With Winter Gone

The notion of normality or the purpose to seek normalcy is perhaps the biggest undoing of our lives. It is a hideous fallacy. Nothing is normal. There is no state of normalcy. Normalcy can at best be defined as a state of inertia or inertness - 'as having no inherent power of action, motion, or resistance.' Normalcy is also perhaps indicative of the only kind of certainty there is - that of mortality.

In truth, there is only change, the transcendental, the evolutionary. The human mind, linear, and morbidly fearful that it is, refuses to accept this ultimate truth. It goes as far as even rejecting it and drumming down all notions that contradict the acceptable. Not surprising then to see how people, collectives, and organizations spend a lifetime defining structures, systems, and processes in a quest to attain a normal state of being. Our institutions and social systems are built on this premise - contrived by linear beliefs and ignorant or disregarding of contrast. Consequently, so much of life is unseen, unknown, and unexplored. Worse, life is oft lived in a state of not being able to deal with life itself!

The intricacies of our lives are aplenty. They come in all forms and dimensions - overt, subtle, or unseen. But, they are there nevertheless. We don't see it, though, for we are consumed in defining our lives in the paradigm of what is normal and acceptable. In keeping with the need to exact purpose, form, and structure, we are caught in a compulsion to see and define things as being absolute, normal, and complete, as a means, as the ultimate.

The truth couldn't be further from this. The truth is that life is dynamic, as momentary as the clouds in the sky, and as formless as the river that runs its course.

The Human Faculty

I'm oft left to wonder how the human mind could construct a form in ways that cannot possibly be imagined and yet be thoroughly enthralling, to say the least. Take, for instance, art, literature, music, or cinema. It is ceaselessly amazing to witness and celebrate human creativity and to realize how marvellous our minds truly are.

What would be more wonderful than to feel absolute rapture, exaltation, and awe when one chances upon a good book or when listening to some fine music? You could say the same about a lot of other things - the outcomes of creative human endeavour and the expression that it results in.

I wonder what fuels creativity. Is it passion? Or desire? Could circumstances and the manner in which one's perceptive abilities are oriented contribute to creative expression? But, I suppose my question is rather purposeless. I should be asking if we reward creativity enough, for it to be taken (and pursued) seriously

Sure, it is easy to imagine a world without human beings - but, would it be easy to comprehend a world without the expression of human creativity?

Silence

What do you make of silence? The experience of extreme quiet, away from all the mechanized din that takes up every moment of life on the wheel (you know what a hamster wheel is, don't you?). What does it take to stop, to examine, to breath, and to revel in nothingness? To let thoughts flow unremittingly and without restraint or consequence, to let go of plans and desires, wants and needs, ambitions and goals. What would it take, even for a moment?

And then, I pause to look up at those marvellous, tall trees that tower into eternity, uttering not so much as even a whimper about the prominence of their timeless existence, the wind that carries along, all-permeating, and yet subtle, the birds and the beasts, their calls never out of place or unsuitable in the world they are a part of, the elements and their natural accordance, all in perfect symmetry and synchrony. How much there is to celebrate in awe the wonder of the natural world. How magical it seems to revel in the perfection and yet the elementary, everyday occurrences of nature. How proverbial, poetic, and romantic it is to be able to partake in this marvel.

Why is it that the noises we make are so damningly difficult to live with? Why don't we fit into the natural world with the same ease and adeptness that all other beings possess? The answer is perhaps in the understanding that we do not belong in such soulful sanctuaries. And, suddenly this realization, momentary as it is, allows me to contend with the miseries that grip my life - the senseless chatter emanating from the television, the odious ringing and beeps of the cellphone, the inconsiderate, distasteful, and uncharitable garble of people around and about, the nauseating pandemonium of vehicles and everything artificial, the commotion and racket of all farcical, clownish religious establishments (and their equally appalling proponents). I could write endlessly about this.

But, silence or just the thought of it - it is meditatively calming and soulful. In silence, I could live on, forever.

The Woes of My Life

It isn't home anymore. Not the warmth i knew of. Far from it, truth be told. The serenity of my land has long gone. There are only memories left. Today, there is despair and bitterness. My lands are parched and my life is barren.

Not long ago, i had a dream. A dream that meant fulfillment and prosperity. I laboured interminably to enliven that dream. What of it, you may ask. I know not words to explain. I reckon you know my plight already.

My life has been grim. I'm a kind that is now forgotten and relegated to statistics. Meek and impoverished they call me. Politicians sympathize in their deceitful ways. Others, like you, couldn't be more apathetic. Yet, it is my kind that feeds the nation; a staggering billion and more mouths that would be penurious should i embark upon another vocation. No, i speak not with pride, but with angst. This has been my trade, my life, and i do not know another.

Slowly, there are many in my fold who have done away with their lands - their prized possessions handed down through generations. In search of hopeful prospects, they have departed long ago. Why must i not be tempted or forced? There are these new breed of nouveau riche 'developers' lining up at my door with enticing bids, and threats.

Have you, with your know-hows, not read of my quandary? That i tread miles to fetch pales of water to irrigate my fields, and that my children toil under the merciless sun, to say but a few of the many! Oh, what would you know of my predicament? Your cushy jobs and demanding lives would only add to the indifference! Entire villages starve for the lack of water or food. The rains seem eons away. Our crops have failed and our brethren kill themselves. To us, this is desolation. To you this is statistic. There lies the difference.

However, my missive is not all stark. I would like to also imagine a future. One that brings us all that we ever sought. One that makes our lives truly gratifying. Does that sound Utopian? Perhaps, your 'learned sense' does describe it so. Well, it would certainly sound idealistic to many, far too many. And this is because, our future isn't going to be any easier than what it is today, is it? Our fields and farms will make way for buildings, hideous monstrosities of glass and steel, that vie with another to become landmarks of prestige and architectural aesthetics. Our trees would have long been felled to feed endless reams of paper into those fancy devices in your snazzy offices. Rivers and streams would have long been destroyed. Of those left, water would hardly be considered potable. Perhaps, you could consider stocking up your favorite brands of aerated fizz!

What would become of my tribe then, would you ask? As they say 'dead as a Dodo, of course!'

Oh, i know a thing or two that will remain though. Your colossal egos that are dismissive of realities, and your repugnant sense of avarice!

Footnotes:

Written in the backdrop of the prevailing drought in Maharashtra

Sometimes

Some dreams, deep and vivid,
fleeting, like floating clouds,
in moments that are, but lost forever,

Some thoughts, like dewdrops,
drip and depart, like shimmering lights,
shrouded in mystical darkness,

Some emotions, weave a shade,
forlorn and uneasy, like drifting spirits,
leaving behind a stain, rancid and dark,

Some places, embrace in comfort,
offer kindly abode, like maples in woods,
where melody is born of skies and wind,

Some worlds, are yonder,
from the pretenses of time, like twinkling stars,
obscured by daylight,

Sometimes, i pause and gather the truth,
that these facets, like colours,
are different, perchance, as unlike shades,
yet, one, and all the very same! 

Us and Them

In the company of stars, lights in trance,
moments of splendid indulgence,
wind, mountains, streams and the trees,
all part of an assemblage of happy regales,

Without words or expressions to distort,
those visuals that make for delightful import,
vast meadows of sun-spilled warmth,
set about in green prairies of endless charm,

The everlasting allure of an old world,
against the braggadocio of those newfound ones,
we have always known of the winner before, here,
which those plenty retards know not to care,

Time, to some, is a tool of wise immoderation,
spent well on what is worthy of accommodation,
yet, for some others there is no path or way,
caught drifting in a callously downstream sway.

Footnotes:

Inspired by the second single 'Us and them' from the English progressive rock band, Pink Floyd's eighth studio album 'Dark Side of Moon' released in 1973.

Where theres a way

There are ways and there are ways! Some exist, yet others are created by an undying urge to move forward, assisted greatly by a sense of determination known to us as the power of the will, more so of the mind, in tow with an immense sense of hope, greatly in anticipation of the future to be a better destination than the present whereupon one has arrived!

While some trails offer scenic views of life, some others are fraught with anxiety and privation, perhaps as a manner of being a potent master to ensure lessons well learnt. So the question arises, does one look for cause and effect within? Quite as if by pattern, every one of us seem to tread either walkways in some measure that leaves a lasting dint.

Pace, time and consequences of happenstances are not quite the attributes one often happens to have any control upon and hands go up in awe or tedium as the case may be. Wagons creak by as the road turns bumpy and high on the hill there is light, teasing one to believe in what is almost certainly a ruse. Sounds from distant drumming bring some fleeting recollections of the past, gone in a flash, and there is a yearning from deep within to relive a certain moment of time that is now bygone, almost forgotten, roused momentarily by a déjà vu.

In the ensuing passage of time that is surely galactic and myriad, I walk along wondering, what it is and where the what is that the why has always been in search of. How, is so far away and unknown to comprehend, let alone be able to come to terms with!

Do all questions have the same answer? 

A kiss to build a dream on

Introspection is fantastic! It tells you what the mind had envisioned as against that what the heart wanted versus what actually happened. But before you are about to embark upon that quest, make certain what it is that you'd want to be stronger, the head or the heart! And imagination, mind you, can take you far further than comprehended!

A very long time ago, something changed in a manner that I cannot possibly explain! Days seemed as normal as they could be, but the elements were strong, and I found myself whimsically wondering of how I would contend with the wrangling forces hard hitting within the head, as a result of what happened outside of it. And then, there were dreams that the mind persisted for some reason. Walking almost always alone, thankfully, in the expanses of vivid natural picturesque, every moment meant something, something that bore a strange connection to something that I knew nothing of! Heck, must have been surely something!

Curiosity can sometimes get the better of you and unaided, you find yourself going deeper into realms unknown! Time passes by, no doubt, but there is a complete void that it leaves behind, akin to the feeling of work incomplete at the end of every day!

As the evening unfolds, and sweet solitude dawns, there is a heightened perception of what is and not, against what should and not be. Math, I'm sure is easier. But, such is life too! Debates rage, on how and why, often throwing up more questions than answers! And I set to wonder what difference would have been, if I had the moment, for a moment, to make the moment, or something of that sort!

Today, some three decades have come to pass and I cannot term what it is that connection or the lack of it can be termed as. But I do know very strongly that it is not a figment of the imagination. Maybe it all just happened, as it happened, but no denying that it changed a great deal of what life is! There was some kind of gradual gradient like fill-in that I did come to terms with, but the battle is ongoing and pauses are not longer than the need for catching a short breath and exhaling a sigh! Whatever do I call this? Learning? Experience? Or chance?

Surely, no end to efforts in fitting a square into a circle!

Destiny calling

I find myself traversing uncharted waters, into realms that I've not been into before. Naturally excited, I pace with enthusiasm and yet find myself cautiously optimistic of the journey and the path that I am to embark upon. A mix of emotions overwhelm me and I restrain the heart from overpowering the instincts of the head, in an effort to be rational. But, the more I try to be methodical, I find myself fraught with instances that I have not witnessed before. Such perhaps is the way of life, often nudging the traveller to undertake a course that will enrich learning in ways that cannot be fathomed!

With all the seemingly picture-perfect planning and meticulous detail that we drown ourselves into, it is very important to always provide a substantial margin of space for the unforeseen change, thereby creating a very strong buffer, purely for the purpose of being able to adapt to situations as and when they unravel.

Despite all of that we do or choose not to, there are some things that happen or do not. One may call that plain chance or an incident of destiny! That decision, with all of its decisiveness, lies purely at the behest of the experienced!

Eight below

It'd have been much easier for me to talk about Paul Walker and his furry buddies in the 2006 American adventure film, if you go by the title of this post, that is!

But that is hardly the case when it comes to talking about one's life and the varied influences that govern it's every pace, however insignificant it may appear to be. And this is about one such influence that has plagued me for what I could easily term as a millennium! Curiously, it is not a force, nor a person or for that matter neither a factor that can be easily noticed. It is merely a number!

The number 8 has played roles in my life, almost always, in ways and means I cannot really describe in words, and it still puzzles me of how seemingly random incidents, occurrences or references could bear the ominous influence of this now hairy-tentacled, omnipresent monster that I have come to view with a great deal of emotion that could largely border on a sense of being overwhelmed!

For starters, I was born on an 8th! All of the places I took in school, inclusive of my roll numbers, positions, patterns, scoring and a whole lot more bore the hallmarks of 8. I would automatically be assigned an 8 number whereever I presented myself! As if all of that wasn't already enough, my secondary school leaving examination identity had 8 written all over it! And just when I thought I had this eerie demonic influence outside of my life for good, I came to grapple with the fact that it was only the prelude that played so far and the beginning was really yet to begin! Thereafter, every number associated with me had extensive elements of 8 white-washed all over, ranging from employee IDs, access codes, plastic currency cards and seating patterns, just to name a minimal few!

Years later, now, upon looking back, I find 8 ruled instances in my life, larger in number than the stars in the sky and the grains of all of Earth's sandy shores put together! Just what determines this unsettling coincidence is still a matter of sheer intrigue!

But theres so much more to life, I understand! And live well I will, even if means to be under the shadows and spheres of the 8.

Self subjective

And remember, no matter where you go, there you are!

-- Confucius 

Just how important is faith? Or, how realistically resilient should one be? Better still, how pertinent is patience in the face of continuing adversity? Difficult questions? Or means for renewed introspection, I wonder!

Every facet of life is something that presents a unique opportunity to understand oneself more than anything or anyone else, for the entity called the self is really the only variable, though seemingly constant, with other things being merely subjective influences - Cēterīs paribus, in better known terms! So, if assumptions are really characteristic only to the basis of incurred instances, the most fundamental supposition should be based upon the premise that every occurrence is as similar as another! Yet we know well that such is hardly the case. So, could this be termed as a paradox? Of what, understanding or the lack of it?

Now, everything that falls into the element of being subjective is time-bound! Yet, why do the effects of such subjective influences outlast the catalysts themselves? Is it possibly because of dependent variables being mired into the equation at a fundamental level and furthered by a larger cause of pursuit? Come to think of it, some events, themselves, may not be as prolonging in their happening when compared to the effects of their consequences, such as for instance the nuclear weapons detonated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both of which actions though confined only to a few moments, their resultant fallout having lasted for decades!

So, the questions really are how much, how long, how far, how high, how more or less? Subjective? Well, why do I get the feeling that the beginning is as important as the proceeding!

Inception

To dream is to be able to see reality, a setting that exists within the walls of the mind and therefore real in being experienced, seen and lived and yet unreal in the waking state purely because any attempt of it's recreation is most certainly futile. Ever wondered why it is so really difficult to recollect a dream long after it's been played in the mind? Now, that is only the beginning of things, in a way that we know of it, or perhaps not!

It is nearly always impossible to remember the start of a dream, in the element in which it begins to occur. One can at best find oneself deep in the process of the event even as it unfolds in a seemingly random and untraceable state of succession! There may be intermittent parallels to reality in the sense of how the memory contributes it's feed as a direct bearing of having seen and experienced matter in the real world. Such parallels, although appearing to be limitless are confined to a certain pattern, only to the extent of being able to be replicated in the same sense of how reality has contorted the innards of the mind, never free to envision a path anew or afresh! To that extent parallels are only a minute part of the entire configuration and not the pattern itself.

But parallels are not the only things that make up the matter that constitute the process of apparitions that are generated by the subconscious mind. There is the imaginative state that exceeds perhaps even the best of creativity, in giving birth to realms of possibilities that appear so real that one is utterly perplexed at the detail with which they occur, often casting the mind into a spasmodically fearful state. And what one does not understand and comprehend, one can and will only fear!

Then, there are stages that convolute in an endless quagmire, occurring and recurring as if generated by the electrical activity within the brain, combined with an imaginative process that can at most times be colourful yet appear in a sepia like tone! One often struggles to lock away those menacingly replicating states, but finds oneself at the mercy of the subconscious for not being able to do just that. Then the battle to create situations arises, where one would create a prison to carefully shut away those repetitions and assign a characteristic attribute to them all, in a serious effort to calm the conscious state against the tedious and taunting proceedings of the subconscious!

The worst kind of a dream is perhaps one in which the entity sees itself in a surrounding which appears to be undergoing a terrible state of degeneration, such as structures falling apart and streets splitting wide open, where despite every effort, the overwhelming succession of events provide no opportunity to gain control over the situation, to be able to attempt to reverse it! One feels as if transcending not just places and time but also realms outside of the Earth, far away and deep inside space! Escape, or liberation as some may prefer to call it, comes from well within, through what are mental projections generated at speeds faster than light in order to create a situation, binding upon which the entity will then further. These projections could by far create an unending network of places and people which seem real right down to the experience of emotion or the familiarity of the place, despite not ever having been there before! Laws of physics do not matter or hold importance of this realm, and can best be used to deduce the state which one is in!

There cannot possibly be any explanation for the realities that exist and happen in such remarkable detail within our minds. They could be as a result of the past, present or maybe even the future, and we have no means of knowing that ever! Momentarily gaining control during the whole process, the conscious stage attempts to offer comfort or courage as the case maybe, and then again allows it's counterpart to chart another course that although appearing remarkably familiar, may well be one that cannot ever be connected to, despite the need to decipher and understood, as if perhaps bearing the very elixir of life!

Sunlight, and another form of reality appears, and for that matter, every dream is only half remembered!

Footnotes:

As you may have guessed, this post was created immediately after I watched Christopher Nolan's epic Inception. Dreams and their occurrences have fascinated me more than I can ever explain and hence I found this movie remarkably well made despite the radical storyline it was based upon. The scene related to the beach landing of the protagonist and an accompanying character, where massive edifices at the waterfront appear to be crumbling down, was eerily familiar to me, having seen the exact setting in a dream a very long time ago, yet so well etched in my mind!

Defining a paradox

Life is so full of paradoxes! Efforts do not always lead to desired results. Ends hardly justify the means. Right doesn't always mean being right and wrongs, are like what they say, almost always subjective! Even time and nature hold paradoxes. Things may seem ordained in a certain manner but they are rife with contradictions. Questions relating to life, poverty, results, mannerisms and so on do not have definitive answers and yet linger in us at all times, not very unlike the passage of water in a brook, unfamiliar of where it would end up over the course of time, or merely keep flowing on!

What really are these paradoxes and their purpose, I wonder! Are they stumbling blocks purported to arise and exist in order to contribute to our evolution which happens over a period of time? Do they actually serve as a measure of understanding oneself? Maybe they are randomly occurring variables coming to being as a result of a certain course of action? But having said that, one wonders why there is a compulsion to embark upon a certain path that leads to an action that results in a paradox!

I'm not sure if I'd be able to chart a path forward! I'm often riddled with possibilities and yet really unsure of how to walk! There is a reassuring voice inside, but I'm not too sure if it is bias that is being vocal in an effort to nudge me forward! Unbeknown to me, there probably is a story unfolding in time, or so I'd like to believe, one that will bring about some sense of clarity!

Not a day passes without the thought of what it is that I'm really waiting for! And the more I think, there are only questions, hideous and painful ones, all too far from the answers!

Put the sun back

I've written about this once before, but that's not stopping me from doing it once again!

Sometimes I wonder if it really is all that complicated to seek true love and be blessed with it! Is it so phenomenally difficult to arrive upon what is perhaps the most blissful times of life? Must there be a great deal of struggle to achieve it or can it be chanced upon just like one would arrive on a road to a certain destination?

Why then, does it prove so elusive and tiresome to be drawn into? Is it experience of instances before hand that makes one judgemental and careful? Or is it limited to the will of time to present such a wonderful situation to unravel in front of the patiently willing?

It's very easy, I presume, to maintain one's composure in the face of any adversity, particularly if you have made that very steadfast decision to remain glassy and supposedly emotionless and appear to put up a very strong face for the world to see! That is quite another something!

But then deep down, there is something of an emotion that wants, perhaps needs, a brush of wind to swish over the face with a whiffing caress and yet a sense of comfort that warms up the cockles of the insides!

Love is love, after all! I can't explain if you know what I mean! :)

Footnotes:

I want you to know that this was written in an absolutely positive mood and not otherwise. When on a rainy Sunday afternoon, my being capitulated to the wonderful yesteryear favorite of The Coral titled "Put The Sun Back," I found an instant connect between my mind and the keyboard which resulted in this post!

Why don't you spend sometime listening to this masterpiece yourself and get lost in the wonders of music and relish the moments so spent?

The White Mountain

The White Mountain (HD) from Constantin Philippou on Vimeo.

From where I am standing Dushanbe isn’t too far! And, Dushanbe is the edge of the world!

An expanse of wilderness sweeps me and I know it cannot be covered by even the speed of thought, much less that of light! The wind is cold and brutal but there is a sense of longing to remain where I am, and merely watch the wonder that unfolds ahead of me in a dimension that my mind, with it's umpteen limitations, cannot possibly comprehend! Time is certainly not a factor! The inside reassures me that there is nothing to hurry up for, so I’m calm and composed, free from the otherwise haranguing pursuit that doggedly plays ball with my mind!

Rich orange hues soon give way to shades of gray! Darkness falls and there are a million shining lights dotting the wide sky. They look like brilliant pearls saying something in unison that I strain to understand. Flashes of light erupt in many spots, all at once and almost always, often seeming to be patterns yet so random and incalculable! I cannot seem to focus my gaze on just one setting, though wanting to do just that! It is breathtakingly marvelous yet overwhelming!

A thousand voices call out to me from the sky and yet I know I cannot go, though I so much want to, or rather - need to!

Footnotes:

The White Mountain is a time-lapse video shot by Charles Leung and the marvelous background score was composed by musician Constantin Philippou.

It is to be noted that this post is purely an abstract and bears no connection whatsoever to the geo-politically significant city of Dushanbe in Tajikistan.

Introspective glances

Standing perpendicularly beneath the sky, one feels neatly aligned to every celestial body in a straight line, but the end points of such a connection are countless. Similarly, engaging in an introspective exercise, based on the process of life, is also an endless pursuit with unlimited outcome! Such is the world of possibilities in the realm of the absolute!

It doesn’t help to go to sleep and toss aimlessly from one corner to the other in the pursuit of that easy exercise which you are deemed to engage in, supposedly with near-perfect ease! The mind, it is said, needs to attain a certain equilibrium before slipping into a state of clean surrender at the close of day, allowing the subconscious to perform that routine exercise which is meant to calm the system. But, aren't systems supposed to become dysfunctional at equilibrium? Or so, I read some place!

Introspection, thus, as I have learnt, needs to be limited only to that aspect of what can be done in the context of what was not done better on a previous occasion. If you give the process a degree of liberty more than what is deserved, then facing the peril will also be a responsibility you’ll automatically have to shoulder.

Mean minds like mine can play power games with itself and it's owner, without either of them realizing that they are being tricked in the process. So how do you rein in the brat?

Now, is that my mind speaking to me or otherwise?

Jackrabbit woes!

Footnotes:

Not to worry! This one is a product as a result of my inability to fall a sleep on a rare occasion. Having faced with the situation, I tossed myself up, following the advice of a spin-doctor, and pronto - the product is a grey configuration with shades of black and white! Abstract at best, presumably!

Seeking Albedo

A flight of fancy on a windswept field
Standing alone my senses reeled
A fatal attraction holding me fast, how
Can I escape this irresistible grasp?

-- Learning to Fly, Momentary Lapse of Reason, Pink Floyd, 15-09-1987

Have you had an uncanny sense of having been in a place before? Something like having known it even before having visited there? Or maybe, the striking similarity in the manner in which two events have occurred? Say, for instance, stark similarities, more than once? Or perhaps, a very vivid dream that pictured extensive detail as if time had enacted a scene of utterly unquestionable reality before your very eyes, when the mind was in absolute consciousness?

Of late, such instances have been on the rise for me, with the saddened part of them lasting only in tiny fractions, their sketchy remembrances almost always lost in the same instantaneous moment and manner that they appeared in the first place! I'm wondering what it is behind a Déjà vu, that makes it so real, yet painfully unexplained!

Must it be nothing more than a minor chemical imbalance triggered by an electrostatic activity in the brain? Or is there much more than meets the eye, of something that is larger and certainly incomprehensible? Either way, there is a certain degree of frustration as a result of the inability to understand the 'signal' that may hold the key to what the mind has known, even before the present individual (read: physical) realm attained consciousness!

Pure logic would suggest a rapid discount of such trickles, necessitating them to be dismissed as non-figurative occurrences without any significance what so ever! But the other hemisphere - is it the right? - would ponder over such happenings for sometime in a quest for reason! Balance is never found, though articulated at length by various internal agencies. Arriving at a conclusively amicable agreement is a mythical state, yet something, which is cleverly urged by one over the other in an endless scheme of outwitting the opposition - power-plays and artful dodging engaged at best!

There are a thousand fractals within, like black holes lurking in the boundless black universe, unknown, unseen, yet powerful light-bending time-stoppers! Maybe they are aimlessly chance creations, for now, but in time and with experience, a lot more will be understood of them as perhaps holding the key to time warps!

Sorry, not quite what you may call the adventures of Tom Sawyer!

Footnotes:

Albedo, by the way, is the measure of how strongly an object reflects light from light sources!

On the road to neverland

I'm on a journey, in search of something I do not know - a something, I'm not sure I will be able to find, ever! It is a quest that has long endured the vagaries of time and taken my mind to meander in the most unusual places that a thought can lead it to. It is a journey that seeks to draw a pattern of the myriad things that happen and discern the reasons for such happenstances - simply put! Hardly an easy task, I suppose.

It is quite like walking endlessly to seek what I believe are the pieces of a missing puzzle, the picture of which, sadly, is very fuzzy, yet strangely compelling. Often, I'm left with nothing more than exhaustion as a result of this chaotic pursuit that the mind is made to gallop for. Yet, on other occasions, I feel that there is an instant connect with something unknown, unexplained, however strong.

So, I'm searching for answers, much like how Wolverine aimlessly wandered in search of the account that would tell him of how his physical self came so much to border that of a mutant - terribly accidental though! Except here in real life, I do not have a fancy film-like ready reckoner to turn to and draw inklings from!

So I turn to silence, and chaos, the trees and the wind, the mountains and the water and still find little consolation in the hope of finding an answer - while also realizing that the search could well be futile and is perhaps ordained to be so! Quite a comfort in such a thought I rest with, momentarily, before the urging drive takes over again.

The night sky in all its glory, bejeweled by a billion stars, comforts me immensely, by which time I've lost all courage and determination to continue my aimlessly maddening pursuit. Undoubtedly, there is a strong connection. For as long as I'm gazing at the stars and the comforting expanse of the night sky, I feel soothed and forget that the hours of darkness will eventually give way to a bright new day - one that will see me scurrying in search for answers, I do not know what to!

And then, in the end, it's just me, by myself, on the road to neverland! 

Time and I

I'm waiting for the starlight, seeking solace in the warm depths of the evening sky, while glossing over the bygones of the day. My mind is overwhelmed with voluminous memories that have been!

A silent breeze swishes the leaves of a peach tree parting them to reveal the fruits that are now intensely yellow. Birds begin their roosting call, chirping in plentiful monotones, while moths seek the last vestiges of light, unknown to themselves, if they'd last another day!

The cold melancholic air has a certain charm and brings forth dusk with its golden hued twilight. With it comes a sense of calm that has to be savoured in all its elements, slow and steady - pretty much a feeling that has to be invited to slowly sink in.

The elegance of nature is truly unparalleled and the mind is racing in exuberant bliss while the body is composed and still. Some contradictions, it seems can never be comprehended.

Gone too soon, I'm left with the feeling that dusky twilights are akin to eclipses, arriving in much fanfare and departing in obscured quiet - unannounced! Dotted twinkles of a few stars in the horizon assure more scenic demonstrations in the offing. Pleasant aromas of freshly brewed tea fill the air, in random staccato bouts, leaving the mind to decide upon the wanton cravings of the tongue.

But silence is even more addictive and impresses upon me to stand by, and relish the proceeding of time to savour some of the finest moments in life - those, if once lost, would never heed a call to turn back in time!

Some of the most blissful things in life, I've realized, are elementary!

Being Me?

Have you ever felt in contravention to your inner-self? For the sake of resolving a conflict which you felt should have happened the way your conscious thought of rather than the way your mind wanted?

Life is not always black and white, there are many shades of gray in between. Some we see, some others we do not know they exist, let alone not being able to see!

Contradictions exist in every stage of life! They are a natural occurrence! It is important to recognize them rather than fight out their existence!

All roads lead forward, but our actions often do not! The result is a great deal of sorrow, disappointment, regret and pain, and a mix of all of them as if each of them were not potent enough already! Why? Isn't it only one life here?

Gaining terra firma is an art, aided with astute judgment, wisdom and patience! Who's gonna come around, when you break?

What is apparent is not usually recognized! The truth is out there, waiting to be known, felt and experienced, but the truth is a dangerous thing, for it is bitter, painful and strange! You just can't go on....but you have to!

If I fall along the way, pick me up and dust me off, and if I get too tired to make it, be my breath so I can walk
- Bent, Matchbox 20, April 18, 2000

I'm scared of loss! I'm anxious of the future! I'm worried of time slipping by! I'll be pained to envision the bygones! Will I be broken again? Will this end? I don't want it to! Is this Being Me? Can I get put back together? But I started out clean! And, what is that the English say about the end? A good beginning makes a good ending?

Footnotes:

These pictures were taken, using a mobile phone camera, during my trip to the Jim Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand during the winter of 2005! An account of this memorable trip is here!