A question that confronted me today was whether I should just let go of things and 'move on' as if nothing ever happened. It made me think, and by the end of the day I figured out that the question is essentially one of rationality. There is a part of humans that is rational (economics?) and one that is irrational. The question is how much of a human is what. I would try to bring out certain inherent contradictions between rationality and irrationality through this piece.
A lesson that was learnt today, is that most people are inherently impatient. They will say that they will do something, pretend to persevere and ask 'what happened?'. But eventually, as the day gets long, most people are going to leave your room and move on. Some will come back only to show anger at how disgusting you've been. This is the human tendency to move to lighter situations and self-pity, that I had referenced yesterday. Staying true to the word is not going to be a stable equilibrium, because there is a strictly positive payoff to just forgetting about someone else's pain as if nothing ever happened. To stay put would, in fact, be irrational. In this case, the 'right' thing to do is thus irrational. Only those with an inhuman capacity to bear pain are going to be able to stay put in this sad, depressing environment.
Now returning to the point of 'moving on'. There is an aspect to decision making that is most rational and that we as humans often ignore. It is the idea of 'sunk cost'. We let history dictate our decisions - the ghosts of the past still abound in our present. A rational decision-maker would not consider sunk cost. But most of us do. This is another aspect in which we are all irrational. Or are we? Is history 'sunk'? In the sense that our present actions can't change it, it is. But in the sense that we might still be incurring certain pains because of it, it might. This is much like the concept of depreciation. As a fixed percentage of the capital good, depreciation is a cost incurred over several periods of time. Yes, it diminishes over time; but is is always present. Similarly, the one-off incident might have been a part of the past, but the memory stays. This is what makes us distinctively human, and this is what makes history so important.
In my case, I'm trying to be as rational as I can be. My decision to move on, or not to do so, would be dictated solely by whether the costs that I incur are sunk costs, or variable costs. If I see myself getting hurt in the near future because of the people with whom I want to give my friendship another try, it would be irrational of me to let bygones be bygones. There are certain actions, moments and images that remind one of a very painful past. Maybe this is why this 'moving on' is going to come far in the future, when adaptive memories ensure that the part that pains has been greatly diminished. Till then, I probably do not see myself moving on.
This might paint a very disillusioned portrait of human forgiveness. Maybe it isn't. Like all economic models, there are certain assumptions that lead to this conclusion. One is that there would not be a structural change that might lessen the intensity of the pain. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel, maybe there is hope that this 'moving on' will also include a change. Maybe there will be more humanity. Maybe ...
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Of give and take
Over the past few days, I have incessantly thought about how some friendships have drained me. I once read the quotation that the most precious thing you can give to someone is time - because it is the most valuable thing in life, which can never be brought back. I added 'effort' to that combination, and have given it to the more precious of my friendships. At a time when many of them have gone bust, I have to question myself of what went wrong. Friendships should ideally be highly personal, not to be shared on blogs in any case. However, maybe there lies a lesson, or an error of judgement, that might be of some help to someone else in future.
I start this public soliloquy with a description of the pain. Sometimes the pain is so intense that it is hard to imagine that it isn't real, physical pain. The pain emerges out of nowhere, like an old friend; and I could place my bets that I feel the heart skip a few beats. The one thing I realise about the pain, and which I will carry in my heart for the rest of my life - is that it is always borne alone. No matter how much people around you say that they are there, there are functional barriers that prevent them from keeping their word. For one, they don't quite understand the pain. They will view the pain from the prism of their private experiences. Since no two humans' experiences are ever the same (injective functions?), hence no two evaluations will ever be the same. The words, no matter how sincere, will always ring hollow in the end. Secondly, humans by nature are not very sacrificing. It's almost a law of nature - wherever there is joy, happiness and smiling faces, the heart is drawn. Where there is pain, darkness and brooding, we seek to escape. I would be unfair to say that everyone is like that. I say again, sab aise hi hote hai, and that 'sab' means 'the majority', and not 'for all x'.
Another aspect of human behaviour that I was acquainted with is the level to which other humans matter. There are no dominant strategies in life, and hence the best responses change with the other players' actions. The dark, brooding variety moves from one shoulder to cry on, to another; in the endless hope that some day, the wait might end; that some day, salvation would break the cloud of disarray. The other variety also moves, from one source of joy to another; as if this endless search for joy was all that there was to life.
One aspect of these 'break-ups' has been fairly painful. It is the sense of disappointment. One of the poems I once wrote talked about the dangers of stretching yourself for someone - it usually leads to you tearing yourself up in the process. I have been accused of 'counting' instances where I have gone beyond what was needed. My dad often told me of the parable 'Neki kar aur kuen mein daal' (do good, and then forget about it). If not abiding by it in letter and spirit is a crime, then I am a criminal. If the hope of better treatment and basic human respect is like begging, I am the beggar. A house robbed repeatedly only grows in stature. Very obviously, there is something in the house that is desirable; and when that thing is intrinsic to the nature of the house itself, rather than a distinct entity, then constant robberies can only make it grow over time and space.
There is a 'nothingness' in my life right now. What had to be 'achieved', has been achieved. What had to be let go, has been let go. The pain doesn't go. Even six months down the line, it doesn't. Maybe it grows over time. Maybe it grows with every word, every day, every ended relationship and every missed opportunity. Thankfully, Tagore wrote about walking alone. Thankfully, there is always a new friendship with which you can fool yourself. Thankfully, being lonely has a certain poignancy. The heart feels heavy, but it does let you sleep. The pain is dismissed for the night. It will return only tomorrow.
One last thing, and let me state it as such. Arrogance is overstated. We often do not give people a chance - a chance to talk, to try to explain and the like. If they explain, they are out to prove their righteousness. The content doesn't matter - what matters is how many times you argued in the last month. When did judgements become adaptive instead of rational? Either way, judgments are often made under imperfect information. There will always, by definition, be a difference between what people truly believe and what they end up projecting - either intentionally or unintentionally. This stems from the fact that the heart (to be more biologically correct, the emotional part of the brain) is far more versatile than the mouth or other expressive organs are. What is the point of sitting in judgement whether one is arrogant or not? At best, you are right, and given that the other person IS arrogant, he/she doesn't care. At worst, your constant jibes have just killed the will to live in another person, because all that he/she stood for has been massively desecrated.
Hence, in life (as in economic principle), I believe in the magic of free markets. The buyers and sellers in the market are anonymous; it doesn't matter where they came from, what they said, and the like. What matters is the price at which they will trade. Similarly, what (ideally) matters in relationships is not the words, the emotional jugglery or the like; what matters is the action and action alone. Anything else will be biased. And judgemental.
Like a criminal on trial, with this I rest my case.
I start this public soliloquy with a description of the pain. Sometimes the pain is so intense that it is hard to imagine that it isn't real, physical pain. The pain emerges out of nowhere, like an old friend; and I could place my bets that I feel the heart skip a few beats. The one thing I realise about the pain, and which I will carry in my heart for the rest of my life - is that it is always borne alone. No matter how much people around you say that they are there, there are functional barriers that prevent them from keeping their word. For one, they don't quite understand the pain. They will view the pain from the prism of their private experiences. Since no two humans' experiences are ever the same (injective functions?), hence no two evaluations will ever be the same. The words, no matter how sincere, will always ring hollow in the end. Secondly, humans by nature are not very sacrificing. It's almost a law of nature - wherever there is joy, happiness and smiling faces, the heart is drawn. Where there is pain, darkness and brooding, we seek to escape. I would be unfair to say that everyone is like that. I say again, sab aise hi hote hai, and that 'sab' means 'the majority', and not 'for all x'.
Another aspect of human behaviour that I was acquainted with is the level to which other humans matter. There are no dominant strategies in life, and hence the best responses change with the other players' actions. The dark, brooding variety moves from one shoulder to cry on, to another; in the endless hope that some day, the wait might end; that some day, salvation would break the cloud of disarray. The other variety also moves, from one source of joy to another; as if this endless search for joy was all that there was to life.
One aspect of these 'break-ups' has been fairly painful. It is the sense of disappointment. One of the poems I once wrote talked about the dangers of stretching yourself for someone - it usually leads to you tearing yourself up in the process. I have been accused of 'counting' instances where I have gone beyond what was needed. My dad often told me of the parable 'Neki kar aur kuen mein daal' (do good, and then forget about it). If not abiding by it in letter and spirit is a crime, then I am a criminal. If the hope of better treatment and basic human respect is like begging, I am the beggar. A house robbed repeatedly only grows in stature. Very obviously, there is something in the house that is desirable; and when that thing is intrinsic to the nature of the house itself, rather than a distinct entity, then constant robberies can only make it grow over time and space.
There is a 'nothingness' in my life right now. What had to be 'achieved', has been achieved. What had to be let go, has been let go. The pain doesn't go. Even six months down the line, it doesn't. Maybe it grows over time. Maybe it grows with every word, every day, every ended relationship and every missed opportunity. Thankfully, Tagore wrote about walking alone. Thankfully, there is always a new friendship with which you can fool yourself. Thankfully, being lonely has a certain poignancy. The heart feels heavy, but it does let you sleep. The pain is dismissed for the night. It will return only tomorrow.
One last thing, and let me state it as such. Arrogance is overstated. We often do not give people a chance - a chance to talk, to try to explain and the like. If they explain, they are out to prove their righteousness. The content doesn't matter - what matters is how many times you argued in the last month. When did judgements become adaptive instead of rational? Either way, judgments are often made under imperfect information. There will always, by definition, be a difference between what people truly believe and what they end up projecting - either intentionally or unintentionally. This stems from the fact that the heart (to be more biologically correct, the emotional part of the brain) is far more versatile than the mouth or other expressive organs are. What is the point of sitting in judgement whether one is arrogant or not? At best, you are right, and given that the other person IS arrogant, he/she doesn't care. At worst, your constant jibes have just killed the will to live in another person, because all that he/she stood for has been massively desecrated.
Hence, in life (as in economic principle), I believe in the magic of free markets. The buyers and sellers in the market are anonymous; it doesn't matter where they came from, what they said, and the like. What matters is the price at which they will trade. Similarly, what (ideally) matters in relationships is not the words, the emotional jugglery or the like; what matters is the action and action alone. Anything else will be biased. And judgemental.
Like a criminal on trial, with this I rest my case.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Defense of a Nerd? - Not quite
So, finally I decided to pull myself off the slumber and write this post. Notwithstanding the testimonials of several people, I do not quite enjoy the (direct) spotlight, where the steps I take are being watched. Hence, I was dithering because I thought that this post has to be a place where everything I say has to make perfect sense and to get together as a watertight argument and defense of the way I operate. But then I realised that it would amount to me just being dishonest to myself and to anybody who would read this. Rather, I should just let it flow here, whatever I have to say.
First up, a foe-turned-friend remarked a couple of days back about how I was not a 'nerd', but a 'dork'. According to her, a 'nerd' is someone who's totally into technology and is very innovative there. I, according to her, did nothing of that sort and was, at best, academically better than most others. However, I see this argument at two levels. First, the terminology doesn't matter much, does it? For some, 'nerd' is a good thing to be, and to others it isn't. Dork, surely, is a good word to describe me - I'm surely socially inept and quirky. However, about me being 'merely' a bit ahead in the 'race to grades' would be an unfair characterisation. For one, creativity doesn't necessarily need to relate to technology. At the same time when Steve Jobs was changing the way we look at technology, lots of guys were working around the world to change the way we look at finance. 'Innovation' can be with regard to anything. It is true that in India, given the preeminence we give to technology, it is not a surprise that we'd look at the 'uber-nerd' as a tech freak. Nonetheless, I'm hopeful that it will change soon.
Now to more important issues. I see mischaracterizations as cases of misinformation. Hence, just because somebody scores well, doesn't mean that he uses all his time to study. At least I don't (assuming that I score well, which isn't always true). I've always made sure that I should not be like a dog to my academics; that I should always be the master. If you look at my schedule two months before CAT, it read somewhat like this: DreaMerger, GRE, Financial Summit, Rise of Nations, Financial Knights. I missed a lot of 8:40 classes the week before CAT, not because I was studying, but because I had played Rise of Nations till late at night. Two days before my CAT, I was up till 3 playing Rise of Nations. My 'CAT coaching' consisted more of discussing business issues with my teacher, rather than solving math problems. Whatever the CAT result be, I don't have a single regret. I did it my way, and that's what matters to me.
Another instance of doing it 'my way' were my internships. Working at Bandhan was the most amazing experience. It is not everyday that you walk with your leg below your knees in wet mud. It certainly isn't routine (for a Delhi boy) to sit down at the Howrah station at 5 AM and just look at the multitudes. My friends laughed at my second internship at SochYo!. Some of them, worked at big corporations and big banks and big names (note the repeated usage of 'big'). What I did was to follow my heart. Because it was a start-up, I enjoyed the work immensely. There was also greater flexibility around my working hours. The best part was when this internship experience was instrumental in my subsequent job interviews. Because I did what I did with passion, and because I learnt so much about the way people work and think, I was able to internalise all that information. So, I used my summers to do things I might probably never do again - visit villages and work for a start-up. And I was still able to fit them in the broader scheme of things.
Some people think that nerds study (if at all) to achieve some material gain. I can't vouch for everyone, but that certainly is not true for me. The day I topped the boards, so many people asked me what I had got as a gift, and I said nothing. The reason being that whatever I had wanted was already there with me before the results were out. Whatever I have wanted has been made available to me by my parents or my brother, results and marks and all irrespective. My parents hear about my academics only once a year - the day of the university results. Academics is otherwise never a topic of discussion at my place.
In this world today, most of us play to a certain other's tunes. We are all footballs of someone else's opinion. Some dance to the tunes of their peers, some dance for societal acceptance, some dance to the tunes of their friends and some for their careers. To my credit, I set my incentives in such a way that I danced to my own tunes and still ended up achieving what I wanted to do. In a microcosmic way, I solved a problem of incentives, something of a rarity in real world.
For example, if I've always liked Strategy Games - the tycoon games, Age of Empires, Rise of Nations etc. In fact, in one of the few instances of parental pressure, my IITian cousin hid all strategy games on my computer. Such was my craze! But then I saw that my aptitude for strategy games had a much wider application. I used it extensively at the Economics Society of school, and I've continued using it in college. Most recently, solving case studies (at least the interview type of cases) became so easy for me because I could look at the broader picture, just like I had to do in a game of Age of Empires. I did what I enjoyed, and I made sure I did it in the way that maximised returns.
Now, for the trickiest bit. Why don't I party like crazy, let my guard down for a moment and be lost in joy? I don't quite know. Firstly, the idea of losing control itself doesn't appeal to me. Losing control - to people or to inanimate things - isn't really part of my DNA. Does that make me 'boring'? Well, even if it does, I think I would prefer being boring.
Hmmm .... this didn't quite come out like I wanted it to. Maybe this will continue some other day, or maybe I would have moved on.
First up, a foe-turned-friend remarked a couple of days back about how I was not a 'nerd', but a 'dork'. According to her, a 'nerd' is someone who's totally into technology and is very innovative there. I, according to her, did nothing of that sort and was, at best, academically better than most others. However, I see this argument at two levels. First, the terminology doesn't matter much, does it? For some, 'nerd' is a good thing to be, and to others it isn't. Dork, surely, is a good word to describe me - I'm surely socially inept and quirky. However, about me being 'merely' a bit ahead in the 'race to grades' would be an unfair characterisation. For one, creativity doesn't necessarily need to relate to technology. At the same time when Steve Jobs was changing the way we look at technology, lots of guys were working around the world to change the way we look at finance. 'Innovation' can be with regard to anything. It is true that in India, given the preeminence we give to technology, it is not a surprise that we'd look at the 'uber-nerd' as a tech freak. Nonetheless, I'm hopeful that it will change soon.
Now to more important issues. I see mischaracterizations as cases of misinformation. Hence, just because somebody scores well, doesn't mean that he uses all his time to study. At least I don't (assuming that I score well, which isn't always true). I've always made sure that I should not be like a dog to my academics; that I should always be the master. If you look at my schedule two months before CAT, it read somewhat like this: DreaMerger, GRE, Financial Summit, Rise of Nations, Financial Knights. I missed a lot of 8:40 classes the week before CAT, not because I was studying, but because I had played Rise of Nations till late at night. Two days before my CAT, I was up till 3 playing Rise of Nations. My 'CAT coaching' consisted more of discussing business issues with my teacher, rather than solving math problems. Whatever the CAT result be, I don't have a single regret. I did it my way, and that's what matters to me.
Another instance of doing it 'my way' were my internships. Working at Bandhan was the most amazing experience. It is not everyday that you walk with your leg below your knees in wet mud. It certainly isn't routine (for a Delhi boy) to sit down at the Howrah station at 5 AM and just look at the multitudes. My friends laughed at my second internship at SochYo!. Some of them, worked at big corporations and big banks and big names (note the repeated usage of 'big'). What I did was to follow my heart. Because it was a start-up, I enjoyed the work immensely. There was also greater flexibility around my working hours. The best part was when this internship experience was instrumental in my subsequent job interviews. Because I did what I did with passion, and because I learnt so much about the way people work and think, I was able to internalise all that information. So, I used my summers to do things I might probably never do again - visit villages and work for a start-up. And I was still able to fit them in the broader scheme of things.
Some people think that nerds study (if at all) to achieve some material gain. I can't vouch for everyone, but that certainly is not true for me. The day I topped the boards, so many people asked me what I had got as a gift, and I said nothing. The reason being that whatever I had wanted was already there with me before the results were out. Whatever I have wanted has been made available to me by my parents or my brother, results and marks and all irrespective. My parents hear about my academics only once a year - the day of the university results. Academics is otherwise never a topic of discussion at my place.
In this world today, most of us play to a certain other's tunes. We are all footballs of someone else's opinion. Some dance to the tunes of their peers, some dance for societal acceptance, some dance to the tunes of their friends and some for their careers. To my credit, I set my incentives in such a way that I danced to my own tunes and still ended up achieving what I wanted to do. In a microcosmic way, I solved a problem of incentives, something of a rarity in real world.
For example, if I've always liked Strategy Games - the tycoon games, Age of Empires, Rise of Nations etc. In fact, in one of the few instances of parental pressure, my IITian cousin hid all strategy games on my computer. Such was my craze! But then I saw that my aptitude for strategy games had a much wider application. I used it extensively at the Economics Society of school, and I've continued using it in college. Most recently, solving case studies (at least the interview type of cases) became so easy for me because I could look at the broader picture, just like I had to do in a game of Age of Empires. I did what I enjoyed, and I made sure I did it in the way that maximised returns.
Now, for the trickiest bit. Why don't I party like crazy, let my guard down for a moment and be lost in joy? I don't quite know. Firstly, the idea of losing control itself doesn't appeal to me. Losing control - to people or to inanimate things - isn't really part of my DNA. Does that make me 'boring'? Well, even if it does, I think I would prefer being boring.
Hmmm .... this didn't quite come out like I wanted it to. Maybe this will continue some other day, or maybe I would have moved on.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
The Dreadfully Heavy Whites
I thought today evening that I'll write a post titled 'Defense of a Nerd', primarily because of a certain someone's relentless attack on my lack of things to do last night. However, something more pressing came up, something that might go out of my memory unless I put it down here. Here's the deal - this is about me!
A bunch of elderly neighbors came over for an evening gossip to my place. Then they got talking to my parents about me. This is fairly regular conversation when people who've not met me before - they get talking about the boards and all. Then, my dad took out a bunch of those newspaper clippings and showed those to them. In one of them, I'd talked about how I washed my own clothes. Honestly, I didn't remember till I got reminded today.
But when I was reminded, I could almost feel that dreadfully heavy whites (the DPS, RK Puram trousers) in my hands. I can remember waking up really early morning at 5 in the winter to go to school from Ghaziabad. But all that feels distinct. However, it gives me a sense of pride and a sense of self-esteem.
Now, success and failure come and go. Often, we sit down more with the failures than we do with the successes in life. But that bit of harsh living back in class 12th made me a bit resistant to failures. Yes, I do fail very often. But my entire response to failures has changed. I'm able to pick up the pieces and rather than move on, get back harder to the tast. Now, that might not be the best thing to do. Sometimes, it's just better to move on and let bygones be bygones. But these days, this is what I do and I'm happy doing it. Some day, I might realise that this is wrong and then I'll change myself accordingly. As I wrote in my last post, I'm not attached - even to my behaviour.
As a postscript, the earliest instances of this 'rising from failures' were my quizzing escapades in school. There have simply been too many quizzes that Kritika and I went for, and in each one of them we failed (to Kritika's credit, she won three quizzes - three times when she went without me in her team). But there was this 'big thing' lying in the future that kept making me get back to quizzing. I think that is why extra-curricular and co-curricular competitions are important. They teach you to deal with failures.
After this 'brief' thought, I'll get back to 'Defense of a Nerd' the next time.
A bunch of elderly neighbors came over for an evening gossip to my place. Then they got talking to my parents about me. This is fairly regular conversation when people who've not met me before - they get talking about the boards and all. Then, my dad took out a bunch of those newspaper clippings and showed those to them. In one of them, I'd talked about how I washed my own clothes. Honestly, I didn't remember till I got reminded today.
But when I was reminded, I could almost feel that dreadfully heavy whites (the DPS, RK Puram trousers) in my hands. I can remember waking up really early morning at 5 in the winter to go to school from Ghaziabad. But all that feels distinct. However, it gives me a sense of pride and a sense of self-esteem.
Now, success and failure come and go. Often, we sit down more with the failures than we do with the successes in life. But that bit of harsh living back in class 12th made me a bit resistant to failures. Yes, I do fail very often. But my entire response to failures has changed. I'm able to pick up the pieces and rather than move on, get back harder to the tast. Now, that might not be the best thing to do. Sometimes, it's just better to move on and let bygones be bygones. But these days, this is what I do and I'm happy doing it. Some day, I might realise that this is wrong and then I'll change myself accordingly. As I wrote in my last post, I'm not attached - even to my behaviour.
As a postscript, the earliest instances of this 'rising from failures' were my quizzing escapades in school. There have simply been too many quizzes that Kritika and I went for, and in each one of them we failed (to Kritika's credit, she won three quizzes - three times when she went without me in her team). But there was this 'big thing' lying in the future that kept making me get back to quizzing. I think that is why extra-curricular and co-curricular competitions are important. They teach you to deal with failures.
After this 'brief' thought, I'll get back to 'Defense of a Nerd' the next time.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
My Greatest Journey
One of the few quotes that I remember is this one from The Namesake - "The greatest journeys are those that bring you home." At first, I found it very typical of a pravasi bangali, especially given the author's ethnicity. It was after the class 10th boards that I watched the movie, having read the novel a couple of years earlier. Now that I come to think of it, the quote reflects the deep significance that is attached to the act of returning home.However, in life I have carried around a slight burden of rootlessness. My father's job in the navy prevented me from calling any one place 'home'. Where is my home? Is it where my parents reside, a place where I have not stayed for more than two months of my life in all? Or is it Delhi, where I have spent most of my life, but where I don't have any permanent residence? Even if it were Delhi, will it be Luytens' Delhi, where I spent almost all my childhood, but where I know I can never return? Or will I make a new home in the other parts of Delhi?
Yet, every time I cross the area around Chanakyapuri, an area I grew to love and admire, there is always a slight heartache that grips me. There is a feeling of a 'lost childhood', not in the sense of a childhood that I didn't enjoy, but which I can barely revisit. It is like a relic - it has been so strongly cast in stone that it now seems totally surreal. Every time I go towards Dhaula Kuan, I sit up excitedly to look at DSOI and S P Marg. Today as I go to the airport to board a flight back to Kolkata, I would be waiting for when the Airport Express Line crosses DSOI. The last time I stayed at DSOI for a couple of days, I went around the S P Marg area and revisited the temple I used to go to, the shops I used to buy from and the lively buildings that were once part of a 'home' - the only place I call 'home'.
Indeed, going to those areas is the greatest time of my life. It gives me a sense of relief - that even though I may have passed that extremely pleasant time, there are others growing up there who would enjoy what I enjoyed, who would play where I once used to play and who would probably face similar curiosities as I once did. My journey wasn't unique - in fact, a lot of Army kids probably have an even more rootless existence - and in those numbers I find comfort.
The good thing about this rootlessness is the objectivity it brings to me. Once you do not have a 'home' to be attached to, there are very few things you can be attached to. Friends, success, failures - nothing inspires attachment because the greatest attachments have been broken down before. It is truly my biggest weakness and my greatest strength. It is my raison-de-etre and that is how I will now look upon it.
Monday, October 31, 2011
One last time?
It's been nearly seven months since I was last at home. This is by far the longest I've been away. The previous highest must have been a measly three-four months. However, what matters more is that it has been seven months since I have closed my eyes and found myself free. Yes, I've been in a race, and now that I am coming to the fag end of the race, I'm exhausted.
It's been a long time - over a year maybe - of running with multiple things on the plate. But now is when I have begun to feel it. Have I reached the limits of my existence? Can I carry no more? Well, even if that's true, the way ahead is just to expand what I can do. What's the fun in merely identifying your limits, nay?
What struck me after the rejection at Monitor was - whatever I do at college, does it come to zero once I begin my job? Honestly, I am not in a position to answer that. I can argue that the 'spirit' and 'ambition' matters, but then there is nothing in particular that I did in college that resulted in these, it was more a relic of my school days.
So, heading into CAT, it is all a bit muddled up. More importantly, I can't think right now, because my brain is quite exhausted. One thing is for sure - it is the last time, so I'm going to pick up the ball and I'm going to run, run as fast as I can. Whether I reach where I want to is now clearly immaterial. What matters is to run the last mile.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
I don't know how to write
It's been such a long time I don't know how it feels to write, what to write and how to write ... it feels numb, honestly, to be typing away at the keyboard after all these days. The last post was on June 18, 2011. It must have been right in the beginning of the summer break. Things have changed dramatically since then - I have cut off a cancerous part of my life, have moved a few steps in my career, have come back to college and made new friends, had a wonderful DreaMerger ... the list keeps going on.
At the beginning, change was difficult. When you get used to someone or something being an integral part of your life, and when that someone isn't there - there is an emptiness in life. But sometimes, it is just necessary to cut off that 'something' for your own well-being. People ask me 'why did it happen?', and I don't say anything. Maybe one day I will, maybe that day will be before college is over - but not right now. Have I moved on? I think, yes. I don't think about it much now; I simply don't have the time. I've found a new thing to love, a new emotion to feel. At the beginning of each day, I feel like a new person.
Something at the top of my mind right now is the movie 'Titanic'. Something about that movie holds me spell-bound. Perhaps it is the cinematic genius, but I suspect that it is my fascination with the real Titanic. The idea of a 'watery grave' is as enticing as it is enigmatic. It is a part of time one can't reach, but whose gravity escapes no one. It is like time which 'used to be', which isn't, but which is still there with us somehow.
I've been out of practice, but I'll try to get used to this soon.
P.s. thanks for your wishes, folks. That you believe in me is what matters more than anything else.
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