Represent the modest bird

Knowledge – the more you know, you realize how less you know. Some great scholar chose to think different and attempted to pen down this phrase. And isn’t it true? Yes it is. Knowledge is in every single atom of progressive life. Having a negative say doesn’t make you cynical as long as it is only an opinion and not an axiom. In fact, an opinion is the root to a debate. With every debate flows a plethora of ideas. And with every idea, generates an axiom.

With this positive approach in the camouflage of pessimism, I happened to challenge the limits of a stanza passed by a close friend of mine, which goes like this:

"Be as a bird, perched on a frail branch
that she feels bending beneath her.
Still she sings away all the same,
knowing that she has wings"

Now, on a pretty ordinary approach, this stanza would raise the altitude of confidence in a demoralized individual. What it means is that one should be as smart as a bird that sits on the delicate branch which the bird sees bending beneath her. But that doesn’t bother her and she continues to sing as she knows that even if the branch breaks she can fly.

But, can this statement be challenged? Again, yes, it can.

I did look to act cocky in the beginning with my first question being, isn’t the bird (who represents an individual) over confident about herself? She thinks that she is special & that she doesn’t bother about any branch breaking because she has options in other branches. She is proud about her flying skills that she just ignores the fact that she is a living being & need to struggle to survive in every day of her life. She is not cautious about that hunter who can gun her down even in her flight.

The stanza felt incomplete to me & I voiced my opinion. I might be rhetoric here and might give anybody a feeling that I am reading in between lines. But, it is a thought that is different from the usual & I wanted a justification in revert.

A subtle reply came as expected, in the support of the bird. My friend feels that the over-smartness or the ego quotient never was in the picture. It is unadorned sharp & smart thinking that if the branch breaks, the bird won’t fall and die like most other living beings. And that the saying should be taken word by word to make sense to the common man & not by doubting it’s shallowness. On further provocation & resistance from my end, the debate seemed to go haywire & turned out to be an agitation with personal issues popping up in between. It was time to shift gears backwards. So I thought of mellowing down & blankly opined the bird to be pretentious.

My friend maturely placed her belief that all people are not similar and that they think differently. She never budged from her stance on the bird & added another brick to her wall of support for the flying being. She not only described the bird as an inspiration but also used her as an example to estimate my strengths & weaknesses. The bottomline remained that the bird wouldn’t dare to sit on the branch had it not known how to fly.

Now this was a statement that looks corrected. It not only makes the ego factor of the bird disappear but also portrays the strength of the bird. As for me, I presented the possible weaknesses of the bird that she should be cautious about.

The beauty of the debate is when two conflicting opinions collide to make a productive statement and needless to say, the effort was worthwhile.

The rollercoaster ride called "Destiny"

An individual’s destiny is similar to a roller coaster ride. It takes you gently to the top but then pulls the trigger down sharply to your surprise. You still have the option of not taking the gamble of experiencing the rollercoaster ride, if you don’t have the heart for it. But destiny is an enforced never ending rollercoaster ride which cannot be escaped from. It is inevitable. It would be very late by the time you realize that you are in a labyrinth. And that the initial hiccups that you ignored in the mask of the confidence that you were basking in, were actually signs of the turbulent hurricane that were to come. And when the real deal is on, you never get back the time that you took to realize the shit that you were in.

As time progresses, the confidence, personified attitude, perseverance and intelligence that you were proud and breeding on while on the slow motion drive to the top, seems to gradually wither away as the tribulation deepens. There seems to be no hope for revival. All you see, hear and feel around you are the worst case scenarios; the ones that you had only visualized whenever you had nightmares. Reality seems like a delusion. Your thoughts seem to be on a plodding erosion. You start believing in ethics you never stood for. God becomes dearer and prayers seem the disguised hope. Hope again turns out to be narrow concept than a dynamic one, as it now turns out to be a factor dependent on luck. And luck is something that just keeps you in the pursuit of happiness but never allows you to kiss it. Every fool proof attempt gets foiled for absolutely no reason. Every genuine attempt to reach the top fails to retain you there for long. You don’t find logical answers to the simplest questions as logic seems to be deficient in this hallucinated wonderland. Your near and dear, who never doubted your capabilities, start to get anxious and interrogate your each and every move. Sentimental values die in this world of people who suddenly turn pragmatic. The few exclusive “allies” that you trusted, turn out to be either sympathetic to your situation or mere opportunists by cloaking their real identities just to seek attention and in the process, generate moral support for themselves. They behave naïve so that they can show that they don’t stand a chance in front of you because they can’t eradicate the fact that you looked out for them when they needed you in testing times. In nutshell, you end up being a loser in one way or the other.

The practical reasoning to the whole scenario is only limited to the fact that you never knew your weaknesses while you were flowing with the tide. The real challenge is not in speeding up with the tide but learning to swim against it. Trust your instincts rather than someone else’ words. Patience is the shield and inner determination is the weapon. No one can claim to know you more than yourself. Free advice against your will shouldn’t deter you from your goals. Aberrant time is only a temporary phenomenon if you have a strong foresight. You made it through the good times and if you can still make a blended product mix of your abilities and feelings, you can oar your way through to the bad times as well.

Strong Vision : Final Destination?.... I dont think so

A very good friend of mine once told me that if you had a vision for something, you will get it for sure. She termed it as “The Law of Attraction”. I did initially believe her ideology instantly as I could personally enumerate several examples wherein I aimed for a benchmark and ended up achieving it eventually. There was this phase in my pre mature life wherein I strongly presumed as if God was waiting to readily grant me any rational desire.

To name a few, I wished for a 70%+ score at the beginning of my final year while pursuing my undergraduation. As the journey to the examination hall drew closer, kissing 70% seemed a remote possibility. But, to my surprise, I found my desire fulfilled when the results were declared. An overseas professional experience, a career focus and an overseas education followed suit as my desires turned into reality. For a cushy person like me, all these events were just treasured gifts.

My life in such a favorable atmosphere boosted my “confidence”- a word that never existed in my dictionary in the past. I never believed in luck because I thought that a hard working individual doesn’t need luck to get the fruits of his toil. I was excited that finally I could prove to people that I am not skeptical about my aptitude. I was basking in the praise and respect of my peers. Riding high on confidence, I believed that “Impossible is nothing” and that with a robust profile like mine, I stand a propitious chance of healthy placements from the industry heavy weights. I even made tall claims of helping my buddies find a job for themselves. Well, things seemed ridiculously weird with a success ratio of 100% until destiny tosses itself to show me the other side of the coin… The Dark Side!!

In a country that boasted sturdy macro economic fundamentals and a premium growth rate in the not so distant past, surprisingly recession showed its ugly face. Recruitments froze and retrenchment became the obnoxious news of the city. I couldn’t convert the few opportunities that knocked my door into a potential career as a result of copious applications. It was not that I didn’t live up to the hype. On the contrary, the Dark Side got even weirder than my golden era.

In the four months span of seeking employment, I cashed on the selection process of most of the prospects that I had. But I was denied a professional role in their organization for either baseless reasons or for no reason at all. I was getting restless and running out of relevant options. I tried my references, friends, relatives and even foes for some leads in my quest for a suitable profession; all in vain. I was starting to feel a gradual loss of respect amongst my acquaintances within this lean patch of time. I felt betrayed by God who is now playing his dirty games with me. At one point of time, one of my friends even questioned my knowledge and regarded me inferior to a person who had no technical expertise in my area of specialization. My confidence was bruised, morale down and the bleeding continued.

Based on the incidents unfolding in my life, it was obvious on my part to think whether this was the end of the road to success? One thing I realized for sure was that happy endings happen only in story books and movies. Another question that bogged my mind was the relevance of hard work prevailing over tough luck. And even if luck existed, I have been brave enough to maintain my composure while facing the test of time. Yet, why doesn’t the proverb, “Luck favors the brave” hold true for me?

I guess, the so called "Law of Attraction" is more based on ceterus paribus assumptions, given my destiny as an exception to it. Or maybe my good old friend forgot to mention a time frame associated with the law. In nutshell, my stronger vision hasn't yielded me results.... yet!!

Jealousy or Self Pride – Which is more justified?

Jealousy, I believe, is a feeling of losing supremacy to somebody better than you. It makes you envious of the quality of somebody else and compels you to compete him/her to improve/increase your fan following. However, there is a thin foil of difference between being jealous of somebody and being proud about you, assuming the fact that both these feelings are derived from the same source.

Jealousy is more of an open broadcast of frustration with an element of private gain in it. Jealousy makes you lose your integrity and consciously drives you to defame your rival to gain your self-importance. It inculcates a proxy cold war attitude between you and your “opponent”, if I may say. On the other hand, Pride is a strong function of self respect not intimidated by the performance of your peers or adversaries. A performance backed pride is a stronger phenomenon than jealousy as it does not negatively impact your relationships with people and at the same time maintains your authenticity.

To be backed by examples, the feeling of jealousy in an employed person will always leave him unsatisfied given the fact that his antagonist is placed in a better position. Pride, on the other hand, will even leave an unemployed person relieved, for he will always believe that there is something larger in store for him given the fact that he is talented.

Many would dispute that pride is a negative factor and should never be a vital component of the human personality. I would like to reiterate that the pride that I am talking about is not a hyperbolic demonstration but an accomplishment motivated exhibit. Such pride would place you above others without being obsessed and at the same time maintain your innocence and character.

In nutshell, I could say that jealousy is an outcome of unhealthy comparison and hence responsive. But, pride, only if provoked from the individual’s perspective, is reactive.

Obduracy or Responsibility?

Life is a formal responsibility,
wherein you give a show
to perform what you know
by putting in your maximum ability

Responsibilities should never be underestimated
as it’s a deemed serious reality
where you witness unlimited assignments
without any remuneration in pay or pity

The tasks you do is your presumed duty
which undoubtedly has to be done
An effort goes withered for a task of quality
No appreciation and you’re always on the run.

Duties are like premiums
that your parents have to be paid
for insuring and safeguarding your life
and providing you sufficient aid.

So here’s how you commit your duties:
Sacrifice your dreams, interests and fun
And make your life your parents’ asset.
That’s the new mantra for earning the title
of an inobdurate, responsible son

Critics – Who are they anyways?

Critics have been stereotyped to be those set of individuals who always highlight and delineate the ‘bad’ in everything, whether moral or immoral. Their behaviour discharges arrogance, rudeness, humiliation and to be specific, demotivation. They are a pain in the neck and add more suffering to the wounds with their sick and cynical attitude. A resulting frustration, which is undoubtedly obvious, elevates a question in our minds, “Aren’t they supposed to mind their own businesses rather than poking their ugly noses into others’ affairs?” In such a scenario, it is apt to say that the thought in the mind of each individual with an irritating critic would be “Help me! I am cursed”.

In the light of these thoughts, let us imagine a situation where you, a lethargic graduate who boasts of successfully battling exams and are waiting for the right job to come your way, have been critically exclaimed by your father that you do not have the ability to win the race for jobs as a novice. Will you start hating your father for introducing the word “competition” to you and igniting that feeling in you? Consider another situation wherein your friend disgraces you who have to give a test that defines your career and you are too lazy to open the book, by challenging your aptitude to crack the test. Will you start hating your friend for provoking your intensity?

If you ask me, I would tell you that your critics are those set of individuals who know that you have the proficiency to perform better. They are motivators in a pessimistic camouflage that keeps on needling you and in the process, instigates your senses to rise against the odds. I may contradict my previous blog wherein I had mentioned a dialogue from the movie “The Pursuit of Happyness” which went like “Don't ever let someone tell you, you can't do something. You got a dream, you got to protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you that you can’t do it. You want something, go get it”. This was exactly what Christopher Gardener felt when he was put down by critics. But what was left unexplored in the movie was that he felt that he had a statement to prove to these set of individuals and that geared him to pursue a profession that was remotely not meant for him and in the end, excel in it.

With this rehabilitated perspective, isn’t it rational to construe that critics are your true navigators in the disguise of an adversary? People who praise you when you are a nobody are flatterers. These flatterers whom you embrace as your friends most likely use you to climb the ladder to success and your critics are the bohemian ones who save you from committing such avoidable errors. However, their eccentric way of guiding you are repaid with hatred. We believe that their actions are not supportive and reckless, but the fact is that it’s only concern and their trust in your capabilities that triggers them to confront your attributes, when every other positive attempt to motivate you has failed. The whole point made is that a negative influence is the key behind a positive outcome.

Love – The Orthodox Feeling or the Unconventional Habit

The phenomenon called “Love” is everywhere and everyone has his or her own experiences to state on how good it feels to fall in love. There have been odes, phrases, thoughts and a lot of interpretations on the term “love”, the most common being referring it to be an intense feeling or a state of emotion. It is quoted by many to be an impulse that follows from the depth of the heart with clearly no role for the brain to play. The widespread belief amongst human species that fall in this popular experience known as “Love” is that it incites the mind to do all the moves that portray affection, intimacy and reciprocation towards the opposite/same sex. However, when we try to dig out the source of love between two individuals, we most often end up with weird and ambiguous justifications. If love is claimed to be an emotion or state of mind, so is anger, laughter and crying. The latter states of mind can be validated to be an immediate outcome of some provocation, but a similar conclusion cannot be derived about the former, thereby challenging the coherence of love as a feeling. So, if love is not a feeling, what is it and how does it happen?

The right way to understand the term “Love” is to consider it as less of a feeling and more of a habit. Most of you might have already started to think that associating love to be a habit sounds unconventional. In a way it is, but it cannot be deemed as incorrect, now that categorizing it as a feeling doesn’t make sense and in the end I am sure that we can come to amicable terms with whatever is established. To start with, we can eliminate the concept of “Love at first sight”. It makes no sense at all. Love at first sight is an uncertainty. I say that because a sane individual cannot speculate that he/she will be able to sustain, what he/she assumes to be love on the very first encounter, from a long term perspective. Moreover, the probability of the success of a life long commitment as a result of the first confrontation is very negligible, to be frank, nil. This uncertainty is known to the common man as infatuation which is a short term gamble that can have adverse effects in an unfavorable event. So as a smart investor in love, it is not worth investing your time and money on an event as risky as “Love at first sight”. Hence it makes sense to evade discussing something that is baseless.

That alleviates us to understand and make ceterus paribus assumptions for the moment that love is a long term commitment between two individuals who have vowed to be with each other in times of happiness and disparities। In other words, the outcome is known but the origin is undefined.

Moving forward, we try to establish a source to the occurrence of love from the point when two individuals meet. The first phase begins when they spend time together as friends. Initially either one of them is not resilient which interests them into entering the second phase, which is the part when they try to know each other. What starts as a pretty formal conversation gradually gets personal and as they talk, they get to share their opinions and ideas about events and stuff happening around them. They improvise on their conversational skills to know their interests and turn offs better. This automatically leads them to the third phase – the frequent phone calls and informal meetings. Now this stage is what I believe the turning point as in the process of making their friendship stronger, they unknowingly become susceptible to a relationship which is beyond the purview of friendship. They are bound by an attachment which they haven’t discovered at this stage. Longer duration of talks and frequently seeing each other makes them habituated to each other prompting them to take their present relationship to the next level. The fourth phase that follows as a result is obvious. This is the phase wherein both individuals set out to get intimate with each other as they believe that their behavior at this point is not at all outlandish. Thereafter, they perceive their relationship to be love and hold it responsible for all prospective events that occur between them. This relationship grows so stronger with time that the mere thought of separation haunts their minds.

Practically when we study this situation, we can observe a failure on their part to identify that all events that take place between them cannot be accounted to any feeling or emotion but it is the consequence of a prolonged togetherness between the two. A habit, as we all know, is also a human instinct of being regular to an event or act that occurs automatically without thinking about its morality. Now if that is what we mean of the term “habit”, then how different is love from it?