Tag: General

Ambivalence..

For over two months, I have been agonizing.

Should I do it? or should I not?
Is the right thing to do?
Am I going to regret it?
How am I going to cope with my decision?

Question flying around in my head like.. dandelion dust…

The issue demanding attention is “do I keep or delete my Facebook account?”
Ridiculously, facebook shows up in this page as a spell error. It has to be a capital F. The idea has turned into a verb. Like google. Oops, sorry, Google. I’m going to stick with facebook. Just because.

I signed up for facebook much the same reason I made my first girlfriend – peer pressure. Everyone I knew had one. It was the cool, in-thing to do.

Sure, being on facebook has had its ups. I’ve re-established contact with the folks I went to school with over 20 years ago. Some I don’t even remember. I’ve read some very interesting things that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise even known existed. I’ve reached out to, & been very lucky in connecting with some amazing people I had never met in person. Some interesting job offers came my way (maybe life would have been different if I’d taken them?). There has been a lot of laughter from funny videos, jokes, puns, wisecracks, wit, humor & one-liners.

I tried my bit to get on people’s nerves too. Some were thankful for my daily one-liner posts of inspiration that I attempted to share. I felt compelled to let my world of “friends” know what it was that I was reading, & all those things that were wrong with the world. Sometimes I shared some snippets of my life as it was shaping out. The announcements of the birth of our children. The first fish I caught. Stuff like that. These last few weeks, I have been publishing my list of online reads to my www.scoop.it/unreal-stuff page, & sending a link to facebook. Makes it seem like I’m very active on facebook.

But nearly five years later, it feels like I’m in a wrong relationship. It demands more time than I can afford. Most times, it throws stuff at me that I have absolutely no interest in knowing. There are status updates that turn my stomach. Photographs of dead people with their guts lying around them. Farms, animals, plants & shops that demand I join their company & start help improve their economy.

As Denis the Menace once said, as you learn to tell the time, you have less & less of it. facebook (& a couple of other online reading habits) have been insidiously eating into time that once was devoted to things that are extremely important to me – my gorgeous family, stuff that I want to read, the time to sit down & transfer thoughts on to paper, or simply the care-free-ness (is that a word??) to get out to the beach & walk on the sand, listening to the waves & the birds & the dogs & the sounds & the patterns in the sky as the sun went down.

I have no regrets having spent the time getting to know what a lot of you thought about. I am the richer for it.

It is the phase now for me to part ways with facebook. Pull the plug. Cut the cord. Terminate. Conclude. End.

For those of my facebook friends who still want to keep in touch, email me on sequeiraneil07 at gmail dot com. I will reply as soon as I can (If I still remember you 😉 – just kidding ).

If you don’t really care to email, but just want to keep up with my meanderings, I will post here as often as I like.

For stuff I’m currently reading, this is the place to check out (at least until that site stays up).

& just to close the loop (I’m learning a little bit of programming, & keeping a loop open is bad manners), for those who don’t care, it was great trying to keep up with you. I’ve failed to at times, but you didn’t really know that, did you? 😉

Adieu, facebook the platform. Hello, my real friends.

updates

I’ve been preoccupied with a few dramatic changes over the last couple of weeks & haven’t had neither the inclination nor the time to post here. Will hopefully be back on track this week onwards.

I’ve been wondering – there are so many devices that help us connect. But connect to what? The intention of these devices was to communicate better, if I’m not mistaken. And what I see makes no sense in that regard:  people are now connected to the devices instead of to one another. Yours truly included.

Will be posting a couple of blogs that I’ve written over the week in bits & pieces – still incomplete. Hoping to do these over the weekend.

This picture, a screaming half-page on the Times of India, announced that Gujarat, the state that Gandhi hailed from, was burning. Religious sentiments, fueled by political expediency, had erupted into a massacre.

I’ve never forgotten this picture – it has burned into my memory like a horse’s branding. This is the image that comes to my mind when I think of fear.

What drives people to do in a mob what they wouldn’t do by their own, killing one another by the dozens? A sense of security in numbers? Disregard for life? For themselves? For others?

I find it fascinating that the things we are taught when as children, things that become a habit knit part of our lives, things we take for granted when we think, never questioning, always assuming – these same things could be so wrong & destroy us & the world around us.

A great example would be Earth itself. Until someone came along & challenged the contemporary thinking, Earth was the centre of the universe. The Church convicted Galileo a heretic & sent him to the gallows for questioning its authority. Only a few hundred years later, we take this so much for granted.

Unquestioned following of authority, external or internal, could be possibly one of the best ways of chaining oneself to a position. When the assumption breaks down, as it no doubt will, a whole life suddenly appears to be fake & without any value or purpose.

Which possibly explains mid-life crisis: throughout one’s life, everyone is after what everyone else is after. With no real knowledge of either oneself or one’s purpose, we sail through life accepting that money equals happiness, rich equals good, more or bigger is better & so on. One fine day, however, it suddenly breaks down – it could be the death of a loved one, a heart attack, the loss of a limb in an accident, being made redundant.

What drives you to do what you do? Have you examined your motives? Are they your own? Or are they like second-hand smoke, something you have picked up from someone you may or may not know?  These are some of the questions that I’ve been asking myself, & the answers are startling. You might want to do this questioning yourself. After all, what good is a mind, if we don’t use it to think for ourselves?

mobile pains

Ok, so a million letters have been typed about telephone etiquette.

I have my $0.02 worth.

Literacy or social position doesn’t educate a person. The lady on the train today was a classic example. A senior manager in a well-known organization, she is well-traveled, & is in charge of a fairly large team of people & manages a multi-million dollar budget. How do I know? Well, she practically told the entire compartment during the course of her several conversations on her “smart-phone’! No wonder they call them smart-phones now, the users definitely aren’t!

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Skimmed through a book yesterday at the library. Began with the words “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Brought back  a flood of memories for me.

A question that is asked of kids by grown ups who have already given up or are nearly there on their own childhood dreams.

Growing up in a middle class family, with middle class ideas & middle class company & middle class habits, necessarily meant that every child in the vicinity of the adults would forever be asked the dreaded question: what do you want to be when you grow up? I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. Heck, I thought being a child was so much fun, I wanted to stay a child as long as I could!

We quickly learnt to say what the grown ups wanted to hear – there were only 2 right answers – “Doctor” or “Engineer”. What joy on the parents’ faces! My son/ daughter wants to be a Doctor! Engineer! Never mind that the only thing he had already specialised was in doctoring the monthly bulletin of academic mediocrity – the exam marks card.

Occasionally a bonehead among us would say something silly like a truck driver, or a plumber, electrician, or even possibly a pub owner. Yeah, the unspeakable professions!  I remember a story of a Catholic nun who was in charge of 10-year-old Sunday school who asked the kids the famed question – “what do you want to be when you grow up?”. She received a collection of politically correct answers – doctor, engineer,astronaut, pilot, etc.  From all except Sarah, who believed the way to riches was to be a prostitute. “What? What did you say you wanted to be?” The nun couldn’t hide her horror. “Prostitute”, repeated Sarah, who held some strong views about her intended profession. “Ah, thank God”, says the relieved nun, ” I thought you said you wanted to be a Protestant”.

Anyway, socially humiliated, the unfortunate parents of the unfortunate fellow would hang their heads in shame, perhaps ask the parent of one of the potential “doctor” to speak to the son in the hope that he would be transformed by eloquent words. Not before, however, he got a dose of the family’s traditional medicine concocted specially to treat these growing up ills – a few strokes of treated hide against the untreated one on his backside. It could sometimes be thin branches of the tamarind tree, known for its bitterness – whether  eaten or beaten. Corporal punishment at its best! Or worst. Depending on which side of the stick you were on.

I’m older now, with a child of my own. I find myself sometimes asking the stupid question to her – what do you want to be when you grow up? & then remember, how silly of me! I still don’t know what I want to be, forget her! Maybe when she turns 35, I will ask her?

Tides

Things are always in motion. Nothing ever rests.

Metaphysics. Philosophy. Religion. I think they all speak of the same thing. In different figures of speech.

We went out on our daily walks by the sea. Low tide at the hour we were there. The sea having its lows. Like all people have. People are 79% water anyways. Any surprises then that we too have our tides? With clock-like regularity.

Laughter.

One of the many joys of having a small child at home is the gift of laughter. Any time of the night or day. Comes without invitation. Or expectation. Or warning.

The little angel comes up to me today to remind me that I have to read her a story.

How many, ask I.

Silly question.Deserves a ruthless answer.

She holds up three fingers of her hand.

Five, she says.

Too much confusion for my accounting brain. Three or five, I ask her, pointing out the apparent variances in the two numbers.

Short pause.

She prefers the spoken number – Five. A dazzling smile. I get a hug & a kiss to help make up my mind.

Laughter. Both of us. Then her mother joins in too.

No negotiations possible when laughing!

Fast asleep now.

My latest goal: At least one hearty laugh a day.

Happiness, I think, is an inside job.

Fear

Apprehension. Agitation. Knots. Anxiety. Cold feet. Chicken. Cold sweat. Creeps. Distress. Doubt. Dread. Misgiving. Faintheartedness. Fright. Panic. Qualm. Terror. Trembling. Trepidation. Unease. Worry.

I have fear. Of various things. & in various degrees.

Today, I promised myself I would speak to a recruiting manager in the company I work in.  I promised myself I would be bold, walk up to him & speak about the position he has advertised. Maybe even ask him for the job. I am competent surely, I said to myself.

But.

One of those words listed above defines my level of fear. On a scale of 1 to 10, I think I feel 10.

Of what?  I am unable to define.

Meeting him? Perhaps.

Making a fool of myself? More likely.

That I will be refused? That too.

I called him. The phone rang. Several times. & he didn’t answer. I felt a sense of relief! I didn’t have to meet him!

My usual response is to wait . Give myself excuses. Maybe he is busy. Maybe he doesn’t want to talk to me. Maybe the role is already filled. All sorts of weird & wonderful excuses.

This time round, I did something radically different.

I sent him a mail, asking to see him. Can’t wriggle out of that now.

I will call him again tomorrow.  Talk to him about the problem he wants solved. Who doesn’t have a problem he can pass off to someone else to solve? What have I to lose?

Wish me luck!

Books

I grew up around books. For whatever reason, they seem to offer to me a safe haven.  From unfriendly To paraphrase Ruskin Bond “Books are never cross, they never fight with you, & are always around when you need them” – & they were. I’m still enamored by them.

The ancestral house we moved to when I was 8 or so had an inherited collection of books, articles, magazines, writings – legacies of my maternal side of the family. Readers Digest editions going back to the 1960’s, copies of Wisdom (a locally published book), essays, they were a godsend to keep me company & out of trouble. I remember reading a children’s version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin & crying my eyes out, the first time ever that a story did that to me. I was hooked. I read every thing I could lay my hands on. Good stuff. Not so good stuff. Lame stories. Fun. Adventure. Sleaze. Spy. Classics. A 10-year old has no idea what constitutes a good or poor choice of books, but I was happy & willing to try.

The first biography I read was Ben Franklin. I was 9 years old. A red, bound book, with profile pictures of a young fellow, discovering himself, & inventing several things along the way – the story was absolutely fascinating. I read & re-read the book. At least a hundred times.

There was Shakespeare in prose form. Another bound tiny book with paintings inside. Merchant of Venice, Taming of the Shrew, & another 6 more, abridged versions that a child could read & get lost in imagination.

The Hardy Boys. Nancy Drew. Famous Five. Other Enid Blyton classics. Cricketing heroes. Louis L’Amor & other country western classics. General knowledge. Algebra. Too many to list here. I couldn’t get enough. I was addicted to printed material. I wonder if there’s a word for it. & in this day & age, I’m sure there’s some authority on the subject who’ll say reading is bad too! 🙂

As I went through school & what passed for education – qualification & education are synonymous for most Indians – I read. & read more. In class. Under the desk. On my way to school. On my way back. I did have other things to do, but reading was like a high I couldn’t get from anything else.  My spoken english got better, as did my writing. It still is going through evolution. Like life itself.

For the last 5 years or so, my reading has been more of the classics authors – Jane Austen, Rudyard Kipling, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Plato, Aristotle.. – Autobiographies, biographies, philosophy, history, scientific thought, reasoning, creativity.  I guess the older I’ve grown, the more I’ve found that these subjects really have given me an education, while accounting, tax & audit have merely given me a qualification. I spend at least an hour or two every day reading, & will most happily admit that my education continues each day.

To me, reading is not an escape from reality. It makes it more fascinating. Some things have never changed with time. The daily struggles of living. Habits. Motivating. Circumstances & technology might change, but our daily concerns haven’t. Thoughts in words from the past give more ideas on how to surmount them.

What do you read?

Why?

Fishing.

Give a man a fish, & he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, & you feed him for life.

Moving to a coastal, country side town brings with it the time & opportunity to do some interesting activities. Fishing caught our collective family fancy.

Sitting by an idyllic stream/ river/ waterbody, catching as much cool breeze as possible in my (balding) hair, the sounds of birds & water all around, watching the not so infrequent trains rumble over the bridge, angling…the stuff dreams are made of..

For a twosome who’s only knowledge of fishing rods has been movies & TV programmes, we learnt today the the science/ art of lining the rod, baiting a hook, casting the line without tearing any flesh from innocent bystanders (meaning our little daughter),  & not losing our tempers or patience with ourselves & withe each other, we did very well, indeed!  The fish were lucky too – none of them were unfortunate enough to get caught!

& we begin another chapter in our lives.