Spontaneity as a deliberate choice

It's been five weeks, since I last sat at this keyboard (well, with the intention of letting loose, that is). Feels like an eternity has gone by, feels like it was only a moment ago... my perception of time seems to become more and more fluid with every passing day. Lately, I've been trying to dig up old struggles, so that I may find new strength - both mental and physical.

It all started abruptly enough and without fanfare, when I was roused from sleep by a spasm in my left calf - that was in December. It may have been an epiphany; but, I'm reluctant to call it that. Maybe, because the realization I came to was something I always knew; it'd been an elephant inside my head all along. It was a moment / minute / eternity (I'm not sure which) of white-hot pain, of lucid thought, of transcendental perception - there is far more choice in life that I'd like to admit to myself. Sometimes, to see a choice(s), one must look outside the illusory structure one has established for one's existence - the so-called comfort zone. The reason I was trying to shy away from this truth? Inertia, lethargy.

In that moment, I chose to do something, everything in my power really, about it. The only way to come to terms with the chaos without is to embrace the chaos within. How is this any different from my past quests? It's not and yet, it is. Let me explain. Words and conscious thoughts notwithstanding, I've always subconsciously tried to overcome the chaos of reality; I've always recognized this and tried time and again with varying degrees of success to overcome the habit - it was never enough though. There were still too many bindings, too much junk I clung to. So, why do I feel any differently about this time? Because, I think I've hit upon a wonderful piece of common sense. I'm walking one step at a time towards the unknown this time rather than trying to run headlong into it. I decided to take a more systematic approach towards achieving chaos, if you will. On the face of it, this is a paradoxical statement. But, I think, only on the face of it.

In the past, I've always tried to jump into the water and then worry about swimming. (I recognize fully well the irony of one unable to swim employing this metaphor.) And, the result was always the same, I made rapid headway initially before hitting a massive brick wall, as it were, and drowning in a whirlpool of panic. Next thing I knew, I'd be clinging to the rope harder than ever before, having only made it a mere step or two further from before.

It's the same damn thing that happened every time I tried to overcome my vertigo. My solution to that was simple enough... I'd walk towards the edge of a cliff right up to the point where my heart began to tickle my tonsils (which I no longer have by the way); then, sit down and breathe, deliberately. Soon, I'd be too bored to feel any panic and I could get up and walk another step or two closer to the edge. Eventually I was sitting at the edge, my feet dangling over a 2000 foot drop and what a view it was!

As I lay in bed that night screaming inward in pain, it hit me that I should simple apply the same principle to life at large. Walk, calmly and deliberately, away from the rope. Stop and take a few deep breaths whenever necessary. After all, to rush the process of embracing uncertainty would defeat the whole purpose wouldn't it?

Another question I'd struggle to reconcile before was that of plans and schedules. Making plans and working on a schedule are necessities dictated by the nature of what I do (research) and what I do, is indulge my passion(s). How could I continue to do this and still embrace uncertainty? The answer was simple enough. It is everywhere in nature. Even a truly random pattern is a pattern still. And such a pattern often contains within it regions of regularity - look anywhere you want: lines in the beach sand, ventricular fibrillation... And thus, to be truly free of rigidity, I must be willing to be fluid... if maintaining that fluidity over a prolonged region of space-time-consciousness (I find it very useful to think of these as the dimensions of a continuum within which to describe my existence to myself) requires the use of structure within smaller regions of it, then that's just the way to flow. In other words, true disorder does not fear order; rather, it is simply a more complex order. Again, this is a concept I've encountered several times in a variety of different contexts; but, to see it within my own existence, that was a sweet moment of realization indeed. What I speak of is not pride; rather, it's that feeling you get when you look up to see the evening sun paint the sky.

That's about it for now. So, why did I ramble on and on about something I know can not be captured by words? The process of trying helps me crystallize my notion of fluidity - another step in a lifelong process. The way I see it, if I keep this up, at the very least I won't ever be bored. How much more could I ask for? :D

I for one and one for all!

Seems like it ways only yesterday – Rupert Murdoch stole the U.S. presidential election (it’s apparently something like King Ottokar’s sceptre in that any jackass who holds has to be allowed to rule) from Al Gore (he does owe Murdoch for clearing up his schedule; imagine trying to juggle a film making career with a presidency) and gifted it to this goofy, C-average candidate from Texas, whom nobody thought could win. Eight years have gone by in a flash… leaving us with snapshots – the economy vaporized along with much of Afghanistan, Iraq and New Orleans. A small price to pay, I’m sure all would agree, for all the brilliant quotes good ole’ ‘Dubya’ has left us with.

There are many naysayers who refuse to laugh at Dubya’s cosmic joke of a presidency. To them I say, in the words of the master himself, in history, we will all be dead anyway. So, laugh and be merry. I do, I dare say, justly jest.

And for fuck’s sake stop ‘misunderestimating’ the guy! You made him feel inadequate and got two wars in return. Instead try to put food on your family and ask yourself, "Is our children reading?"

Judge him not, for he is a man who wishes coexist peacefully with the fishes. Thanks to Al Gore's invention, global warming (Or was it the 'internets' that he invented? Guy's kept so fucking busy, it's hard to keep track.), he may soon have his chance - particularly if he moves to Vanuatu. (I had a brilliantly gratuitous Godfather reference involving Luca Brasi that would have fit here, but I felt bad about putting Brasi in the same sentence with Bush - that would be an insult to Brasi's intelligence. Fuck! I just did what I was trying not to do, didn't I? Digression over.)

If indeed global warming is going to drown us all, we will at least come to appreciate that water-boarding isn't really torture. I shouldn't be too hard on poor ole' Dubya though. After all, he is, by his own admission, a West Texas girl, just like Senator Bill Frist’s wife.

Besides, before you scare yourself shitless over the economy, ask yourself if you want to be hunted down like Saddam Hussein? Just remember, Dubya stepped into the ring against Hussein because of his history but more importantly because of his willingness to terrorize himself. So, if you terrorize yourself over trifles like the loss of your job, your house, your life's savings or any combination thereof, you may land yourself on the wrong side of the war on terror. And, as Dubya himself has reminded us more than once, 'war is a dangerous place'. And we don't need to be subliminable about it either.

So what if you're poor now? Poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill. So what if you’ve lost all your savings? Stop being so self-centered and think of all the poor OB-GYNs across the country who can no longer practice their love with women.

What's to cry about anyway? Are you not entertained? (I ask that in a voice dripping with sarcasm, à la Maximus Decimus Meridius.) Doesn't Dubya remind you of Russell Crowe? Such magnificient entertainers they both are, exponents of the same fine art - which art that is, I will leave to your imagination. (That's because I can come up with fuckall that Russel Crowe is good at.) What other president in history has do so much to keep his people entertained during times of crisis (that he precipitated himself) as Dubya has - with his boundless oratorical skills? The other interesting thing about Dubya is that I watched a movie about him last year. Isn't that interesting?

In the end, all I'm saying is I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside that Oval Office. We may yet discover some day what a visionary statesman he was. At least, mathematics says there is a non-zero probability of such an thing happening. (Mathematics, how cruel thy hand!) So, in the meanwhile I would just like to thank Dubya on behalf of all of us for all the Bushisms.

And never forget that reading is the basics for all learning. So, keep reading my blog, whether I write on it or not.

P.S. For those of you just returning from Mars I've colored all the Bushisms quoted/paraphrased above in dark blue. For more of the real deal, take a look at this article.

The not-so-timeless romance of despair

I watched a movie this afternoon titled Chinese Coffee, the story of one damaged man seeking help and counsel from his equally damaged friend. It got me thinking, made me open a dusty old box hidden away in one of the many dark corners of my mind and what follows is the result of the analysis that followed.

Despair is timeless, as is the romance of despair. Or are they? Within the context of an individual's existence, despair can indeed be truly lasting. It feeds on itself and on anything and everything, in some ways like that tiny mountain stream that feeds on other streams as it grows into the mighty, unstoppable river, its flow seemingly inexorable, all-consuming. And much like the stream, the despair of one individual has the capacity to consume other around him. Unless and until this unstoppable force meets an immovable object - the will of an individual - despair will drag a man down to depths of oblivion with chilling certainty.

But unlike despair itself, the romance of it is far from everlasting. Over time, the desperate man comes to a fork in the road, though seldom his mind sees it; and, he makes a choice - he either resolves to fight his despair with every fiber of his being or he allows it to consume him until all that is left is venom, that unique flavor of venom which one can only find within a man who has admitted defeat.

In truth, peace is success (the converse is far from true) - and to attain it one must overcome the inertia within, both intellectual and physical. Often the mind balks at the scale of this challenge and one sees despair as something romantic. Thus is born the image of the romantic pauper, living in the dark, grimy shadow of human society and yet somehow beyond it, above it - somehow, noble. This illusion, shallow as it is, is powerful... it drives one to wallow in a living purgatory until the inertia builds up to a level where one can only choose between a cathartic battle to overcome and a spirit-crushing admission of defeat. And only when a man sees the darkness of despair does he realize that the romance it once seemed to hold, it never did - it was nothing more than a reflection of the jaundice in his eyes, an expression of his lack of will.

So, I ask myself, where do I stand? Did I make the right choice when I came to that fateful fork in the road? Or, have I yet to reach it? Do I still wallow in despair? Do you?

Ramblings: A Letter from a brain wrapped in mists

Been a while hasn't it? It's been an interesting few months. The nameless inertia that seemed to dull my days has been shed, or, at least, so it would appear. I've been reading lately and thinking... reading and thinking... thinking and reading. My thoughts are still very much a blur, so much so that I've been having trouble sleeping on account of my mind refusing to pause. So, here I am, letting my wheels spin free in that hope that something with a degree of form may come of it ultimately.

"To attack vices in the abstract, without touching persons may be safe fighting, indeed, but it is fighting with shadows. My greatest comfort and encouragement to proceed has been to see that those who have no shame, and no fear of anything else, have appeared touched by my satires." - Junius

If at all you know me, even a little, you will take offense over my words . For it is out of respect that I try to speak with honesty.

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth." - Henry David Thoreau

The question is becoming clearer with each passing day of turmoil.

"Nature loves symmetry." - Louis de Broglie

The photon is at once both wave and particle as is matter. Does it therefore follow that man - as he relates to that within and that without - is dual-natured as well? Or does realization of the self demand reconciliation between the two?

"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves." - Henry David Thoreau

Am I lost? If so, when? Is it when I wander, often aimlessly, within the corridors of my own mind? Or is it when I walk, seemingly with purpose, the streets out in the wilderness of human society?

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone." - Henry David Thoreau

The aim is to distill the process of living until I arrive at the truth of my nature. The first step is to paint, in my mind, a clear vision of the ideal. (Needless to say, this process will be lifelong and iterative.)

"Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself and you shall have the sufferage of the world." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I must possess the conviction to heed mine own voice and the stillness of mind to speak clearly to myself.

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” - Henry David Thoreau

Indeed, I must be prepared for any test of my courage and resolve.

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude after own own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

But, above all, I must seek balance.

"To be great is to be misunderstood." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Importantly, the converse if often untrue. Many who are misunderstood and presume themselves great, do so falsely.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting." - Henry David Thoreau

I am off then, to do, to live.

Virtue of a bygone era

I read these post titled 'India doesn't need Olympic pride' and 'Do you think Kashmir is an integral part of India' on India Uncut. The writer articulates the very thoughts that rant and rave about every day and for giving me a voice, I thank him. National pride, if I may be so bold, is a virtue of a bygone era. Tribal and provincial allegiances were once subordinated to national unity and nation states were born. It's time we take the next step and recognize ourselves as individuals whose collective identity derives from the species we all belong to. The nations our forbears forged have evolved from being unifying forces bringing together clans and tribes to being divisive labels keeping neighbors at each others' throats. Take India and Pakistan, for instance - why are we still busy antagonizing each other? It's about time we started identifying ourselves as human beings and it's about time we started acting accordingly. The importance of pride derived from a national identity and the resultant umbrage taken without reason are beyond petty in the face of the very real problems like starvation and strife we face. Is it too much to ask that we forget window dressing and turn our attention to the real issues at hand?

To my inner cynic and yours: Like I've said before, what could be more human than hope?

PS. I'm not deluded enough to think that all the world's problems or even any one of them can be completely resolved. After all what stands in the way is human nature. But I do think that an things can be made better for an individual or a group of individuals. Where's the fun in life if we don't fight for small victories in the name of a lost cause?

PPS. I owe thanks to Partha for pointing me to the posts on India Uncut.

Of clown masks and suicide

I watched two documentaries - Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog's meditation on Antarctica and the eclectic group of people who gravitate towards it's desolate magnificence) and Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson - and I read some more Batman comics. And then I did this thing that I have a habit of doing from time to time - I thought. What follows is a brief account of some of what came out of the depths of my considerably dark mind. Do enjoy.

Hunter S. Thompson lived an eventful life to say the least. But who was he? To me he was Cicero reborn as an angry jester - the 60's version of Akira Kurosawa's Kyoami from Ran. As Gonzo, he had the courage of conviction to give voice to the angst that most of us feel but try to ignore and a way with words that forced the meek and the strong alike to stop and take notice. He shocked the timid among us and rattled the cages of the powerful. But such power exacts a heavy price - Gonzo was a clown face that Hunter Thompson could never take off. Just as Bruce Wayne was reduced to little more than a mask that Batman wears during the day, Hunter Thompson, the man, was little more than a vessel for Gonzo. And like Batman, Gonzo is a being with an unquenchable fire of anger burning within his heart - to sustain such a fire means fueling it with one's very life force. And there's only so much wood in the pile. (This is where Bruce Wayne has the advantage of being fictional.) Such men burn bright, a shining beacon, but they burn through life quicker than most - in the end, one must either retire the firebrand alter-ego or face annihilation. Unable to give up being Gonzo perhaps, but without the energy reserves to sustain him much longer, Hunter Thompson took his own life, leaving a note that read, "No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt."

When it happened, Thompson's suicide came as no surprise to those who knew him for he had always foretold his end by his own hand, viewing it as a way of dealing with death on his own terms. And that leads me to my next question. Why would any man look upon suicide with such romance? Well, let me begin with a brief segway. Interviewing a reclusive/taciturn penguin researcher in "Encounters ...", Herzog asks, "Do penguins ever go insane? Do they ever commit suicide?" The footage that follows is of a lone penguin breaking away from his colony and walking towards the interior of the continent, towards certain death. There is undeniable power in the image of the lone penguin awkwardly waddling into the vast, desolate expanse of the Antarctic. But why? Well, why do we celebrate tragedy in song, in verse and in prose? The magnetism and romance of sorrow are undeniable. Perhaps it is an expression of the sub-conscious mind reveling in the 'human condition'. Nonetheless, it is this attitude taken to an extreme that leads some of us to see romance in suicide. While I myself no longer hold such a view, I can understand it to a degree.

A lot of us are lazy - physically, intellectually, morally... in more ways than there are words to describe. Observeing the challenges that life throws at some of us, through a veil of laziness, one is often left in doubt of one's ability to cope with adversity. Suicide begins to look more and more like a convenient emergency exit. Add to the mix ideas like reincarnation and the finite nature of our existence is no longer a significant issue. And in an attempt to rationalize a lack of moral fortitude, one begins to paint a rosy picture of suicide as an honorable way out. This could easily happen to a man who's lived long enough, burning his candle at both ends. Rather than sacrifice his ego to give up the hard life, such a man may well decide to check out early from this mortal coil.

This is not to say that all the people who commit suicide are entirelyto blame for their predicament. There are the less fortunate among us who see nothing more than boundless misery in life and are left drained of hope, thanks to the apathy of their fellow men. When such men chose to take their own lives, everyone of us selfish people deserve equal blame. Civilization, by definition, can not function without an element of altruism. Having ranted at length on this topic in several of my previous posts, I will say no more on the topic... for the moment.

P.S. Describing the Antarctic as desolate magnificience is an undoubtedly lame play on Buzz Aldrin's description of the lunar surface and was therefore, irresistable to me.

What I do and why I do it

What could be more rewarding than utilizing the power of thought to illuminate the workings of the universe (/life) itself? But in order for one to begin connecting the dots, one needs dots. It is the function of experiments and mathematical modeling to provide such dots. While advances in technology have enabled us to obtain ever more precise dots in ever greater number, identification of the pattern that emerges from them remains the sole domain of human intellect. However, inherent in this grand description is recognition of the limited nature of human scientific knowledge. A scientific theory is merely the most complex simplification of a real process that can be achieved at the given time. This is because we are unable to observe the whole fabric of reality, depending instead on experiments and mathematics to transduce a few bits and pieces of it into a form that our senses may perceive. As long as this remains the case, a scientist can never run dry of curiosities to indulge. Indeed what a curious thing the human condition is? Our limitations ironically ensure an inexhaustible source of mystery that we may forever be amused.

Just because we killed you, it doesn't mean we don't love you.

The meaning of one’s existence (I refer to a meaning bounded by the span of one’s consciousness and not to any manner of grand, unifying purpose) comes from interactions of one’s consciousness with the universe at large and with other conscious minds. The proportion of these two types of interactions is determined by who we are and in turn defines our identity. Sometimes, in interacting with certain people we find the meaning of our own existence enriched. These are the people with whom we form stable, meaningful bonds – love, friendship and the like.

Once in a while there comes along an individual whose existence enriches that of many – a hero. Indeed a hero is one who can love many as his own and continue to do so without having to avert his eyes from the truth. Because, heroes are reviled more than they are loved – that is the way of our “society”. Our actions scream out the words we dare not whisper – the only good heroes are dead ones. While they live, heroes are the squeaky wheels that will not be silences. They are the square pegs that will not be contained by the round holes of our “society”. They are the thorn in our collective side. But truly they are the sheep in a den full of wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Why do we hold such contempt for them? Perhaps because they are who we wish to be and by being noble, they reflect the ugliness in the rest of us. We are too lazy to live by our principles, or to even have a clear moral framework; so we deem it impossible. We blame our failures on “the human condition”, but then a very human being comes along and offers us a glimpse of what is possible. And we hate him for it. We destroy him as best we can – we may not always succeed at destroying the idea of a hero, but we certainly excel at destroying the person of one. Once we’ve killed a hero, we try to truly bury him and all that he stood for. Failing that, we place him on a pedestal. In what must be the greatest mockery of them all, we then condemn our own hand that did the killing. But at some level we all know that our collective hands are stained with more blood than we care to admit, even to ourselves.

Once a hero is slain we go to work on him with the all the skill of a master artist: we place his name in lights and sing ballads in his honor even as we grind down the idea he stood for, until all that remain are a few weak words. Words like liberty and non-violence – words that we may then utter with mock ceremony without fear of being affected by the idea they once represented. That way we can sweep away our collective guilt under the proverbial carpet and move on with our “lives”. Ain’t WE grand?

The one redeeming truth, though, is that heroes do sometimes succeed – rarely to the extent they had aspired to and almost always, paying with their lives – but at the end of the day, they stand tall over (against?) the rest of us.

P.S. This post was inspired by a radio talk show discussing the ideals that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood for.