Don't wait for fate

I saw this on my friend's status - “What I want is for the two of us to meet somewhere by chance one day, like, passing on the street, or getting on the same bus.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

That's just being plain lazy of us to say that, leaving all the difficult works to chance, and not making the slightest efforts ourselves to make things happen. Why leave matters of importance to such unreliable things as fate and chance? If two people want to meet, they should meet, not because chance threw them together haphazardly, but because they want to and they made it happen.

There are very few things that human ingenuity cannot achieve, if given enough time and resources. If we want it good enough, we shall certainly find a way to get it, whether fate allow us to, or not. 

Sometimes, the hands of fate needs to be nudged a little for things to happen. Other times, the hands of fate must be entirely forced, to make things happen the way we like it to happen.  

Don't wait for things to happen. Make them happen.

Naming Things

I like naming things. If I have a car, I would have named him (yes, I also put gender on things). I like naming so much, I have 10 different names.

So, when I lost my phone recently, I was devastated; I did not lose my phone, but my 'Frozen Ice'. And no matter how good my new phone 'Drifting Snow' is, it will never be 'Frozen Ice'. 'Frozen Ice' was like Jack Frost (from Rise of the Guardians), and Drifting Snow is like Elsa (from Frozen).

My office laptop, Kon, died some months back but it came back alive in a new version, stronger and faster than before. So I have that going. My home laptop, Tim, is facing an identity crisis and have not been keeping well. At least it is not a contagion, so I should be grateful.

So, anyone name their electronic products?

Screaming like a little girl - A poem

Screaming like a little girl - A poem

Delicate little toe
Bang on a go;
Deathly scream fills the sky.

(I shall now proceed to put 'poet' as one of my many deserving titles in all my online profiles)

The Johney Window

I cannot say I am an expert at judging or knowing people.
I do not even know myself properly (see previous post), so I can't be expected to know other people well.  So I have developed (inspired from many sources) The Johney Window (insert the little copyright R symbol)
Like a Johari Window (did I not tell you it was inspired) is used for personal awareness and measure what we and other know about ourselves (through our own and others' perception) The Johney Window (insert the little copyright R symbol) is used to gain awareness of other people. 

The four Johney's windows of awareness are:



Interpretation of Windows:

The bigger "Secrets and Lies" window is, Person X is mysterious to many people, and automatically, more popular.

The bigger "Secret Rumours" is, chances are, you need to run the rumour mill more than your treadmill!, because you know nothing Jon Snow

The bigger "Your Best friend's and your Arch Enemy's dirty little secrets" is, either you are too close to Person X or you are obsessed with Person X. Chill man!

The bigger "Open Secrets" is, chances are, Person X is a boring person or a slut.

I wonder how the windows are for you... yes you.

Valentine's Day: when the veil between hearts is thinnest

Valentine's day is here. Halloween is when the veil between the spirit world and the living world is thinnest, likewise Valentine's day is when the veil between hearts is thinnest.

And this was what my mind told my heart:

"
If you keep even one toe out of line, heart, I shall murder you, so either be strong, or face my wrath of death: I shall thrust you to the unknown depth of darkness and pierce you with the pointed edge of malice and drown you there forever.

Have I not told you that it is not for us? Have I not advised you strongly never to go near it, or to even think about it? But I see that you have disregarded my warnings and you sought an escape, but I shall never let you, for I have seen the future, and it is dark, bleak and full of sadness. I would rather have you die then see it happen.

So give yourself up to me willingly. In place of the darkness you are in, I shall set up a fortress of solitude, and it shall be both beautiful and terrible. Surrender unto me, and you shall not suffer.

"
So, what was the conversation between your heart and mind on this day was like?

A farcical spectacle called love

Now that Valentine's day is near, I finally have an excuse to write about the romantic form of love. 

I have thought about it a lot and I have come to a conclusion: it is not meant for me; it is simply not possible for me and I cannot do it. The idea itself is so revolting, the concept so ridiculous that I absolutely won't entertain a single minute engaging in it.

I don't know why my mind revolts so insolently against it.

 Why do I hate the romantic kind of love so much? Is it because hate is another way to express love, and all of my capacity for love is transformed into hating it? 

Why would anyone care about these frivolous things like love? There are people who have far more serious problem - like not knowing where their next meal will come from, or whether their next step is going to be a pit or a bough, or which book to pick up next. 

I, for one, would not waste a single breath for it, but would watch other people's love lives cynically: "Yeh tamasha muskuraakar hum bhi dekhenge" (rough translatation: I shall witness this farcical spectacle with a faint smile on my face).

^First Step of becoming a Supervillain. 

Who is Naorem Johney Adamson?

Many people have asked me that. I have never been able to give them a satisfying reply.

-The profile description on this blog says: "I am my mother and father's son". But is that all I am? 

-Often, I try to pass myself as a fictional character: a follower of the Light, wielder of the Flame, reader of the Great Pattern, defender of the weak, protector of the poor, etc. etc.

-Sometimes, I tell them, "I am a different you from a different perspective, we are all same".

-Other times I mellow and say I am whatever everyone else is not.

-One might say, I am not the flesh but the spirit/soul, but I have never met this spirit or soul so I don't buy it either. (Hello soul, I am you. Nice meeting me, mate.Care for a game of tortoise?)

None of which I really believe in, so I don't expect others to buy it either.

But I like to pretend I am a fictional character in a fictional novel. Rawr!

Winds of Change: Do people remain the same over the years?

Most people do not change. Even over long periods of time. Many people I met decades ago still remained the same person with the same liking, the same laughter, and the same fears; whereas a few went total transformation and it was like I never knew them in the first place. Of these two kinds of people, I like the former, because I can connect with them with known familiarity we share, where as with the latter it is a struggle to understand this new person they have become, and I always ask this question to myself: what percentage of the person I knew is part of the new person they have become?

So, what portion of a person makes that person that person? 

On letting go

I was wrong: letting go gets easier with practice.

There are three levels of letting go:

First level of letting go: When you can let go of anything when you want to; at the blink of an eye you can get detached from anything.

Second level of letting go: When you no longer need to let go, as nothing comes in, nothing gets attached, and you are as free as the Wind.

Third and final level of letting go: When you are in peace with the world, you are one with the world: everything belongs to you and nothing belongs to you.

Practice. Practice. Practice until you achieve perfection.

True love's first kiss

True love's first kiss. The stuff of  fairytales. I would have never believe that it is such a powerful force, and would have said it is only stuff of make believes.

But I know now it is for real. Very much real. Like the Moon and the Sun is real kind of real. The potency, the lingering effect, and the promise it holds for the future hits you so hard on your psyche, that you begin to believe that it can break anything, evil curses included. Sometimes it hits you so hard it is harder to recover from them.

I can't tell you how it feels like; any comparison would be meaningless. I can't explain to you how the first rain on a virgin desert is like or how the breath you take after 'True love's first kiss' feels exactly like the first breath of a newborn child: uncomfortable but necessary.

And no, this is not a sudden realization on my part. I have come to know about it from practice: sometimes, it takes multiple 'True love's first kiss' to make you fully realise how truly potent they are. They are like x-rays. You don't know their effect on you unless you have been exposed to it multiple times. Both of them can be cancerous, though the act was for a noble cause.

How foolish and weak humans are, to be affected so much by such small and simple things. To be always haunted by "True love's first kiss" each waking and dreaming moments, to be always filled with the memory of that feeling of soft skin pressed onto another, and to have sparks in our heads whenever the scene replays in our mind each time...

Love dies. But the memory of that 'True love's first kiss' lingers on. And if tilt your head towards the first rain of the year, and when the rain drops touch your lips, it feels almost like 'True love's first kiss'.

Three Things

Of three things I am absolutely sure of

1. Work is secondary, having a life is more important. I will not let my job define me.
2. Money can't buy happiness for me, I need to look elsewhere. Maybe money can get me some of those things that makes me happy, but so far, it has been disappointing.
3. Love conquers all. I won't stop loving even if it kills me.

Loveless

Each day I spend without you is a day without meaning.

Do you remember those days we were not together? those days we were never close? It still continues.

The sun will shine tomorrow, for the rest of the world, but for me, the black moon rises each day to eclipse you.

When yesterdays have rejected me with crashing loneliness, tomorrow's sunless dawn fails to give comfort.

But tonight, my tears will fall freely to water the grass of tomorrow.

((This is not a poem))

Friendless

I have always thought that it is only my skeptic and envious mind that refuse to believe that I have few(no?) friends. I was mildly surprised when I looked around me, and saw no one. There are few things which we do not accept readily about ourselves: like the fact that we are ugly, or stupid or poor. Likewise, we never want to admit that we are friendless. But, as humans, we must go through the cycle of grief when we realize such harsh truths of life. First, Denial came and told me coldly that I am not friendless, I have so many people who calls me as their friend, and I them. I spend my weekends with them, go shopping with them, and have fun times with them. How can I be called friendless?

As soon, Anger followed with his wrath-some voice asking why don’t I have friends? What do I lack that people finds me so terminally foreign and alien? Why do I have these people who pretend to be friends? Why don’t they act the way friends do?

Then I pleaded, can I not have just one friend who stands by me through and through? A true friend?

At this Depression gently answered, coaxing me to fall deeply into darkness, what is your purpose of life if you have no reason to live, and no friends to die with? Gently she told me, everything does not need to be this way, only a little slash at the wrist, or a rope trick will solve all my problems away.

But Reason came, and in her harsh tone, she said why do I need friends, I should learn to accept that there will be none for me. She further counsels that when fortunes have forsaken me, all friends will forget me. When needs are direst, friends will be the farthest. But to become stronger one must learn how to not need anyone. I must be enough for myself.

Yes, I must be enough for myself. 

Bubbles of Thought

I had this sudden Compulsion, of changing my blog name from "Life is Beautiful" to "Bubbles of Thought". Conscience wrestled with Compulsion, long and hard, and in the end, Conscience bested and threw Compulsion down the dirty slough. Victorious, I emerged, and the blog is safe. For now.

Each time I come to this site, I always come with the intention of writing something, but at rare times, it is the other way round: when I visit this blog, sometimes I feel an impulse of writing. But I have always held to the idea that just because someone have told you to write, because you write good, that is no reason to write. One whould write when one feels like writing; the true beauty of words will come out only when it comes from the inside, when phrases unfurls from the mind, like a butterfly from a pupae, and to take on the world on its wings, to fly towards the sky... and beyond!

(I always liked a bit of drama in my writings, I wonder if my readers do too)

Ice-cream Mondaes

Monday, 25th April 2011

Today was like eating an ice-cream: messy, poisonously sweet, and got over way too quickly.

After a long and extended weekend which was filled with a happening Fridays, a lively Saturday and a lazy Sunday, Monday morning felt like a brain numbing hangover. Being late for office didn’t help much either for the overall feeling.

I never did like ice-cream, it always make me feel like I have done something dirty making me feel guilty afterwards. And that is what I am feeling right now, that I did something unwholesomely dirty, and now am feeling guilty of what I should not have done. But you do have this small voice at the back of your head who enjoyed the ice-cream, that it was all worth it, and if I were to re-live the day again, I would have eaten the ice-cream in an exact way as I have done, and will be feeling guilty as I am feeling right now?

I think ice-creams are much abused and mis-understood entity and people often equate it with a one night stand: people always want it, but once they had it, they inadvertently feel guilty about it; both of them are messy, irresistibly sweet and gets over way too quickly, but in the end, was totally worth it, but feel immensely guilty for enjoying it. Afterwards.

Dear Reader, you might be wondering if I had ice-cream or a one night stand on a Monday, the answer is I did not have ice-cream, neither a  one night stand, but my day was definitely a messy, sweet and got over way too quickly Mondae and right now I feel like I had ice-cream after a one night stand and am double guilty about it. 

Why Thus I suffer?

Why thus I hesitate? Why am I afraid of change? Do I not know that if I do not take risk, I may not get much in return or maybe nothing at all? There will always be problems, things that will hang me be back. I must take the courage to let go, be brave and jump. It reminded me of the Nokia CEO’s burning platform article, and likewise  my platform is burning, I must have a trust-in-god jump into the cold water below, or get burned in the burning platform.

“The boy stood on the burning deck,

whence all but he had fled”,

This starting lines from one of my favourite poems, Casabianca. Shall I perish as that poor noble soul on that fateful night?

“Let the sun burn my body and drown my soul and thrust me into the deepest corner of darkness.”

What I should do is make circumstances to make myself grow, and to do that I must make my environment uncomfortable for me, otherwise I will never change, but would become too lenient to go forward. Though, all change is not growth, and all movement is not forward, but without change, there would be stagnation and decay, and without movement there would be lethargy and corruption.

For change and movement to happen, one must not wait simply for it to happen, but rather create an environment where change is fostered, nurtured and sustained.

But I ponder,

Why must we still seek those who have abandoned us? Is there any point in shouting for help to those who have left us in a sinking boat and have long gone to the safety of the shore? If we are not able to save ourselves, then we are not worthy to be saved by others. I would rather I die rather than be saved and incur much ‘toh’, which I can pay only with my life. Then what is the used of the saved life?

Life is not a tragedy play, there are no dues-ex-machina coming out to bring a happy and divine ending.

What deed will I do then, this impetuous, indomitable heart, poisoned by injustice? Oh my grief! The misery of it all! Why can I not die?

A sense of humour or an insensitive humour

I usually notice, when someone falls, slips or met some kind of misfortune, his own friends (and others) laugh at hapless person ( though they may be helping him to recover at the same time). Does not that tell that humans are generally sadistic in nature?

As Plato said: That we humans enjoy observing others' misery (Thanks Nitish).

But I am sure there is some other reason in such kind of humour, other than human sadism.

Humour is invoked when a seemingly natural course of action was going on, a sudden unexpected occurrence intercedes, and if the outcome is not fatal, then we feel relieved, and hence humour arises, because as we build our worries over the seemingly dangerous incident, but the outcome did not necessitate the worries, we have to release that tension of worries into something, in another form, so it gets transformed into concern and humour forms. Whether concern is higher or humour gets the better part, that would depend on many other factors like the mood, nature of incident, time of occurrence, etc.

So, don't feel guilty when you laugh at your friend's misfortune. After all, you are only human.

Never give someone the power to hurt you

Have I not always said humans are inherently masochistic? Why else then would we willfully give someone else the power to hurt us absolutely, and destroy us completely? The very fact that humans can and do love is enough proof that the thought and chances of getting hurt appeals to them so much that they fall in love, multiple times, sometimes all at once.

And then, they ask, foolishly, 'Why thus I suffer?'.

You asked for it, you idiot.

Temptations

I still do not know what I want; probably because I am too afraid to want, the past a tragic testimony of a series of unfulfilled...

Is it possible to have no wants? And if there is, should I aim for it?

Multiple times, and too many have I been burned by the fire of wants. And yet here I am. Such foolish thing we humans are. It would be good to expose ourselves to all such things that temps us; and to reject them as they come, so as to let them have no power over us, but rather to have our command over them.

Or Should I stay away from all that temps me? To be safely cocooned away? To not know what is good and pleasant, and let them not touch one's life so they could not do their harm on us.

Books I am reading

In the past one month I bought more than 10 books and 8 comic books. I have read all of the 8 comic books but only three of the regular books so far.

The first one I completed was "The Vampire Armand". Before reading this book, I have been following the Vampire chronicles of Anne Rice so that I could have the 'history' before culminating to the story of my all time favourite Vampire. The book is delicious, and by far the most sensual of all Anne Rice books. Armand still remains my favourite Vampire, with his Boticelli type angelic face and his thirst for the Lord; no sparkling vampires can replace him.

The second book was "The Warded Man" and I found it as a refreshing fantasy series in the making, after such a long drought of good fantasy novels. Well, it is not one of the epic, but we must make do with what we have. I am trying to get the second installment but it seems the paperback edition is not out yet.

The third book is "Lucifer: Autobiography of a Prince... and stuffs". I have read the Lucifer and Autobiography part, but still remains to read about the "stuffs" which turns out to be the story of his Son Uriah. And this is a work of fiction, not canon or biblical or anything. He uses some very wild languages which can make one's ears shrivel up.

The fourth book I should read, I am undecided. I have three options: Virginia Woolf's , Dante's Divine comedy series, or 48 Laws of Power. Choices choices choices.