Right or Wrong????
I am back would have to do for the beginning line of this post for the lack of better imagination on my part. Come to think of it the most difficult moments in life is to get things started (for me atleast). When the ship finally hit top knots, it is mostly smooth sailing until you get to the docking station again. Being stuck-at-Intel working on stuck-at-0 and stuck-at-1 faults has made me realize a few more things about myself. As one of my friends put sometimes in life i get stuck at somethings and cannot move until i have resolved them and at times I also get stuck with the resolve of not trying to solve a problem even when I see it would become a major pain if not eradicated all of a sudden.I have been reading a lot in my spare time now-a-days. A lot means more than my share of quota from the regular semester days. But I have some times realized while reading that the book is going to do more harm to me than good. Nothing has come 'good' out of this my reading habit if you would call it. Except a thirst to devour more and a desire to know where my life is heading?. I am not much of a reader but somehow whenever I read, some lines stay with me and I come to recall them at the most unexpected of moments. Its not like I make a point to remember the lines but if something related comes up I am sure that line would pop out on its own. Right now, the books I have read have left a lot many questions in my head without little answers for them. It all started some years ago. I read that book English August, which left me a little disturbed, no not that, I would prefer the use of the word 'dagmagaya hua' as in the hindi phrase for a rocking ship. How was I to grasp the enormity of what the author was trying to convey when I could not fully associate with what being 'stoned' meant. I reread the book this summer and some how the ease with which the protaganist Agastya keeps on getting stoned keeps me thinking if I could even smoke a cigarette with that much ease let alone pot. Are my sense of morals my own or just borrowed set of ones, ones which have been ingrained into my head? Waise if I am allowed a little leeway, I would say that a book is like a water body . Or types of waterbodies. All of them reflect the state you are in. And you can see anything you want to if you are adept at listening to the sounds of silence or of calm water. Some are like lakes, calm and quiet, some are oceans where the tides rock the shore and some are like rivers, you just go with the flow. I remember identifying 'Old Man and the Sea' as the most pessimistic book I had ever read in one of my not so good moods when on a second read it turned out to quite the opposite. Everything in life depends on from where you are seeing the things. I have also realized lately in trying to understand somebodies else problem the best way is to get into their shoes and see the picture from his or her point of view.
Actually I used to think Hesse Siddhartha had the most effect on me as an individual. I thought that was the book that left the desire to seek myself in this world , a desire to know who I actually was. It has that line about wisdom being different from knowledge which kept me worked up for quite sometime. At one point I used to think that book told me everything that was to be thought about. I mean if I one day I could have wisdom (as If I just had to raise enough money to buy it in some bookstore), I could be hopefully more happy or at peace. But the second Hesse "Narcissus and Goldmund" conveyed that there was no eternal happiness or peace, you had to win over you peace each day little by little. But then I read something by Murakami this week said, If a single book tells you everything you ever thought was to know, then that thing is not worth knowing in the first case. Right or Wrong???? Two more lines have kept me thinking this summer. One is from Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" which said " The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it". Right or Wrong???? The other is from this Krishnamurthy "This matter of Culture" book about "Why is that when we get angry with someone we love, that anger is so intense?". Actually the second question was supposed to be something else but It skipped my mind as soon as my fingers went for the letters on the keyboard.
Which brings to the realization I have had this summer. And that is I am very 'in the moment' kind of person. I read a book and I am into it with everything I have if I am liking it. But if somebody asks me the name of the lead protaganist some time later, 99% chances are I would get it wrong instead of right. Sometimes I come up with things even I wonder later how I came up with. Was it pure chance or luck or what was the source from within me from where the answer popped up? Being in the moment has its pros and cons. I can surprise people at times with the things I come up but sometimes I am also surprised that I came up with them. I desire to be consistent but what I come up with is moments of genius, moments of stupidity, moments of intense passion and moments of intense anger also. I don't know why I yearn for some consistency like some of my friends have or appear to have in their life. I read this line somewhere being experienced just means that you have made more mistakes in life. Right or Wrong????
At one point I decided I will not read any more cause the answers always remained elusive. I can sometimes clearly see what the lock looks like but the key always keeps on slipping away from my hands. But then "Franny and Zooey" came up and said that greed for spiritual , intellectual satisfaction is also eventually greed. So what is wrong in being greedy once in a while. Right or wrong????? Though i think this is a better line from this work
Everything everybody does is so--I don't know--not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and--sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much as everybody else, only in a different way.
I could go on and on . But I want more chai . So i leave you with this question from Sputnik Sweetheart by Murakami.
Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?
RIGHT OR WRONG?????
posted by inhas @ 11:26 AM
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