logic of the introvert

There is a lot to write about, and plenty of time as well. This should be the period where I am left all alone to start this conversation that I have always loved to have with the world.

What makes it special, at least for me, is that it comes from a deep part of me that has sustained itself through the murky ways of life. That part which is unswayed by the vagaries of life, that part which is hidden away in the DNA and makes its way to the DNA.

There is no reason for me to get demotivated.
The internal life has always been sufficient for me. Yet, in the recent past I keep wondering about the external life and how it has contributed a lot in making the whole of me feel great.

I could write about these things. In a way, writing brings out what is inside the writer.

Once the logical explanation is done, magic perhaps will take over..

The logic of an overburdened Head master

Today I was in a village hidden among the hills. Let's call it Imra. The head master of the school thought I was the newly appointed math teacher come to take charge. As head of a school with a large number of students and very few teachers to take classes, it was easy for him to assume that I was here to take care of his children.
Then I told him I was there to create awareness of Menstrual hygiene. He still thought I was from an organization from a similar sounding name.



HM: So what can I do to help you?

Me: I need to hold 2 hour sessions with adolescent girls from your school.

HM: Ha! See, you need to complete your assignments. But the girls are busy studying. So you can give them a short version of your session for say, 10 minutes. You can document it as two hours.

Me: The thing is, Menstruation is a sensitive topic in these parts and no one talks about it. There are lots of misconceptions and half truths that confuse young people. It will take me half an hour just to introduce the topic.

HM: Menstruation? (He looks at the authorization document I had given him.)
Well... I thought you were from another organization with a similar name.,

Me: So, can I come here once a week for the next four weeks?

HM: You can come once a month. Then our schedule will not be so disrupted.

Me: Let me come once in two weeks. Girls may forget what we discussed if we don't reinforce the ideas once a week.

HM: You can come next week and we'll see what we can do about it.

I am guessing he was hoping I would take his bait and do a charade of a 10 minute session. Well, I didn't and on top of it  punished him with a righteous lecture on the plight of  women who are ignorant of Menstrual Hygiene.

When magic does not work

I recently read an article by Parket J. Palmer about the soul that is born tough, but hides because it is shy. The shy soul that is silent through all intellectual debates, logical arguments and hides in an underbrush and will not come out if shout out to it.The writer compares it to a wild animal which one wishes to sight and which would typically back off.

Then he writes about a safe space that can be created for the wild soul to make an appearance, and this is where people wait through long periods of silence and create a feeling of trust.

My response to this article? My soul is not shy, but private.
How do I stay private in this very public space the earth has become? By making noise that distracts people from finding out my private thoughts. And I was taught to do this. I was expected to argue, debate, prod and shout. I do that. Now such articles and people who share it with me are telling me otherwise.
I have also tried silence to get shy persons to respond. But I find that souls are not silent just because they are shy. They are sometimes like ostriches, with their heads buried in desert sand. They do not want to be seen or heard because their minds are like vast stretches of  hot sand with nothing green or pretty or cool. I find it hard to stand in such deserts and see no trace of anything alive around me. So much harder.

From chaos to calmness: the magic of slowing down

Chaos often leads to the complex outcomes. Sometimes truths get churned up, and at other times physical entities get created, as did land, water and atmosphere of this earth after the big bang.

But man tries to overcome chaos. Humans make plans and create a system or a process by which truths can be found, as through research. Then they see how outcomes can be got; outcomes that can be measured, validated and shared.

My forte has been chaos and all the magic that comes out of it. At a very small, personal level, this was great, for me and for the few I associated with. But for sometime now, I  have been riding on the shoulders of some hard working people who have slogged to create a process.

For me, this is peaceful as never before. However, every minute of this period, I am conscious of the chaotic work that is being done by these leaders who strive in the background, and who are probably out of their wits trying to make life good and profitable for me.

How will I ever repay them?

The logic of the human mind...Strange is the word

My work has been dropping, quantitatively. And I am now in my dream job...And doing much less work wise and letting go of personal care, too. So I started to monitor what was demotivating me, and how I could go around it.

Health issues apart, I tried to keep my frame of mind alert and involved. So this morning, when I checked the number of page views on my blog, I was quite disappointed.

Now, most of the views on my blog are spammers and people who create fake links to show some traffic to their own websites. A little research showed me so many 'interesting' websites which appeared to have viewed my blog and even which claimed in the comment section that  it was 'exelent and give lots of informason'.

So, anyway my blog views are very less in reality. But no views is somehow disconcerting, and more so than 'views' by fake porn sites.

The logic of the human is strange, indeed!

Magnificent Magic: Modern Day Learning

I saw a video which described Google as a huge library. I used to spend hours in the library as a child. The above description strikes a chord with me because I grew up to be this permanently plugged in person who browses, reads and writes online, all the time. So essentially, the internet has made my childhood dream of living in a library come true.

But getting to the point which triggered this post, I am speechless when I think of all the new stuff there is to learn, and of the fact that a lot of the latest in learning makes the old stuff irrelevant.

A child born in 2010 would not be able to relate to the world as it was in 2000.
 


And much as it astounds me, I welcome this life of scrapping away all old knowledge and getting back to the study table. I embrace the total strangeness of the newness, a seemingly never ending newness that makes me feel like a 6 year old.

I am also relieved to bid good bye to the status that is no longer assigned to age, as it was a barrier to communication between age groups and served no purpose except making ageing people feel and act entitled. I am old myself, really old, not 35. I find the automatic respectability assigned to age, and the advantage taken thereof by people who by no effort of their own crossed 50 years in their lives without dying, yucky.

So, let's celebrate the advances which have brought ever growing encyclopedias to our fingertips.Cheers to new knowledge, new frontiers and a new life.

Logic lost to all but me

I wonder why social media, or newspapers are yet to make an obvious comparison.
Sridevi's death to that of Michael Jackson's.

Granted she seemed to be a kinder, bolder human being at some level.


But the similarities are so striking.

Sudden unexpected cardiac arrest in their fifties. (I firmly believe that Sridevi was 3-4 years older than the 54 she claimed to be)
Numerous plastic surgery attempts to the extent that they seemed to be constantly experimenting with their bodies.
(Of course, Sridevi was successful in looking pretty, while MJ's attempts were more disastrous.)



Yes, they were very professional, and believed that their professional duties extended to keeping their looks intact, as well as enhancing them wherever they could.

It is a guess based on rumours that they medicated themselves to look fit.

The pity is that both these artists, blessed with above average talent, and popularity and wealth that far exceeded anything that any talent deserves, believed that their appearance was as important as their work.

NEWS FLASH: my daughter says that actor Vishal has made the same comparison. I guess most of the younger crop of actors have adhere to fitness dictums, and are able to make the connection.

Enough about visual media, and its martyrs at the feet of Goddess Image.

Magic makes the most logic

Have been reading inspiring stories from "Gifted' by sudha Menon and V.R. Ferose. They are 'Inspiring Stories of People wiht Disabilities'. It was a gift, and I had, after a quick scan of contents, been put off by the Indian English. But then another cursory scan at a random page had me hooked to one of the stories, that of Hans Dalal, a conservationist, who is also afflicted by cerebral palsy.

His passion comes through, and his disability does not. I guess such a life is possible for most of us. Making me feel that way makes this book a remarkable one.
If there is anyone looking for a mission in life, I am glad to point out to them that today's generation is miserable. Help them feel that life is worthwhile, which is what this book has achieved.
The older ones, low aiming, low achieving and nothing much else, somehow learnt to be happy. But the pampered ones brought up by doting parents are sick at heart and deeply troubled.
Thank God such a book was written.
Thanks Amrita for the gift about the 'Gifted'.
Please God, let this book reach as many people as possible. It can cure people of today of much of their unhappiness.

Logical or illogical?

An adventure in the middle of the night
I was online with a student from U.K. and it was around 11.40 pm. It was then that I heard a woman scream and a man yell.
The class was over in five minutes, and I went to my door to listen. A woman was crying and screaming. A man's voice could be heard too.
Opened the door and it was from a door directly opposite to mine. That door had always remained closed and silent for all the 20 months that I have lived here. This was the first sign of any kind of violence, and this sounded mostly verbal. I didn't know more, but didn't want to disturb the usually normal neighbours either.

So I snuck out, rang the bell twice, and quickly ran back into my house. Everything fell silent. We soon heard the door open and heard somebody walk away.
Nothing happened afterwards. I guess.

This reminds me of a funny thing that happened in my early twenties. I was alone and very angry with a man, and had just picked a long wooden staff to hit him. He came close to me and pulled it off my hand. Just then an elderly gentleman entered the room. He stared at us in horror. Both of us snuck out. We let the senior think the man was the aggressor. The guy whom I wanted to attack also wanted to let him think that way. Aggression is unfortunately associated with manliness. The man with me had been truly manly, but he wanted the stamp of false macho on him. Go figure!

There's this job website which keeps asking me to write about the freelancer experience.

Well, let me say how it works for me.
First of all, I spend a good chunk of time looking up all the fascinating jobs that keep popping up online. Unbelievable, new jobs like press release writer, writer for games, social writer and what not. Believe me, there are new job titles popping up all the time. And I apply sometimes.

Another interview tomorrow. This is for Academic Author on psychology and social sciences. If I had a regular job I would never be able to find out about the changes in the job market.

So How am I faring in my writing endeavors?
Problem 1: My vendors. Work is not regular. The whole of this week I didn't get work
Problem 2:  Me. I have an important project that is unfinished. Why the *&^%$ am I not doing it?
Problem 3: Night shift work I do part time is low paying and ruining my life.

So am I a total failure?

The poems I write are really making me feel good, making me feel I have a niche,
Also, other kinds of  writing is happening, even if its just magazine work
I have hopes of getting better

So what would happen if I do get a job?
I should find a way to make my fingers go tapping and  develop a distinct voice
Develop a distinct voice, I have  one already;  I should re discover my voice and channel it into creating sophisticated patterns on paper.

Was re-reading Wuthering Heights.

It was a time when obedience was considered the most important virtue, and elders with authority could do what they wanted in the name of instilling discipline and putting people in their place.
Joseph, a servant, boxes his little orphaned mistress' ears. (What does 'box someone's ears' mean?)
Catherine, the girl who is beaten runs away to play instead of suffering the punishment of sitting in a corner. Her diary expresses her anguish at the ill treatment meted out to her. Surprisingly, I can still relate to such a scene.
How could that be?
Today, psychology recommends a better parenting strategy, and parents are willingly permissive.
But Joseph is a bully, and the bullies are still around. Not just in schools but on the streets, in our buildings and particularly, in the work place.
They overtake our vehicles in rude and shocking ways, comment unnecessarily in public, form cliques and spread rumours. They yell at us, write misinforming reviews of our work. They want to put us in our place. They want us to lag behind so that they can zoom past, come up in life and appear good at the same time.

Such people never succeed in the long run. I am old enough to know that.

I just wish that I had smooth things to tell them, with a subtle hint of a smile on my face, like lawyers in soaps.