Saturday, September 10, 2011

Love

Once upon a time I used to consider myself a Love Guru and used to advise people on that matter. Suddenly these days I feel lost. Actually, now that I think of it's not just these days. I should say these months of an year. Esp. September. I know its the month of fall. But what does that have to do with my emotional state. I can remember from as far back as my college days. September used to be the month when I used to feel very lonely. When I used to crave someone's company. Someone's attention. Is there a relation between the month and my emotional state? Is my belief in the astrology well - placed? I don't know anymore.
Anyways, I did not come here today to write about astrological impacts. However, I wanted to pen down my confusion over love. It's started to baffle me. Earlier I used to be sure of my bearings. I used to be sure about who I like and who I don't. It was a simple matter of what I thought. But it doesn't seem the same anymore. Once I was asked : If you would want to define love in one word.. what would it be? And I replied : Alien.
My explanation to this was that Love is an alien feeling. You have no idea what it feels like till you see it. You have no idea what to do with it. And when you are in love you feel out of the world.
It still seems alien to me. But it's somehow become all the more confusing to me. So what exactly is love. If I like someone to the point that I want to spend most of my time with them. Is it love? But then again I like spending time with my friends too. So what's the difference?
If I feel like sharing everything I have with someone is it love? But isn't that just philanthropic.
If someone is in my mind all the time throughout the day. Is it love? Isn't that just infatuation.
I can have so many examples and so many other words. Admiration. Obsession. Liking. This wordplay is confusing me.
I still remember the first time I thought I am in love. I was told that it was just infatuation. And yet I distinctly remember all the madness that came with it.
So I guess I come again to the same questions again and again. What is love? How do you know when you are in love? And how do you know if the other person is in love too?
It's just baffling. Bordering on madness. And then people ask me why everything looks like madness, insanity to me. It's because everything is so baffling to me. Why can't things be simple. Why does everything has to be made an issue of.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Insanity - III

Ever had a feeling of "What am I doing here?". Mostly its the feeling that you get when you get an invite to a meeting which has no concern to you or what you do. Or sometimes when one of your friends has to go out with his girlfriend and drags you along coz he needs company on the way.
These are one off scenarios and I believe common enough that everyone may have experienced.
But ever had the same feeling in general? As in wherever you are. Ever felt what am I doing here?
Ever tried to broaden the scope of "here".
There's this funny nonsense we used to do. In this one person asks questions and the other answers and it goes something like this:
I need water.
It's in the Pitcher
Where's the pitcher. It's in the room
Where's the room. It's in the school
Where's the school. It's in Sector 13
Where's Sec 13. It's in Hisar
Where's Hisar. It's in Haryana
Where's Haryana. It's in India
Where's India. It's in Asia
Where's Asia. In the world
Where's the world? In the water(as everything is surrounded by oceans)

It was silly I know.. But it was fun to see the conversation returning to the same point again and again.
However my point is not the silliness. I wanted to point out how the scope of here is broadened in each step. We are actually referring the water in the pitcher at all times but the scope is widened with each step.
So have u ever felt "What am I doing here?" on a wider scope. I do so a lot.
When I was in Mumbai. I used to question "What am I doing in Mumbai?" Sometime it would be What am I doing in TCS. But based on my tendency to swell the scope everywhere. Each question would soon become What am I doing in this world/universe. And where is here?
Here on a macroscopic level is a minuscule point in the pattern of time and space. So is it for some purpose that my dot coincides with the dot of here at that moment. Or is it just randomness playing with my dot. And similar dots of millions of other people. Is it random that two people who dont know each other earlier, meet in college and fall in love within a short period of time. Is "Love at first sight" a random feature. Or is it purposeful. Was Bill Gates specifically chosen among the babies to grow up and become one of the richest persons in the world. Or was he the target of randomness. Or was it not decided until that specific moment.
People dont tend to fall in love with everyone who surround them. But with a specific person. So is the couple destined or is it a play of randomness. Probability. All these questions storm through my mind. And I have no idea about any of them. I wonder if normal people have such questions. If yes then how do they deal with them. If no then why not. How can they go on in life with so much things that are blanked out in the mind. With so much understanding still lost out somewhere. Ready to be discovered. How? Why? What? That's all I think these days.....

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Insanity - II

I believe so many voices - so many thoughts - so many illusions - lucid visions come to me because of books. I have read so many books and still keep on reading that they all make a mess in my brain and cause me to think differently... I guess.
Lot of times I am not so sure whether something I did was in my dreams or in the real world. Or maybe in the world in my brain. Pisceans are actually well known for creating a separate world from their thoughts and living in it. So Am I just another dreamy piscean? But then why do I sometimes feel so lonely? Why do I pine for someone who would be with me at every step?
I was in my second year of college when I first saw the movie - The One - starring Jet Li. The movie had a huge impact on me. Then in my final year I started reading The Wheel Of Time series by Robert Jordan which as per me is one of the best fantasy ever written. It's a class in itself. The movie and the series has one concept in common. The common concept is that of alternate worlds. Of alternate lives. Of different choices that you make. Both are handled differently in the book and movie. But when I think I feel that both are incomplete without the other. I feel that both are fantasy unto themselves. Which is why I propose a merge for the two to myself.
As per the movie - in each alternate universe there is a person that's you. In some it is an expert cook. In some its an expert athlete. In some it may be a beggar. And again in some it may be an assassin. It can be anything and is everything. Here's the connection I make. I believe that knowledge is already inherently stored in our brain and our life is a process of not learning but discovering the knowledge within. When we say we learnt something knew, we actually have discovered something. But have you ever felt that the outcome of something that you are trying for the first time is way beyond your expectations. It may come under any natural/unnatural circumstances. eg. If you go into kitchen and try to prepare a dish for the first time and it urns out to be too good, where did u get the skill from? If u r being chased by a dog and u manage to outrun it where did you get the stamina from? If u start painting/sketching and create a really good image, again where did u get the skill from? All this time I'm talking about part time things we do. Not the things we do professionally.
So my explanation to this phenomenon is that u derive the skill to cook from the "you" in the other dimension who is actually a cook and knows everything well. But that day when u borrowed his skill for just one small moment. The dish he was preparing does not turn out to be good. A one off incident in his life. And that is how u maintain a constant level of skill, stamina, energy, dexterity etc in the entire multitude of universes. Same goes when you outran something. Or suddenly found courage in the face of danger.
But unlike the movie I believe that it is not possible to physically touch the other universes. This part of my theory I pick up from The Wheel Of Time. And my probability theory. One of the mostly debated theological topic is the existence of God. Lot of times people ask me if I believe in God or not. But well.. that may be a topic for another day. So I believe that probability is the law in this world. What choice you make, what will you eat today, whether you would have an accident or not. Everything is ruled by probability. Your actions and probability go hand in hand. Probability for something happening changes with the amount of effort you make towards that. But still probability always has a say in your choices. So my theory is that everytime you make a choice a new universe is created with the other choice. And the strength of the universe is dependent on how strong the probability of that choice was.
There's a famous saying... A man is what he chooses to be. And I believe that to be true. I can look back at my life and see how each choice would have impacted me. I cannot see what would have been the consequences if I would have made another choice. That knowledge is hidden from me and that's for good so that I wouldn't lament. But I do understand that different choices would not have led me here, where I am sitting and writing this blog. When I now look back I see how each choice I made has contributed to me being me. How some of my friends are the result of choices I made years before I even met them.
I believe I am rambling again.. I'll leave it here and continue in my next blog maybe...

Monday, September 5, 2011

Insanity

I am an escapist. I guess... That is probably one of the reasons I am able to find loopholes or counter arguments everywhere and so quickly. Even if they are weird.
So this actually comes from something that happened last Thursday. I was having a lunch with a couple of teammates and as usual a topic came where we started debating things. Now, something that I know about myself is that for most of the topics I can argue from any side. For or Against. So the argument was actually on whether human brain is mapped differently in different individuals or not. And I was arguing against it even when I don't believe that every human carries the same brain. There are examples galore of this phenomenon and most common is autistic people. However this is not a blog about that topic. Rather this is something I have been thinking a lot lately.
Lot of times, I question myself. I question whether I am still sane. And as soon as I start trudging down this track it grows deeper and deeper into a vortex. I still havent found an answer. Maybe I am after all an insane person.
So mostly the question comes after I do something and all that's left of it is a memory. So for eg. I just no returned from an awesome trip to NY. During the return trip I was reading a book on the plane. So when I finally left the book and got hold of my bearing, everything I did in NY was a past memory. But so was the book. And so are a thousand other things. Some real. Some not. But everything having voices and pictures. Like a movie scene.
So I wonder, when people think, do they hear themselves think? But thoughts should not be sound. So why does it feel the same like hearing voices. If no one else does and its only me... Am I not insane?
I wonder that, how, when I read a book I am so immersed into it that I see everything actually happening in front of my eyes. So when I have just read something how is that text converted into pictures that I have actually never seen?? Same goes for dreams. Why do I see something that's not actually there? Am I insane?
It doesn't stop there. A voice pumping ideas and weird theory in my mind. All complete with sound logic. Why do I hear those? Is that again my thoughts.
And why is it that only I think about such things. Why not others?
Why do I always chose the path that has less traffic/crowd?
Why do I tend to behave in a way unusual as compared to others.
And mainly why do I have such extreme moods and swings?
There are so many whys that need answering. So many things still to be discovered. So many things to know about.
Well, am suddenly feeling sleepy. Will continue in next blog maybe.