THE GOOD LIFE

So, do it. Decide. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More compassionate? Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out and decide. It is in these moments of decision after all, that our fortunes are made. Stay quiet because silence/loneliness when accepted is a gift from bounty that will help us in finding our treasure.

But, one of the risks of being quiet is that the other people can fill your silence with their own interpretation: you’re bored. You’re depressed. You’re shy. You’re stuck up. You’re judgmental. When others can’t read us, they write their own story- not always the one we choose or that’s true to who we are.

Sometimes, I just sit with myself and recount all the kisses, all the laughs, all the nights and all the days that I’ve squandered. Sometimes, I just sit down to ignite my soul with the passion that sometimes appears lost or disillusioned. Sometimes, I ask myself tough questions and bury my soul with guilt. Guilt of being nice to people who always took me for granted and made me doubt my self-worth, guilt of dreaming about my future life goals, career goals and relationship goals when I see them broken into pieces the day after and, guilt of not succeeding to please everyone I like at all times.

Guilt that terrifies me and you is made up of sixty five percent water.  And everyone you love is made of stardust, and I know sometimes you can’t even breathe deeply, and the night sky is no home. You’ve cried yourself to sleep enough times that you’re down to your last two percent, but nothing is infinite. Not even loss. You’re made of the sea and the stars, and one day you’re going to find yourself again. Trust me.

The most beautiful people to be around are the ones with open minds. The ones who will tell you that sorrow is just as wonderful as bliss and that at any moment, you can be whoever you want to be and love whoever and whatever you want to love- whether it is religion or the same sex or drinking or pain. Sit at bars and linger in coffee shops just to find these kinds of people. Without knowing it, they’re slowly changing the world.

Love your partner unconditionally but follow your own unique dreams and goals simultaneously. Find a partner who gets tangled in your dreams and falls into your wishes. Wonder through the depths of your desires, and crawl in to the smallest part of your emotions. Get lost in your goals, and find your way back with the knowledge that your mate backs you. Dance with your secrets and hold hands with your memories, always.

Do what you love wholeheartedly, and money will follow. Clubs get old. Every different weekend, wear a new outfit but make sure that you hang around with the same people. Hold onto them. Stop competing for everyone’s attention. Just pick one out of the lot and stick with him/her. Splurging is overrated. Take that money and build your empire and not just your closet. Stop mistreating those who love you and care. If he or she sees beyond your faults and past, KEEP THEM.

In the end, you only need one man to love you. But him to love you free like a wildfire, crazy like the moon, always like tomorrow, sudden like an inhale and overcoming like the tides. All you need is only one man and all of this.

STAY MINDLESS!

                                              

There is something far greater than death and that is to be ignored. Sometimes, I think of all the faces I’ve come across and all the faces I’ve forgotten, and how terrible it is to come and go. Imagine meeting someone one day and completely turning a blind eye to their existence the other day. Sadly, this is how we all lead our lives. We only tend to remember the moments that make us feel something and we become oblivion to other times of our lives as life treads on. We all devour only those moments that make us feel like we’re all worth a little more than we were the night before.

In this befitted world of ours, there’re a lot of melodramatic sagas which put on display the mindless people, as I’d call them or the nincompoops, as the world would call them. All of us have moments when we lose track of the present, traipsing off into another world. To a mind focused on the here and now, absent mindedness may seem a negative that holds you back from worldly success. Children are reprimanded for daydreaming and taught the virtues of staying focused. But who says that to be absent minded is to lack in focus?! The absence of mind shall just mean that the mind is meandering through fascinating labyrinths that are invisible to the open eye. Or, that it is focused on something else that is not of this world- an elusive element that we seek to chase, understand, grasp and perhaps bring back into this world as poetry, writing, sketching, a unique thought, a new dance form or a great discovery! It points to a mindlessness that allows us to soak up experiences and knowledge that too much mindfulness of the present reality cannot give us.

Scientists, poets, philosophers and creative people are most notorious for their absent minded ways. Several anecdotes revolve around Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton due to their scattered, oblivious ways. There are multifarious distractions and mind-boggling technology today, so quite cognitively the ‘absent-mindedness’ strikes in novel ways these days. Forgetting where you kept your car keys; having that panicky moment when you think you misplaced your cellphone before you realize you’re talking on it; forgetting why you walked into a room or why you opened the refrigerator or forgetting why you called someone as soon as someone takes the call – are commonplaces to be in.

In The Last Samurai, Nobutada, son of the leader of the Samurai rebellion tells Tom Cruise, “Forgive me, too many minds…” and counsels him that to be a Samurai, he must seek a stillness of the mind “No mind, no mind…” he advises.

When the mind phases out and floats away, it takes away with it any sense of ego. “I” ceases to exist and you float in mindlessness like an empty cauldron ready for new, unique experiences. We no longer see the world so lucidly, though we see more clearly facts and truths hidden from us earlier. Sufis say that in order to reach God in this life, we need to die before we die. Rumi says that in order to open the doors of heaven on earth, we need to melt down ego.

Meditation and sexual climax, when all thoughts shut for a while, are two extreme paths to mindlessness. Osho says, in this mindlessness you become divine. When you become mindless, you unite with the universal flow allowing the right brain to take over. There, at that level, you cannot separate the dancer from dance, artist from sketches and so on. You’re in a unique position where you absorb, understand, discover, become One and create.

Conclusively, there seem to be no fallacy in hanging around mindlessly. Far from considering it a negative, it should be the desirable state that everyone can, or even should aspire to! 

WOMEN CAN’T HAVE IT ALL‼

Speaking broadly, I’m just too hardcore a feminist to enunciate my write-up with a title like this one. So quite obviously, the title can’t be a product of my thoughts but the nomenclature of the manufacturer of this thought would probably send an electric spark down to your nerves like it did too mine.

The CEO of PepsiCo India, Indra Nooyi notoriously voiced the above titled emotions while being awarded for her prodigious excellence in one of the ceremonies. At the Aspen Ideas Festival, Colorado when she took over the stage, there were business tycoons and men/women from the press alike in galore bracing themselves up to lend their ears to something worthwhile being stressed upon from the podium. India’s most successful woman entrepreneur, till then, was being viewed by flocks of women as a powerhouse, as the Harry Potter who had got all clandestine revealed about the success mantra, as Sherlock Holmes who had spied long at the mysteries behind being efficacious efficaciously, as Dan Brown who had cracked Da Vinci Code tediously, or simply put as a laborious businesswoman in-apprehensive of what her genetic coding (i.e. being a woman) says.

The boss, who is a mother of two, further extended her views, saying that she died with guilt over compromises she had to make to balance career and family life. With a stellar career, £7.3 million salary and a 34 year long marriage, statistics flatter enough to deceive her statements though. She insists that women can only pretend to have it all. She says that every day is a choice that in parallel to being a CEO, shall she be a mother today or a wife. Sometimes, during the day itself the decision has to be amended over again and again.

She had put light on how uncooperative her spouse had been, which fundamentally turned things sour as the onus lied on Indra solely. He complained every now and then of her work priorities. Sadly, he failed to understand that you can’t become a million dollar baby with a minimum wage work ethic. Sadly enough, in defiance to Indra Nooyi I would say that ‘no one has it all’ in reality. Ms. Nooyi, trust me, everyone just pretends to have it all. Right from the morning, every day is a choice between whether to stay in bed for a couple of minutes more and laze or to get up a decade of minutes earlier and grind. You just can’t have it all. It is the law of the land, you win some; you lose some.

Wrapping it all up, I would culminate by just hoping that all women get better better-halves over Mr. Raj (Indra’s husband), because settling down for lesser things in life can’t be an option for the ambitious lot of women.