Snapshots of emotions

I don’t have to think very hard to remember the last time I felt this way. The human brain intrigues me. I wonder if memory is really indexed by the feelings you experience. Anyway, it was the night before my first day of middle school — Or, was it junior high? It doesn’t really matter — and I was feeling empty. It was actually a delightful mix of excitement and fear: an eager enthusiasm for the infinite possibilites and a solemn trepidation about facing the unknown. If either emotion had been a clear winner, I would’ve known how to react. At that particular moment of that particular day, the latter emotion was overpowering ever so slightly, and that delicate, yet decisive edge was creating a weightless fear, a kind of fear experienced only in youth, fear that fails to trigger its usual physiological response.

I was young, clueless and didn’t have the ability to articulate my feelings. I was fortunate enough to have parents, to whom, all I had to say was, “I was feeling off.” They knew exactly how I was feeling. My parents made me take a shower (it was around 5 pm) and we went to a nearby temple to get some peace of mind. The rest of the night remains vague in my memory. However, when I went to bed that night, I remember being as cheerful as I could’ve possibly been. I don’t know what helped. Maybe it was the temple. Or maybe talking to my parents was what I had needed. Well, there’s that other possibility… Perhaps it was the holiday assignment I had forgotten to complete, which I hurriedly finished when I came back from the temple.

It doesn’t really matter what helped me then. All I know is this: today, it’s real. I have no unfinished assignments this time. There is a real reason for the excitement: I am pursuing a goal that I had previously only wished for, without any real effort. The fear is also justified because the goal I’m after, i.e., learning a new language, is not exactly my cup of tea. Yet, I know it’s not a fear of failing. If it was, I wouldn’t be writing this. I would’ve reasoned, “What if I don’t succeed in learning anything? I better keep this to myself.” No, it’s definitely not the fear of failing. I got over it a long time ago. Plus, I can never be afraid of failing at something that I so much desire. I know what it is. It’s the fear of not trying enough, of giving up too soon. Yes, that must be it. That’s exactly what it is!

My friends often remark (or complain?) that I tend to romanticize even ordinary situations. But, that’s the way I see the world and experience life. It feels better just to have written this down and that’s why I am sure that my emotions stem from the fear of throwing in the towel too soon. After all, I have the convenient excuse of not being good at languages. I hope I won’t give up easily this time. Sometime in the future, however the results turn out, when I look back on the time I decided to pursue this goal, I’ll read this… and I’ll know that I didn’t decide on a whim.

Boredom

I recently came across a picture of a crying baby very much like this one. I started wondering whether it could serve as a motivational poster with the following caption beneath it:

Sadness is not evil… Boredom is.

I would have to clarify something here though. When I say boredom, I don’t mean it in the ordinary sense of just having nothing to do. When I say boredom, I mean inactivity resulting from extreme apathy and indifference towards your surroundings. It is the state of being unnaturally immune to all external stimuli. However justified this emotion of boredom is, it does well to snap out of it immediately because, as they say, an idle mind is a devil’s workshop. (There are probably better ways to express what I actually mean, but I hope you get the point. Maybe there is a better word than boredom. Maybe you’ll come up with a better-worded caption than mine. I don’t care about those exact words; I care about the message.)

Let me end this brief post with a couple of relevant quotes from Paulo Coelho:

Quote 1: A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires.

When he says “be busy with something”, I think he is persuading us to avoid falling into the evil hands of boredom.

Quote 2: She said she was neither happy nor unhappy, and that was why she couldn’t go on.

I think anything that gets you motivated to be busy is good. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the promise of reward or a battle against suffering.

P.S. An afterthought… Considering the recent famine in East Africa, the following image is probably more appropriate. (Let suffering only be a motivator for action.)

A God for one and a God for all

Delusions of grandeur: Part 2

(Continued from, but independent of Part 1)

Joking is a barrier between man and the world. These are the words of Milan Kundera, a gifted writer. Stripped out of context of the story where it appears, the quote sounds pretentiously general. However, it is in such naked words that one gets to understand the person behind the words.

What did Kundera really mean? He sees joking as a way to distance oneself from the reality of the world. Joking implies a certain degree of denial of the world as it is. Every joke hides behind it a secret desire for a better reality, one in which joking would not be required. People joke either to avoid thinking about their place in the universe (i.e., to forget their ignorance) or to just see a situation in a lighter vein. In any case, joking requires a false interpretation of reality. That’s why Kundera wrote that joking is the ‘enemy of love and poetry’. Because poetry serves to explore the truth, while humor mocks reality.

Does this mean Kundera is against the concept of humor entirely? Of course, not. What if joking is a barrier between man and the world? People deserve a break from reality once in a while. One cannot always travel in a straight path to complete understanding. People are not capable of focused reasoning all the time and humor is a necessary ingredient for good mental health.  Besides, if you are not completely sure about the truth, what else can you do but joke? It is in this spirit that joking is approved everywhere and even actively encouraged… It is small wonder then that Mary thought I was joking when I told her I am God.

When I kept insisting, she started testing me playfully, expecting me to come clean any time. I had to answer a number of personal questions about her before she considered the possibility that I am indeed God.  Where did she hide her childhood treasure of sea shells? When was the last time she cried? Whom did she vote for in the last elections? The questions were endless. I answered all her questions patiently. Finally, she agreed that she had no other explanation for my omniscience. But she was still not ready to completely believe me.

“Why don’t you perform a miracle and prove that you are God?” she asked.

“Let’s say I perform a miracle. Does that really prove anything else other than the fact that I possess superior knowledge? Even the present day man with his airplanes and computers would seem far superior to those who lived in the stone ages… God is not a magician, Mary. You search for God as an abnormality in the limited world that you perceive, while God is actually the obvious and ordinary in a more complex world that you don’t fully comprehend.”

“Like blind men trying to comprehend the notion of colors,” she blurted out.

“Yes, men stumbling around for God,” I helped. We were both quiet for a while. After a few seconds, she broke the silence abruptly.

“If you know everything about me, why do you seem frustrated by my response? Shouldn’t you be excellent at convincing me if you are indeed God and you know everything about me?”

“Knowing and understanding are two different things. Do men understand everything they make? It is the same with God.”

“We mortals astonish God as much as God us,” she said with a sarcastic smile. She was quoting Melville.

“And Melville also had an explanation for that. He said, “It is this Being of the matter; there lies the knot with which we choke ourselves. As soon as you say Me, a God, a Nature, so soon you jump off from your stool and hang from the beam. Yes, that word is the hangman. Take God out of the dictionary, and you would have Him in the street.” He’s mostly correct. God’s uncertainty about people is just a by-product of human limitations rather than an inherent quality of God itself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you wonder why I refer to myself in the third person a lot?”

“Why?”

“Because God is an overloaded word. There is ‘God’, who is at the root of all matter and who symbolizes order in the universe, one who works at a level above human concerns.  You can never understand that universal God. On the other hand, there is God who lives among men and who is able to communicate with them. I am THAT God. I am the one who doesn’t understand people. I am the one who is constantly surprised and frustrated by them. I am the one who depends on them. I am the one with the limitations. And I am just a PART of the perfect universal God.”

“Does that mean you are God, for all human purposes?”

“If it’s easier for you, you can think of the universal God as the aggregate of a multitude of interdependent Gods. I am one of those Gods, one of the very few that humans need to care about.”

“Perhaps that’s why some religions are polytheistic.” That wasn’t a question, so I did not answer. There was that silence again. Silence doesn’t get its due respect these days because, speech, music and noise are taken for granted. But, in reality, silence is the default state, just like darkness, just like coldness and just like nothingness. Hot and cold, bright and dark are relative terms, but they are not equivalent. Everything is dark and cold by default unless there is something that is bright and hot. Before man discovered fire, he didn’t fear the dark nights; before he invented language, he didn’t fear silence.

I waited long enough to pay homage to the silence I was about to kill with the following question: “Mary, would you believe me if I told you that humans are just a part of me, God?”

“Are you saying that we are a part of you?”

“No. But, would you believe me if I said that?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I think I would know if I am God, or a part of God.” She paused and thought for a couple of seconds. “If I am a part of you, how am I able to talk to you? Isn’t it as silly as me trying to talk to my little finger?”

“Yet that perfectly sums up the absurdity of the situation, God having to converse with men. You use the word ‘I’ without the slightest clue what it means. The word ‘I’ represents human wish more than any fundamental reality.”

“Are you just trying to prove that people are evil? to expose man’s self-love?”

“On the contrary, I am only trying to get people to understand themselves better and to dispel the myths about men… for once something is accepted as natural and general, it will never be considered evil.”

“So, why did you ask me whether I believed you or not?”

“To tell you the real reason why you won’t believe me entirely. Because if you are a part of God, that would make everyone else a part of God as well. This would mean all men are equal. Men don’t want to be equal. Every man wants to be different from the rest and every man wants a different God for himself.”

“I don’t think that’s true. It is not too difficult for people to be different, if they really wanted to be different. I think life is actually a struggle for fitting in.”

“You know, people can be different from each other in countless ways, but similar in only one way. Despite this fact, you still try to blend in with everyone. Do you think it is because you want to blend in? No, it is because nature intends you to. It is not your wish. Equality is the default state, and human desire is the agent that drives one away from that state (just like the sun driving away the default state of darkness). In fact, man can be sufficiently defined by his desire to break away from that equality. It’s this desire that is at the root of the concept of ego. The desire is neither good nor bad. The word ‘I’ is a cry for a special place for oneself in the world, but there is no need for you to be ashamed of it.”

“As hard as it is to believe all of that, it does explain a few things. My friend once asked me to give a justification for monogamy. Every reason that I could think of had some flaws. But then, there are no real rationales for most things we take for granted. Now I see why monogamy is necessary. Polygamy makes you replaceable, while monogamy ensures that you are special at least in one sense, even if you fail in every other attempt to be different from the rest.”

Mary wasn’t questioning me now. She wasn’t trying to prove or disprove me. She was genuinely trying to understand what I was saying. She was listening to me the same way she would listen to a child who just woke up from a nightmare. The child may tell the most fanciful stories, but the only way to console the child is to try and understand those stories. There are no shortcuts. ‘Time’ is the price you pay for being human. It is a terrible thing to know everything there is to know and still have to spend an eternity to explain it. Oh, to live among men!

(To be continued…)

P.S. Some of these perspectives might have originated from my childhood discussions with my dad. Unfortunately, I can’t resolve origins of thought and point out specifics. But that’s okay. I prefer to just be grateful for all the ‘thoughts’, whether they are mine or otherwise.

Delusions of grandeur

DISCLAIMER 1: “I find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not my own.” (Borrowed and adapted from a Jane Austen character)

DISCLAIMER 2:  If you get the impression that I’m pretending like this is a story, it’s because I’m an idiot. (A story needs a plot that moves the story. In that sense, this is not a story.)

DISCLAIMER 3: I wrote this. (Read it at your own risk… and remember to take it with an ocean’s worth of salt.)

My big secret

I know more about secrets than anyone who has ever lived on the earth, on the moon or in the rest of the lifeless universe. I also have the reputation of being excessively humble and moderately ironical. I have to begin by telling you a few elementary facts about secrets. Everyone has secrets. There are different types of secrets: big and small, happy and sad, simple and complicated… Well, you get the point. I have always been interested in one particular classification though.

Roughly speaking, all secrets can be classified into those that will inconvenience the person with the secret if it is disclosed and those that don’t. Note that this classification only considers how the secret affects the person with the secret. Why is this important? Because it reveals the motivation for the secrecy. Is the person protecting himself/herself by keeping the secret or is he/she just protecting other people? If you have a secret that affects you personally (regardless of whether it affects others or not), you develop a closer relation with the secret than otherwise.

I am a self-proclaimed expert on especially this first kind of secret – the kind of secrets you keep because, for whatever reasons, you don’t look forward to explaining yourself to others. Even the sanest of souls keeping this kind of a secret soon develop an irresistible urge to disclose it. I have one such secret myself. I’ve tried to tell it to others many times before without much success. (To be honest, I’ve actually disclosed my secret on a few of these ocassions. But, no one has believed me yet and that’s why I still call it my secret.) However, I felt it was going to be different with Mary.

Mary is a kindergarten teacher and known among her peers to be a perceptive one. If she can understand all those kids with their various unformed views of the world, she can definitely understand what I have to tell her. It is with this reassurance that I started talking to Mary. I remember thinking that it was going extremely well, when Mary interrupted me.

“How did you know about my fear of chickens?”

“Funny you should mention it. That’s what intrigued me the most about you. I’ve always wondered how can you write so much about something that you are so ashamed to tell anyone.” I have the reputation of seldom giving direct answers.

“Are you talking about what I write in my journal?” she asked in a slightly alarmed voice.

I knew she was distrustful. I was frankly getting annoyed at this point. I thought to myself, “Why don’t people understand my intentions? I know everything about a person even before I say a word to them. Is it wrong on my part to expect the same from them? No, it’s not. If I know them well, they should know me well too. It’s the simple law of reciprocation.” And that’s when I told her.

“Did I tell you that I am God?”

It always comes down to this. I’ve never liked dropping that on people. There were two reasons. Firstly, even religious people never believe me when I tell them that I am God. I don’t know if that’s because they form definite impressions of God and compare me to their notions of God. Perhaps they find it difficult to associate divinity with someone so normal in a circumstance so ordinary? Don’t get me wrong. I like religious people just as much as the others. After all, they do believe in my existence. But, one has to wonder if they have the openness to accept God in a form that they do not anticipate.

The second reason I dislike calling myself God is that it’s not the complete truth. Well, it’s not a lie either. What is a lie really? Lie requires an intent to deceive. If I can say anything with certainty, it’s that I don’t intend to deceive anyone. You might say that a lie without an intent to deceive is still a false statement. But, consider this. Let’s say there is a language in which the colors blue and green had the same name. Would it still be false to say “sky has the same color as grass” in that language? This is the kind of dilemma I face when I utter the words ‘I am God’. Perhaps this confliction is revealed in the way I announce myself to people and THAT is why they don’t believe that I am God. In any case, it is with all these doubts that I told Mary that I am God.

To be continued… (Now that I’ve put this commitment in writing, I’ll hopefully take the time to finish my thoughts.)

On slaps

But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. (Matthew 5:39, NIV)

(This article is not a comprehensive analysis of this biblical quotation. In fact, the dialogue presented below may misinterpret the intended meaning of the quotation. I have some Christian friends, but I am sure they will understand my intentions and forgive me for this apparent blasphemy, if any. I think I may also have some Christian enemies. Who doesn’t? I can only ask them to read on.)

A professor of comparative religion gave a speech on the relevance of scriptures to the present world. An interested member in the audience approached the professor after the talk.

“Hello, professor. I am Sami Richt. Great talk today.”

“Thank you, Mr. Richt.”

“I like your analysis of religious texts without involving God. I have a question for you. Do you think Matthew 5:39 is still relevant today, if it ever was?”

“I think the essence of the saying relies on the fundamental belief that human beings are capable of realizing their mistakes on their own. In order to bring someone to repent for their follies, you just have to give them enough time and provide them with the right circumstances. Now, what are those right circumstances? Shame is the first step in the path towards repentance. And nothing makes a guilty person more shameful than the magnanimity shown by the opponent they have wronged. In this sense, I believe that the saying is still relevant. And it has always been.”

“Preaching non-violence is one thing. But, asking people to facilitate violence against themselves? It somehow doesn’t seem right to me.”

“I am glad you realize that distinction. There is actually a school of thought that believes that the passage only advocates non-violence and nothing more. I am, however, taking a stronger point of view. Don’t you think it is more magnanimous to expose yourself to more harm at the hands of your aggressor? It is the kind of gesture you need to make your opponent aware of his sins.”

“But, what about myself? I mean, you are talking about the aggressor. What about the victim? Is it fair to my loved ones that I allow myself to be harmed just so the bad guy learns a lesson?”

“Well, this is one of the pitfalls of over-simplification. Religious texts are only intended to give you prescriptions for moral behavior. There are very few rules that are universal. There are definitely situations when resisting evil is the right course to take. At the same time, it is important to realize the possibility of dealing with evil in a pacifist way.”

“That’s a good academic answer, professor. But, how does that help me with my decisions? Let me ask you this. If someone slaps me for no justifiable reason, should I show them the other side of my face? I am speaking figuratively, of course.”

“Sorry, I can’t help you there. Even if you provide me a specific scenario, I could only possibly tell you how I would act. You’ll have to choose your course of action yourself.”

“Well, what would you do, professor?”

“I would show them my other cheek.”

“Forgive my insolence, professor. But, don’t you realize that most people will just slap you again? Is it possible that you show your other cheek just to take the moral high ground? Or maybe for the snotty self-satisfaction you derive from it?”

“Those are certainly possibilities that cannot be ruled out… Mr. Richt, let’s say that I turn my other cheek to every person who slaps me? Do you believe that at least some of those people are courageous enough to regret their mistakes and refrain from slapping me for a second time?”

“I guess… I mean, I don’t know how many such people there are. But, I do believe such people exist.”

“If I am afraid to turn my other cheek, how would I find these people?”

The man fell silent at these words. Before he left, he only said, “We think too differently, professor. Thanks for your time.” The man and the professor are both characters in my head. If I somehow gave the impression that the professor is morally superior, I sincerely apologize for that. I think moral dilemma is as admirable as the certainty of knowing the right thing to do. I always wonder about the reasoning that goes behind most religious texts I come across. It is much harder to figure out how to apply all those principles in real life. In that context, the later part of the dialogue is widely applicable in life.

As Dumbledore famously remarked, we are sometimes required to make a choice between “what is right, and what is easy“. There is a lot of truth in those words, but I wonder if it is too strong. What if there are no clear rights or wrongs? I think we often have to choose between what we actually believe in, and what is convenient to believe. There are times when sticking to our beliefs can seem as foolish as ‘turning the other cheek’, but how else do we find the right friends to surround ourselves with in our lives?

Words that stick

I don’t enjoy flights, but I’ve learned to put up with flight travel and all the concomitant inconveniences. I was scheduled to take a flight out of New York La Guardia Airport on a Saturday morning. I reached the airport in time only to find that my connecting flight was cancelled and that I couldn’t fly until early morning on the next day. Since I live in Princeton, I decided to spend the day with a couple of my friends in New York. It turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable day for me. I can’t explain why because I don’t know the reason myself.

Occasions like this remind me of something my ninth-grade English teacher told in class one day. “God grant me what I need, not what I want,” she said. It wasn’t part of any lesson we had to memorize. It was something that she said once and probably never repeated again. It stuck in my mind though. The best moments in life are those that we don’t plan. Then, why do we make a big fuss every time things don’t go according to plan?

If I thought I gained enough wisdom from flight cancellations, I was sorely mistaken. My return flight was also cancelled and I luckily found out about the cancellation the night before. As a result, I had to go to the airport early in the morning and wait in line for 4 hours to rebook the cancelled flight. On this return flight, I started talking with a middle-aged insurance lawyer from Long Island. He shared with me a flight cancellation experience he had 10 years ago. He had to catch a flight from La Guardia airport during a bad snowstorm in New York. He confirmed that the flight was on schedule before he left home and drove to the airport. He walked through the snow-laden streets to the terminal and was greatly upset to find out that the flight was cancelled at the last minute.

An old man next to the lawyer attempted to pacify him and said, “Better cancelled on the ground than in the air.” The lawyer still remembers that line after all these years. The remark may just be a specific version of ‘It could be worse’, but the timing gives it special meaning. Besides, it had enough humor to jolt one into the realization that there are more important things in your life than a single delayed journey.

I wish I could end it here. I really do. But, I have to mention one more quote because this article wouldn’t be complete otherwise. Well, that, and I also think that odd numbers are auspicious. Anyway, I know I tend to idealize notions and incidents. That is probably evident from just this article. Even with all my inherent flaws, I can sound so self-righteous sometimes. I was having a discussion with my friend, whom I respect a lot, when I inevitably started idealizing human behavior. In response to one such comment of mine, my friend said, “You may as well say we shouldn’t be human“.

That made me realize how easy it is to present rational arguments and point out obvious human flaws that we all suffer from. If one tries hard enough, any human trait can be presented as a shortcoming. It is much easier to rationalize why you or someone else shouldn’t be angry or unhappy or afraid and be critical on yourself or others. However, it is much more difficult to change our perspective and actually control the way we think. This shift of perspective takes place constantly with passage of time. In some cases though, it takes immense effort to effect the change. Sometimes all it takes are a few well chosen words.

Indelible links

Why do I want to write?

It was love at first sight. So begins one of my favorite novels of all time. I often wonder whether there is such a thing as hate at first sight. If there is, I am certain that I am experiencing it right now as I am writing this. This is my first attempt at giving concrete written form to my inner thoughts, but the only words that come to my mind are apologies for this foolhardy pursuit. (For those who encouraged/inspired me to write, let me assure you that my future articles will be less about me. But, for now, this rather long disclaimer is necessary!)

Why do I hate putting into words something that I love thinking about? I think it bothers me a little that I may never find the perfect words to convey my ideas accurately in the finest possible detail – not just due to my literary handicap but also due to people’s varying world views and the universal limitation of language. This problem of seeking an unattainable perfection in communication is captured elegantly in a few lines from “Pride and Prejudice”. Elizabeth, during her dance with Darcy, accuses him for his rudeness, a defect in character that she empathizes with. She says to him, “We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb.” While Darcy does not respond  to this immediately, he remembers to answer to this accusation when he explains himself to her on a later occasion. “I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,” says Darcy, “of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.”

It took me an eternity to figure out why this limitation is not a hurdle in real life. Language can never operate independent of the human experience. If we understand what someone else says, it is because we have directly or indirectly experienced part of the idea or fact they are trying to convey, and our brains extrapolate the remaining parts that are outside our domain of experience. In that sense, communication is just a process of finding the intersection between the speaker and the listener or the writer and the reader. There is no perfect way to convey a given idea, although some may work better than others depending on the situation. As much as I like popular quotes, the truth is always more complicated than a few glorified sentences. If I can’t explain happiness, for instance, in a thousand words, I should just take a million. The trick, as they say, is to keep talking…

I have a second more important reason why I hate writing so much. I never consider my personal thoughts to be meaningful to anyone else other than myself and maybe a few who think like me. That opinion has not changed much, but I have come to terms with the fact that all art is selfish, especially the crudest ones like this (mine). Writing, to me, is a natural form of self-expression – nothing less, nothing more. I don’t have to pretend to write to enlighten others. I want to write because it helps me give definite form to my thoughts and grow as a thinker. I want to write because I enjoy the moments when you know someone else genuinely understands a complex idea that originated in you and vice versa. I want to write because I believe that these connections we make with one another through ideas are more permanent in the universe than anything else we could hope to do by ourselves. Thus, I humbly confess to my selfish motives behind this blog – the desire to understand these indelible links!