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
14 Comments:
Well the first step is always the most difficult, so welcome back to blogging, with ur fist come back post!:-)
Waise u r a stuck guy:P
the book is going to do more harm to me than good
The book cant do that, bt the thing is excess of anything is bad, and too much of reading often puts one in such a temperament of the mind that you dont take it rightly. As u say correctly, much of what we make of a book depends on who and how we r when we read it.
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.
Cdnt agree more...
you should not yearn for consistency so much. It may be good if you get at it, but longing for it too much wdnt do u much good. Even inconsistency has to be kept up with a consistent habit.
As far as ur questions are concerned, well, my, or anyone else''s answering them or not nseering them at this moment is rather irrelevant, because in any case they wd be my answers at this moment of time. they'd mean nothing to u, and indeed may mean nthn to me either when i read this post again tomorrow. the thing is, everyone has to find their own answers in life. HEll, everyone even has to find their own questions in life, and very often, the latter is tougher.
being experienced just means that you have made more mistakes in life Right. But the point is, with every mistake u definitely learn smthng, and an experienced person exceeds a naive one only in the knowledge of what NOT to do.
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. no knowledge is compltete. You'll never be able to know all there is ever to know.
The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it
Only partially right, and I dont wanna explain it further.
Why is that when we get angry with someone we love, that anger is so intense?".
Because with people who are close to us, we have exposed ourselves to a greater degree, and they know our strengths and weaknesses really well, because of which they have the power to hurt. Greater the attachment, greater the impact at the smallest strain. The radius gets shorter as people move inwards in the concentric circle of our acquaintances, and u shd know that force is inveresly proportional to 'r'.
what is wrong in being greedy once in a while.Wrong. the motive of the greed is more imp. the way u mean it, i dont agree.
Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?
No. But we as humans are too scared of letting people in that circle. sometimes the desire to be alone makes u so cold that u end up being lonely, but something, that cd be ego or hesitation, prevents us from reaching out, from amking the first move. after all, the first step is the toughest. Right, or wrong?
@phoenix :
....and an experienced person exceeds a naive one only in the knowledge of what NOT to do.
There is no difference between what one knows and what one doesnot. RIGHT or wrong?? Waise interesting funda on inversely proportional to 'r'.
again a very somber and self-introspective post. this time, i cudnt agree more. it might only be books for you, for me, i have found that my state of mind influences how i perceive each and every aspect of my life, be it work, company of frineds, songs, movies everything.
howver there was one thing that was a trifle disturbing :
I don't know why I yearn for some consistency like some of my friends have or appear to have in their life
Why do u want to be more consistent ? why do you want to be someone you yourself think are not ? is being consistent 'right/wrong' ? refering to one of your previous posts ... 'dont bite off more than you can chew'. i thing i have realised over the last month is that it is impossible to imbibe the good qualitites fromeveryone's character, however hard u try. dont ever lose ur originality, its ur inconsistency that is so endearing
It might not be relevant, but I will say it.
Right or wrong is just one way of looking at things, just one pair of spectacles from which to look at life.
There are various other ways to look at things; for example legal and illegal, truth and lies etc. My favorite is consistent and inconsistent filer.
Life, as you would agree is essentially meaningless. It is up to us to define the point of it and then live consistent with it.
Don't worry about what's right or what's wrong boy, it serves no purpose!
@ cryptic : for the record , i hate why questions cause I can not answer them ;-)...I am not trying to become what others are but sometimes I can not help yearning for a life when I did not trouble myself with these questions.. I know people who appear 'consistent' must also have their shar e of problems... but grass is greener on the other side....and the day i stopped yearning.. would not I become truely great :-) ??
Goddamit! Awesome post, because it got me thinking. Thinking, and thinking back to my English, August days. Among many other things, I had exactly the same thought you had about pot.
Murakami's got to be good if he came up with your last lines. If the last lines are indicative of the rest of the book, it'll be like a mirror to me, considering my current state. :), or perhaps, :( .
Reading more than usual? That would be like a book a day then!!!
Murakami! That is good stuff. Add that to Miyazaki and you find yourself well on the way to becoming a Nippophile (that a word?)...next time I expect you to be spouting Basho and admiring Hokusai paintings!:D
My reading has come to an unfortunate halt...over the last month I have struggled to finish one book (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell), although I actually loved it...
Your blog and the comments always give me a complex as I can never write long meaningful comments:(...this would be about the longest I have written and it says nothing:((
Lovely post though!
@ anon i would not agree life is meaningless. I am hoping that some day I will realize that my life has/had a meaning. But your point about defining a point I will accept but only to that point that you have to keep re-defining the point each day of your life for it to be consistent with your current state and then live consistently/ inconsisitently to it.
@ robert frust the point about pot came to my head after the discussion we had :-), btw the book is very well written, but it also made me realize that there are lots of things which are currently out of my grasp. Go to landmark and check it out if you have time
@bofi As long as the comment takes me to wiki, it can not be meaningless :-)....waise I had seen the 'Fuji' painting in a hukka course...where the prof stressed on the size of the Fuji and the boat in the pic, waise did not you hate leaving "lovely post" comments?
finally ur back....siddharth was good, but somehow i couldn't quite accept that the things he talks about and does could quite be possible today.
and just something i read in 'lucifer' a few days back...
not all things can be seen as two sides of the same coin, so some things may not be right or wrong, just are....
as for why we were put here, maybe we were just (un)lucky enough to evolve enough to ask why
Its always a pleasure to read one of ur posts and yeah u are back to envoking deja vu's in my mind.
But I thing I wld agree with Mr Dorian Gray, " The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it". My whole experience and I am sure urs too has been tht of yielding to temptions, yearning for some of the elusive ones and finally getting diseb=nchented by all tht is called freedom and fun.Perceptions have changed,the stronger the temptation,the hollower it has seemed in the long run.Hope tht u wld continue to write in the same manner.CYa soon!!!
@vivek I don't quite agree with the possibility of things said in siddhartha, maybe we can't apply them as they are but we can improvize and adapt. I think the way that book changed my way of thinking makes it reading it worthwhile to me. As for the lucifer line, i would say, sometimes there is no coin at all :-)
@ankur i have thought about this line a lot and never reached a conclusion. Never can determine which temptations are worth the price if you yield to them.
About the book sidharta the lines are (and i hav made no efforts to remember it, it just is encrypted in my mind) "knowledge can be taught, wisdom can only be experienced" i was bold over it is so powerful statement. but then as alchemist will tell us " alchemy is so simple that it can b written on an emrald but to value it we must read so many books" i think similarily wat we hav to know is very simple but in order to comprehend the wisdom we hav to experience it and not read it in books. right or wrong???
giv in to temptation - wrong (lets not elaborate it) temptation leads to habit,which leads to embarrassment.
i don't want to b consistent for i believe all moments of brilliance r a result of intuition n subconcious mind . the concious mind is full of contradiction n fear to failure.
u can't get into other's shoes because u at present are a function of ur past and i havn't lived ur past hence i can't imagine ur biases . right or wrong ?????
abe update kar
I came across this post in searching for "Why do people not care about each other?" which is a question I have been asking myself since I was little, then not for a while, and now in my mid-20s, all the time again recently. I moved to an area of the US which is quite different than where I grew up, where people isolate themselves so greatly, but I find great difficulty in networking. I want to have the courage to ask people for help and to provide help, but I always find myself in relationships with people that are not mutually beneficial, where I am the one always helping even when I am the one asking for help and never receive help from anyone. I feel a lot of the time that people ignore me and don't care, yet want me to care about them. Also, in my employment... in my past jobs I liked some of the people I have worked with and had similar goals, but in my current job I have an extremely hard time understanding their goals, their beliefs, and morals. I feel that they are bad and am tired of them criticizing mine, especially when I have never forced my beliefs on them though I find it increasingly difficult to continue working on a product I find morally wrong and harmful to people and the environment, two things I have always wanted to do great things for. I guess I need to search for people who not only feel similarly, but act on it as these people will encourage me to also continue acting on it and to feel happier, not hopeless. The people I'm currently surrounded by make me feel like all my goals are further away than I ever used to think and all my beliefs are useless because I'll never be able to act on them. Every day I remind myself of a quote from Jonas Salk, "Hope lies in dreams, in imagination and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality." We mustn't lose hope and musn't lose hope in humanity.
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