We live in a wonderland

February column for AZIndiaTimes.

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We live in a wonderland

Since many years, I’ve been seeking a personal Grand Unified Theory- one final set of learnings and tips I can use to successfully navigate all future events. Through every book I picked up, every film I saw, every interesting conversation I had, I was sifting through the chaff to find the ultimate swiss army knife that’d help me deal with reality. One Mental Map that is perfect for all quests. I’ve now decided to give up the pursuit not because of a sudden realization but because it’s slowly dawning on me that that map might not exist. The reason I’ve sought the One Epiphany is because that is the most prevalent narrative technique I’ve been exposed to in stories, movies, spiritual discourses and essays.

Every piece of knowledge we have, physical, mental, emotional, intellectual, is something we’ve gathered to better understand the nature of reality. We have thousands, if not millions, of these little, practically useful facts that we’ve gleaned from our experiences of dealing with both internal and external worlds. From personal experience, I know that what happens inside us is as much a mystery as what happens outside. The self, then, is the thin film that separates these two environments and acts as the conductor for flow of information and everything else.

Everything we know or think we know, has been gleaned from the environment, culture, society, family, tradition, religion, experimentation, genetic encoding, personal experience etc. The underlying purpose of all this information is to enable us to better hustle with reality. I don’t know the Why of it yet, though. Nevertheless, I’m willing to stake, based on the collage of results of the numerous models I’ve built in my head, that we consume information so that we can better understand new and foreign phenomena and come out of it as stronger, or atleast unscathed, beings. However, these collected nuggets of information are too overwhelming for us to process before every decision we make. So we create theories and generalize our learnings. Not only does this make storage and retrieval easier but it also helps us identify patterns in new situations. I don’t know if any of this has scientific standing but these images act as metaphors for me to understand my motivations and actions better.

“Your mind is the society’s garbage bin.” -Sadhguru

So, why do we need these Mental Models (which are a set of, usually, internally consistent thoughts)? Because to survive in this world, we need to be intelligent. A being is called intelligent when it is able to learn and create more and more sophisticated models and be able to apply them to newer and stranger problems, as fast as possible, so that it can survive and thrive. Since its too resource consuming to go through every possible thought before performing an action, we agree to make some assumptions as axioms (self-evident truths) to be able to function.

There is an hierarchy to Mental Models . Some of them form the Operating System of the mind. For whatever reason, we’ve accepted those thoughts as dictums. They are non-negotiable and sacred. Stuff like “Live and Let Live” or “Do your Karma without worrying about the consequences” or “Suffering is a redemptive process” or “Everything is fair in love and war” or even “I will always support India in a Cricket match”. The reason they take the shape of proverbs is because that’s how these lessons pass so effectively from generation to generation. Some of these are not always consistent with each other but we have made peace with it. These are our core beliefs. We do not like it when they are challenged because everything we do, the way we see the world, the goals we’ve chosen to pursue are decided by these presuppositions. Everything we do and say betrays something about these core beliefs. Despite that, we never pause to question the nature of our deepest beliefs, the lenses we wear that portray the world in a certain way.

Then there are App Level models which we create to navigate more specific scenarios like dealing with an unpredictable boss or choosing a web framework. We are not so deeply attached to them so we use them like they ought to be used, with discretion and as per need. Between these two layers, there are the Platform Level models which are generic enough to fuel multiple app level models.

Since the world has gotten extremely complex since the last few hundred generations, we’ve had to encode more and more information in cultural and social structures to accelerate the learning, and thereby successful functioning, of our offspring. Our beliefs, essentially, are hacks we’ve created so as not to spend too much energy analysing every situation. Like they say, do not reinvent the wheel.

“Scientists try to eliminate their false theories, they try to let them die in their stead. The believer—whether animal or man—perishes with his false beliefs” -Karl Popper

What it means is that even our most deepest beliefs are up for discussion and readjustment. Nothing is sacred. One should have healthy skepticism towards “truths”. But hang on, isn’t this belief in skepticism then my core belief? Why should I trust it completely then? Well, I shouldn’t. Some scholars argue that our perception of reality is defined by the language of our thought. How can you stand on any firm ground if its turtles all the way down. This is when paradoxes and Zen koans come in handy. They help us question the basis of our most basic assumptions. Thoughts that bump into the limits of our understanding.

“Knock on the sky and listen to the sound” -Zen Proverb

All that I’ve described so far is also just one mental model. Maybe it’ll survive intact, or will have to be tweaked innumerable times or will have to be shed away completely; Only future will tell. The world is too varied, complex, wonderful and strange. My only hope is that these learnings will sink deeper into my being and help me become a better human. Whatever the hell that means now.

Here and Now

I couldn't send a post for AZIndia Times March edition because I was facing Writer's Block; I know that is a really immodest statement but it wasn't laziness because I tried writing multiple times, even going so far to use Cold Turkey Writers with a challenge of 1000 Words, and nothing, Nothing, came out. It was strange because I've always been able to write something (no matter how unoriginal) and send it across. Not last month. It wasn't as much an need-to-put-an-original-argument crisis as writerly ennui. Which is funny because I was atleast able to write about the ennui earlier. Maybe like Meheranna put it the other day, it is just connubial bliss. I'm floating in some sort of a wonderfully warm-woolly bubble since marriage and it seemed to have reached its apotheosis then. I'm still reading and thinking about interesting things but for probably the first time in my life, firsthand experience has completely overshadowed it. It just feels so good going from one day to the next now. I still have mood swings about the job and my inability to stick to a discipline but they're not overarching themes anymore.

Jordan B Peterson is astounding company everyday and after a brief stint away from Pocket and Feedly (and the myriad blogs and website I follow for "intellectual" stimulus), I'm back to using them albeit in a more controlled fashion. I've been meaning to write about learnings from the JBP podcast for a while now but he packs so much in each of his talks that I may have to listen and read multiple times do a modicum of justice to the breadth and depth of his lectures. I've always loved writers who are generalists and can use theories and frameworks from one field of knowledge to shed new light on a totally different area of knowledge. One of the criticisms meted out against JBP is that he really doesn't have anything new to say but just collates data from different fields and presents it in one narrative. I think we need more people like that, those who not only have the required authority on the subject but also are able to put across their learnings in an extremely compelling manner.

Most of what we know, the frameworks and mental models we use to navigate reality, comes from secondhand or tertiary sources. I've always been obsessed with Truth. With the Best way of doing things. With doing the Right thing, the Beautiful thing. I read a theory somewhere that according to Hindu scriptures, that not only is Satyam- Shivam- Sundaram the sweetest spot but you can't have any one without the other two. Truth, Ethics and Beauty (Digressive Fun Fact- Anand Gandhi once spoke about how the three stories in Ship of Theseus are based on each of these tenets and how those character were trying to reach salvation via the path they chose). JBP, a Darwinian, says Utility trumps Truth. And all the mythologies that have existed and seeped into our culture for a few millennia do so precisely because they are wonderful tools in helping us deal with the ethical, aesthetic and existential questions that we face everyday. I've really found his ideas of Order and Chaos (Culture and Nature) very useful in making sense of most things I unconsciously do. I hope to finish Maps of Meaning soon. After Nassim Taleb and Venkatesh Rao, Jordan B Peterson is one of those phenomenal generalists whose paradigms have completely altered the way I view the world.

A couple of weeks ago Sravani and I did an Oscar movie spree watching 6 of the films nominated for Best Picture. We're still unable to decide whether Phantom Thread or Three Billboards is the best picture but Shape of Water is definitely the worst in the list. Even Spielberg's The Post, despite its extreme shallowness and unoriginality, was more stimulating. She really like Lady Bird and my thoughts on that film are more conflicted, which I wrote in a now-abandoned post. Things are going well.

So long.

On writing a column

January column for AZIndiaTimes

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Technically, this isn’t a column, The word for the form stuck, probably, from around the time when regular writers were just confined to a column. But the idea survives; That the writer will talk about something that he’s been thinking about since he wrote the previous column. That he has a way to transform thoughts, that everyone gets everyday all the time, into a real entity that will shed light on something universally human but also in such a way that it isn’t mundane or obvious.

I’ve been racking my head for the past few days for this month’s column but to no avail. So I’ve had to resort to something I vouched never to write in this space- A meta post. I’m sure I had the knowledge of self-referentiality before but I really found a concrete expression to this feeling only after I bumped into Douglas Hofstadter. The idea of meta. The instance where an object, with enough intelligence and imagination to be self-conscious, directs its thinking to the idea of itself. That’s the place where ego is born. That’s when the object questions its intent and purpose.

What is it like to have to write a piece every month come rain or shine. What are the travails and pleasures of writing a column. 800-1000 words, any topic of your interest. Sometimes it’s a joy. When something eventful happens and I’ve wrestled with the idea for a while, I have quite a lot to spew. Not necessarily good but I have something to submit. At most times though, it’s a burden. Facing a blank page is facing my incompetence as a writer and a person. I wait for divine intervention. I wait for some idea to leap out of an essay I’m reading. I bore my wife with random thought experiments, anything to kickstart the engine. I pretend to ignore the nagging deadline and tell myself I won’t let an arbitrary force control my freewheeling imagination. When all else fails, and I’m past the deadline by days, I sit down and start writing about my inability to write. It’s not easy and yet I persist because this is the only thing I’ve done with any discipline. I tell my mind, even if it’s bad, give me something, anything.

The cliches start tumbling out. Stuff I’ve read or heard or seen. Other people’s thoughts, my voice yes, but their thoughts and ideas. A part of me instructs to blindly transcribe, relieved that something is coming out, convincing me that originality is a myth and perfection a mirage. All I can do is listen to the voice in my head and pray at least some of it isn’t worthless. Another part, now getting stronger, tells me to jot it all down but then sit with it for drafts, one, two, three, four, until all those thoughts take a wonderful shape and I’ve polished them with the craft I’ve learnt. To create something beautiful, that only I can, with conscious effort. And while I’m writing all this, right now, these two parts of my mind are bickering with each other, each presenting me with a completely valid but incomplete point. Suddenly, at this stage, another voice, with shallow knowledge of psychoanalysis, bellows, with a thick German accent, that the other two are just imaginary voices in my head and my subconscious has created them to help my conscious deal with specific but contradictory advice. And then an image of me is projected in my head, mirroring my current posture and dress, and that image of me looks up at the heavens wondering where all these voices are coming from until it sees an avatar of itself doing the same thing, ad infinitum. Image Credits: Charlie Kaufman, whispers another voice gently.

“Quare scribo vos facite?”, you may ask O Noble reader. I do because I like the sound of my own voice, because I think writers are sexy and I’d like to be identified as one, because I want to leave some proof of my existence, because there is pleasure in giving shape to amorphous thoughts. I write because I want to quieten the incessant monologue in my head and for a few moments after I finish a piece, I am in a state of thoughtless bliss. Only after I purge these thoughts, can I acquire newer, shinier once in this unrelenting cycle of consumerism.

I write because it’s the only activity I do with genuine, unselfish love. Writing doesn’t tell me much about what I’m right now but it tells me a lot about what I want to be. It gives me vision. Everyday, in office and traffic jams, shopping malls and movie theatres, in front of television sets and in long queues, I plough on; Petty and self-preserving, scared and nervous, self-conscious and clueless, like an automaton, unthinking and programmed. Yet, amidst all this, there are some moments where I give into goodness and kindness, courage and liberation, imagination and grace. Writing gives me those moments. It reinstills my belief in life, in the infinite possibilities of being human.

I write, therefore I am.

Same old, same old

December column for AZIndiaTimes:

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Like any school kid will tell you, distance does not equate displacement. I could meander for hours and end up very close to where I started. Displacement, being a vector, is direction specific. In life, there is usually a distinction between the direction you ought take and the direction you end up taking. Work is a product of the Force you’ve applied and the Displacement you’ve made.

We live in an age obsessed with Efficiency. We have identified a few variables- Money, Societal Status, Physical Fitness, Relaxation, Things we own etc., devised ways to quantify them and plan our lives trying to maximize the output we get for the force we’ve applied. We multitask, buy in bulk during Sale events, constantly upgrade our skill sets, network with friends and colleagues who we think can give our careers a boost. We get extremely pissed off when something unexpected happens- a death in the family, the child failing an exam, the bathroom drain clogged on a weekday. We curse the universe for not finding a more suitable time to assign us our share of problems. It’s one way to live.

But since all of us aren’t such perfectly rational calculating machines, we give into procrastination and lethargy, devise new ways to create leisure amidst all this hullabaloo, find methods to jeopardise the plans we’ve created for our own good. Suddenly, in the middle of this permanent sprint where we are trying to run with a tunnel vision, a voice tells us to see to our left, where we see a narrow, beautiful, inviting path and before we start cursing ourselves for doing it, we’ve already changed directions. For a while the lack of competition is refreshing. We get enough time to think all the thoughts we’ve put on the backburner for weeks and months. We enjoy the sights and sounds, take a sip of the refreshingly cool water. We think we ought to ignore the race, build a small hut in this hamlet and spend our lives tending to our farms. And yet, soon after, we start worrying about our decision, if we’re doing something wrong, if we’ll fall so far back in the race that we’ll never be able to catch up. So we run back. We yearn for the external validation.

In an increasingly connected world, our idea of feeling alive is heavily dependent on the constant feed we receive from our social network. Why are we so afraid to chart our own path? Is the herd mentality that’s so deeply imbibed within us an evolutionary attribute? Admittedly, there is comfort in marching with the masses; Even if it’s to Mount Doom.

I think all these thoughts because I hate the idea of work. I’m always on the lookout for shortcuts (which itself is a manifestation of efficiency) and trying to arrive fast at my salvation point. I try cutting away from all the accelerating information and marching to my own drum but it is so hard. Every interesting titbit of new information learnt creates a tiny feeling of achievement and, thereby, pleasure. It does not seem to matter that I have turned into an information consumer than a human being who can gather information, convert it into knowledge and use it to improve (whatever that means) my life. I spend my mornings charting out time-tables, aftertoons failing to implement them, evenings cursing myself for being such a weak-minded procrastinator and nights googling about new technologies I can learn that will make me rich and happy.

I do not want to live my life like this. Not this Fast Food mode of innutritious living. The question is how do I escape its gravitational pull. No Yoga, no Meditation, no Zen Habits, no Reward Systems seem to be working. So I keep moving around in circles, chasing my own tail. Not moving forward with the rest, not charting my own path through the wilderness but stuck in the same place, paralysed by the fear of walking down the wrong direction and progressively getting more paranoid for not walking down some arbitrary path, thereby creating a negative feedback loop. So to avoid worrying about all this, I turn away from what I’m supposed to do and feed on middlebrow articles on the Web.

I do not want to run. I want to walk, meander, get lost, explore unseen vistas, nap under the trees, bump into other interesting beings, share stories, learn wonderful things. What’s stopping me? My own fear of the unknown. I’m afraid of what I’ll have to hear in silence; So I’m constantly yapping. Is life a problem to solve, a sight to behold, a journey to take, a lesson to learn? What should I be chasing- Happiness, Pleasure, Liberation, Satisfaction? I sometimes think that this idea of choosing to live my life more intensely is also a marketing gimmick.

What do I really want then? Wherein lie my real feelings?

To be or is there another option

November column for AZIndiaTimes:

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On Diwali night, while driving with my wife, we saw many dogs running helter skelter and one almost came under the car which had me exclaim what was wrong with them. My wife then told me that dogs are very scared of crackers and the noise on a Diwali nights makes them go crazy with fear. I felt bad for them but that didn’t stop me from bursting crackers because my enjoyment was more important to me than the suffering of tens of animals. Still, I felt guilty for not showing compassion and sacrificing but then also proud because I was feeling guilty and thus was more empathetic and humane than other indifferent ignorami. In addition to being an armchair activist, I’d also turned into an armchair human.

They say you can’t change the world in a day. If one disregards the innate arrogance in that desire, it can be seen that it’s true. Our actions, on a cosmic scale, are too futile. Yet, mainstream films continue to show us that one man, by sheer diligence and perseverance, can indeed bring about a change in the world. What mainstream movies do not answer is the question of What exactly is Good? If I save a person from drowning, is it good? What if he later kills 15 people; Am I responsible for their deaths? Is life always better than death? Debatably not (https://aeon.co/essays/having-children-is-not-life-affirming-its-immoral). We live in a very complex world, full of unintended consequences. Should the virtue in actions be judged by their intentions or outcomes? What about our irrationalities then? Should we be blamed for acting upon the advice of the incessant whisperer in our head? But then does that mean we have no free will at all? Isn’t that claim the first step down the abyss into hedonism and madness?

“We fight over an offence we did not give, against those who were not alive to be offended.” -Kingdom of Heaven

Karma answers a lot of these questions. Once you accept the assumption that there is a public ledger somewhere that keeps track of all your actions across lifetimes and gives you a net score, thereby making your life easier or harder, a certain fear is instilled within you to be ‘good’. My problem with this ideology is that if we are judged by our actions and their consequences, should we not be given the complete picture and trace the outcome before making the choice? Why should we be forced to participate despite having only incomplete information? Assuming you are paying for your sins now that you had committed millions of lifetimes ago, why were you instigated to walk down that path in the first place? Why was evil created? Karmic philosophy, atleast to the extent I’ve explored, gives temporary solace but does not assuage deep-rooted doubts.

“'Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs.' If humans disturb the balance of the Earth they will be trampled on and tossed aside.” -John Gray

Think about it. We, humans, both consciously and otherwise cause so much suffering to every living organism on the planet and to the planet itself. Maybe the Earth is way more intelligent than us and we are part of its plans; Or not. What cannot be denied is the fact that we are making life, in our greed and stupidity, more and more harder for our future generations. Admittedly it’s not entirely our fault. We did not ask for this life nor the world we are forced to live in and make amends to. Should we feel guilty for all of humanity’s mistakes? Or take pride in the little achievements that someone somewhere pulls off? Should we be indifferent or attain Nirvana Delusion?

Na tha kuchh to khuda tha, kuchh na hota to khuda hota
Duboya mujh ko hone ne na hota mai to kya hota. -Mirza Ghalib

What is the meaning of life? 42? What will I achieve even if I know the answer? I have found ways, or maybe the ways have found me, to find temporary bliss. Is that all there is to it then? Should I keep walking down the dark tunnel, with a flickering torch in hand, hoping the voice will guide me to the place I’m supposed to reach? What other option do I have anyway? Are we condemned to be puppets that are wired to question their free will?

It’s bizarre, it’s joyful, it’s bewildering, it’s heart-rending- One heck of a life life is.

Living in the Age of Being

October Column for AZIndiaTimes:

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We, the millennials, don’t do. We are, we be, we become. The overriding verb defining our lives is not doing but being. We are brands in ourselves, constantly projecting, refining and updating our image. We are one-person enterprises skipping from opportunity to opportunity in an effort to become the best version of ourselves and in the process make money, save the world and attain nirvana.

We live in an age of relentless consumption- of goods, experiences, ideas. We are a singularly selfish generation because we are obsessed with ‘improving’ ourselves and relentlessly attribute a price to every activity we do in the hope of getting the maximum out of it. Idea Consumerism and Epiphany Addiction are practically diseases. Of all the people I know, those my age and from a similar background are the most calculative and transactional. In some ways, we were brought up to be in such a way. We were repeatedly told that everyone is in a race and the only way we could be successful, whatever it meant, was to look after ourselves and keep running as fast as we could at the cost of anything else. Like the writer Tanikella Bharani wonderfully put it, “Earlier, a mother would tell her kid to share his lunch with others in the class. Mothers now teach their kids to gobble the expensive chocolate quietly in private”.

I’ve been thinking about why so many of us are unhappy, discontent, perpetually angry despite having the most material comforts ever. We can watch any movie, order food, buy anything, plan foreign vacations at the click of a button. And yet we suffer from a hazy listlessness, need more and more provocative content to hold our attention and have no enthusiasm to use the things we worked so hard to buy. This is our mal du siecle. I can’t claim to have cracked the solution for this malady but a prognosis is that we don’t do enough.

Living is a verb. To be alive is to thrash madly around a fiercely burning star in the corner of the gigantic universe while precariously stuck to a blue rotating ball. If anything, the last thing living should be is boring. In his satiric masterpiece Du Levande, Roy Andersson creates a world, not unlike our own, where people sleepwalk through life. They are not dead but might as well have been. Nothing really perturbs them. Even emotions like anger and despair fall within a certain bandwidth. Yet they are not Yogis or Sufis. Nothing affects them because they are too full of themselves to really notice anything else. It was while watching the film that it hit me for the first time what solipsism meant.

To be alive is to have a reflexive relationship with the objective world where your actions are constantly tweaked and modified in accordance with reactions until a state of temporary equilibrium is reached. Additionally, to be human is to be able to empathize with another being. It is said that humans in the higher levels of consciousness can have a relationship with every molecule in the universe. Lesser mortals like us should at least commune with other humans and animals.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. -Robert A. Heinlein

The primary reason for our psychological issues, then, is because we are stuck for too long in our claustrophobic heads. We don’t do enough to be in a healthy relationship with the physical world. We must be the first generation of people who are incapable of doing anything else expect our bloody jobs. We are the least self-sufficient, most dependent humans not out of personal choice but because of the nature of economic systems which prefer to assign a role to us; To turn us into a minor cog in the wheel.

The World Wide Web has helped us see how the modern world is a beehive. We are expected to do our part for the whole and not worry about anything else because the powers that be deemed so. That is why our children are forced to narrow their interests and are told to become proficient in one thing; What is colloquially called Skilled Labour. It is a demeaning, and tragic, way to live a life.

We're not talking artists, George, we're talking freethinkers. -Dead Poets Society

We are wilfully walking to our 1984. If only we could look up from our smartphones, look around and come to our senses. Every man worth his salt should quiver with life, not amble like a zombie. And for that, we need to create things we are proud of.

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. -Henry Van Dyke

On building a better world

September Column for AZIndiaTimes:

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It is easy to theorize and proclaim esoteric opinions when you’re a bachelor. Much harder to do so once you’re married. Of course, it’s hard to declare anything original after you’re married but, stale marital jokes aside, marriage bestows on you a responsibility towards society. You’re not an arrogant-genius-outsider anymore telling the world what’s wrong with it. If anything, you’re part of the establishment now. You have been assimilated.

After all, I’ve been married only 26 days as of writing this so I’m no mouthpiece for all married men but the difference after marriage is real and palpable. The essence of bachelor life, even if you’re in a relationship, is about being unmoored. It is about making the best of every moment as you keep drifting to nowhereland. It is about hungry midnight searches for open restaurants, philosophical discussions over drinks with friends, long conversations on footpaths; It’s about having the time and energy to argue and fight over arcane topics simply because you have nothing useful to worry about. As a bachelor, the society was my adversary, the arrogant giant that was unwilling to change its ludicrous habits and I had taken it upon myself to shout at the top of my voice all that was wrong with it. Being a bachelor is about questioning all authority and doing everything to subvert it, even at the cost of one’s own detriment. It is about being naive and stupid, about being starry-eyes and believing in your ability to shape the world according to your will. It comes from the confidence of being constantly surrounded by friends, of being proud of your intellect and abilities, of being able to live like a spartan and to tell people who love you to get used to you. It is the life of a narcissistic. And it’s great fun as long as it lasts.

Getting married is a wonderful thing. I’ve never felt more special in my life than on my wedding day. I had been against traditional marriage not just because of the preposterously high cost but also because of my belief that the rituals are empty. (Even if they were once filled with meaning, we have debased them too much for them to have any sanctity left.) Yet, on that day, seeing that so many people turned up to wish us well, albeit for a variety of reasons, something changed.

There is a conspicuous change of lifestyle after marriage. I wear a watch, shave more often, dress better, make a point to greet neighbours, understand that money can be a source of good, see the class structure more clearly and am making an effort to uphold it for my advantage. I fret less about the Hows and Whys of every action and worry more about my comfort and happiness. I’m doing everything I mocked in others until a month ago. Does that make me a hypocrite? No, because I’m acknowledging the change. A turncloak, maybe. I don’t tell her, Accept me or get lost, like I told others. I’m more considerate of the impact my behaviour in the society will have on her. Till now, I was part of someone else’s family (my mother’s) but now I’m beginning my own. And that realization gives me immense power and responsibility.

At least in the urban, middle-class India that I live in, family is the primary block of society. The Grihasta Ashram is the centre of the ecosystem. The other Ashramas contribute immensely to the society but they need the householder to survive and thrive. The change in perspective has been quite sudden. Again, it has only been 26 days so my opinions could be half baked. Yet I can’t deny I’m enjoying the transition. Life has become less about making a mark for myself on the cold, magnificent linearity of time and more about focusing on the present moment and making the world a slightly better place right now. Reality has become more real. When I write my To-Do list these days, I write more prosaic stuff than End World Poverty and Win an Oscar. The size of my world has shrunk to a more manageable size. I’m the lord of my world instead of being a loner in the background in someone else’s. Actions and rewards are more tangible. I feel less alone. The world didn’t give a hoot when I yelled suggestions at it. However, now I have an opportunity to build a better world from scratch, to implement and learn from my thoughts and experiments, opinions and ideas, dreams and fantasies. I’ve been asked to transition from critic to creator. Let’s see how that goes.

“All right, Mr. Wrightman, I gotta bat. Let me just leave you with this thought. You love the Sox, but have they ever loved you back?” -Fever Pitch

Arjun Reddy is Shiva for the post-millennials

Arjun Reddy is a bravura piece of filmmaking. First, let me get done with the social commentary. Yes, I believe the concerns about how he treats the heroine and the glamourization of alcohol and drugs having an impact on society are real. At 27, I was mesmerised by AR's lifestyle choices so I know there are many guys, kids, like me who'd set AR on their pedestal of role models. And after listening, from Sravani and Sravya, to firsthand stories of stalkers, I can only imagine how many more girls will now be followed and pestered by loons and junkies. Despite all my arguments about idiots always managing to find social proof of their conduct, I know this is yet another film that legitimizes that sort of psycho-lover behaviour. Having said that, it must be accepted that a film is also a reflection of the ways of the society. Based on the voice of my memory, I think I can point to the time when eve-teasing became a heroic thing gaining mainstream acceptance- On the release of Puri Jagannath's Idiot.

Okay, now that we're done with the business of adults, we can get back to talking about the film. Where were we? Yes, AR is ballsy filmmaking if not in its content then in its form. People who called the film realistic need better dictionaries. For some reason mainstream Indian moviegoers think calling a film realistic is paying it a compliment. No film is realistic simply because all art is subjective gaze and observation. Reality is objective, it doesn't give a hoot about your existence. To create art is to project your view onto the indifferent void of the universe. AR is fantasy and it is of a type more dangerous than your vanilla flavour fantasy with wizards and hobbits because it wears the cloak of normalcy. There are two Arjun Reddys in the film- One the filmmaker envies and the other he needs. In one avatar he is the alpha male, the arrogant genius, the charismatic outsider, the hyper confident man swaggering across life. The other is the attention-craving loner, the cranky child who wants his toy back, the egomaniac who needs to be constantly fawned upon. Arjun Reddy is Wake up Sid for the sexually awakened.

The scene where Arjun and Preethi walk into Amith's college has a long, single, steadicam shot that reminded me of Shiva. No wonder Ram Gopal Varma loved it; AR also has many similarities with the peak-Scorsese phase of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. The film Arjun Reddy, like its protagonist, is solipsistic, obsessed with a certain type of masculinity, feeds on the 'weaker' males around to reinforce its idea of masculinity, claims women and is too enthralled by its own image to see clearly that its not as free-spirited as it wants to be. Interestingly, I could also find an exploration of, what Ebert stresses is central to Scorsese's filmmaking, the Madonna-whore complex in Arjun Reddy's relationships with Preethi and Jia.

I love the way the football scene panned out. The sound design throughout the film was magnificent. A part of me questioned the reason for the love story being a flashback. Why couldn't the film just unfold linearly? Isn't the arc more 'complete' then? Self-content to devastated to searching and catharsis to salvation. I had a similar issue with Gamyam when it came out as to why there must be parallel tracks? Is the switching a writing gimmick to ensure the audience's engagement- What Orson Welles so memorably called, "Meanwhile back at the ranch". The dialogues are refreshingly original. Despite the claims of being a bold movie, you can clearly see that it's made for an audience not least because of the titillating cuss words and the obsessive kissing aimed for their shock value. Rahul Ramakrishna's digressions are entertaining but they come at the cost of narrative focus. The most novel thing about Ramu's Shiva was its unrelenting increase in intensity. AR squanders that for a few easy laughs.

Ultimately, Arjun Reddy works because self-destruction is a sight to behold. For the wingless, jumping off a cliff into the abyss can seem like flight. And you are never more fully alive than when you're wrecking your life with complete consciousness. Arjun Reddy is Shiva for the post-millennials. Shiva was relevant to those growing up in the 1980s because it created a reluctant hero who wears his power like a thorny crown, who understands that one cannot destroy the villain without turning into someone like him (what Nolan keeps trumpeting in The Dark Knight). AR is for the new generation of adolescents who don't need an external villain, who are so enamoured by themselves that all their suffering will be self-created; For those of us who feed ravenously from our support system without ever giving anything back.

I'm glad a film moved me so much that I was pushed out of languor to write about it. I'm beginning to believe that those who write about film or talk about books are the ones who are afraid to write down their own books and make their own films. Their life is not fertile enough for them (us?) to plant their imagination, to write a song. It is great that so many people had an objection with the explicit content of Arjun Reddy; That doesn't mean they have a right to stop it. If anything, it should motivate them to create something more powerful based on how they think the world ought to be. To create art is to be wonderfully alive, it is to wrestle and dance with life to create something beautiful, original, real, concrete.

We have been tuned by narrative art to expect epiphanies from life. By the end of a 3-hour film, the hero has gained enlightenment. And that sets him free. We want that, we need that, we crave for that liberation. So we emulate his actions and recreate those settings in the hope that we'll can escape the tyranny of our doubt-filled, cowardly brains. (Digression: I just realized that the protagonist of Tom McCarthy's Remainder is in the same quest, only the narrative comes for his previous life instead of an external source). See, this is what we want. Eureka moments. For everything to make sense. I don't know if humans desire certainty and control because we are wired that way or we have been rewired for insisting on walking in that direction, yet another chicken and egg problem, but I think we don't crave for clarity as much as the moment when Clarity springs up, when all molecules rearrange themselves to show you that what you thought was real, hoped was real, is indeed real. And then the high abates and we go back to being petty, cribbing beings. Until we're not. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. All enlightenment, then, is extraordinary delusion. Great movies are the ones that bypass our bullshit meters to trigger dopamine surges. And I will hold onto this thought until I encounter another beautiful piece of art that'll, if only temporarily, quell this belief.

To art.

Discipline is all we have

My AZIndiaTimes column for August.

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“Discipline is freedom” -Jocko Willink

Where do thoughts come from? If we really are Homo Sapiens, Wise Men, how do we traverse from millions of random transient thoughts to wisdom. I have been reading that, evolutionarily speaking, we developed the ability to think to perform sophisticated action. Then what is the place of pure thought, echoing Descartes’ Cogito ergo sum, that does not always translate into physical action in our material world?

“We are spiritual beings dabbling with the material” -Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

We are told all roads to self-realization/ enlightenment are paved with discipline. On one hand, there is conscious penance that Yogis, sages, philosophers and artists do, wherein they repeat a few rituals and seek to continuously evolve in it to eventually reach higher states. On the other hand, there are the sufis and the mystics, the Thyagarajas and the Rumis, whose discipline is more inherent in the fact that their extraordinary faith in and receptivity to a higher order fuels their junoon thereby closing the feedback loop. Their devotion is so complete that they can reach transcendental states by the sheer force of their longing that invariably translates into sustained, disciplined action over a long period of time.

“Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work” -Gustave Flaubert

I have been obsessed with discipline for a long time. I have tried and failed in applying so many self-help theories that that ability to not see through a plan has in itself become habit. The next time I pick up a new self-help book, I’m sure I won’t finish it. (It could also be argued that I read every book like a self-help book because I try to pick stuff from it to learn to live a better life. I must confess I’m not too pleased with that ability.) Despite failing so many times, I still find an irrepressible need to “improve” my life. I guess it’s a cultural thing. We live in an age of efficiency where mainstream media bombards us with our inadequacies and relentlessly repeats that we should strive to be “our best selves”. Every year, thousands of self-help books are written, hundreds of programmes are conducted for everyone from mid-level managers to technology CEOs telling them how they can improve the turnover of their companies by becoming more empathetic, or getting in touch with their inner selves, or understanding Karmic balance, tens of celebrity speakers use stories and methodologies from ancient religions and folktales, recycle them to fit the present context and sell them to well-meaning, unsuspecting but nevertheless conformist masses. People want to become more efficient, and thereby rich and happy, and like our ancestors first turned to Gods, to priests, then to philosophers and eventually to CEOs, they turn to self-help gurus and new-age spiritual teachers. They, as in we, are engrossed with four-hour work weeks, 10000-hour rules, eating frogs, influencing people and growing rich. Do we have a natural inclination for being excellent sheep?

“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.” -Arthur Schopenhauer

As a lifelong procrastinator, I am enamoured by the idea of repeating a ritual everyday, no matter what, because it truly feels like freedom- from the intoxicating swerves of whim, from paralyzing nihilism, from the indecipherable random acts that define our lives, from the tyranny of inexplicable, inarticulable thought, from the impenetrable darkness of the human heart. To be disciplined, to re-enact a series of manoeuvres everyday in an attempt to get ready for divine inspiration seems like the only thing we can do to hold onto a sense of reality. True to form, even my procrastination is not disciplined. I’m frequently overcome by a need to stick to discipline every few weeks.

“Eighty percent of success is showing up” -Woody Allen

It would have been easier, but way less fun, if this was the only set of thoughts in my head. In true postmodernist tradition, another set of thoughts question these assumptions. Okay, even if I buy that discipline is the axe that will help break chains of habitual cause-and-effect, how do I cultivate it? Can we control our thoughts?- If thoughts and actions are part of a closed loop, feeding off each other, how do you discern the validity of a thought if not by experience? Since that experience is our’s, do we not give more value to it (confirmation bias) and continue to live under the illusion that our thoughts and beliefs are correct? How can I leap out of my Karmic cycle if it is all I know. If one set of thoughts tell me discipline is good, and when trying to apply it, another set says any work without inspiration is a waste, who do I listen to? Is there a hierarchy of thoughts? Is writer’s block just laziness or a ‘genuine’ lack of churn that needs unpredicted impetus? In The Knowledge illusion, the authors argue that an individual mind is not equipped enough to traverse through the complex world we have built and inhabit. We are nodes in the most evolved brain called the human ecosystem. So, maybe, the crowd is wise. However, like Arendt argues in The Banality of Evil, the crowd is less empathetic and more subservient to the handed-down thought than an individual. Does that mean the original thinker influences the the society for the better? Whereth lies salvation?

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle

How do I find balance between the plateaued learning graph of discipline and the unexpected magic of whimsy? How do I get into a good relationship with the mind I don’t completely understand but that has infinite power to manipulate me? Where do I and my mind meet? I will continue to ask questions. I’m sure I’ll find solace in answers but it will will be short-lived. Certainty is death but it is also comforting. Flux is scary but it is also life-affirming. Sticking to a discipline is the regression testing mechanism I need to follow to keep questioning the basis of my assumptions. Focused meandering- A contradiction of terms. When opposites come together, something entirely new is created. That is what I’ll try do with discipline and impulse. We can’t control inspiration, discipline is all we have.

Hypocrisy and its misuses

My AZIndiaTimes column for July.

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I hate hypocrites. Atleast I did until I realized how big a hypocrite I was. I wear gemstones while publicly questioning the validity of its preached uses. I do not really believe in Drishti Dosha but after a great day spent, I ask Amma to remove Drishti. I profess people to boycott products that are manufactured by torturing animals yet I relish my Lassis and Omelettes. I waft lyrical about the need to stand-up to arbitrary authority while I continue to bribe policemen or ignore a fight on the road where ten people beat-up one person. I tell young people to chase their dreams and follow their passions while I happen to be yet another Code Coolie constantly asking myself if I’m just being lazy. What is going on here?

We live in an age of authenticity. Every facet of our popular culture tells us to embrace our true self and give a middle finger to whatever anyone chooses to think of our behaviour. I bought that idea completely. My physical appearance and words give the impression that I am an independent, free thinking individual who is dictated only by the whims of his conscience. My actions, nevertheless, point in the opposite direction. For all my ranting and yelling, cribbing and crying, I am just like many- I neither have the courage nor the strength to swim against the tide and test my ideas and assumptions against reality.

“Inside every cynic, there is a disappointed idealist” -George Carlin

Truth be told, I’m not even an idealist as much as a naive romantic. Dim-witted too. I thought life was going to be a joy ride. I tell people life doesn’t owe us anything. Yet, I feel pissed when something does not go according to plan. I think we most firmly negate beliefs we are most obsessed with. Like how self-deprecating humour is not humility; It is a reaction of people who think they are smart enough to know that arrogance removes the sheen of their image. I rage so many tirades against hypocrisy ( or for that matter capitalism, globalization, English-speaking urban class, software etc. ) because I know I have been immensely benefited by all these happenings and yet don’t want my social circle to think I had these advantages- First-world problems. It is astounding to see the depth to which hypocrisy has seeped into my being so much so that I stopped questioning the validity of my beliefs and the reason for my actions a long time ago.

“Hypocrisy is the homange vice pays to virtue” -Francois de La Rochefoucauld

These thoughts, and as an extension the questions I have been asking myself, came when my girlfriend jokingly commented on how big a hypocrite I was for the huge disparity between my words and my actions. The reason I was so blind to my own failings is probably because, like they say, “we judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions”. I was also reading about Karma Siddhantam around that time and it had raised interesting questions in my head about the Karmic effects of thoughts vs actions. The law says that a person should be judged by his actions and not his thoughts. In that case, all the best intentions in the world will not bring about my salvation. Like the authors argue in The Knowledge Illusion, Thinking evolved because we had to construct a model in our heads that corresponds in critical ways to the way the world is. Thought is for action. Action without thought is animalistic and thought that does not manifest into action is pointless.

Hypocrisy arises, to put it dramatically, because of a conflict between the head and the heart. The heart simply believes; The head wants rational explanations. And when there is a disagreement, we become superstitious, or fake smile at people, or pretend to not see unpopular colleagues, or profusely promise people we’ll help them and not take their calls. It is not pleasant but it has become so inherent to modern-day, urban living that we don’t stop to think about it. Hypocrisy is neither about conviction nor confusion but about courage. It is easy to spew well-meaning objectives; Impossibly tough to stand by them. Most adults give up the first part and learn to live false lives. I’m glad I’m still at juncture when tough thoughts continue to crop up. Choosing how to live though is where the battle will be won or lost.

“..and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.” -Albus Dumbledore

On passing judgements

My AZIndiaTimes column for June.

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We make judgements all the time. Making them is easy. You get some inputs when you meet a person and based on your state of mind and what prior knowledge you have of similar situations, you form an image of the person. These are what we call First Impressions. From what little knowledge I have of evolutionary psychology, it’s System 1 that is making these snap judgements. Our limbic system makes these calls- for a part of the body that has not evolved much over the last 50000 years and is still stuck in the African savannah, it is imperative to gather as much information about a foreign body as soon as it can. It worked for simpler times.

But we now live in a mind-bogglingly complex world that, forget System 1 (the automatic, intuitive part of the brain), even our more evolved System 2 (analytical, rational part) cannot begin to understand. Yet we still choose to judge people based on our first impressions. We do not live in such hostile environments to need to make those conclusive approximations. The heuristics are just not good enough especially when we put our phenomenal imagination to work even before meeting the other person.

More of life happens in our heads than out in the real world. Thousands of intentions can manifest into only tens of actions. So should we judge a person by his motivations or the shape of his actions? Which raises two important questions: 1. Can we ever judge a person based on a handful of insulated interactions or do we need an accumulation of thousands of moments to even get a brief idea of what the person is like? 2. Presuming we can get a fair idea of how he might behave in the future, do we still have the right to moral grandstanding? When the personality of a person is a fairly fluid concept that is under constant change, how valid are previously held notions?

‘What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.’ - Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is a universe inside a person, literally, for those who believe in Advaita. True, we cannot deal with notions as abstract as soul and essence if we are expected to learn as much about a person as fast as we can but can then one deign to know all about someone based on one meeting; especially because we always walk in with preconceived notions. I love the game Chinese Whispers because it conclusively proves we don’t hear and transfer what has been said but only that we’re conducive to listen. What Social theorists call the Latitude of Acceptance. Nothing I say is going to make an impact on you as long as you sit on the assumptions that you brought from home. All good will come across as pretence and all bad as proof.

Judgement, for the most part, has nothing to do with rational thought. It stems from a person’s ego, and like almost everything that’s got to do the ego, everyone else has to be condemned to a lower pedestal. Admittedly, humans are not all rational beings and the opinion of instinct has to be given substantial weight, and I know from experience that it’s a fairly accurate indicator. The problem comes when we use one of instinct and rationality to undermine the other based on our need to satiate the ego.

'A man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress.' - Ayn Rand

From what I’ve been studying about my behaviour, I see that instinct serves the ego. Instinct is a hack created by the brain to ensure it doesn’t have to take unnecessary load processing all new information unless its very important. Like all hacky systems, its core function is to see to it that most new cases fall into as few generic buckets as possible. And lo, we have the stereotype.

I think that the path to a person’s mind is like a funnel. Most of what comes in is junk and has to be distilled for persistence. But snap judgement, by definition, comes from the sources closest to the exit to ensure processing power is not wasted. This is also fine until we start tying instinct to the ego. That, then, becomes an insidious combination. Now not only are we saying stuff without thinking rationally but because we’ve tied our fragile personalities to it, we will find ways to subvert all new information until it fits our theories.

I’m not saying rationality is supposed to be the only mode of thought. Instinct is unparalleled in exigencies. Intuition and faith, things that nudge us in directions we can’t really articulate, are also modes of thought that make us human. We need to cherish them. The problem exacerbates when we act as deterrents to our own long-term good because of our obsession with self-image. From what little I’ve learnt from Advaita Vedanta and Sufism, I understand that annihilation of the ego is the final step on the path to self-realization and liberation. Ego is a collection of thoughts that hold onto a tiny part of the events of the universe and say, ‘This is you’. And we guard it vehemently because we think it makes us unique, gives meaning to our life. It is the brittle branch of a tree that we hold tightly to stop being pushed down the flooding river. Yet, until we let go of that little branch, how will be ever open our arms wide enough to embrace the universe?

Not only do we not comprehend the repercussions of our actions but also in most cases don’t understand our own motivations. Then do we really have a right judging someone else for their behaviour? I’m not saying we need to descend into a meaningless world. I’m saying we should be doing Karma without having to feel smug about it.

‘Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.’ - David Foster Wallace

What I call my personality is just one certain arrangement of a handful of experiences. If I had different experiences or in another order, would I have been another person? If yes, why should I be so attached to these? If not, what would change even if I let go? What is this ‘I’ that I’m so obsessed with and is it helping me live a better life?

We are all blind men trying to describe the elephant. It is imperative we question the basis of our assumptions and tread gently across this delicate, wonderful life.

life's happening in bursts

May has been crazy. Things didn't move for a long time and now suddenly they're moving so fast I feel disoriented. I'm not complaining though. Like I was telling Sravani, good things are happening so we better cram as many during this wonderful phase. I want it to last longer but I'm reading Vidhaata, on Amma's express recommendation, and I'm not sure how much of good Karma I have left to spend. We'll talk about all that later. I also have to send Rajanna that essay but haven't had the time, or truth be the told the inclination, to write it. So I keep sending him apology mails with promises of submitting it that weekend. That apart, I ain't too pleased with June's column. It clearly reflects a shoddy job. But I keep starting at the brink of deadline and don't get enough time to rewrite. I have to take writing more seriously if I want to call myself even an amateur writer. Boxing has been a dream all last week. I sprained my leg badly yesterday so I'm out of action for a while. So, yeah, very happy right now. Life's this weird thing; The moment you make conclusive assumptions, it finds ways to completely overturn them.

That's about it for now. Should come back soon with a more elaborate update. Till then, I present another tirade against consumerism.

Damn the IPL

I don’t know how many of you watch the Indian Premier League but I watch it everyday and detest myself for doing it. For those of you uninitiated, IPL is a Cricket tournament similar to the NFL but compressed to a duration of about 45 days. It is, what the organizers and sponsors call, Cricketainment. Sportsmen are turned into human billboards, cheerleaders dance at every boundary and wicket, the sponsors buy naming rights to scoring shots (Eg: the commentators announce a six as “That’s a Yes Bank Maximum”) and players are made to chat with the commentators during play. It is rambunctious, repugnant and in the perverse way some people say it, Totally Desi.

I can’t stop watching it everyday with my flatmates. And after every delivery, I mutter profanities at the cheap thrills of it all. My Superego is disgusted but my Id is transfixed. Like any well written sitcom, if you don’t think too much about the conceit, the spectacle is marvelous. The IPL hires some of the smartest minds money can buy and it is their job to ensure I am hypnotized by the performance, not think about the meaning of it all and eventually buy the umpteen products (ranging from Cola and Pizza to Smartphones and SUVs) whose ads I’m bombarded with.

“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.” -Jeff Hammerbacher

Don’t get me wrong, the prospect of seeing some of the finest athletes play at the pinnacle of their abilities is indeed a great experience. They are the substance on which this glitz exists. But it irks me to see them treated as no better than reality TV stars. And this where Neil Postman makes so much sense again, “The problem with television is not that it provides entertainment. The problem is that it brings down everything to the level of entertainment.” And entertainment is the buzzword of our generation. We act as if we deserve it. So I set out to understand what exactly the word meant-

The action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment.
‘everyone just sits in front of the television for entertainment’ - The Oxford Dictionary

There you go. In an ideal world, entertainment is gratification of the soul. Now it is a constant stimulation of the senses. In a society filled with razzmatazz, rational discourse dies. And people are given the impression they have a say in all this by having them take part in useless polls- “Do you think Gayle’s record of 175 be broken in T20 Cricket?”, “Which is the best snapshot moment of the day?” etc.- and in a turn of wonderful marketing savvy, dedicating the first Ten editions of IPL to us, the audience (‘Das saal aapke naam’ which roughly translates into ‘We owe these ten years to you’ which is totally true and completely false.) This is one part of the story, where the people in control are doing their best to to keep us as passive consumers. And I know there is no underground sect behind it; it’s just neoliberal capitalism pushed to the extreme. What I don’t understand is the normal people’s fascination with this whole circus.

A flatmate religiously supports ‘his’ team in all their matches, gets really excited when they’re winning and turns morose when they lose. He tells me he’s from Bengaluru and so he wants his team to win. I ask him how is this your team. It is owned by a liquor baron who’s currently absconding from the country because of financial scandals, almost all the players in the team are freelance cricketers from across the world who have no fealty for the city and most importantly, how have you contributed in anyway and what prompts you to take so much pride in their success (To be fair, this is how all the mega sport franchises more or less operate). All I achieved after this round of questioning was being called a cynic and an asshole.

“If you are pissing people off, you know you are doing something right” - John Lydon

I wish that the sportsmen and the commentators (usually retired sportspeople) could be a little less manipulative. Vain hopes. The players are busy shooting advertisements and, as an extension, themselves via those trivial chit-chat sessions, and the commentators are complicit in selling even during play with their redundant, misinformed and overexcited narratives. They give you information you can’t do shit with. People argue that sporting avenues like these give the talented a chance to prove their worth and make money. I guess it also takes talent to run a drug cartel, so why are they banned? (And the analogy is made with intent. Television is a drug and just because it is practised en masse doesn’t make it right.) Is making money at any cost the primary motive of the people of any society? I understand that a lot of us live like this. Isn’t it then, more the reason, we want our celebrities to uphold better standards. No, I’m not asking all of them to be politically embroiled like Socrates against the Brazilian Military Regime or Ali against America’s Vietnam War. Maybe they can stop being complete sellouts by not endorsing everything from beer to face wash. Like it or not, our celebrities are our role models because they are the protagonists in our public discourse that does not give much space to writers, filmmakers and other public intellectuals. Should they not be at least a bit accountable for our attention?

You may ask why I have to bitch and moan instead of living under a rock. I would have done that until a few years ago. I can’t do that anymore because I’m beginning to believe it is imperative to stand and fight for the world you believe in instead of retreating to a cave. Not least because these buggers will not let you live in peace even there but also because we have to safeguard the best interests of the next generation. (Full Disclosure: I work for India’s largest e-commerce company. So to pay for my sins, I moonlight as a blogger propagating anti-consumerism and compulsively read Fight Club.) This idea of entertainment is so flawed primarily because it creates the wrong expectation for everyday living. Because we are so used to constant titillation, we are waiting for life to do the same to us and since that can’t happen, our lives feel all the more eventless pushing us to more passive consumption. (A fantastic article that talks about how the Web is increasingly turning into television- https://medium.com/matter/the-web-we-have-to-save-2eb1fe15a426)

“It did what all ads are supposed to do: create an anxiety relievable by purchase.” -David Foster Wallace

It could be argued that we don’t have to buy the stuff they advertise. Though some are strong enough to resist its temptations, it is not true for a lot of us. It’s not just the money though. Like Tim Wu points out, our attention is a more valuable resource that we are forced to spend in this freemium-eqsue model. We are becoming less imaginative and thus more susceptible to unexpected events because of our lifestyles. Imagination is what separates us humans from the rest. By creating a homogenous consumption model, we are filling everyone’s heads with the same images and narratives which lead to identity crises. We need to get out of this quicksand of comfort and listlessness. It is not easy but that’s what will make it so worthwhile.

What we have to reclaim now is not just our freedom but also our identity. We are the stories we tell, the questions we ask, the paths we take and the lessons we learn. And to do that, we have to think our own bloody thoughts.

నిన్నుజూసి నాక్ చానా జెలస్ ఫీల్ ఐతుంది రా

లాస్ట్ 10 డేస్ ల నేను పెళ్ళిచూపులు నాలుగు సార్లు చూశ్న. ఏమన్నా సైన్మా నా అది. ఫిదా వాయ్ నీ మీద. వెస్ ఆండర్సన్ తీసిన బాటల్ రాకెట్ గురించి స్కొర్సెసె ఒక చోట అంటడు, Here was a picture without a trace of cynicism, that obviously grew out of its director's affection for his characters in particular and for people in general. A rarity. నీ సినిమా చూసి నాక్ అదే ఫీలింగ్ కలిగింది. ఎంత ఇష్టంగ రాసినవ్ ప్రతీ సీన్ అని. మొన్న రాత్రి స్కూల్ ఫ్రెండ్ గాంతో మాంచి హై మీద పొద్దుగాల మూడింటిదాక డిస్కషన్ పెట్టినా నువ్ ఎంత తోప్ అని. అంత పాషన్ తోటి దేని గురించన్నా మాట్లాడి చాలా ఏళ్ళైపోయింది. చిత్ర వాళ్ళ బామ్మ ఒక్క డయలాగ్, "దీనికి అన్నీ పెళ్ళిచూపులు ఆటలా అయిపోయాయి. నా సీరియళ్ళన్నీ మిస్ అయిపోతున్నాయి", చాలు నీ ఫిల్మ్ మేకింగ్ ఎంత సీరియస్ ఓ చెప్పటానికి.

ప్రతీ కారెక్టర్ కి ఒక ఆర్క్. పెళ్ళిచూపులు చూసేంత వరకూ నాకు స్ట్రైక్ కాలేదు వేరే సినిమాల్లో సీన్స్ అంత ఫ్లాట్ గా ఎందుకు ఉంటాయో- ఈ సినిమాలో ప్రతీ కారెక్టర్ వాడి ప్రమంచంలో వాడుంటాడు. ఈ స్క్రీన్ రైటింగ్ గురువులు చెప్పినట్టు నువ్వు ప్రతీ పాత్రకీ ఒక మోటివ్, ఒక పర్సనాలిటీ ట్రైట్, ఒక ఓబ్స్టకల్ ఇచ్చావ్. అసలు సినిమా అంటే ఇలా రాయాలి అన్నంత అక్కంప్లిష్డ్ రచన ఇది.

కానీ ఫ్రాంక్ గా చెప్పాలంటే నాకు ఈ పర్ఫెక్షన్ కొంచెం constraining గా అనిపించింది. నీ జర్నీ చూసిన రోజే అనిపించింది, వీడెవడో నాచురల్ ఫిల్మ్ మేకర్, ఆ ఐ ఉంది అని. సైన్మా చూసి దిమ్మ తిరిగిపోయింది. ఇప్పాటికి కూడా నెలకి ఒకసారైనా ఆ లేపుకెళ్ళే సీన్ గురించి మాట్లాడతా. ఇప్పుడు పెళ్ళిచూపులు. ఎక్కడ్నో ఒకసారి చదివినా నీకు మణి రత్నం అంటే చాలా ఇష్టం అని. ఆ ట్రేసెస్ కనబడతాయి- అర్బన్ మధ్య తరగతి సెన్సిబిలిటి. బరద్వాజ్ రంగన్ మణి రత్నాన్ని మన లాస్ట్ మెయిన్-స్ట్రీం auteur అంటాడు. అతను అప్పటికి నీ వర్క్ ఇంకా చూడలేదనుకుంటా. పర్సనల్లీ, ఐ విష్ నీ మూవీస్ కుడ్ బి స్లైట్లీ zanier. Talking about a Nolan film, someone wrote that his films are like the click of a perfectly made box. నీ సినిమాలు కూడా అట్లనే. నాకు ఆ పర్ఫెక్షన్ slightly off-putting కానీ అది నా ప్రిఫరెన్స్ మాత్రమే. నాకు అనురాగ్ కశ్యప్, సెల్వరాఘవన్ ల మెస్సీనెస్ ఇష్టం.

సో హా, ఏం మాట్లాడుతున్నం? జెలసీ గురించి. పెళ్ళిచూపులు ఫస్ట్ డే చూసి గట్టుగాడు నాకు ఫోన్ చేసి చెప్పాడు, "చూడు బా సినిమా. అల్టిమేట్ ఉంది. నువ్వు తీద్దాం అనుకున్న సినిమా ఈడు తీసేసాడు". మన గురించి, మామూలు మనుషుల గురించి ఎందుకు రా ఎవడు సినిమాలు తీయడు అన్న నా పెరీనియల్ ఫిర్యాదు కి ఆన్సర్ ఈ సినిమా. కళ మనిషిని ఇన్స్పైర్ చేయాలి అంటరు కదా, నీ సినిమా నన్ను ఇన్స్పైర్ చేస్తది. నా సినిసిస్మ్ ని కాసెపటికైనా పోగొడ్తది. జనాలు ఎంత ఇష్టంగా, ఓన్ చేస్కొని ఈ సినిమాని తమ సొంత సినిమాలా నలుగురికీ చూడమని చెప్పారో చూస్తే చాలా మంచిగ అనిపించింది.  ఎట్ల తీష్నవ్ బాబు ఇంత మంచి సినిమా?

పండగ పూట కుటుంబం అంతా అన్నాలు తినేసి ఈ.టివి లో మిస్సమ్మ, గుండమ్మ కథ కబుర్లు చెప్పుకుంటూ చూస్తరు కదా, అట్ల పాతికేళ్ళ తరవాత నీ సినిమాని చూస్తరు. తెలుగోళ్ళ కల్చరల్ జిందగీల నీ సినిమాలు ఒక స్థానాన్ని సంపాదించుకున్నాయి. నీ గురించి తెల్వద్ కానీ నాక్ మాత్రం మస్త్ గర్వంగున్నది; అదేదో నేనే తీసినట్టు.

అదీ ముచ్చట. నేనేదన్నా ఇట్ల చేయగలనూ, చేస్తానూ అన్న నమ్మకం పోయింది. ఏదో నిస్సత్తువ, సినిసిస్మ్, చిరాకు, రెస్ట్ లెస్నెస్స్. కానీ ఆ ఎమోషన్స్ ని కాసేపటికైనా దూరం పంపింది నీ సినిమా. దానికి థాంక్స్. If they’re responding to your work and your work is really personal, then reading you is another way of meeting you, అంటాడు లిప్స్కీ ఫాస్టర్ వాలేస్ తో. నేనూ ఆ మాట తో ఏకీభవిస్తాను. నీ గురించి అంతా తెలియక పోయినా నీ innate dignity, honesty ప్రతిబింబిస్తాయి నీ సినిమాలో.

నాక్ జెనెరల్ గా తారీఫ్ చేయటం ఈసీగ రాదు. నా ఈగో అడ్డొస్తది. కానీ నీ కేస్ లో ఆ ఈగో annihilate అయిపోయింది. మంచిగ రాసిన పుస్తకం, సినిమా చదివితే, చూస్తే అనిపిస్తది బానే తీసాడు కానీ మనం భీ తీయొచ్చు పెద్ద గొప్పేంది అని. కానీ కొన్ని అట్లా ఉండవు. అవి మన రేంజ్ కాదు అని సమఝ్ అయిపోతది. అదీ ఒక రకంగ మంచిదే- ఖులే దిల్ తోని మెచ్చుకుంటం. అది నువ్వు నాకు చేసిన పెద్ద ఎహ్సాన్. జెన్యూన్ మంచితనాన్ని, స్వార్థం లేని ప్రశంసని నా నోట్లో నుండి రావటం చూసి నేనే ఆశ్చర్యపోయా.

నేన్ జీవితంలో ఏదన్నా, ఎప్పుడైనా ఇష్టంగా, ప్రేమగా, గర్వంగా సృష్టిస్తే దానికి పెద్ద స్ఫూర్తి నీ సినిమాలు అవుతాయి.

సలాం తరుణ్.

We don't live in a Post-Truth World

I still have to write this month's column. The deadline was 20th. I don't know what I can write about because it has to be both honest and new. It's funny how little of the real 'you' is in you. Most of what we say and think is the fresh 20% layer at the top of your head based on your most recent experiences. Which is probably why, like they say, a writer is someone for whom writing is harder than it is for others because he's trying to go past the top layers that he picked off from others. To understand what it is really that makes you you, it is imperative that we break the illusion of self-knowledge and question each of our assumptions and opinions.

How do some people have so much willpower? Is it really something you can and should learn to live a good, fulfilling life? If God made us a certain way, should we try to be someone else based on the incomplete knowledge about their life? The fact that we're alive and there's something instead of nothing is so bizarre that it might take a lifetime for me to wrap my head around it.

--

Objective Reality

Today morning I equipped myself with a screwdriver and spent twenty minutes dismantling my grandma’s faulty pedestal fan. I unscrewed the nuts and bolts, pried open small parts, messed around the circuit and eventually pulled out the motor. After trying for another thirty minutes trying to figure out why it wouldn’t work, I was surrounded by parts and screws, my hands greasy, not only unable to repair but also to reassemble the damn thing. For all my belief in my abilities and the fancy ways in which I could repair the fan in my head, the reality was that I had totally gutted it and had to carry the autopsied body to the electrician. The truth (the capital T variety) was staring me in the eye.

For the past few months we’ve been extensively told about how ‘post-truth’, which also happens to be Oxford dictionary’s Word of the Year, is the new reality. And it is partly true. We exceedingly live in a world that drowns us with contradictory information and opinion, analysis and fact. Not only is it impossible to discover the truth amidst all this noise but it’s getting harder to stay abreast of all the information we need to know. Both Mainstream and Social Media, which we’re helplessly connected to, are pushing so many agendas at us that we seem to have lost all grip on ‘reality’. And Big Data, with all its quantitative hullabaloo confuses us even more by manipulating with cold numbers.

“If you torture data enough, it will confess to anything” -Ronald Coase

The only way to combat this flood and reduce the insecure feeling is to totally disconnect. But we can’t possibly live like ignorant fools, can we? (But like the saying goes, isn’t half knowledge worse than ignorance?) This is the world we live in and we want to know what’s happening with it and try to make it a little better place. So it’s imperative we know so that we can act. Now, stop and reconsider that statement- We need information so that we can gain knowledge from it, take rational decisions and act on them. Are we doing that?

All the information we get from media paralyses us, prevents us from taking action by creating confusion, apathy or hopelessness. Or it turns us into consumers and encourages us to buy shit to alleviate our anxiety. Instead of providing information that can turn us into rational contributors and citizens, we are being pushed into smaller and smaller ghettos of unrelenting, censored filter bubbles where we are forced to consume Events and Trivia masquerading as News (I highly recommend Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death for a more critical, expansive thesis on the subject). It’s not always the system shoving crap down our throats. We choose to consume junk by obsessively following Facebook events, Twitterati faux-debates, commodify ourselves by incessantly posting on Instagram and Snapchat. No wonder we’re stressed out of our minds. We do not know how to function in this shape-shifting, fear-inducting, relentlessly loud world.

“The daily newspapers talk of everything except the daily. The papers annoy me , they teach me nothing. What they recount doesn’t concern me, doesn’t ask me questions and doesn’t answer the questions I ask or would like to ask.” -Georges Perec

I am going to share a few hacks I’ve been experimenting with to find some peace of mind. For one, I’ve started treating information like food. I like to try new sources once-in-a-while but otherwise, I have a few trustworthy news hubs which I approach for my daily quota. Even with that, I try to avoid reaction pieces- reader write-ins, concise digests, opinion pieces, reactions on social media etc. I have also stopped reading/ watching short, attention-grabbing, decontextualized news that entices me with the illusion of knowledge but instead leaves me with a couple of fancy words that I can only use later for name-dropping. If I’m interested in something, I’d be better off researching it in a more formal, critical, less reactionary manner.

Decentralization is going to be big and not just in Computing. We are currently at the apotheosis of Centralized information flow. In Politics, Business, Sport and Culture, the global/ national is dominating the local. So much so that BJP won a record-breaking majority in Uttar Pradesh without even announcing the Chief Ministerial candidate. That’s one example but look around and you’ll see monopolies of money, attention, discourse. Based on what I’ve been reading, I have a hunch this is going to change. Local bodies will start becoming more important and people will gravitate towards a culture where hegemonies will be dismantled. So I’ve decided to participate more in small local groups, learn and lead through action instead of dreaming about world-changing ideas. So next time I have to vote, I’ll read and hear what the local legislator has to say instead of voting for a central figurehead. I’m sure the more politically intelligent among you will can give excellent reasons why that approach is wrong and I’d love to listen, learn, think and adapt. Till then, I’m willing to argue on behalf of my decisions. Which brings me to another choice I’ve made- To learn to be politically incorrect.

Not everyone is correct in their ‘own way’. Not all kids have a ‘natural talent’, a ‘unique voice’. Not every opinion has to be accepted for being based on ‘prior experience’. This assumption of multiple truths is the primary reason for the wreckage of our public discourse. Agreeing to disagree means we should listen to all opinions, right or wrong. It does not mean all opinions are equally right.

“The body says what words cannot” -Martha Graham

I’m also learning to trust my body more, emphasising on the physicality of objects, the tactile sensation, the use of as many sensory organs as possible. Reality exists- Tell yourself mind has control over matter when you can’t do that one last push-up. Fucked up advertisements have conditioned us into believing we can will ourselves into doing anything and becoming anyone we want (of course, if we buy their product). Not only we cannot but it’s also insulting to those people who achieve grand things.

We are all trying to be better people and the walk on that path is a very conscious process. Sure there are bad days when all seems pointless or days when some of your actions could totally mess up. I’m not denying that but I think we need to emphasise more on the action than the thought. Action without thought is stupid or dangerous. Thought without action is worse. With nothing to apply to and learn from, by being divorced from reality, by being trapped in the familiar confines of the head, we are going nowhere. It is like being drugged where everything is beautiful and nothing is real. It’s a bizarre, asphyxiating feeling. Objective reality exists and we need to accept it. If you still are unconvinced, go and break the windshield of your neighbour’s car. Good luck.

The hitchicker's guide to authenticity

I got promoted. It was nice seeing her on Saturday, if only for a few minutes. Boxing is still great but I ain't getting much better. The 5 Ether I bought about a month ago for $64 are now trading at $204 (though I know no ways to sell them). I had a great time reading Asamarthuni Jeevayatra and am currently loving every moment spent with Amaravathi Kathalu. I might go on a bike trip this weekend.

--

The madmen anti-manifesto

“Nobody wants to be great, they all want to be rich.” -Pritish Nandy

In his insightful essay about hipsters, and as an extension millennials, William Deresiewicz calls us Generation Sell. And that was the term I’d been searching for when I was trying to explain my angst to people about why we, the millennials, suck.

We don’t have an ideology. No wonder our lives are so unfulfilling. Yes, there are people who are doing work they believe in but two things irk me: 1. Scale- We have made peace with the fact that our contributions, at best, will be infinitesimal. 2. Tone- None of us are angry. Neither the righteous nor of the other kind. At best, we’re irritated.

I’m not saying all rebellion is good but rebellion is a very important part of every society. That mantle has, through the generations, been carried by the youth culture. It is in the very nature of a young person to first question every command, any handed-down thought. The young of every country were responsible for independence, for civil rights fights, for abolition of inhuman systems, for fighting against fascism. This manifested through the books they wrote, the songs they sang, the films they made, the organizations they led. Part of it has been systematically eradicated using technology Soma, the other half by Post-Modernism.

The mainstream culture has taken over the counter-culture. Look at how Apple, the world’s richest and one of the most iconic companies, sells itself. They call themselves the misfits, the artists, the nirvana-seekers. Steve Jobs wanted to transform the world. His company now sells plastic toys to adolescent-adults. Apple once told us they’d help us avoid 1984; They unwittingly created the Brave New World ( For more insight into that analogy, please read Neil Postman’s prescient Amusing Ourselves to Death ).

The inmates were supposed to take over the asylum. Now the guards have infiltrated us so deeply that everyone’s turned into a guard. Keeping others in check, reporting to authorities, castigating and worse, punishing those who don’t fall into line. When a person so willingly upholds the rules, without ever questioning authority or without ever voicing an original opinion, why would anyone need guards.

My generation’s cultural icon is not Buddha or Einstein, Lennon or Camus, Gandhi or Ali. It is not even Jackson Pollock or Cobain, Brando or Hunter Thompson. It is Don Draper. ( What’s worse is that we don’t even care for an icon anymore. We are human brands perpetually polishing our images, addictively selling ourselves on Social Media ). We are obsessed with buying and, to sustain it, selling stuff. No seller asks if he’d buy what he’s selling and no buyer questions his own motives for buying. We all turn into Pavlov’s dogs at the sight of a sale.

Every person is born a slave to existing dogmas and assumptions, methods and superstitions, worldviews and rules. Instead of teaching us why the world runs the way it does, and if that’s the only way it should, schools teach about how to be good players to leverage maximum output ( There are thousands of intelligent, well-intentioned bloggers out there who have been writing about how our education system is a relic of the Industrial Age and needs to be completely revamped ). And mainstream culture wants nothing more than turning us into passive consumers, stupid automatons with no facilities for reason or rebellion.

Good is about playing by the rules perfectly, understanding how the system works, improving your capabilities to rise to the top. But great is about questioning the foundations of the system, about pulling it off its roots to plant something you truly believe in, about not following a religion but creating one annihilating the need for one.

This was not supposed to be a narrative. If anything, this was supposed to be a tirade against everyone who gave us these little boxes and asked us to make sure our narratives do not spill over the edges. This is a voice against the brand-building of human personality. This is a fight against being a statistic on someone’s quarterly report. This is against all those people who wear superhero t-shirts and tap on their smartphones while riding office elevators to work for organizations which call themselves cool while destroying the planet and its people in their greed for money.

We need rebels, freethinkers, madmen. One of whom will write an anti-manifesto which none of the others will follow. And that would be incredible.

fight we must

Why do we write, make films, compose music, paint? No, I'm talking neither about the hobbyists nor the professionals. I'm talking about the believers. Those 'artists' whose mandate exceeds the aesthetic rewards and drives for cultural/ political change. As I write this, I'm having a conversation with two strong, independent, successful, intelligent, highly qualified women who're talking about harassment at workplace. What they have to face everyday just for being of the wrong gender and how, despite complaining, nobody gets punished. Nobody even gets socially castigated. I guess it's a cultural thing. Do you folks believe in standards of culture or are you of the sort which says what sells is what people want?

I'm reading Amusing Ourselves to Death and I can't recommend it enough. But let's come back to the Why of all expression? The post-modernist's greatest trick was to cast a shadow on the nature of reality itself. When you can't even trust your own mind, what's the credibility in standing up for anything? Ofcourse I'm a cynic but I like my statements backed by better writers. In the Dust of the Planet is next on my reading list.

But fight we must. For a world we want to live in, for a world we are proud of, for a world that is a reflection of the best of our thoughts. Now, don't go about asking me how there's a hierarchy of thoughts. There is and you know it. I'm not intellectually equipped enough to communicate it in words, yet. So why should we add our voice to the cacophony out there? Because humans are practitioners. We can validate our opinions and beliefs only by putting it out at world's scrutiny. Like it or not, we're constantly fighting; Wouldn't it be better if we consciously chose our battles?

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And oh! I stumbled across the term Insight Porn sometime last month. I guess that's what I was talking about in my last two columns (it's actually one post that was published in parts).

Addicted to epiphanies

“If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the comforting illusion that it has been mastered” -Stanley Kubrick

God we love to daydream. I know it because that’s what I spend most of my day doing. We spend entire days in melancholic nostalgia even before we have accumulated enough experience to reminiscence over.

“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” -Marcel Proust

What we are nostalgic about is not a certain spacetime but our innocence. Linear time corrupts- even valuable experience brings knowledge which in turn is still moving us away from comfortable, ignorant idyll. And we are not content at feeling nostalgia. We project it into the future in the form of daydreams. We dream of days when we can spend days being happy pursuing things we are passionate about which in itself is an attempt to recreate childhood. But there are two problems with this thought- 1. Childhood is so special, atleast for most of us, because of how unselfconscious we were. Even if we could recreate the external factors, what can we do to about the corruption of thought and soul? (Consumerism is a side-effect of this attempt to recreate childlike wonder. The ads tell us we can be happy and free if we bought their shit. We buy them.) 2. In our attempts to create the future from the material gained in the past, we ignore the possibility of new events which can totally derail our assumptions about ourselves and our fantasies and take us to totally new places. This means the future is never going to be a better present and we have to keep recalibrating because of the, if I may, grey swan events. Escapism can be therapeutic but not if you’re going to ignore living for it. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched, then, to say day-dreaming is akin to being drugged. The longer you’re at it, the more you need it and the less you’ll enjoy it.

(Disclaimer: I’d like to point out here that when I say we, I don’t mean the entire readership but other similar folks who are tuned into the same radio station as I am.)

We are constantly building narratives, writing our eulogies, tweaking with them constantly. This is akin to mentally typing the review of a book while reading it. It not only does great disservice to the new experiences we can gain from it but also confuses and irritates us for not sticking to the pattern of our notions.

If my piecemeal knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita is anything to go by, all we have is our Karma, literally action. The assumption on which all the world’s spirituality runs on is that while we may not be able to control or for that matter, find the source of our thoughts, we can well choose to decide which ones we choose to act on.

“I may do as I will but can I will as I will?”

Till a short time ago, I used to argue that we are not really responsible for our actions because aren’t we all just obeying the instructions coming from some dark corner of our minds? But with more real-life experiences, conversations and readings, I am inclined to believe that the conscious mind has atleast some say in what the subconscious tells the body to do. It might still be chained to that nucleus but there’s a possibility to expend energy to jump a few orbits. Now that energy, they say, comes from deciding to do the right thing day in and day out- the Dharma way. Every decision, and we make thousands if not more everyday, is an option for us to set ourselves on the right path. That comes from the sages, the rishis, the seekers, the philosophers and the poets. Again, I used to argue vehemently with this idea of received wisdom but I’m beginning to realize subscribing only to my experiences for life choices is seriously driving me towards solipsism and judgmentalism because I’m holding my experiences as the benchmark without conceding to the fact that others can have totally genuine stories of their own which prompt them to act the way they do.

If all of us are cruelly chained to causality, can we ever transcend it? Isn’t all advice then just misplaced. This was my line of defence. But now I’m willing to believe it can be transcended because though that is an uphill task, it is better than the abyss of indifference and meaninglessness that is waiting to swallow me. (I get repeatedly told my my mother and girlfriend that I should write about something new, that I’m perpetually wallowing about in my preoccupations that are so narrow. I have no defence for my lack of imagination but we must recognise that all roads lead home. We don’t write about what we want to, we write what we ought to.)

We only have the present. Daydreaming is great, I’m a huge exponent of its wonderful dopamine-inducing effects. But I also know firsthand how druggy its effects are. By escaping into imagination, we’re going ourselves a great disservice.

I’m a bad software engineer and I’m beginning to realize that is so because I find ideation more fulfilling than implementation. That makes me incompetent at most things. Thought and action, if not leading to and learning from each other, trap us, limit us, isolate us, leave us stranded in a limbo. Implementation is messy, takes effort, invites criticism but it also does two important things: 1. It opens us up to other ideas and views thereby expanding the self and 2. Focusing the entirety of our being on the action annihilates the self and we fuse with the object of our focus and craft. It is what, as I’ve understood, Buddha called Nirvana. By subsuming into the activity, you transcend the narrow confines of your personality. Not that one can’t do this with thoughts but for normal people like me, thoughts are too ephemeral and slippery to hold onto and work with. I need the heft of a physical action to keep me tethered. Mind needs matter, to challenge it, to feed into it, to grow, to move onto newer landscapes. Stop obsessing about your eulogies- they will be written if we end up doing something worthwhile.

“What other people think of you is none of your business”

Karma will free us, I hope. All thought unfocused is just escapism, Maya, at best intellectual masturbation. It is no different from collapsing into the couch, eating junk food while surfing through channels hoping for something to salvage you. It is a phantom existence. To be alive is to jump headlong into the sea of reality.

Can we choose to move towards who we want to be and not just keep drifting along? Why and how do we decide who we want to be? I don't know. For now, all I can see is that I can choose to interact openly with matter at my disposal or choose to loathe and begrudge it from the prison of my mind. Shouldn't a human be like a sponge to all experiences? All judgements come from prior experience. Opening up to new experiences will only create new alleyways of thought. An ideology is an hardened judgement and any ideology that does not learn from feedback is going to wither and die. If you were kind enough to indulge in my political theory knowledge, I propose an analogy- Communism is top-drown, thought-driven, it is the mind trying to impose prior learnt knowledge on the present reality. Capitalism is bottom-up, instinct-driven, it is the greed of the body trying to find the path of least resistance for present fulfillment. And like always, the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle- between discipline and surrender, between thought and action, between the abstract and the tactile.

How to live- Isn't it the oldest question of them all? It is also the most immediate of our concerns.

feeling alive

Boxing is awesome. I did a session of MMA today followed by a session of boxing and I haven't felt as good in a long time. First of all, I'm enamoured by my own discipline to stick to a few things for, like, a week and I guess the positive feedback loop is kicking in because the next day is getting easier than the previous (only until it starts to get tougher soon). I once read that the learning graph is not a curve as much as a series of plateaus. You don't make any progress for a long time until you suddenly seem to be cruising. Eventually, you'll each a stage where the plateaus are longer and the cliffs smaller.

Anyway, I'm happy because of sticking to a semblance of routine, because I'm excited about the trip on 26th, because there are hints that I'm getting better at dealing with the mess within, and simply because boxing is incredible. I've never thrown a punch before and as much I always knew how liberating it could be, getting to do it, even through just air has given me a taste of the thrill. I could describe a juicy peach in the most ornate language I know but it wouldn't come close to what you'd feel when you take that bite. The description could create intense emotions and thoughts in you, which is what art does, but as real and powerful as they're, they're still different from the real thing. Not that the description is a poor approximation of the real thing. I'm saying that there are no inferior or superior anythings, just different. That came out lamer than it sounded in my head but come to think of it, isn't this the biggest curse of the world today- this cultivated habit of not clustering or ranking different things. Yes, Post-Modernism says all classical structures are no longer valid but it is impossible to function well in a world that refuses to seek any sort of knowledge about the world and the human condition. No, all information is not equal. No, all moments are not the same. This actually leads us to the area of avant-garde narrative structures which try to tell us, like BR wrote about Knight of the Cups, "that modern art is nothing but a Rorschach test recording recording our responses, our interpretations". No wonder all of us are lost in the claustrophobic confines of our daily experiences, perpetually stoned, unable to process information for more than its solitary, sensual input.

Boxing is brilliant because it strips away all the things you and the world tell you about yourself, and leaves you panting and exhausted, dares you to be the man you think you are. I've attended only about fifteen classes and I don't know enough about the game to be making these conclusive statements but I know I felt something like ecstasy for a few moments after I lay down at the end of workout. Physical exhaustion is a much needed feeling for it has the power to redeem. Like they say, the body doesn't lie. And though I was a long way from reaching my limit, even though my brain kept calculating how much energy I was allowed to disburse in each round, just the sheer pleasure of doing something concrete and real sent waves of liveliness through my soul. I was still self-conscious for periods but to be truly free, even if only for scattered moments, of the unrelenting monologue inside the head was such a relief. There was not time for thought or the space available to consciously create an action. There was instruction, there was a trial period where the action was corrected and then there was the burgeoning confidence at my ability to pull it off correctly. Oh! I haven't felt it in a long, long time. Some people call this a high, they talk about endorphins and dopamine, about how you get 'addicted' to fitness. I don't like the words. They create an image of something sinister. Boxing is about the pure joy of having a physical body, of feeling alive in every cell, about the dawning realization at your own power, about flying and ducking and punching and feeling and breathing. It is unbelievable.

I'd read about mountaineers who spoke about the exhilaration of climbing a mountain. This is something akin to it. But again, I don't want to go back there. This process of needing to find words (and thus metaphors) for each of our feelings is the biggest reason for our unhappiness. Labels are not symbols but close approximations to the real things. A great writer might be somebody who transcends language but an intense human being is someone who breaks it, who shows us the plasticity and futility of words. As much as we try not to resort to kitsch, every attempt at communication is just that. We must learn to keep creating new words, like discovering new landscapes, or learn to live without them. Everything essential is formless, all else is superfluous.

Amma, I love you.