Cautionary Tales from My Life

 "You either become an inspiration or become a cautionary tale", someone said something like this. And it is not hard to establish that this statement is trivially true because after all the categories are exhaustive over the sample space. Here I was tempted to write mutually exclusive but that is hard to define and can be quite tricky. At times I pondered whether I can locate myself in either category. And it turned out to be difficult than I expected. However I recently arrived at a conclusion that my experiences suit more to be tales of caution. Even my stories of inspiration are cautionary.

Firstly what exactly is my motivation? Well nothing much, it is all personal which is a fancy way of saying that I am doing it for selfish reasons. I just want to write my heart out and just feel good. I would love if people read it but I really do not care about that. Well you read till here why not complete it right?

I have for long lived in a bubble, not because I wanted to but rather because I was not sure how not to make a bubble around me. This bubble metaphor is so amazing. So one one hand a bubble can go bust whereas a bubble can take you to heights before it busts. I will here develop upon the second interpretation. One thing I have done in my life for long(regrettably) is to internalize my conflicts, pains and basically my life itself. I was a happening person but even I could not see it. I never understood that I could come out too, be a little more expressive. And mind the meaning of 'expressiveness' I intend. I was a public speaker. I was good in studies and was the class monitor too. This expressiveness is just different. What exactly is it? Well it is something for sure....

In one of the incident I did not listen to songs for 4 years because I had started believing that songs could kill my character. It was a crazy thought but it took me years to get rid off. Pretty stupid huh.. I was quite serious back then. Well owing to the incident I have grown up without a taste in music. I do not really regret my absence of taste in music(it simplifies the conversation) however such dangerous trend could have transformed into something sinister and hence a cautionary tale.

Internalizing pain made me feel bad about me. I feared happy moments. I would keep myself from happy moments because I believed that they were not meant for me. Even in moments of happiness I would always keep my ecstasy low because I mentally prepared myself for the sad times which would follow up. They followed up and pretty fast because I earnestly waited for them. It should have never happened that way. A tale of caution as to why no one should be doing it. It is like a quicksand you just go getting deeper in it. 

And it gets worse because you start missing opportunities because you do not have any confidence left. You are not able to convince yourself whether you are the right person for the opportunity. So all this process repeats resulting in frequent breakdowns. Remember the bubble metaphor. So let me now elaborate on it. Imagine your troubles as a bubble. It is taking you up against your will. But being a bubble it will go bust sometime, but who knows when and at what height. You will be inside that bubble for all that time. Your actions and choices inside that bubble determines how to survive the bust. If are develop the skills to fly then by the time bubble goes bust you are already at a height. You can start exploring the world from given height. Or if you are unprepared you fall straight to ground. Internalizing pain can seriously hamper your desires to fly. It is just a recent realization that we must see things in a larger picture. I wish i realized that earlier but yeah better late than never.

And then there are relations. I struggled to establish any real contact with people around me because again I felt so out of place everywhere. I struggled to believe that I could be good-enough to be good. This habit of me plagues me till date and I am having to put extra efforts to get rid of this.

Yes my life is that of caution. You are not supposed to be as miserable in life as I have been. I seriously wish I had realized this all earlier. Life is full of surprises. You never know what will happen at the blink of eye. You never understand why it is happening. The best you can do is to be prepared. Remember when inside the bubble catch all the feathers you can and stich your wings. Think of your action as small pieces in larger scheme of things. And remember that the bust would come sooner or later.

For more such experiences in a very detailed manner, wait for my autobiography releasing atleast after 40 years. And hooray...you made it till here..

ShorWis #49

Contradictions are everywhere, reality is about trade-offs.

Down the Dead River

It passed through the town, but possibly thought it to be some "bad land", it remembered its source but the prospect of destination has faded away, it had a desire to display its might but hardly anyone seemed to notice it, it was thought to be a relative of those artificial water passages made by some creatures on Earth, whose water was naturally black and the truth seemingly hidden beneath the dark surface.

The stranger walked down by river. It was difficult to describe him, not because he was strange but rather he was not worth noticing. He was lean, tall and carried a large bag over his shoulder. He did invite some attention from the children who were playing on the banks of the river when the football hit him. He turned and kicked the football back with a smile. The eldest among the players returned a smile as courtesy, but then a maximal utilization was to be of the recreation time.

And while its destination was ambiguous, it always had a feeling that the sea was nearby, for there was a smell of salt in the air. It always believed that one day the soil would give way for it to touch the sea. It had faint memories of mingling with the seawater but wasn't quite sure about it. It always tried to maintain an oblivion over the fact that it was gradually losing it strength.

The stranger too was carrying means to sanction him the strength to continue his trek in apparent monotony. But the stranger looked serious and sane enough to not just keep on walking aimlessly along the banks of a narrow stream. The cumulus clouds passed by, being carried by the strong winds. He looked up at the sky and then looked down. The reflection of clouds were not visible; partly because black surface did not reflect and partly because the green surface did not reflect.

The river seemed to notice the stranger, perceiving the perplexed look he carried. It was not unusual to see creature by your bank, however this man was different. He seemed to have an extraordinary curiosity towards the river or at least this was what its explanation of his expression.
He was noticed being distracted by the chirping of the bird and distant indistinct noises of traffic. Although his focus on walking always returned back instantaneously.
There was possibly more in common between these two entities than either of them could fathom.

And it remembers how it all began high up in the mountain. Multiple short streams unified together to make a giant stream which enters the plain. The faint memory also had the sketches of the great force with which it swiftly came down from the slopes. Its recent memory only recounts colliding a large concrete structure which could perhaps stop the force of the world's greatest river. It only has a fraction of force it used to have but the faint memory kept have successfully kept it disillusioned at most instants.
The width had reduced. "Possibly this man too is coming from the concrete wall."

The stranger sat down by the river. Not a very ideal place to sit for the water there was stinky and algae had invaded over it. This act made the river's belief of their connection a little more firm.

At its source, the river was enthusiastic, as it gets a chance to think that it would change the world and leave its mark on the soil. Little did it have any idea over how the events would unfold.
The journey has been marred with tragedies but the faint memory compensates for it. There is a time it had force and sediments didn't have the courage to stand its way, but once it was on the receiving side of the blow, all the agents came back to haunt, albeit they were not on the weaker side.

The stranger took out a piece of paper from his pocket. It was something which made him smile and be dejected simultaneously, possibly resulting from the faint memory of being good before everything messed up and also by the faint memory of the mess which made him feel good. It was difficult to judge, however the river could identify with him. Perhaps because it had more pity for himself than the stranger. He got up and started walking again.

The river was dying, the river was on the verge of death. At the destination the river simply merged into land. And throughout its course, the land was trying to invade the water body. The stranger became relatively sad as he progressed along the downstream. The faint memories seemed to be exposing more details. The impermanence of the river was always guaranteed but the in its life it experienced more turmoil than what was known at the source. The stranger was young, well before the first wave of serious melancholy must strike.

Although it was really ignorant by its nature, it somehow always had this faint instinct of the death. That it would cease to appear. That it may not complete its promised years. That it would suffer for the act of others. That it suffer by the choice of its turns. That it would succumb to its fate. And the marks it left on the soil would soon be replaced.

Despite all this the river has a hope that it could still be revived. Somehow the land will just move back, or a glacier meltdown up in the mountains would overpower that concrete wall, or the sea by itself would make its way to meet its old companion.

The stranger walked up to a point around 2 km from the municipal boundaries of the town. He seemed even more sorrowful.
The stranger at this point changed his mind and direction away from the stream. The two entities were flowing together; one of them have now forked away, like a new tributary.

From that point, the river could only hypothesize his fate.

Shorwis #48

A battle between "right" and "wrong" eventually remains only a battle.

Shorwis #47

Beauty paegents are an elite class conspiracy to equate beauty with vanity.

ShorWis #46

The truths are often ambiguous and the actions are mostly decisive. It's a "bad" understanding of this thin overlap where most of the world's problem lies.

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And the above statement possibly leads to a "self-referential problem".

Shorwis #45

The trade-off between 'natural' and 'unnatural' is civilisation.

ShorWis #44

There is no real problem in existence of a contradictory idea as long as no contradiction is discovered in such an existence.

ShorWis #43

We might never be able to complete the picture but we should not stop joining the dots. When dots are converted to curves, we move a dimension up.

Shorwis #42

Absolute kindness is a utopian disaster.

SINS

If God has given us the capacity to commit 'sins', then isn't it a shortcoming in his/her creation and not the fault of our actions?
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Or maybe there are no sins at all.

Brain'Wash'

A child is born in a family; not by his choice but rather by his fate: an act between individuals. This choice may become a subject of debate but it doesn’t seem to happen. After all the argumentators are themselves not the ‘product of choice’. Thus there are ideological caveats since the inception of one’s life which in turn leaves a void in development of an absolute perspective. As life progresses, these complications also develop and broadens the scope of deceptive manipulation.

A child is greatly affected by the value system prevailing in the immediate surrounding. He (could also be she, but since I am male) accepts them without a proper reason as the immediate value system lacks the idea of rational reasoning. He was brain’washed’ with thoughts; again without a choice. However, in early days it wasn’t a problem as the concept of choice was beyond the child. But as his interactions expanded, the dilemma of choice crept in. It was an easy choice though. The child couldn’t decide the better of the two owing to his lack of reasoning and not venturing into an unknown territory seemed to be wiser choice to him.

It was only a matter of time. His encountered many brain’washers’ trying to influence him, each with their own ideas (and probably propaganda). To say that he always reasoned his way out amidst this would be outrageously optimistic. He was influenced but since there were just so many influences that nothing could brain’wash’ him completely. And this is the state of mind in which a significant part of the population exists.

Long story cut short. This all continued till he discovered the value of self-reasoning and thereon saw a massive shift in his ideologies. He understood the methods of “brain’wash’” often used as a tool of propaganda. He had developed an open-minded attitude to life events and everything seemed to be in sync with rational beliefs. In short things are good.

Every tale need not end on a happy note and neither does this ends deep in pessimism. It just gets looped; looped around cycle of delusions, apparently having no answers.

And while he was completely convinced that he could no longer be brain’washed’ , a simple thought occurred to him causing his beliefs to get stuck in a limbo, “Have I been trying to get rid of some disease that every living creature must suffer from? Have I been target of some propaganda? Have I been successfully brain’wash-ed’?”

ShorWis #41

There is absolutely nothing wrong in being judgemental as long as the judgement is not a hasty conclusion.

Shorwis #40

We must not be bothered much by the weight of our expectations because ultimately we shall get just a small fraction it.

ShorWis #39

In "seemingly-intense" cases of decision-making wherein "emotions" run high, even a "multi- level-possible verdict" ends up becoming a "binary verdict" owing to a generalised tendency of the people to have their opinions floating to the either extremes. However requirement of such an "intensity" is never validated.

Moral Dilemma in Similar Actions

Two similar events having a similar cause and effect may be perceived differently at different instances as is governed by localised tendencies of the masses irrespective of individual perceptions (which may or may not be significant), and is necessarily beyond the scope of being painted in 'black' or 'white'.

Fortified Souls

And once there was a child who like any other child was made to believe that we are ‘free’, because once upon a time we were under the British rule, but now we rule ourselves. And the child was naturally satisfied with the explanation because it all seemed legit to his nascent understanding. But the time passes and it leads to evolution of ideas. The circumstances of the child strayed him into the realm of self-doubt. Apparently this could have led to a disastrous outcome but due to various other happenings, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Now the child had acquired the ‘maturity’ to doubt his very existence. The event may be an incident or an accident as you might call it.

Now it wasn’t an enlightenment overnight but rather a slow evolution of ideas catalysed by a curiosity for a keen observer and susceptible to his ‘existence’(LOL). The changes were slow and the child was not a child anymore. (But as they say there is a man in every child, so let us refer him as a child.) The child was now ‘free’ or more accurately he had adopted ways which gave him a false impression that he was ‘free’. He was ‘happy’ because he had acquired the ‘Art of Happiness’. But as we know that alteration is the ultimate law of the universe, his ideas were never still. And while new ideas developed, a rift was created with the former ones.

The ever busy mind now wasn’t in sync with prior ideas of ‘freedom’. The child now identified the constraints that tied him, thus preventing him from achieving his freedom. The situation became frustrating and it had an adverse effect on his ideologies. His ideas were free, his imaginations kissed infinities, but could not experience them in reality. A feeling of constraint again gripped him.

Time is the best leveller and the child had again learnt to be happy limiting himself to the freedom of his imagination. He now had multiple personalities, of which just one was visible to the external world. The beauty of his ‘free’ world was that he could experience anything, hate someone or love someone by his choice. But the child was mature enough not to apply utopian conditions to his free world.

And while a feeling of desperation was increasing (because the ideas were constantly evolving), a change inevitably took place and the previous ‘constraints’ were removed from his life. Now the child (not a child anymore) was as much free as he could imagine. He has acquired the freedom to choose, free to roam, free to affect himself etc. And he enjoyed and exploited his newly found freedom. But being never of a calm thought-process, he could have never settled at this position. He started to experience the constraints that were earlier hidden or rather were not ‘essential-enough’ to be considered a restriction. And the idea of “Fortified Soul” germinated somewhere in his conscience. He didn’t like his voice, but he was bound to use it. He never had any freedom to choose it.

And like this child, we never had real choices in many of our ‘free’ decisions. We did not choose our world, our setting, our bodily features, our parents, our religion and most important our decision to exist (or not). We are constrained by our own physical existence. We have our own worldly limitations. We have a voice which cannot change, we don’t have wigs to fly and many others. Our decisions are never ours. We are intoxicated with certain influence.

And thus the concept of “Fortified Soul” is enforced. Your soul can, up to an extent, contemplate freedom but you have your physical attributes to be restricted by. Even utopian ideas are not safe from these constraints. Suppose you try to imagine a ‘world of your will’. But isn’t the world influenced by the negatives (or positives) you do not want to see in life? ……. But we still have a strong feeling of freedom which prevents us from straying into territories of pessimism.

“Choice or more specifically freedom in choice is but a necessary illusion”.

If I come across a point where I have to make a decision with multiple possibilities, then I should feel that I make my choice ‘freely’. Though my decision may have been predetermined owing to some factors, but this illusion works right and perhaps prevents the “creature with higher consciousness” from depressing down. A rich kid might never have the option of pursuing begging as a profession, but he should feel a sense of liberty in choice of his/her path. If we feel free to be ruled or administered by an individual or a group of individuals, then be it. Such a feeling is vital for the existence of societies.

The child while sitting in the lap of nature observed mundane things around and realised that every creation of nature is governed by the rule to be bonded by restrictions. A bird looks beautiful against the backdrop of sunset. But what if the bird demands to be able to run of land? What if a tree demands the power of locomotion? What if a fish wishes to have lungs like that of a terrestrial animal? What if a river desires to be salty? It would most probably lead to a chaotic situation unable to sustain life (let us avoid the definition of life for now).

Now there were no reasons for the child to be saddened by those restrictions, but rather to enjoy the worldly restrictions he had conquered(mostly).

We are “Fortified Souls” because we are meant to be.

Freedom in real sense is said to be attained when an action is taken or a choice is made devoid of unnecessary or malefic worldly influence, and constrained only by natural limitations of the individuals and other harmless worldly factors (such as involuntary human emotions).

ShorWis #38

A flowing river doesn't care what other creatures are doing on its bank.

ShorWis #37

Choice is but a necessary illusion.

ShorWis #36

We all are mathematicians; some of us realise,most of us don't.