The long weekend.

There’s a lot that could be said about the weekend I endured. And while it is in my nature to incessantly type away about the happenings in a nonchalant manner, this time, just this time, I think I’ll refrain.
I think I’ve learnt a lot about myself and about others.
What makes them feel, think and in a broader sense, what makes them tick.

Relationships were tested, some got strained, and others found a renewed sense of belonging.
Some found that they weren’t as strong as they thought they were, some found that in crisis, they not only went the extra mile, they did it on a path of thorns.

The weekend is not yet over and yet, a certain sense of finality has crept in. The result of my thinking across these last two days will probably fight its way out from the recesses of my mind onto future posts, but for now, I find a certain sense of completion in this one.

Onto the next week and I’m already prepared,
My mind is ready and I’m not a bit scared.
For I am strong, stronger than I chose to believe,
I’ve been searching for strength, all along, it was up my sleeve!

Peace - A fleeting concept

Is peace a reflection of my inner state? Is it merely a passing mood or is it a way of life.
My understanding of peace I’ve realized is only a reflection of the life I lead and my school of though.
True inner peace I’ve decided is a state of complete acceptance. In the thoughts, actions and reactions of myself and everyone I’ve ever associated with or ever will.
It is only when I’ve accepted life with all its variations and trials completely that I will ever find inner peace. Does this necessarily mean giving up all distractions of the mind and body? All the illusions or maya this physical world creates for me?
I don’t really think the answer lies in abstaining completely from all of life’s material pleasures or even emotional ties, but if you can, it will only speed up your journey to peace.
To me, acceptance is a state of being one can being work right away on. Accept people for who they are and don’t attempt to judge. Accepting your own shortcomings will only help you work on them. The first step to progress always entails first with the realization of where you truly are. It is only after this realization of where you are that you chose where to go.
Peace is most desirable, but if not true inner peace, is also fleeting.
It can just as easily be drowned in the sorrows and confusion of today’s hectic life.

And one fine day, when supreme acceptance has set in, peace shall follow.
That is the day you will realize, that you no longer fit into any moulds, don’t get along with anyone you ever knew and cannot exist anymore as the person you used to be.

My friends - the spinning plates.

I usually come up with many varied analogies to explain myself, ranging from the totally sensible ones to ones that are random and weird but accurate.

This one I particularly like.

Have you ever witnessed the art where a man spins multiple plates on pins or nails? He spins them on his finger and places them on a nail so that they keep rotating whilst he takes the next one and so on. These people usually manage to spin about 15-20 plates before the first one loses enough momentum to spin itself off the nail.

I am this spinner of plates and my friends are these plates.

At any point there exists a point of elasticity of the number of friends I can have, too many and a few of them automatically lose momentum and fall..

Some of the friends aren't spun with enough of skill to sustain their rotation, so they lose momentum and fall off on their own.

Some of the friends are too different, plates I'm not used to or don't feel right, hence they don't spin quite as well, fall off.

Few plates get affected by external factors, people blowing bad winds of information of them, lose momentum.

Here's where it gets interesting for me,
I can't as any good plate spinner, let two plates ever collide. Both crash to the ground. In a similar fashion, I can never let two friends collide. They both clash terribly and fall off leaving pieces of glass/material everywhere that might at times even prick me after they've broken. A broken plate can never be respun with the same integrity as before. They just spin awkwardly for a while and fall off.

And then there are plates that just spin. Perfectly rounded, of perfect make, no off centered weights to tip them, don't get affect by any external factors and don't clash with any of the others spinning.. These are the plates that will be spinning long after every else has crashed and broken into millions of little pieces.


And so are my friends like spinning plates.

Everyone Hurts

There comes a time in everyone life when everybody hurts.

A time wherein you don't so much as want to even look at another persons face or even hear them cough. In Mumbai, the city where I live, this feeling is even more accentuated by the fact that it is much easier to be emotionally alone than physically. You're surrounded by people physically at every moment of the day. Packed trains to work, crowded buses, busy work places, bustling streets, houseful theaters, noisy restaurants and so on. In a place like this, how does one really get away to be alone.

The aggravation of a person is only alleviated when a certain sense creeps in that he cannot even escape from other people, how then, is he to escape from the confines of his own mind and thoughts!

We're traceable and track-able everywhere we go. Cellphones, the internet, Gps and google maps. The whole world has been neatly plotted out on proverbial paper.

Will we ever burn our maps, leave the cell phone home and just wander in a state of reckless abandon? Will we ever stray from the pavement or the often taken make-shift roads already provided? Why do we take the concretized road up a mountain or run up the wild and uncharted part where the trees grow will and mother nature resides in all her splendor!

This "Man-made" world has begun to become more than just a regular annoyance.
And while in no way am I suggesting abandoning all that science and progress has to offer, all I'm saying is, we're losing a small but essential bit of ourselves as a price to our progress.

It isn't long before I'm out on a misanthropic journey away from all things tangible. A journey that I hope will lead my to answers, mostly about myself. Answers to relatively easy questions that have been unanswered mostly to satisfy my ever growing ego.

And the day I gave up my ego, is the last day I shall post here. It shall not matter to me then what happens of you. For to learn to be selfless, I have to first be selfish.
To be free, I have to know what being imprisoned means.
and to be at peace, I have to know what it is like to be truly at war, For peace has no definition.

Peace is just a state of Zero war :)


Mental Peace is all I'll ever seek :)

The world of today

Welcome to the world of today, where goodness is a quality read about in books, peace is a virtue only to be got by noise cancelling headphones and happiness is determined by the money you have in your pockets.

We're a lucky bunch, we truly are, Insects on the face of this earth who give more importance to their possessions and their appearance than the true beauty that they are immersed in and yet are oblivious to.
Apparently, my sources inform me that I need to wear a Tommy Hilfiger watch and Diesel jeans or else no one will take me seriously. I need shirts woven from the best linen money can buy and shoes made out of the purest leather to make my mark on the minds of others. I need to comb my hair a certain way and trim my facial hair a certain length to make an impact on the minds of others and truly define my individuality.
Its getting so we're all beginning to resemble products in a factory's production line.
We're the blackberry boys, and not only that, we all part our hair the same way, we all wear the same pinstripes or vertical stripes (statistics say horizontal ones make us look fat). We're all in very soothing shades on blue, white and yellow (these colors have a calming effect of anyone that looks our way) and we're all in the same black, blue or brown formal trousers with the black leather shoes.
So if clothes make-th the man, are we all aspiring to be the same man?

When we're distressed or emotionally distraught, eating a tub of ice-cream or smoking that cigarette will uplift the mood instantaneously! When we've just had a fight with a person we love, watching that sit-com will blow those negative emotions right away (only to reappear at the most inopportune time) and when we need a hug the most, we're used to making do with the *hug* on sms or a message on a social networking sight.
Phones and the internet have cut out the need for human interaction, but wait, we already know that and yet can't do a thing about it. We not only propagate this rubbish practice but also do not let it die with alarming conviction.

We seek mental refuge in machines that divert our true emotions away. Machines that take us to another land by keeping us in a false lullaby with music, movies and other forms of entertainment. Is this sounding familiar to the Matrix already? If not, then you probably haven't watched it yet.

And thus I despise the lot of you. Not that I'm any different from you, which is why I despise myself.

Soon the mountains will call, as sure as rain.
And when that call comes, you can be sure i'll be there to take it.

It is peace I seek,
It is peace I shall attain.