Mentating ..

To question is only human. . .to look for answers...perhaps..to not find them and sulk ..mortal ...Period. Life is all about finding what you need..?..well not exactly ..life is indeed a journey and mostly it entails foraying into unforseen territories and encumbrances full of tedious travails...but thats just one side of the story .. not to mention that the grass is no more greener on the other side .. but sometimes our pessimism gets the better of us....more often than we think it does.. more than we admit it does...
The mind has the very unique ability to grasp everything and anything but it points out only the things that catches our fancy and thoughts that dwell within...From politics to crime to sports ..mass media and wildlife...how often do we ponder on things that really dont affect us....?
..while reading the morning newspaper..? or perhaps when striking a conversation with someone who's a complete stranger..?.sometimes when its pertinent to debate..?..the pattern as I see is that we choose to act instinctively which is though understandable yet sometimes devoid of logic.
There is much more to life than just money or mere realisation that we are not perfect nor perhaps immortal , life is supposed to be lived in this realm of now, the present .. the so called 'gift' that comes our way .. one by one .. everyday.
Living in an economy and surrounding as diverse as ours does grant me a sensibility to view and accept all of it if not really appreciate it. Like many of those around me, I have many a questions, most of them .. the most pertinent ones .. somehow still unanswered. And In a way this quest has me on my heels and somewhere the fear has me anxious as to what would become of me when I reach the answer to that anamoly, would my search conclude and my life stagnate , would all the meanings and rationales oblivate and peripheries coagulate into that one essence , the moment .. of reckoning .

WINDS OF CHANGE

The question/s around which my life has revolved for quite some time now...the questions i so longed to answer have furthur entangled my life.....

Who Is To Change...?

Why should I be the one to initiate one ?

Does your change also reflect on someone else's personality ?

Why is it important to change for us when actually the change we are so desperately seeking is not from within but in someone else instead ?

Why can we not be the way we are and yet be accepted and respected as we'd be ....once probably we reflect that change?

Why change is good ? How can it be said that a change will only be fruitful?
&
Why do most of the time 'we keep on waiting . . . waiting for the world to change'?

Hmmm... I started out with only one question and since it took me some thinking to find the Why ...in the meanwhile the Who & the How also emerged....

But its never too late.....
'Change' as a word has numerous interpretaions and meanings but one of the most popular is 'to be different' or to alter or modify. Change is to life what oxygen is to air...without it the purpose may remain .. but the thought wouldnt exist...
Now the question arises as to why is it pertinent to alter someone .. something and more specifically speaking ..Why is it important for me to change... ? ?

Well that's simple..To be better . . .
To be more useful and informed than i already am.
But is that reason enough for us to change ...well atleast for me its the major driving factor...though there are still other causes such as to change for someone u want to be..to change for someone who u want to be with...to change for what we always wanted . . . . . . . . . . .to change for those we love and blah blah blah......

The essence of change is not to singly oust the personality we carry .. not to shatter the hopes that we attach to ourselves but only to bolster us and prepare us for the changes that take place ..even as we may choose not to note....

The question that now arises is that who is to change..? 'Who goes first ..?
well... why not you..why should i change myself .. why dont we experiment on you and then see how and . . . if it works'

Thats our initial reaction to a change ... Why ?
Simply because change doesnt only mean to add a new thing , feature and quality or facet to urself ..change may also mean to give up some part of your self to realise that dream...to substitute the old with the new .. to let go of the inhibitions and fears.
It's not so much that we're afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it's that place in between that we fear . . . . It's like being between trapezes.
It's Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There's nothing to hold on to.

As discussed earlier .. our fear as to how would a change turn out deterrs to a great extent our ability to adapt it.

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Tolstoy says '' Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.''

Sooner we accept its imperativeness..
the faster we are ready for it...
Its important for us to be like a mirror..
to be able to reflect who we want others to be but moreso first be the person ourselves . . .
I can still recollect this incident was told to me in Class 8th . . .

A women visited Gandhiji after he ended adressing people while on his way to Sabarmati and pleaded that her child couldnt stop eating sweets and even after her repeated insistence she was not able to restrict this urge of her child and wanted him to help out on the same...and after she explained it all to him, Gandhiji just held the child had a look at him and said as he handed it over back to the mother ''Please come back in a week's time''. Shocked as she was she couldn't help but ask him ..as to why could he not make the child understand such a simple thing..He simply replied ''I'm sory i cant ask him to not do anything that i myself am not able to do , from today onwards I'd first deprive myself from sweets and only then can i ask him to do so....''

A man with big words ... a man of indomitable spirit ..someone who was always ready to bring a change..someone who was always ready '' to be the change ''

...Another defense that we put will resiting change is when we feel that we have been doin things in a manner .. and that works best for us .. but how can we be sure if we haven't tried anything else...

Coming back to our mortal habits ... changes aren't by any stretch of imagination easy to inculcate but necessary nonetheless....Someone wise has said that '' In order to lead ..you must know how to follow as well''..so in order for us to start commanding a change in others ..we must first initiate it from within .. and well ..who knows the change that we so impatiently seek..is actually within..

'The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.'

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order. Change is indeed progressive .. and the thing is that we do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations... and sometimes just inhibitions...

Well .. everything said and done .. the point still remains that why cant we be accepted for what we are ?? ... fair point ..i'd say and one in which I believed for a very long time .. but as i step out into a new world everyday i see people around me growing .. adapting to the inertia .. surfacing with a new side ,a facet to counter it ..Ofcourse we are good as what we are but then .. is being good ..good enough.?
I wonder..and so change herein is to be viewed as an acquisition of qualities that we currently dont possess and add it in our armory...and about people's perception well it changes as well .. those who are really concerned will delve deep to search for its existence and those who dont would point out fallacies anyways.. but both are equally important ..Reality Check . . ..

Anais Nin defines it as

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

. . . ..and so well and lucidly stated it is .. yes whether or not we accept it .. we abhor change primarily because we aren't sure if its necessary .. or important ... but then it is . . .
The need ... the proportion and the sustainability is in essence the ratinale for our differences as humans....They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself .. we just cant wait for things to change by itself .....Can we..?..not always ....we just can't afford to ..
It can't be guaranteed if a change will only be beneficial .. even though the trends vouch incessantly ... we still must consider the implications .. which in this case would be giving up a part of what we are . . . . . to be what we seek . . but what if that risk doesn't pay off.. and we end up being someone else . . . . . someone who's worse than the our old 'self'..

well lets just say that

' It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows '...

Risk is in every endeavor that we undertake .. even while sleeping .. while walking .. while riding a bus.. just sometimes it more evident than others.....
Change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress implacably requires change....

So the winds of Change softly flow... we must though be fast enough to not let it flow,besides...
when it matters we must change .. why must we be waiting .. waiting for the world to change ?

If the shoe doesn't fit ... must we change the foot ..?

Time would definately bring in more resonance to my thoughts but what i'm sure of is that we must strive to better ourselves .. sometime that may even be in remaining the way we are and sometimes in giving up but whatever it maybe change is our shadow ..it is the only constant in life ..........

All but Death, can be Adjusted—
Dynasties repaired—
Systems—settled in their Sockets—
Citadels—dissolved—

Wastes of Lives—resown with Colors
By Succeeding Springs—
Death—unto itself—Exception—
Is exempt from Change—

I'm ready for a change ...are you ?

ki
"When making your choice in life, do not. . . neglect to live..."


As humans we are endowed with many a thing over and above the other species...and 'Thought' ... i.e the ability to think...to be able to analyse and interpret and understand...is something that is unique to us .
Something that we do more often that we would ever admit..perhaps because ... its just not sane enough ... and even if it is it more often than not doesnt show in our actions...

A simple way of checking this is observing how many a time we are happy doin what we are without thinking what we could have done in the meanwhile...Life changes at the drop of a pin... in a split second . . . faster than our liking,but then hey..thats life..unexplained...a never resolved mystery ..best lived without regrets and a day at a time....
We often ask for opinions from people who are succesful and not those who are struggling because we are not happy to associate ourselves with them .The key point here is to observe how our position ..strata in society ...and our actions combined help people in framing an opinion about us rather than our bond or the way we treat them alone...Its a difficult thing to accept that people judje each other , at least in most cases prima facie without caring to judge or even pay heed to the cause or the reason...But the funniest bit is that despite knowing all of it ourselves we still remain caged by their opinions about us...maybe not the case with you or me ...but indeed the case with us.
Most of us are not ready for a change...because of our embedded Clairvoyance ...intutiveness...we end up looking down on our own selves..thinking that we just cant when actually our mere thinking is the very first step that we sub-consciously have taken in the right direction. It really isnt that hard to figure out....Error will not go away, logic and reason are slow to penetrate. We cling both arms to false hope, refusing to believe the weightiest proofs against it, embarrasing it with all our strength.

.........In the end it escapes, ripping our veins and draining our heart's blood; until, we regain consciousness, we rush to fall into snares of delusion all over again.....

Sophocles says '' Look and you will find it ...what is unsought will go . . . undetected''.
A lot many times we are afraid to think ...to believe in our ownselves....in short to DREAM....but as another famous sayin goes...."If you have built castles in the air..... dont worry, your work aint getting wasted, now just put the foundations in them"....
Purpose serves as a principle around which our lives function and if the very purpose of our existence to merely exist ..then its no real tribute to the selector..who handpicked us for this role . . .that we are undertaking...We were not sent into this world to do anything into which we can not put our heart.. and that realisation in itself sums up what life is all about.Thought we would always be tempted to cater to fancies of the vox populi its when we look to serve first the person within is when we initiate a harmony... a melancholy with those outside... and with those within...
The Upanishads state that " You are what your deep driving desire is; As your deep driving desire is, so is your will; As your will is so is your deed; As your deed is so is your destiny..." but does that mean that my mere acknowledgement of beauty .. of finer aspects and precepts make me .. good or noble...maybe yes...maybe no...This remains to be seen .. maybe i can answer this sometime later .. when i have trodded down the path myself.....
So my question to myself and to you is .... What is it that we musn't give up on ??? .. What we are .....What we can be ..What others see of us ... or simply What we would become as we go on....!
. . . . . . . . Food ....For Thought