Random Musings

I was an extremely emotional kid and teenager – tears welled up in my eyes if I saw people begging in the streets or sleeping on the pavements. It was just painful to see poor people suffering everywhere around me and the only achievement which differentiated me from them was being born in a relatively well to do family. There wasn’t remotely anything fair about this (though I later accepted perhaps it wasn’t supposed to be fair). As years passed and scientific principles of practicality and logic were super-imposed on my feeling mind, I started taking pride in becoming more practical and less emotional by rationalizing it was the only way to avoid snapping. I started my corporate career as a marketing analyst and it was my job to break down sales into the 5Ps of marketing mix. Basically, I learnt to measure effectiveness and ROI (return on investment) based on what-if scenarios and it was a wonderful skill to apply to my personal life too. Consequentially, practicality kicked...

Let’s start by defining Nice-ism first – Being polite, kind and respectful towards others and behaving cordially are various facets of being nice to fellow living creatures. Nice-ism as a philosophy is the backbone of all religions and spiritual endeavors and probably the first lesson imparted by a mother to her children in most societies. By all logical means, this should mean that a majority of the human population would be nice but practically speaking, this isn’t true. And no the façade of appearing nice doesn’t count as the real thing – Indians seem to be masters at that! However, I don’t want to explore whether people are nice or not. I just want to delve deeper into the consequences of being nice. Let’s put it straight - I have concluded that nice-ism is a weakness these days. Even when I am a proponent of positive thinking and have tried my best to find reasons to believe otherwise but experience and observation have a different story to tell. Also, maybe my observations ...

It’s a tricky headline, right! Counter-intuitive maybe as common sense says bad intentions mostly lead to ugly consequences but even good intentions cause a lot of havoc in our daily lives, everyday and everywhere around us. Let’s go a little deeper. Don’t you observe ‘good’ people trying to do the best for others – shielding them from sadness, pain, disappointment etc. etc. by hiding things from them which ends up messing things up even more? Every day I see a lot of actions born out of positive deep-seated feelings causing immense pain to those around. The pain is simply delayed and in majority of the cases, multiplied by a factor of 10. Why does this happen so frequently? Despite the best of intentions, why do people end up fucking things up? Is it because we are too optimistic about the consequences of our actions? Everything Will Get Fine syndrome we are caught in Is it the over-confidence on our own abilities to make things right?           ...

Wondering what’s the connection between smelly cow dung on the left and a fragrant symbol of love on the right? Aren’t they same on a deeper level – just the transformation of life energies over a period of time. We have an uncanny ability of not connecting dots when the change is infinitesimally slow and viewing things as different objects when they are as same as our left and right hands. Think about coal and diamond, sunlight and the energy you get from consuming plants – million other examples from everyday life which seem like completely distinct objects but are actually the same at the core. Guess it’s the beauty of language – by identifying things with different names, we trick ourselves into believing that they are different. Imagine that we forget speech for a day – won’t all distances and barriers fall immediately – how would anyone know who is a Christian or a Hindu or whether you are an Indian or a Pakistani to etc. There is no way other than names & concepts ...

Silence is highly under-rated in today’s context – once you start enjoying and yearning for silence, people think you are either bored / angry / lonely / simply old / ill or there’s at-least something wrong with you. It is weird explaining to people how silence which is associated with punishment and mostly has negative connotations, has started playing a very big role in my life suddenly – to the point of me getting angry and irritated if there is too much noise around. I have lived a very noisy life – from partying 24*7 to speaking incessantly and I liked it. Or rather loved it. I guess all of us do and it seems a pretty normal way of life. Growing up in an overpopulated city in India which is known for its chaotic and loud ways (Guess which – Delhi NCR!) makes you tolerant to all the noise – horns blaring, people clamoring (or rather fighting in Haryana’s case), bikes roaring, TV ads screaming, boss’s shouting, religious sermons...

Imagine visiting an alien civilization where you make the following observations - 1. 80% (or more) aliens doing things they don't like or don't want to do. 2. Aliens ready to kill so that they get goodies when they cease to exist. 3. Aliens changing goals after achieving what they previously set and continuing to burn themselves day and night till they die. 4. Aliens wearing masks when they are around other aliens or being watched. These masks make them say things which are generally acceptable but when they are alone and not being watched, they might think and do things completely opposite to what the mask said. 5. Aliens loving inanimate objects and distrustful/hateful towards fellow aliens. 6. Every alien thinking he is more important than others and he knows it all. 7. Alien lives being governed by a non living object (watch). They get up, go to the same structure everyday, come back to where they got up and recharge their batteries for doing the same next day. The...

Everybody knows what ego is but it's still difficult to define. Ego means I in latin. Simply put, it's the self part of you or your idea or opinion of yourself, especially the feeling of your own importance and ability. Not so simple actually - try answering - Who are you? Most people would say they belong to xyz state, country, religion, their educational background, jobs, businesses etc. etc.  Majority of the people think they are important without having a real idea of who they are - Imagine defining yourself without identifying with your geography, religion, education and work, what would you say? The feelings that we are important and we matter have a lot to do with our education and how we are raised. Enough definitions i guess. # Is ego good or bad? As with most concepts, there is no good or bad or maybe it's both . How? It's good because it makes you want to grow, to become a better version of yourself. Without having a certain confidence in your ...

# Do you believe in god or are you an atheist? # Do you believe in ghosts? # Do you believe evil can be erad # Do you believe in destiny? Or Free-will? # Do you believe men are good or evil or both at heart? # Do you believe in the right wing or left wing philosophies? # Or do you believe in believing nothing? Anton Chekhov very rightly said - " Man is what he believes". In the present context, it would have been men/women so as to not offend anyone but that's another story (again, do you believe women are equal to men, if not better?). It's what you choose to believe that makes you the person you are - you might choose to not believe this hypothesis but I strongly do. Now, if we are a by-product of our belief systems which can be pretty convoluted to the point of being unchangeable, how do we act on this insight? How do we form these beliefs? What can we do to change them? Let's understand how our beliefs took a concrete shape in the first place. T...

One of my friends recently asked me if I wanted to live long (80+ years) or have more fun and probably live a shorter life – 60-70 years? The first thought that came to my mind was – I want to live a healthy life – be it long or short. I would consider myself pretty lucky if I can go about all my daily chores without outside help till my last breath. That’s that! YOLO (or You Only Live Once) is a pretty widespread phenomenon on the internet these days. People use the idea to justify almost anything – from drugs to rash driving to dangerous adventures etc. etc. I do not intend to say that a fun filled life might be necessarily short but that’s the general assumption basis simple probability – Who would live more in your opinion – a person who eats home food, goes to office every day, doesn’t take any unnecessary risks and shuns all recreational drugs or a hippie who wanders randomly and doesn’t mind alcohol or other drugs! Bingo. Let’s talk about drugs – and when I say drugs ...

Ø   Is it nearing 30s? Ø   Is it reading quite a bit of spiritual literature? Ø   Is it mostly to do with how I have started viewing my thoughts? Ø   Is it finally maturing or having grown up? Ø   Or is it simply too much procrastination on a temporary phase? J Whatever it is, suddenly the term midlife crisis starts making a lot of sense, even though nearing 30 might be too soon as per usual definitions of the term. But then, have I ever cared for ‘aisa hi hota aaya hai’ (this is how it has been). And it’s more of an awakening and not a crisis actually . So, what do I mean by when I say something(s) have changed. What does a shift actually feel like? 1.         Converting from a hard-core non vegetarian glutton to a vegetarian disciplined diet – 4 meals a day, almost nil processed food, all meals preferably home made, no packaged drinks! 2.        From an insomniac and a night owl to sleepin...

Yesterday I was totally consumed by existential thoughts – happens once a month usually but of late, the frequency has doubled. The same old repetitive questions are listed below – I am sure you must have thought these multiple times too. ·          What is the point of life? ·          What is truth? ·          Why are we here? Now, whenever I get stuck in this psychological drama, I am really not sure what to do. Nobody (including myself) has answers to such queries – no matter how much philosophy you read, no matter whether you follow science or religion closely. Mostly, it has to do with faith/belief and I find it very difficult to just have pure blind faith on anybody telling me the usual answers listed below - Science is yet to come up with an answer. ·          God is the only truth, everything else is merel...

Whenever I sit in the shade of a tree and imagine the exchange of oxygen & carbon-dioxide happening in real time, the complementary nature of our existence, I experience a very strong bond with it. The tree suddenly comes alive and in those moments of perfect silence, it feels like the trees are disappointed with us at large but atleast happy they still have some human friends. Shout out to all nature lovers out there - keep up the good work! I sometimes wish there was a way to make humans concious of this transaction, somehow if they could see or touch this  symbiotic relationship so that our connection with the trees becomes more apparent to them. This could go a long way towards sustainable development. I make it a point to bow down to a tree every single day and thank it for all the breaths it has given me. This brings me so much joy, peace and a sense of calm. I would feel successful if trees and mother nature in general feel more positive about the human race and if I ...

Modern humans lived as nomads for 99% of our history. Until about 10,000 years ago, there were few, if any, homes or villages. People wandered all the time. Isn't it obvious that a lot of our instincts/subconscious behavior is heavily influenced by the nomadic way of life? Let's take a deep dive into a few. # Negative / Paranoid Thinking - Imagine sleeping out in the open with predators on the prowl. Being too positive about your survival would probably get you killed. Being paranoid was probably the only way you could live long! # To conform, to get along with others - Imagine being thrown out of your group in an unknown place with no means of gathering food and no understanding of how weather works. Being with your group was your only option! # To spend time/wander alone - Imagine wandering alone in a jungle with a dense animal population with no guns, no maps & no flashlights. You wouldn't want that, right? # Rebelling against group/tribe le...

One question I like asking people is how will they know they have succeeded? And guess what? Most people blank out. In materialistic terms, they can't specify a number - either a salary they earn or their bank balance and even if they do, the answer invariably changes after 6 months - the illusion of success is the only one which seems to succeed. In non-physical terms, they are even more clueless. Isn't it ironical and somewhat funny that everybody is running behind success without knowing where it ends. Maybe that's why life has become a rat race as nobody visualizes the finish line and just keeps on running because others are doing it too. How blind-folded can we really be? In this hyper connected world where we can see what others are doing on a hourly/daily/weekly basis, the fear of losing out is amplified to an unfathomable extent. Everybody wants to be everywhere, doing everything - travel, photography, earn millions, own latest gadgets, fashionable attires.. The l...