Category: Flawsophy

  • Taking the fall

    ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ is probably a book I might have related to a whole lot better if I’d read it a few years back. Ok, probably a decade 🙂 Be that as it may, it still has areas which still appealed to me.. a lot. One of them is this segment of the conversation between Holden, the protagonist and narrator and his (earlier) English teacher Mr.Antolini.

    This fall I think you’re riding for, its a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement is designed for men who, at some or other time in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn’t supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they really even got it started.

    and later in the conversation

    …if you want to, and if you look for it and wait for it – to the kind of information that will be very very dear to your heart. Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behaviour. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them – if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.

    Sometimes, I can identify with the first, and thanks to the internet and the life streams that I come across, sometimes, luckily, the second too. 🙂

    until next time, there’s no catch 🙂

  • Master Classes

    The last few episodes of Masterchef Australia Season 2, especially after it came down to the final four, were quite awesome. For me, it went beyond the cooking or even the amazing camaraderie between the participants and the judges. The final two turned out to be Adam and Callum, separated in age by more than a decade.

    Adam, I thought, (thou shalt not dare to bring up the fact that I know zilch about cooking) was quite a genius. Though he was a bit too arrogant in the mid-episodes to be my favourite, his range and the thinking and creativity he brought into his cooking were nothing short of phenomenal. Meanwhile Callum’s level of cooking sometimes made you forget the age (and experience) difference between the two.

    But something more than that made me identify with Callum. A very smart friend recently gave me a Master Class and pointed out to me a classification of personalities – askers and guessers. I belong to the latter, I do tons of calculations and thinking before I can ask something of someone, and I still wonder if I’m being presumptuous or inconveniencing them. The worse part, I’ve noticed that the shyness is mistaken for arrogance!!

    In one episode, when Callum’s dish earns special praise from an external judge, he mumbles a ‘thank you’. Matt Preston admonishes him and reminds him of what he’s supposed to say when he’s praised. Callum then asks the judge whether he can do a stage, (“Staging is when a cook or chef works briefly, for free, in another chef’s kitchen to learn and be exposed to new techniques and cuisines”), and is promptly rewarded. I wonder how much ‘asking’ has to do with confidence and passion. Callum is fortunate to have discovered a passion early in life. I’m sure that his experiences will make him more confident.

    I read this excerpt from a book, which talked about “young adults in America choosing to slow down their path to adulthood”. Probably a good move. (Generalising) By the time we go through the motions of education and work, the baggage and constraints start accumulating. The passion practically disappears, and the experience possibly does more harm than good. Rediscovering all of it is no easy process.

    Perhaps, if we had an ‘education system’ that could help identify what we wanted+were good at+ could earn money with, we’d have more askers than guessers. Because then, we’d know our passion, and with that knowing would come a direction to seek our experience, with that would come confidence, and then all the world would actually be a stage – to learn and to perform.

    until next time, youthopia indeed

    Related Read: A toast to common genius

  • Id+entity

    There was this experiment suggested in ‘Tomorrow’s God‘ – to look in the mirror and stare into your eyes. If you concentrate and hold your gaze long enough you’ll begin to ‘step outside yourself’ and ironically, have a more objective view. Its a bit similar to some meditation techniques, I think, and though I read (and tried) this about 6-7 years back, I remember having thought of things (about myself) that don’t usually surface. But it does lead to a very interesting question – who are you? 🙂

    Is it the job you do or the designation you hold? Or do you define yourself by your nationality or religion? Or the perception you have created among your friends, family, extended family etc? Or a persona you have created among those who you deal with, only virtually? Or the things you consume and the thoughts that arise in your mind? The beliefs, the notions, the perceptions, the likes and dislikes that are created in you over time? The things you say and the things you do? The person you see in the mirror, the physical manifestation of you? All of these are transient, in varying degrees. Even nationality and religion because for me, they are notional. The fun part is, this ‘you’ is the way you see it, the moment you change the point of view, it all changes. So, who do you think you are?

    until next time, identify yourselves in the comments 😉

  • Across time.. universe

    I’ve never claimed an understanding of poetry and have never had any affection for it either, but once in a while some bits catch my attention. Verse, lyrics, any other form…

    The dawn rouses one man to acquire wealth
    Another to earn food, another to achieve greatness
    Another to sacrifices, another to his own (pursuits)
    Another to activity, and lights all men
    to their various means of maintaining life
    Ushas (dawn) has given back all the regions

    People say I’m crazy doing what I’m doing
    Well they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin
    When I say that I’m o.k. well they look at me kind of strange
    Surely you’re not happy now you no longer play the game

    For how long a period is it that the dawns have risen?
    for how long a period will they rise?
    Still desirous to bring us light Ushas (dawn)
    Pursues the functions of those that have gone before, and
    Shining brightly, proceeds with the others (that are to follow)

    People say I’m lazy dreaming my life away
    Well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me
    When I tell them that I’m doing fine watching shadows on the wall
    Don’t you miss the big time boy you’re no longer on the ball
    Ah, people asking questions lost in confusion
    Well I tell them there’s no problem, only solutions
    Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I’ve lost my mind
    I tell them there’s no hurry
    I’m just sitting here doing time

    Gone are the men who in the days before us
    Looked on the rising of the earlier mornings
    We, we the living now, behold her brightness
    And they come nigh who shall hereafter see her

    I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
    I really love to watch them roll

    Now the fun is, most of you would have realised that stanzas 2, 4 and 6 are Lennon’s classic ‘Watching the Wheels‘, and the rest? Stanza 1 is the Rigveda Mandala 1 Sukta 113 verse 6; stanza 3 verse 10 (both translations by H.H.Wilson) and stanza 5 verse 11 (translation by Ralph Griffith). 🙂

    until next time, more per verse 🙂

  • Speech Disorders

    Arundhati Roy’s ‘God of Small Things’ is a book I found underwhelming. It could’ve been my maturity as a reader, or the hype that surrounded the book then, but all said and done, Ms.Roy was not an author who influenced me. Unlike a certain Mr.Tharoor, an author I deeply admire, and whose books (mostly) have given a lot of perspective, even the works of fiction.

    But when he had this to say about Roy – commenting that she’d gone too far to the left and her writing about Gandhians with guns, I wasn’t sure whether I could agree, and I asked on Twitter (not to him) whether his stance is necessitated by his political affiliations. A feeling that was mirrored when I read this post by Anil Thakraney. To give you a background on Anil, I think his insightful (inciteful isn’t a word, or it would’ve fitted well too) articles and interviews are amazing, and his posts often find resonance with me, because the issues he talks about and the way he talks about them gives  abundant perspective. I don’t think Anil is compelled by any external force, a possibility that can’t be ruled out in the case of Tharoor. And so I wondered, why I wasn’t in agreement.

    Could I’ve been possibly influenced by her articles on tribals that were written a year back – Outlook (which caused the first wave of outrage) and Washington Post (about the outrage) or even this excellent post titled “The Economics, Politics and Ethics of non violence” or just the history. It was human, and I could identify with the view on  the human sacrifices that are made for the sake of progress. A purely bystander perspective.

    Or did it only play a marginal role when I considered Roy’s latest remarks on Kashmir? How can you be objective when on one side, she writes a moving article on why young boys are pelting stones and on the other side, you have almost an entire nation outraged? It doesn’t help that its fashionable to hate Roy, and even more fashionable to support her.

    So in the end, I’d go beyond the freedom of speech debates and the notional boundaries. I only say notional because, if we look at a larger timeframe, the transience of these boundaries will be more evident. Empires of the past, in their time, would have thought that their boundaries were unassailable, even by time. But they are history. One of the ideas that have remained unchallenged for long is that of the nation state, maybe its time that came up for an overhaul.

    A mass of humanity that make up a nation state makes laws that are agreeable to the majority. That’s the way civil societies have been built. The fun part is that, in most cases, the majority are mere bystanders with a notional stake. So at some point, the minority is pushed to such an edge that they’re forced to retaliate. What is only an inconvenience to the majority is a matter of survival and basic rights for the minority.

    And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.

    (Alice’s restaurant by Arlo Guthrie)

    Meanwhile, for some, these boundaries might be sacrosanct, some might believe that Roy is doing it just for the popularity. But, even from the armchair, the hurt sentiments of the first and the (alleged wrong) intention of the second pale when compared to the human condition.

    until next time, longish posts are charged with sedation? 😉

    PS: Found later that Shoma Choudhury has articulated this well

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuXFIfb7cnY