be the same david copperfield whom the book is based on. Now, im not aware if such a character even exists in Dickens' work of fiction.

Not much else happened in the dream except we were at a party and the man other than Copperfield was directing attention to the fact that Copperfield was, indeed, copperfield.

I suspect both my inclination to read that book, and watching the kings speech might have something to do with the dream. Although i cant explain the latter, other than its a movie from the (relatively) olden days.

This time

The timing never seemed more right,
for me to be who I want to be. There
was something about the way you
looked at me: it made me want
to change how I see

And how, in an instant you passed
through my life, like a distant dream,
a rocket seam I may never be able to truthfully explain.

If time passes like you did,
inevitable, quick, unexplainable;
I may never be able to fully love,
but if you only stayed and if you
only spoke and if you only asked
what you were to me maybe ill
truly love that instant.

When you speak of the beauty of
my work, your beauty shines through,
when you say nothing at all, your
memory shines through, when you're
with me I shine through and when
you're away my art shines through

If anymore of you means nothing at all,
then nothing of you means nothing at all.

The tragedy of most humanity
is the wrongness of time, and my
tragedy is that too.
A godlike craving that my prayers
deserve and they reserve it
ever now and then, you.

I can't promise you the sky and
the stars for you possess them
in you eyes. He would see the world
in them;
you would see yourself.

And between those lips are the words enlightening and without them
is the peace of eternity.

If the timing never seemed more right,
then there was no time at all;
if I didn't feel this way
I had never loved at all.

In the quiet silence of the night,
I know you'll be happy, I can promise
you mine; if the timing never seemed
more right, I can promise you me.

The more we know about others

In learning more about others we tend to try to understand them, predict their behaviors, likes, dislikes. This inevitably leads to making a judgement about who they are, sometimes to the detriment of that relationship. Most often we know only part of the story, half truths about what the other person is going through.

This is the only path that a true human relationship between any two people can take - better understanding would equal better friendship until it causes some disagreement and dont-step-on-my-toe moments. Some will get through that and others wont. To be a companion is not to judge, not to seek to understand, but to simply just be there. Not to generalize about what one should and shouldnt do.

Is the flipside of this to not find things to love about a person and not get close to them at all? Probably not. But the relationship only truly works so as long as there is no stepping on anothers toes, be it love, friendship or family. But at some point one person always believes they know whats right for another. And what then?

The truth is that this is each persons world and it is their own struggle. The rest of the world is here only to guide them when they needs - to that person, on a very fundamental and non emotional way, everybody else is the rest of the world.

Human struggles, as cliche as this may be, are much like if anyone helps a butterfly when it is in a cocoon, it struggles to survive. Everyone needs to go through the struggles they do and come out stronger.

As for others we need to be there for them; for our benefit its best to not to seek to understand, and if we do, we may keep it best to ourselves.

Thought

If we are here for now
we are here for love

The love for a thing
The love for someone
The love for a thought
Or the love for an idea

As it may be
All the same

Quote

“‘Learning how to think’ really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.”

- David Foster Wallace

Play Along

Maybe the thing about
love is that it never really
stays

Its not fleeting but it doesnt
like to play the same
strings for every song

Maybe we change and
love remains the same and
maybe it stays and
we don't

Who are we to blame
ourselves and who are
we to love, blame?

We sing different songs
and maybe
love just plays along

The old man

If I have found such a thing, to exist,
as love,
It was lovely.

If I have found such a thing to exist,
as love,
It was abundant.
It was still rare.

If I have found such a thing to exist,

as love,

It was generous.

It was still greedy.

If there was such a thing as love,

It was inexplicable,

and precisely why so verbose.

It was so unnatural;

It was so colloquial.

It was so giving;

It was so demanding.

It was always colorful and never

black and white.

It was for always and for ever and never

impossible

If I have found such a thing to exist,

as love,

I have never looked.

If I have ever found myself so desperate

as to look,

I have never found such a thing to exist,

as love,

Only such things to pretend, to exist,

as an illusion.

If I have found such a thing to exist,

as love,

It never deceived me more

than my imagination.

It never hurt me more

than myself.

It never overpowered me more

than what I loved did.

If I have found such a thing to exist,

as love,

I have found a new self 

every time.

If I have found such a thing to exist,

as love,

I have feared to lose it,

lost it,

and found it anew and indifferent

when I found myself so 

desperate as to love,

but never to look.