The Alienation of Us Humans

“ In sociology and critical social theory, alienation refers to an individual’s estrangement from traditional community and others in general. It is considered by many that the atomism of modern society means that individuals have shallower relations with other people than they would normally. This, it is argued, leads to difficulties in understanding and adapting to each other’s uniqueness (see normlessness) “

                        – Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_alienation

 

We have become so caught up in our lives, the materialistic part of our lives especially, that we are missing it altogether. The essence of life is life itself. And we are just speeding by it like a ferrari on a motorway. I know, not the best of metaphors, but I am sure you will live. Anyway.. back to the post.

 

We worry about careers, about money, about saving money, about the kind of cars we drive, about ‘staying connected online all the time’. But that’s the thing …even though we have come up with so many ways to stay connected with each other….we still don’t. We proudly put forward the banner of developing ways to bring family and friends who are geographically far apart closer together, but yet ..we don’t really practice it in kind that much. Facebook, Skype, Blackberry, other smartphones, other social networks, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Email etc etc. (the latter ones being a little old on this modern list)

We are still so busy and caught up with ourselves only. Constantly worrying, constantly scheming, constantly materializing plans and big ticket business items or career growth paths. By doing all this we so easily alienate ourselves from the human side, the emotional and compassionate side. Even if we are not materialistic, or money minded, we are still so caught up in our self made complications that we would rather slip into isolation then anything else. What is left in the end is just man…. not human. A flesh and blood robot.

See while we will still be creatures who have feelings, soon these feelings will become benign. And its not just feelings linked to relationships, its the entire possible universe I am talking about.

Plus there are so many of those ‘I love you’s’ around out there that the three words have actually lost value. Its become something akin to the side side cheek kiss done in fictional movies by models who are just being sociable by doing so. I mean they don’t even actually kiss on the cheek… they just go to one side and take out the sound and then the other side and the sound again!

What is supposed to be one of those foremost genuine feelings from the heart has been turned into redundant social norm …. its outrageous, but a fact of what is / has happened.

We have alienated ourselves from being humans and just gone into the routine of being men. We move or try to move at such a fast pace… that we just get lost. In mind and spirit.

We are emotional beings at the end of the day and if we don’t get enough emotional fodder let alone the really vital ones: compassion, affection, companionship, and the all important of being human; we will continue to reduce interactions and supposed emotional exchanges to something which has no meaning whatsoever. Just cheap change changing hands.

 

*NOTE : If you didn’t get the point of this blog…. welcome to the club… I didn’t either…. is it a sign of alienating ourselves ? Think about it. Nothing says it more then something which so obviously says it being completely off our radar of understanding.

Of Purpose & Inspiration

I keep running in my head. Running away from the present. Sometimes to the past, sometimes to a future I don’t know the reality of. I’ve thought of this before as well. And it always seems to turn out the same invariably. I run mostly for purpose and in search of inspiration. I find none at the moment. Well not purpose which would be meaningful anyway. I mean everyone likes to keep a wallet which would run their lives for them. Who doesn’t?

Purpose for which we feel the reality of our existance. Purpose, without which it would all seem like a bit of a waste. Everything would then wouldn’t it. We need purpose in our lives as much as we need the air we breathe, the water we drink.  Some find it. Some toil for it. Some …..well … they stand in abyss.

We struggle to come to terms with something which is not becoming of us much less with something which is more or less nothing. A slab of drudgery through the journey that is life. Without that particular ‘purpose’ for which we all exist, without knowing it or in someway being connected or associated with it, the journey…. becomes painfully meaningless.

However, purpose alone is not enough. As I said earlier, purpose at times can be meaningless as well. At the core of it all… lies inspiration. Inspiration doesn’t necessarily have to do with lights going on in a flash in your head or a moment of genius in which you end up inventing something. Neither is it necessarily a vision or that which makes artists create marvels of absolute beauty and awe.

Over here what I mean by inspiration is what makes a person tick. Again mind you not necessarily as a means to achieve greatness or glory. But inspiration to tick. To embrace life with color and positive demeanor. To manifest excitement and to create passion. It could be an epic movie for some ( a battle scene from a great war of fantasy or history). It could be a song which hits you much beyond your ears and brain, way deep into your mind and soul. It could be achieving a simple goal as well. It may very well also be the sport you play daily. (Watching is obvious I would think! Who wouldn’t be pumped and inspired after watching a great performance by their team of support!)

Right now … at this particular moment in time, I find none anywhere near me. This is kind of sad. For I love music, I love reading, I love watching epic movies. And I definitely love sports – watching Afridi standing triumphant after we became the T20 Champions earlier this year was truly inspirational… not just for me but the entire homeland especially at that point in time.

Having said that I am not entirely banished into abyss … and not completely with the lack of something to make me tick. But its not the same. Its not the same as when … well … a year back even.

I need a move on. A nudge….a moment of madness…… or as I’ve said many times in the recent past…. I need some time off from what is my life. I need a reintroduction to my music. I need a beach, with sand, sun and the waves. That would surely be perfect. But that’s not happening for now….so I am guessing I’ll have to make to do with a cool tall glass of lemonade and whatever my iPOD has to offer me!

The Malice of Power

Men love power. More than anything else they desire power. They run after it like hungry dogs and once in their grasps, try to hold on to it with an iron grip. It doesn’t matter if that power is something they wield over the life of one human being or a million; it will do just as long as they have it. They go about it by any means necessary. Beg, borrow or steal. Kill even if required. In face of her(power) great temptation all other things, living or non-living are insignificant. It drives men insane. It becomes their only objective. The only purpose.

Power is man’s greatest seductress. The mistress to his humanity. A mistress he loves cheating on humanity with. A mistress that soon becomes his goddess. subconsciously controlling and wiping out all signs and traces of humanity. His goals corrupted and his mind hypnotized.

Power ignites the corrupt potential in man to its highest level. For all his strengths, man weakens for power. History has provided us numerous examples of people losing their way because of this malice.

The Romans, the moguls etc. All great people of history have had leaders or rulers who gave in to the temptation. Who caved in to the desire.

Power is often tied up with another desire. For men’s need to be immortal. To remain alive always in history. To try and cheat death. Not literally but indirectly. Immortality is yet another malice. Yet another desire which easily corrupts and takes a non-human form. We all die. And we all will outlive the memory banks of this world. Sooner or later it happens. The story of men fades, history is forgotten. Rewritten. But men at times don’t understand that.

They just see that the power they hold will make them immortal. Unforgettable through history. They think they will become larger then reality and the universe itself. When in all truth, they will do nothing more then corrupt themselves and their own personal world.

“Men, who above all else desire power”……”The Ring passed to Isildur, who had this one chance to destroy evil forever, but the hearts of men are easily corrupted. And the ring of power has a will of its own. It betrayed Isildur, to his death.”

Two lines from “The Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring”  movie & Galadriel’s (Cate Blanchett) opening dialogue , that I think perfectly fall in line with what I am trying to say here. 

The Face Behind an Everlasting Smile….

Its always there. Picture perfect. For every occasion, for every snap, for every moment, for every event. For every other person I meet, its always there. My everlasting front up smile. Hiding my face from the onlookers of reality. Sheltering it from the disbelief that will be instilled if there ever was to be an encounter of reality with it.

It is kind of a hard act to put on, but for some reason the burden just doesn’t seem quite there. It seems detached. Like something happening in an entirely different world one which I am not entirely or consciously aware of. 

It helps me come off as this happy jolly person. My excess capacities even take me to be ‘santa’ of sorts. It helps me avoid confronting the face it hides all too well. “An everlasting smile’. I like hearing that sentence. If nothing else it puts a wry smile on the real face. The one behind the shadows. The one which is in constant touch with the reality of my emotions. Ironic thou, putting on a show to hide one reality from another.

So what’s the face really like behind that 32 carat mug? That’s the thing, I can’t explain it… cause I can’t quite understand it myself. And its not like the real face never smiles.. it does. On occasion. When I go out on a limb and come back hurt and out of it. That’s when it smiles, the real face. The one hidden all too well by the frontal smile.

The face is more or less a result of all the times I make my mind not to listen to my heart over my head and still end up going with the heart. The heart is cruel or can be cruel. And not through any fault of its own. According to the book ‘The Alchemist’, one must learn to communicate and actually talk to ones heart. Actually hear it talk back. Let it all out. and properly communicate. According to the Alchemist it is very important for man to reach that particular goal. To reach that point in your life where you are easily communicating with your heart. And if you do, you won’t regret to any great degree listening to your heart over your mind.

“A mind is a terrible thing to waste” . And that’s exactly what will happen if I keep trashing its advice.

This face…. this scarred emotionally divided face. This over thinking , over analyzing, over detailing face. The truth behind an everlasting smile. 

Note of a tormented person…

I keep watching to the dark night. Watching as the full moon fights a losing battle against clouds. Watching as the wind strikes against me hard. Watching as the rain lashes through the atmosphere making its presence known to all living things.

I keep watching and waiting. Waiting to see if the heroes that our destined to save all of us will turn up tonight. Heroes we’ve always heard will be there to save our souls. I’ve been waiting for so long for mine. For my savior. All I can see right now through my cracked vision is the flight of my soul. All I can do is watch as it flies away.

But I am still standing and waiting, tormented from inside at the loss of feeling anything. Twisted but real. I know all of this requires a much needed dose of sanity. Sanity which won’t come without those saviors, those heroes. Those who I heard about from the ancient times.

They still haven’t come. I am here, in this moment, with an escaped soul. With the hand of a stormy night enticing me more and more over the edge. All I can hear is it’s thunder, some distant screams, the voices of torment from inside my head and the feeble voice of hope fading away somewhere in the distance.

It will vanish for good sometime soon, my hope. All that will be left will be the torment then. I won’t even have the capacity to feel the storm. Maybe I won’t even have the capacity to hear a tear drop fall let alone shed one.

I wish something would just take me away, I’d even settle for the grim reaper at this point.

The Architects of Our Own Demise…

We saw the things to come, in their true shape, in their true colors. Yet we did nothing to prepare for it. We just stood. At the same point as we always did. We were too proud to actually change. In our minds there was nothing else to be done. We were the top of the food chain. We were not a ‘spent force’, we were the kings and the king makers.

We were engrossed in our own spent thrift lives. In our obsessions with power. We were so wrapped up in ourselves that we didn’t see how the entire system, the entire order that we were so damn proud of was just waiting to burst from inside. And burst with such a degree that even if we wanted to cry beyond our pride we would not be able to because of the intensity of the aftermath.

We were blind. Blinded by ‘fool’s gold’. Blinded by the roads and paths shown to us by the workers of hell. Greed, it was killing us from inside and were enjoying it like sick junkies.

Piece by piece of the reality we were living by was being destroyed. Destroyed by our own laid out plans. Unwittingly we were designing a master proof plan to put us all into a nose diving crash. A crash from which little would survive over the long run. From which those who do survive will never recover.

We hoped , we believed. Unfortunately as stupidly as those who believe rocks are the holders of their fate. Pathetic creatures. And we used to call ourselves the kings and king makers. We were the top of the food chain? That’s a questionable chain then.

Elites we were. Nothing could touch us. We breathed in a different level of air. We were beyond reach of misery , beyond the reach of the Heavens even!

How foolish we were. And how anarchic was everything associated with us because it was all bound for that nose diving crash. That step by step guide of self destruction. We orchestrated it , we designed it. Hell we were the architects of it. And now we have left behind a world in spiral in our wake.

Ode to us, the elite, the privileged. To us who could have steered the ship well, but rather were busy cutting off the lifeboats.   

Vindictively Alone….

Man is born alone. Man dies alone. It’s not like he takes another soul with him on his death journey. In fact everyone you come to know in your life will be lost forever on you once you die. You will never recognize anyone again after this life. Not even people you love with your whole.

As if that’s not bad enough….. people end up being alone in this life as well. Circumstances lead to such that they drift through life, without really holding on to anything or without being held on by someone else.

People don’t always turn out to be what they initially seemed. Feelings can change in an instance. Some painful scars can linger on for seasons beyond seasons. Everything that you have envisioned inside your head could turn out to be nothing more than a fable, a fantasy ….. a fairy tale story. All in the process leaving you alone with your thoughts…. with yourself.

You don’t feel like reacting to stuff that you’ve only just started to realize… like stuff that you’ve been left out of. Or how the presence of you is like a tiny blot on a windscreen in other’s life. Like … you’ve lost complete confidence in feelings that you have. In feelings that others might have for you. On that whole idea altogether. Its like … what’s the point. ‘My destiny is alone’ …..which might not be true unless you want to be melodramatic about it. But still… that’s how it tends to be at times. That’s how rigid your self loathing and ample feeling of patheticness can get.

It is human instinct to think of oneself as alone on certain levels. Don’t our minds often wander towards outlets of emotions in a remote destination without any contact with the real world ? Don’t we at times imagine ourselves sitting ‘alone’ on some roof or some height staring into the dark night and the bright stars ….. thinking whatever thoughts there might be….. but sitting and thinking alone… ? We all do. You’d be lying …. to yourself if you thought or said you don’t or haven’t ever.

The Spartans …. outcast their young warriors of age 10 or so … into the wild .. to survive on their own. To grow on their own. To become men on their own. All alone.

So to prove human nature …that’s an example of it from history. It’s in us to be alone at some point in time.

But it hurts when we are alone by external forces and not by choice. When we are alone by choice ….we are looking for solitude. And when we are alone by external forces………….we are isolated, abandoned…… forgotten even. It really hurts then. When it’s sort of in between ….. you have mixed feelings and doubt over everything else even if it hasn’t quite reached that stage yet where this entire debate would be applicable to it.

When we are not alone by choice ..and rather circumstances beyond our control……we turn violent on ourselves. Maybe not physically… but emotionally. Our souls remain tormented. Uncared. Unloved. All sorts of negative thoughts get a free pass into our mind. And slowly and slowly we orchestrate our own mental demise…..we become instrumental in unscrewing our own strength and iron will. We become our own worst enemies.

Of Heart & Mind….

  There are many points in time in your life when you are heading down a path that you’ve been on before. Maybe once, maybe twice or maybe a whole bunch of times. You’ve experienced that path before and know it’s pros and cons, ups and downs. Yet… something tends to draw it to you again and again. Even if it didn’t work out before, you are still always drawn to the notion of taking that path. And more often then not, you do end up taking it. If for nothing else, perhaps because its familiar to you and that keeps you clinging to it in hopes that this time it just might work out because you’ve learned how to tread the road in the past. You’ve learned of the ditches and the obstacles that are there.

What people don’t account for in such a case is that the more we learn how to tread , we only go further on that path and encounter further obstacles that we didn’t before since we were knocked out on the previous ones which we just managed to cross.

And at times, even though that obstacle is perfectly passable, we just tend to let it go because … well lets face it , the amount of times that option pursued and the amounts of time its not worked out , everyone and your own brain judges you and passes on their 2 cents. Now as we get older, we lose the patience to listen to everybody’s 2 cents. “Hey I am mid 30s you know… i know what I am doing”.

But that’s the thing. God gives us chances to rectify our mistakes. And maybe that’s such things keep coming back on our radar. Those things we’ve tried before but at some point in time during it we failed. They keep coming up on our minds, our thought processes because … we haven’t tried at it properly and fully. And if we don’t , maybe we are screwing up a perfectly good chance for ourselves.

So why not ? Why not go in there with your all that you’ve learned and really give it a shot?

We also tend to lose faith and confidence in ourselves, and in our ability to achieve what lies at the end of the road. Rejection, failure can only be taken constructively and optimistically for so long. We are after all humans and humans are after all emotional creatures. And this way we continue fighting our inner battles. Inside our head. The debates keep going on and on. They never stop. They last forever it seems.

In my case …. my heart goes one way and the brain goes the other, leaving the mind and soul in between to draw something from the difference. In the past I’ve always listened to my heart. Inevitably that decision has let me down. For me this is the path that keeps coming up on my radar again and again. So .. what to do now ? Do I take it as a sign that listening to my heart is the right thing to do and continue to follow that principle, or shun it aside and actually listen to the brain for once? Because with me you can be absolutely sure that the mind and the soul are just as indecisive as the next person; rather in this case ‘organ’.

In the book ‘The Alchemist’ , the writer portrays the philosophy that The heart is but made from the same hand which made this world and hence the soul of the world and the heart are one and the same and they eventually meet. While these weren’t the exact words, that’s the basic idea. He also says, that it takes time for one to understand their heart. To really know what it is saying. So perhaps I just haven’t reached a point in time in my life yet where I am actually communicating with my heart. Well not properly anyway.

So … again…. the question stays…. what to do? Listen to the heart as always, supported by the logic of the Alchemist, or listen to the brain supported by past experience? Don’t know… hope the choice is easier with the readers whenever they face something of this regard.  

Dreamer….

I recently had the following thought develop inside my head:

‘Dreams are nice to have … and it is dreams which eventually ensure some sort of reality in our lives even if that reality isn’t the dream itself. The realization of dreams is often manifested in the journey of trying to achieve it.’

See the thing is that we all have dreams. Some have more elaborate one then others. And some have way too complicated dreams. And yet still there are some whose dreams are extremely simple and quite basic. Dreams even if they don’t come true give people hope. It gives them a feeling that they are working towards something that will give them unmatchable joy in this cold and monstrous world that we live in. That there is still the brightness at the end of the tunnel so to speak.

Mostly this simple and basic fact is overlooked by people. They tend to forget that everybody including themselves has dreams. If they say ‘Oh we don’t believe in such ridiculous notions… and that dreams are just good for kids when they are young’, then you should know that they lost their dream somewhere along the way and have now forgotten about it from the conscious parts of their mind. But that dream still lingers in their sub-conscious. People who believe in miracles are dreamers. People who are idealists are dreamers. People who set themselves a goal which the general society would not attribute towards his stereotyped segment is a dreamer (In simple words someone whose dream is bigger then what people believe a person like him can achieve).

People tend to think that people who are dreamers, or idealists or miracles or any other non – humanly possible physical intervention based ideology are mostly delusional. People like to be ‘practical’ in life. Hence there is no place for dreams in the ‘practical’ world. There is no reality in dreams. There is no truth in them. Because they can’t see them. Because the general human populous has been conditioned to conform to the Generally Accepted Living Lifestyles (GALL). You were born into a system, a routine. And dammit you’ll die in one.

It is this which roots out certain problems of classification when it comes to what people want to do in their lives. Now because of the GALL, parents and well sometimes kids themselves would like to follow a path which will ensure the basics in life. But why does that have to be limited to certain walks of life. There are many things in this world, many talents in this world that are quite capable of earning your bread and butter. And most importantly, each of us has a special gift and ability inside us. Our dreams become the life source of these abilities. Our dreams in a sense show us the accomplishment of mastering what we all already have inside of us. Our special unique innate nature. What we are good at. What we were born to be good at. What makes us happy.

In our country, it would be highly questioned if someone who comes from a background having resources to get him into law, medicine or business studies wants to be a sports professional. Or an artist (music, painting, celebrity, acting etc). It’s just unheard of. “It’s the dreamer inside of you talking son. It doesn’t know about the real world. That’s not something that you can do. It’s not good enough.”

Sad. Well to me anyway. And I hope to other free thinking liberally open minds out there.

We shouldn’t stop dreaming. We should try our best to follow our dreams. So what if we don’t end up accomplishing our dreams. Maybe the journey which we under-take while trying to achieve that dream helps us realize another dream that we were unaware of. Or even the journey itself could be so enriching… that … well … you suddenly feel profound. You experience. You LIVE.

Be dreamers .. one and all. Live merry. And for goodness sake if you can’t dream at least don’t trample on those who do believe in this stuff.

In Pursuit of Silence

I think … 90% of the time in our lives …we are constantly hearing something inside our head. It’s either our thoughts … or voices. Or a deadly combination of both.  Now sadly for us , we are human beings. We are born with a complete emotional package in tow. And more over , that emotioal package mingles up a lot with those thoughts and those voices.

The end result is a constant need for questioning oneself. Their own ambitions. Their own thought processes. The decisions. The paths that they have taken in their life or the ones that they seek to embark on. The voices … get all corrupted from the external environment around us. And chemically react with the emotions in tow. Thus bringing into play the forbidden organ (As i like to call the heart). That’s when the real mess begins.

Your mind starts jabbering, with no end in sight. All sorts of things. It never keeps quite. It actually takes quite an effort to relax then. People who have reached a somewhat intellectual summit of their own lives, or rather their own potential, are constantly overwhelmed. They end up doing things like writing useless, meaningless stuff which can very easily get branded as their own form of philosophy. Write up after write up. Blog after blog. Thought after thought, penned down. Controversial, unnecessary gibberish.

Your rationality goes under. You start fearing for your sanity. And that’s when you end to seek an end  to those voices. That constant noise of thoughts in your head. You seek out vacations, get aways, holidays etc. But doesn’t really help. Something or someone happens on these things which starts putting your mind in motion once again. And that someone isn’t necessarily a love story… it could even be an enlightened encounter with another person who has reached the summit of his intellectual potential.  It could be a highly moving symbolic image.

I recently read a book .. in which the idea of a ‘Personal Legend’ was mentioned. The book was ‘The Alchemist’ written by Paulo Coehlo. Very well written book. Very captivating and engaging. However … I digress.

The idea of one’s personal legend. And that when someone is on hir or her journey of finding their personal leged, the entire universe conspires to help you find it…. is very plausible. But I believe we all must undertake another journey before we achieve a situation where we can undertake that one. For us to be completely in tow with our soul to undertake a journey of finding our personal legend.

For us to be completely in the zone and in sync to achieve that situation we need to have a mind which we are in control of . We must be in control of the voices… the thoughts. The noise of the thoughts. The constant clinging and clanging of thought waves inside our heads. We must in fact pursue silence. For in silence we have clarity. Clarity and focus.

Some people already are in the pursuit of silence. People who go away… not living anywhere and but going everywhere. Trying to achieve harmony within their ownselves. Meditation. A rendevouz with nature.

And that is how you get on the path to your Personal legend journey. In pursuit of your personal legend you are in pursuit of silence before.