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Art in motion

Art is an unsolved aspect of human psyche.
It reveals itself in bits which only adds to it's mystery.
Nobody knows why it is.Artists are a peculiar group who seldom care about anything else more than their trade.
I envy them for that.They behave as if they have found all the answers and got nothing to ask from anyone when they are involved in their art.
I passionately envy those whose art arises out of misery and pain around them.
It helps them forget the world around while creating something beautiful.
Power to create something is the single most hateful thing I have against them.
Only god and nature apart from artists share this unique ability.
God himself must be one sick artist.Art arises out of a damaged brain or out of pain.Sane people are rarely gifted.I'm not using sanity in it's usual meaning but in a much wonderful and subtle way.In fact so wonderful that there must be something really wrong with it!
You see perfection is in fact a flaw.
Damaged goods is not an adjective that can be easily acquired.
Also I do believe that anything can be achieved if you really want it.
Still artists are a class apart and I think that god differentiates between men of art and rest of us by being favorable to the former.
I don't know how and I don't know why.


Below is an original and first attempt at poetry by yours truly:

Have promises to keep.
Only,then can I sleep.

Made are vows to myself
Never to see thy's weaker self.

Get long way to go.
Before I can slow.

Till then I find solace in pain
fighting for a chance to gain.

I keep going my way.
With nothing to say,
got no time to pray.

I struggle and wither,
to see myself in mirror,
as I used to before.


Parting words: If you can understand one person completely, you have known god then.

Let's agree on something.

Ever since I started to think about what this life is all about,it has been a very confused existence.

I wish I had blindly followed some mad man/men or their religion which wants me to just unconditionally believe in (it's) higher authority.I would have even settled for having the confidence with which this chick begs people that for god's sake don't be taken for a ride.

I have read and continue to read many books on spirituality,evolution,science etc in my quest.I'm proud to say that I have found an answer.And the answer is there is gonna be none anytime sooner or for that matter later.I'm relieved to arrive to this.I hope others realize this too.

I've read men of science passionately defending their beliefs(I specifically call them beliefs and not as theories.) with "facts" and find them wanting.You see, these facts are based on some assumptions which are generally "assumed" as "true".Somebody please try convincing Neo (guys I'm talking about Matrix) that the air he is breathing is just a sensory input to his brain.Huh.He just chose to believe or rather his curiosity led him to take the road less traveled and he was able to discover the "truth".Was it the truth or did he enter the actual matrix from the real world!! Every day something new is being discovered,some so-called radical,obnoxious idea is becoming less unbearable.Science is evolving.Our understanding of how universe functions is changing.Even to this day we know very little of human body.What should make us think that we will know it all.It's just a matter of time, kid.Well it's not.

More over, I'm reluctant to believe that life on this planet was an accident.That water occupies most of the earth's surface which made life possible is just an accident.Just see how a child grows up to be if you tell him that his conception was an accident in the back seat of a car.Somebody explain me the logic of sexual reproduction and how that it is a logical step in the evolution.Wasn't asexual multiplication good enough? The evolution story is just an attempt of the logical man to explain life as we see it.

Religion/God/Supernatural is another poor and earlier attempt by man to explain life as we see it.God is a wonderful and comforting concept which puts to rest many disturbing questions we have about ourselves.This holds good only if you believe blindly in supernatural as men of logic believe in science.I can't bring myself to completely embrace god because he represents the unknown,the big void I see when I look up into the sky.I have got many questions for him but he is nowhere to be found.I find some comfort in spirituality because it wants me to be a seeker and don't like religion since it asks me to be a believer.

When there is no challenging of existing beliefs, there is no seeking.Without that there is no scope to extend the reaches of our understanding.

I have read some science fellas trying to narrate the supernatural in the language of science(Heisenberg uncertainty principle,quantum physics,god particle etc).I'm happy that they have an open mind.I love spirituality since it begs of me to keep an open mind and keeps me happy.

In this context, death is very interesting phase of life, since it is promising to answer many questions.

Till then, I'm a man who proudly claims that the only thing which he's certain about is that he's not.
Agree that we're ignorant.It's a wonderful feeling.I promise.

I know.Still I don't

I'm fortunate enough to have been acquainted with this person who has been my guide,inspiration, my guru even though he doesn't know that.He is very successful or at least wildly successful in my view.
One conversation went like this:

Him:You know,nothing matters.This whole life is a bullshit.
Me(not aloud): Yeah.I know.Only I want to tell the same, but while standing from where you're standing.

Now, let me explain this.
This person is not someone who is resigned and dejected from life.On the contrary he's full of life,enjoying every moment, wildly successful as per my standards and yet humble.

Still, he says that life is bullshit.He meant that whatever you achieve(or not achieve) or accomplish in your life, in the end, in the bigger picture of things, nothing matters.Everybody dies.It doesn't matter you were sad or happy or miserable;everybody dies."Now" is the only thing which is real and just enjoy it.Experience it.Just be mindful."Now" is the only truth.

I totally agree with him and wish that I feet the same way wholly.I subscribe to his idea.But when I accomplish what I feel that I should,I must, only then can I tell it in the same way as he meant it.

Till then, I have my own version which says:
Life is bullshit.

With self awareness you clearly see who you are and who you want to be.The distance between the two becomes measurable and there lies the pain.I envy the ignorant.

--despo

Do it Now

The Value of Time.
Got this uncredited e-mail a while back.This one speaks about value of time:

• To realize the value of one year, ask a student who failed a grade.
• To realize the value of one month, ask a mother who gave birth to
a premature baby.
• To realize the value of one week, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
• To realize the value of one hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to
meet.
• To realize the value of one second, ask the person who just avoided
a traffic accident.
• To realize the value of one millisecond, ask the person who won an
Olympic medal.
Time has a value greater than any currency. We may leave our children
the money we don’t use in our own lifetimes, but we cannot
leave them one millisecond of time.

things to say...

I have been falling behind in writing stuff on my blog for last many months.I've been dormant both online and offline.Things to say,stuff to share are piling up and I'm finding myself bound by an invisible shackle which is holding me back every time I try to break out.Maybe this is a nice way to describe my laziness.

Anyway, here is a list of things I have been up to and which I want to write more on.
There is a struggle between my dying urge to write more frequently on some things I hold close to my heart and the invisible demon within me which is pushing me into inaction.
So I don't know who will win.

Here's the list:

1. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.At 1000+ pages this really tested my reading endurance.Not that it bored me anytime, but I had to put it aside for few days in between and turn back to re-read, to think,while I digest the ideas.I would say that it is the ideas contained in there were most thought provoking and controversial.Certainly a life changing read.

2. Holy Blood, Holy Grail

3. Prison Break season 4

4. How I met your mother reruns.

5. There will be blood.

6. No country for old men.

7. Atonement - you gotta see this movie.

8. mementos

9. Love story 1970 the movie

10. Casablanca

11. The most lucid dream I've ever had.

I don't recommend others to see these movies or read the books.I don't know why I chose these.It was simply a selection of random things which I came across in a totally random un-intended involuntary manner.

I do intend to write on at least few of these things before I lose the urge and move on to another short lived obsession.

Personal Update:Moving on to a new job which is promising and better paying than the current one.

Last salute

Interrupting next post to pay homage to Randy Pausch.
He died on July 25th, 2008
I pay my respect to him.He has been a great inspiration to me.I wanted to meet him in person.
(I'm sad.)
We need more people like you.

Many of you must already know him.For the un-initiated, he's the guy who gave the "last lecture"; the wildly-popular and much viewed video on the net.



A book has been released on the same:


"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."
--Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

why do we do what we do?

For the past four years I have been pursuing a dream.A dream that is so close to my heart that I wish not to disclose it (even)here;even in the cover of anonymity.All I have to say is that it has nothing to do with the matters of heart.

I have been oscillating through a wide range of emotions during this pursuit of mine.It has brought me much pain,despair, made me lose faith, got me depressed.........
It has also helped me in discovering myself, given me energy,hope, faith etc.It has been of a dual nature bringing me sadness and happiness all at the same time.

I became a social recluse refusing to interact with the outside world except for when it was absolutely necessary. I have just retreated into a shell.To sum it up, it has cost me substantial amount of my time and energy.

Now even though I don't have the obsession that I had in the beginning, the fire is still there burning as before.I have kept trying hard to make my dream real.On the way, I have lost patience and gave up many times.I have writhed in pain and despair and given up one day, only to pick up where I left off the next day.Even in the face of utter despair I have refused to give up.Some times I feel like a crazy man who is trying to break a stone wall with bare hands.I have visuals of myself doing that.(that's not me in the pic)

Yet I continue.

This has made me think why I haven't give up (yet).What is that inside me that has made me behave in this way. I have thought about it a lot.I would love to say that it is in my nature to not give up.I'm someone who doesn't stop no matter what.


I would love to say all that.But I would be lying.Though ego hurts, I have given up numerous times.But this one is making me more miserable than anything else I have experienced and still I' refuse to let it go.At first it was an ego thing but now I'm beginning to doubt the extent of my ego.

"A man's desire should never become his weakness" --(a rare original from your's truly.)

I think I have finally found the reason for my stubbornness.It is something very silly.I don't give up because I don't have anything else to do.I can't sit idle.As long as I can I might as well do something.This might as well be it.I need something to push me so that I can (try) push it back.With every passing moment I feel I'm losing a part of myself in this pursuit and yet ,I push on.I have nothing other that to offer.I'm starting to feel more like a machine programmed to accomplish certain task which has no emotional attachment with or any incentive to take from the outcome of the task

It's like a terminator who has no use once his mission is over.Immaterial of the outcome of the mission, once it's over he has no reason to exist.


Only difference is I want to exist (I'm not suicidal!!) and I can't exist without a reason and I'm finding a reason.

It is my attempt at finding "method to madness".

Has anyone felt the same way?

NEXT POST: too(two) depressing(a.k.a ...) - ep1