Thinking on the train

I was boxed in the side upper berth in an overnight train to Indore and had nothing better to do, so I started thinking (Isn't it strange that we do this activity only when we have nothing else to do). Just now ....I can't remember what it was. There was some reference to people being hypocrites and ...yes....how to be happy and remain so. Better I write about the second part.

The question is - Will I ever be happy? To answer this one has to hazard the even worse question - What is happiness? I was speaking to my cousin the same time and he told me that he was already living the life that I was working towards. He means to say that he has some idea as to the life that I want. I wonder how? When I myself am clueless about it. I suppose he meant that he was carefree and that he wanted things to slow down. It is a feeling that I had also wished for for quite some time. I wanted things to take a break. Wanted to stop and relax and enjoy the fruits of all that hard work or patience or whatever that has been happening till now. Some place in time and space where I can close my eyes and not be afraid that I might oversleep. That I can wake up whenever I wake up and it would make no difference. But that time never came. It was one test after another. Something was always passing me by. Someone was always getting ahead of me. If there was no one to compete, there was always your own aspirations. It was a constant race. For my cousin that race has stopped, temporarily he agrees. Why do I not envy him then? This is what I had always wanted. Or is it?

It is not completely true. But then hardly anything is. I had always wished this break for myself but lately I have had reason to believe that such a break will only make me more anxious and stir crazy. You know the feeling you get when you are on a holiday and there is no place to go. Or when you have some time on your hand and there is nothing good on TV. That is the feeling I get when I stand still.

I have given up the hopes and desires for an Audi and a yacht and a house the size of Marlinespike. But I am still on for the good life and the pleasures in it. A job that makes me wake up early in the morning and go to work when I feel otherwise, does not figure in it. My cousin's world may be suspended in a time where things are not moving too fast for him to notice, but they are moving still the same. There will soon be a time when he has to say "Enough" and move on to the next test. I wish for a life where there is nothing else to prove. No more tests.

And in all this there is the need of having someone to share it with. Watching the sunrise is so much more fun when someone squeezes your hand as the first rays hit you. Ignoring the call you don't want to pick is not the same if there is no one you can pass a impish smile to as you put the phone on silent. Trouble is finding some one with the same definition of paradise as you. So the search continues and therefore the tests continue.

Sighhhhhhh........

Well at least it is a little fun....!!

Later

Is it you or is it this feeling....

I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. I see a photograph and see only you and no other in it. I wanted to feel like this once again, even at pain of heart break, is this it? I feel joy, I want you to feel it. I feel pain, I want you to know of it. I feel ecstasy, I want you to be part of it. Is it you who is making me feel this or is it just my want to feel this way?

I want to hear caramel laced songs of longing, is this how I truly feel? I hear of someone else's happiness and I think of you. Is it the happiness I crave or is it you? I want to tell you how I feel, but then, feel like you are the last person I will ever let know. I laugh at my stupidity and then smile guiltily for the feelings in my heart.

Who are you but a random stranger whom I have come to know? Why is it that you pull at my heart when I know that it might all end in nothing?

Do you feel the same way about me?

Food for thought

Make a sample where you can remember tasks and matter easily.

options:

1) Write in the left palm

2) keep a paper in the pocket

3) Keep things in the mind

4) Keep a regularly sent email - that keeps detailed to do list - with future , firefighting and otherwise stuff

One can be that we make sure that we keep that list on palm, page or other places but make sure that the first attempt is made to remember from the mind. then check on the paper or email or palm.

There should be a constant effort to remember from the mind and then check from the reminder thingy.

Food for thought

Points:

1) we put our complete efforts only when we see a future in that effort.

When I am preparing for FPM interviews - I am thinking that I must learn statistical methods. I don't feel motivated because I know that it will have an effect only till the interviews. So eventually I will fail to put in as much muscle as I can.

What to do?

Think long - This preparation is not only limited to my interviews - these are statistical methods - these will help me later on in my research as well. Even if they do not help in the research they will help in my understandings of other research.

When I decide to work on something that will help me in the future - I will be able to put in my 100%.
I should also think that this preparation will help me in short time preparations in my career as well. This will help me in cases where I have to prepare something in a short time.

So everything that needs to be done must be done with some thought behind it. Else I can never put in my max. If I am put in my max - I need to reason with my mind as to how it will help me - even if the result is futile - the exercise alone should have some effect.


More on this as the idea evolves......


Question2

Why is it that whenever I am sad, I feel like speaking with someone?
It is not that I always look for support or for sympathy. Then why do I feel like this. Is it weakness?
And if at all - should I give in to it??

If I stop, will I be alone and cut off from society? Will that be a bad thing?

To change a person

How do you change a person?

Even before you start asking this question you need to ask many more to build up enough structure to go on and ask how a person can be changed. Should you change a person? Can you change a person? Can a person change for real?

I know that I have changed. I cannot think in the manner I used to look at the world before. Is this permanent or will this too fade with time? I believe that the mindset of a person is always in a state of change. It continually moves from one side to another, waxing or waning in different regards. So do I have reason enough believe that change can happen and that too through my hands?

I have just been told that change can come only from interaction and not from convincing someone. I believe that. There is no way I can change someone's mind by arguing with the person. It makes no sense doing this. There is no way someone with any ounce of self-respect would change his long term thoughts and ideas over a few minutes of strong willed arguments. It has to come in some what of a more subtle manner. A continuous transmission of ideas and experiences. A constant flow of discussions and exchanges. And letting go of the illusion of control that I can affect a change. I can instead only be part of the larger scheme of things....the way on which the person in question decides to change himself. I can really only be an actor in the process....

If you ask me.....I am happy being just that. For the time being....!!

Later then

Clarity of things

My friend says that she will get married soon. I am sad because she refuses to become what is her possibility.

Who am I to decide who she wants to be. I have yet to decide what I want to be....what I can be....what I should be...!! I don't even know what these mean or how they differ. There is a small sadness in me when this happens to the people next to me. Another friend sank low enough to give in pressures of the expectations of people. Am I pained at their loss or am I pained at the reflection of my own inability that I see in them.

Perhaps it is my inability and my desperation that I project on to these people and that they are in themselves happy as they are. Or perhaps...I see and they don't....!!
In either case control eludes me.

Long time no see

The last few days have been very trying. A heady cocktail of emotions, occasional drama and in the end the same familiar feeling of hope mixed with brooding despair. Got some news about friends getting married and some news about colleges telling me I was no good for them. Discovered that I can play chess and that I can beat some of the computer players as long as they are deliberately sloppy. Found out that women are as fickle as they are depicted in the novels and that every relationship boils down to being a power game. I discovered that I am severely uneducated and that as long as I can maintain the facade of being a know all, bald headed hep teacher....I can keep making a decent amount of money....that I will still not be happy. Started feeling like I used to feel back in 10th, invincible.....and at the same time realized how less I know of my limits and my possibilities. Started losing weight or inches...pants are getting loose, but finding out that I look still the same.

I wonder what else will happen in the next few days......I can't even say I don't want them to happen yet...I am afraid as to what might....!!

Till later folks....

tata