Category: Flawsophy

  • A life less rich…

    On Quora, there is a question which has been getting some very interesting answers – “Is getting rich worth it?” I remembered my post “Halve Notes” from sometime back when I saw it. Rich is of course a very relative term – relative not just in terms of comparison with others, but dependent on time, one’s location etc. Also, factors like one’s health, emotional well being etc have the potential to change the worth completely.

    I don’t think I want to get super rich. I still ride an Activa, live in a rented apartment and  my consumption patterns do not really conform to my income, or as some say, my age. 😀 I have been trying to analyse why. I do like to spend on things I enjoy doing – books, movies, food, travel to name a few – and would not want to forego these for lack of money. But I also do not want to get used to things/habits I might find difficult to sustain later without compromising on my belief systems. So it’s a balancing act, with a bias towards caution thanks to my middle class upbringing perhaps.

    My dystopian future is an old age where I cannot live life on my own terms. That’s probably why I found this story -of one Mr. PM Sahay – so distressing. It’s part of The Delhi Walla’s commendable 130000 portrait project. Mr.PM Sahay is a 74 year old retired bank manager who is forced to sell puppets in Connaught Place to  sustain his family. (I am hoping none of his Rohtak neighbours happen to see all this on the web!) He travels 50kms from his town every day. His legs ache, he says and he has to support himself on the columns and sit on manhole covers near rubbish bins. He is a victim of circumstances. The best laid plans can go wrong, after all. Being rich at least takes care of some things, it would seem.

    until next time, a rich life…

  • Plan C

    This post has been pending for a while, the date of publishing of the article that inspired the post is evidence enough. It is about people who leave their jobs to follow their passion, but instead of the success stories we are used to, it focuses on the difficulties on that path. Even if you’ve not taken that path already, it’s quite possible that you have contemplated it. It’s romantic – the freedom, being your own boss and doing the thing you like – Plan B. But it’s not easy, and it begins as early as even identifying one’s passion. (must read)

    Interestingly, NYT themselves had an article almost a year later that asked “What Work is Really For” and answered that with an Aristotle quote “we work to have leisure, on which happiness depends.” Though I didn’t know about this quote until recently, this is a perspective that I have often used to debate with people who say those who do not like their jobs should quit. There are many reasons why people don’t, and one of them is consciously making a choice to work (possibly on things they don’t enjoy) for the 2 days (and vacations) when they are able to spend their resources – money, effort and time – on things they enjoy.

    The reasons people don’t scale up those 2 days could be many, including the difficulties involved in the early stages of setting up, and then maintaining a positive balance – of money and life. Money is after all an essential resource. It buys things, it opens doors. But when your passion becomes your work and your principal source of money, does it feel the same? Or does it become a job?

    I liked the second NYT article also for its last 3 paragraphs. It addresses the money conundrum. It talks about how right from when we are born, we are taught to be consumers, thanks to capitalism, which though calls itself an open market where we have the freedom to buy is actually a system unto itself.  The choices are not really independent. It points out that education should be meant to make us self determining agents. True freedom requires that we take part in the market as fully formed agents, with life goals determined not by advertising campaigns but by our own experience of and reflection on the various possibilities of human fulfillment. But that’s not an easy path either. It calls for independent thinking and a subjective view of fulfillment and happiness. And that brings us to the familiar “to each his own”

    until next time, work it out 🙂

    Bonus Read: Six Rules to guide your career

  • Balance Wheel

    Somewhere between the need to belong and the constraints of conformity lies that Utopian state. I am beginning to realise that this is applicable across all modes of social interaction, whether they be real or virtual.

    It begins with people finding a common interest or ‘wavelength’ and sharing great vibes. School/college cliques, blogs and microblogs, workplaces, interest groups and so on.  Startups are fun places to work in the initial years because rules are made on the go, blogs and microblogs in their early days were sparsely populated and everyone was discovering their own voice and community norms.

    I have always wondered what breaks the utopian state – time or an increase in the group size. These days I am beginning to be convinced that it is the latter. As each new member is added to the initial set, the needle begins to slowly shift from the erstwhile average. The addition of new members also changes the dynamics of the group and slowly the earlier common sense of belonging changes even as a new one is created. Some adapt, others refuse to conform and break away.

    But what I have also realised recently is that there is a middle path – refusing to conform but refusing to go away either. It is a tightrope walk, and best done without baggage. And that’s the walk I am trying to learn, across my worlds.

    until next time, walking schtick

  • Jaya Indeed

    I didn’t attach much significance to the words on the jacket – High above the sky stands Swarga, paradise, abode of the gods. Still above is Vaikuntha, heaven, abode of God. The doorkeepers of Vaikuntha are the twins, Jaya and Vijaya, both whose names mean ‘victory’. One keeps you in Swarga; the other raises you into Vaikuntha. In Vaikuntha there is bliss forever, in Swarga there is pleasure for only as long as you deserve. What is the difference between Jaya and Vijaya? Solve this puzzle and you will solve the mystery of the Mahabharata. But it was only after I finished ‘Jaya’ (by Devdutt Pattanaik) that I realised this was what the complex and layered epic was all about. While swarga is considered an afterlife phenomenon, the dichotomy above is significant for life as well.

    (spoiler)

    Vijaya is material victory, where there is a loser. Jaya is spiritual victory, where there are no losers. The tale ends when Yudhishtira attains Jaya, not when the Pandavas achieve Vijaya over the Kauravas. That is the significance. Jaya is victory over the self. Only when there is undiluted compassion for everyone including our worst enemies, is ego truly conquered.

    Janamejaya, probably on behalf of all of us who would like to attain Jaya, asks what insight eluded his forefathers, and Astika replies “That conflict comes from rage, rage comes from fear, fear comes from lack of faith.” He does not expand much. I’d have to assume that here, the faith is in the self, the true self that is intrinsically connected to the larger consciousness. Thanks to material advances, Vijaya itself is a moving target and difficult to achieve. With all the distractions, Jaya is even tougher. Thus very few would even attempt it, and thus the entire concept of dharma spiraling downwards across yugas is very logical.

    The book provides many examples in humility. For me, the new things I learned and the increased awareness of the epic and its layers was a lesson in humility in itself. Even more humbling is the concept of Jaya.

    until next time, #epic #win

  • Travel Gems

    Paul Theroux’s “The Tao of Travel” was a goldmine of perspectives on the subject. While I did write a review on GoodReads, I really didn’t stuff it with quotes as I would have liked. 🙂 But since this is more of a chronicle, I can afford the liberty here.

    “You go away for a long time and return a different person – you never come all the way back.” Paul Theroux

    “Travel is flight and pursuit in equal parts.” Paul Theroux

    “I think I spend more time thinking about what I don’t want to take with me: assumptions, iPods, cameras, plans, friends, (in most cases) laptops…… expectations.” Pico Iyer

    “Unfortunately, the sort of individual who is programmed to ignore personal distress and keep pushing for the top is frequently programmed to disregard signs of grave and imminent danger as well. This forms the nub of a dilemma that every Everest climber eventually coms up against: in order to succeed you must be exceedingly driven, but if you’re too driven you’re likely to die.” Jon Krakauer

    “My own feeling is that city dwellers invent the cities they dwell in. The great cities are just too big to be comprehended as a whole, so they are invisible, or imaginary, existing mainly in the mind.” Paul Theroux

    “Travel is one of the saddest pleasures of life.” Madame de StaĂ«l

    “I tend to think that happiness is a particular time in a particular place..” Paul Theroux

    “It sometimes seems to me that if there is a fundamental quest in travel, it is the search for the unexpected.” Paul Theroux

    until next time, wanderlust