Fear of imperfection

Ever since I last wrote, I’ve been trying hard to write something and publish it for people to see but haven’t been able to because of a fear of imperfection in what I write. Actually, it happens a lot. I like to believe I am a perfectionist, not that I am, but I’d like to believe so. Or atleast that I am striving towards it. A fear of producing something perfect was preventing me from doing something which is good. 

In the last week, I drafted a lot of articles on many different ideas but I just couldn’t publish them. I wrote on things which were important to me, which moved me but I wasn’t happy with what I had written. I knew it could have been better. 

The definition of perfect here is something that I feel proud of producing, I feel good about and could be at peace with. Although, we all do stuff seeking an acknowledgement of the world around us or of ourselves, it eventually comes down how that makes us feel. It gives us a feeling of being able to create something, of adding value, of playing our part in this entirely meaningless, long drawn out game of life that someone is enjoying at our behest. If we are characters in a game, we might as well have fun while doing it. 

I recently read the book The Spy who came in from the Cold by John le Carre (great spy novel, completely different from what you would expect in a spy mystery) which propelled the author into stardom. The author later reflects that his life of comfort was now over. Anything that he ever produces again would always be pried and judged upon by eyes of the world. The activity that brought him joy had suddenly lost its innocence.

I am not sure that how he was able to deal with it but I am trying to internalise it. Instead of waiting for the end product, I want to enjoy the process, every moment of writing, whether I publish it or not is a different matter altogether. And if I do decide to publish it, it is fine if it is crappy. Things get better with time. 

After all, what bothers us the most, what keeps us await at night are not the things that we did but we wish we could have done. 

How do you guys deal with, if it exists, your struggle for perfection? (I also realised, leaving a blog post with a question is a good way to end when you don’t know how to end it).

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Illusions | Haiku

Richard Bach is a master at weaving simple stories into something deeply profound and moving. Illusions was also in my list of the best books I read last year. 

You can swim through walls,

Walk on water,

And everything that is taught in this book could be wrong.

#BookReviews in Haiku

On Illusions - Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach

Aliens

There is a world which is called Bumics where lives a specie known as Hreathens.

They lead a life listening to music but not like we humans do on earth. Music is the air they breathe in literal terms. They look like us but with a slight yet important difference - they don’t have a nose. Instead, they have a headphone over their heads since birth. That is their life giving element. They don’t breathe but they have to listen to music all the time or else they die.

The way we hold our breaths, they stop listening to music for a small time while changing the batteries of their iPods and stereo systems. If the batteries die out, or their iPod breaks, they have to replace it. But, sometimes they can’t find the replacement at the right time and then they die. At other times, they can’t find the right music for a long time and they feel suffocated which again causes death.

When they want to get high, or they want to entertain themselves and have a good time, they buy a detachable nose, with which they breathe air. For their parties, they buy big containers of air which blows it all around the room. When they are breathing, everything else seems secondary. They are lost in the process of breathing, the fresh air that enters into their body, goes into their lungs and gives them energy. The air takes them somewhere else and they forget that they are Hreathen beings living on the planet Bumics. It takes them to another planet (Earth, maybe). That is also the time when they are actually able to focus on the music.

Hreathens had forgotten that they’ve been listening to music all this while. They had taken it for granted and had lost the joy of listening to music. But, these sessions of breathing helps them realise how simple, yet beautiful is this life giving process to them. They enjoy it, it is almost as if they’ve been hearing the music all the time but this is the first time they have listened to it. They also call it meditation. 

The kids always miss the silent H in the spelling. Their monks ask them the purpose of H in their life. They spend their lifetime finding out that answer. They don’t realise that it is a non existent question. They can very well live without the extra H. But no, their mind, like ours seeks conflict. They can’t let it go.

One day, one of them is breathing some really good air and he feels as if he has been transported into a different world altogether. He feels as if he has become a different specie. Almost human.

This is it. I think I don’t know more about them. I will come back with more information once my thought changes.

Do you think we become them for brief moments when we are listening to music and can focus on our breathing for the first time?

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How an acquisition feels like

The story of your life is covered in the many books that stand upon the bookshelf of a beautiful young woman. She has read some, some she wants to but hasn’t found the right moment to. And then there are some which are still to come to her but she doesn’t know it yet.

She has read many books in her life, mostly the classics or the popular ones which everyone should read, as she has been told. And she enjoyed them but nothing touched her, nothing called out to her soul. Maybe it was because they’ve been read and recommended by everyone around her. The novelty in those novels is lost on her. 

Then one mysterious night, when the creatures of the dark come out, she finds a book which she finds calls out to her. It is a rare one which she hasn’t seen too many people reading. She doesn’t know how this is going to turn out because she hasn’t heard too many of her friends telling her how it goes. It is one which she knows a little about but she couldn’t help but open and start reading it, one page at a time.

She takes her time to read through every single page. Every single page is a different story. It feels to her as if each page was written just for her. That if there was any life she wanted to live, that story would be it. And it happens again and again, at every single page, every sentence, even every word. Every grammatical error adds to the beauty of the book. Every misprint feels like it was meant to be that way. 

The books goes on and she finds herself engrossed in it. Detached from her world which she thought she belonged to until then and attached to the new one she has discovered, but always longed for, in the book. She feels different emotions - love, surprise, disgust, delight.  

And then it ends.

When the book ends, she reminisces about how the book was. She, like most other people, has a bias of remembering only good things about the past and even the bad bits with a fondness. She has forgotten the agony of some really painful chapters in the book. There is only the lingering on sensation of a story well told.

She doesn’t know what comes next. She wonders if anything she picks up again is going to be as beautiful, as amazing. She doesn’t know yet. 

She has too many options from which to pick the next one up.

Reaching the end feels like an accomplishment. There is a sense of closure. She wants to tell her friends how the book was because she loved it so much. But, she’s not sure about it because not a lot of her friends would connect to it, atleast she feels that way.

There is a sense of ending to it. A relief comes over her which engulfs her almost ready to perish her. Fulfillment. Satisfaction. Completeness. 

That’s how I feel. Reference

As a sidenote: What if, the story was about you. How would you like it to be? If you could watch your whole life unfold from a distance afar, would you prefer it to end quickly so that you could find out what happens at the end or would you prefer to savor each and every moment slowly in the constant fear that the story might end too soon.

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BookReview - Siddhartha | Hermann Hesse

At the outset, let me tell you what I knew about the book before picking it up - It is one of the most influential spiritual works of the 20th century, was highly recommended to me by a friend (this one) who had bought her own copy after reading a borrowed one and the book had an Introduction by Paulo Coelho.

To cut the story short, the book came to me with high levels of expectation. Naturally, I was a little skeptical - rebellion against the natural state of things is, for better or for worse, a habit I have since as far as I can remember. So, I started reading and I finished it. I don’t remember much else during those two days.

I was amazed by the ease at which Siddhartha explains the most important questions of life - why we are here, what we are doing here, what is the One single truth - basically, the whole existentialism phenomena. And what’s beautiful is the way Hermann Hesse expresses it.

A lot of spiritual books give you deep, complex concepts and theories and try to explain them to you in easier ways using analogies of real life. But, Siddhartha is different. It takes all these spirtiual concepts and theories as a matter of fact. It treats you with respect in assuming that you will understand. There are no long winding passages on theory of time, space and spirituality. Instead, it explains the beauty and the true meaning in our daily lives and what we feel - love, passion, knowledge, anger, lust etc. It touches upon each one of them and more and treats them with an utmost care.

Siddhartha guides you through the life of a man seeking answers only to tell you that it is not seeking you should do, finding is the answer. That was the most powerful statement for me. Let me say it again: ‘Finding is important, not seeking’. Excuse my paraphrasing. When you seek, you are looking for something, that takes away your mind from so many other beautiful things in life that might come your way. Instead, go finding with an open eye because you never know what you might find.

The book is so relatable that I am sure every one of you would be able to live Siddhartha’s life - inspite or perhaps because of it being so simple. I am not sure if this is the kind of book you might want to draw conclusions out of. I did and am damn happy I could. These are what they are: 

What goes around comes back around - just this simple realisation could help us be more empathetic, compassionate and an overall nice person.

Unconditional love is the most beautiful and maybe painful thing in the world - love of a father for his son kind of stuff.

The most important knowledge can never be taught, it has to be experienced.

You can find your spiritual guide in rivers, birds or trees  - they all speak to you. Just be a good listener. 

Before the start of the post, I was going to suggest you to pick up this book after you’ve already delved into spiritual thinking a bit. But, I’ve changed my mind now. Read it whenever you like :)

Now, I think I’ll have to buy my own copy.

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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle | Haiku

To all the day dreamers
Just because it is happening in your dreams
Doesn’t mean it is unreal

#Book Reviews in Haiku

On The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

On the origin of language

In a discussion with a friend, I’d call it a discussion even though she was quiet and I was quiet and we were sitting without a care in the world, we figured out why language was invented - To Lie.

This is it. This is the end of the post, the end of everything, you can go home now.

————————————————————————————————————————-

Or, you can choose to stay back and get to know what preceded that.

————————————————————————————————————————-

So I see you decided to stay back, I’m glad. What happened was this: We were just sitting and chilling, looking at each other for quite some time, smiling, looking into each other’s eyes and just having a general feeling of contentment, happiness and fun. We didn’t speak a single word and yet our eyes said things to each other and it felt like our true feelings were communicated. After some time she asks: “Why do you think the language was made for?” to which I reply, “To lie”.

Isn’t that true? It is so hard to hide your true emotions and feelings as compared to lying in words. All the lie detectors in the world check your emotions not what you say - even they know where the actual truth comes from. All the people we lie to, they always sense something is wrong no matter how well we choose our words. But feelings, they are the true tell of what is in your mind.

Maybe, the inventors of language were actually really bad people who wanted to lie and do things which were until then not heard of and they’d wanted to keep that a secret. And that is why they invented language as a means to communicate instead of gestures, feelings and touch. So that they could lie.

I believe a true conversation happens without words. Isn’t that what they say about a good friend, he’s someone who can share a silence with and still feel like you’ve had the best conversation in the world.

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What I see with my left eye

When I was 14 years old, a freak accident gave me the ability, if it is the right word to use, to see weird shapes with my left eye. 

Here’s what happened: While playing badminton, a friend hit me with the racket on my eye. Don’t ask how it is even possible, but it just goes to show how bad my doubles partner was at the game. Anyways, the doctor said it is fine and nothing serious. But, of course there was something very serious.

A few days later, I couldn’t see above a certain horizontal level with my left eye. So, assuming you were my height then, I would have to raise my neck a little bit to look at your face. This time the doctor did say it was something serious. Apparently, my retina had detached from its position and was hanging loose.

The operation involved cutting open my eye(yes!), inserting some ice instrument (yes!) which then burns the retina so that it melts and sticks to its original place (yes!). The doc said that this eye burn is common to people in colder areas. I don’t know how much of it is correct because the doctor could have tried to explain me things in a simple way or I could have misunderstood him or my memory isn’t as sharp as it was then. The doctors among you can vet how correct this is. To close the eye back, they had to stitch it up (yes!). You could actually see 4 black stitches in my eye. They gradually melted away and my eye became almost perfect.

Almost.

What’s remaining is I see your face in a little contorted shape with my left eye. And I see weird shapes which look like these:

I don’t really know what to make of it. This shape is funny, because if I try too hard to notice it, it shifts its place. But when I really relax, it lets me have a look. I think the shape has changed over the years. It feels as if they are black stars floating in a sky of yellow liquid. Just observing these shapes is a good way to spend some time alone. 

When my mind is at peace, they present themselves to me. When I am not looking, they appear. When I look too hard, they go away. But, if at times, I tell myself that I am not looking, and still let the eye move, they reveal themselves to me. A momentary loss of mind control pushes them away and they become haywire and scatter away. I guess they just need a clear mind as a breeding ground. It is as if they are waiting for mind to be at rest. Otherwise they run amok at free will which is neither mine nor does it seems theirs.

I don’t know if to conclude something from it but it reminds me of something I’ve read in way too many books: It is when you are at peace, your mind is calm that all the beauty of life presents itself to you. 

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