Tag: happiness

  • In my dreams….

    a couple of days back, someone told me about a movie called ‘waking life‘. think its an old movie (2001), but have somehow managed to miss it. in it, there is a hypothesis – what if our dreams were the reality? and the converse…. reminded me of the old one liner-“consciousness – that annoying time between naps”.. but what if…
    but thats not what this post is about, this is about dreams, the same dreams, but in a different context…
    once upon a time people used to have dreams.. a bunch of dreams that would be achieved over a lifetime, and the joy that came about due to the fulfilment of dreams was one of a kind..we have ambitions and aspirations now, but are we dreaming now?
    if i had to compare ‘dreams’ and ‘aspirations/ambitions’ , i’d say that ‘dreams’ are more humane. i wonder if you understood that, but i have no tangible way i can share it with you, its just a thought… and the way we have changed ‘dreams’ into ‘ambitions/aspirations’is by making it a lot easier to achieve them.
    earlier people dreamt of buying a home, but now its just an emi away, same goes for a car, consumer durables. instant gratificationis the new mantra – from flat screens to flat tummies and from intercourse to interactive TV..
    love, which is arguably the biggest dream factory, is also a very attainable thing – from confessionsof love by sms/ e-cards to marrying the one of your choice (which have moved from taboo stage to norm)….the argument would be “isnt it better that way”… yes it is, but not at the cost of dreams..
    once upon a time, a guy called lennon said “Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” wonder if he would say that now..
    until next time, dream
    (P.S. the title also happens to be one of my     favourite songs 🙂 )

  • Choice of joys

    Please consider this hypothetical question – If God gave you a choice between 30 (no more, no less) years of life with only joys/happiness and 60 years of life of joys and sorrows, which one would you choose?
    that was a serious question, but this

    Should However Invoke Tickles
    Little Johnny was sitting in class doing math problems when his teacher picked him to answer a question, “Johnny, if there were five birds sitting on a fence and you shot one with your gun, how many would be left?”
    “None,” replied Johnny, “cause the rest would fly away.”
    “Well, the answer is four,” said the teacher, “but I like the way you’re thinking.”
    Little Johnny says, “I have a question for you. If there were three women eating ice cream cones in a shop, one was licking her cone, the second was biting her cone and the third was sucking her cone, which one is married?”
    “Well,” said the teacher nervously, “I guess the one sucking the cone.”
    “No,” said Little Johnny, “the one with the wedding ring on her finger, but I like the way you’re thinking.”

    and someone’s humble contribution to the Taj’s birthday –

    Taj Mahal kya cheez hai
    main to usse bhi bada mahal banaoonga,
    aree Mumtaz to marke dafan hui thi,
    main to tujhe zinda hi dafna doonga.

    until next time, bury the thoughts….

  • Theory of Relativity

    Heat. Lightning. More heat. Coconut trees. and between all these a tiny post, a day late….a classic case of blogginess overcoming laziness. (the style was intended to be something like the beginning of a work of fiction, i am practising every week … hehe)
    a lil bit about the title, am in no ways trying to expand on what ol’ albert said or did.. uh uh, i am not even trying to go there… on the contrary, it veers more towards the ‘how we are’ side of ‘philosophy’ than the ‘how we are’ side of science.
    It was sparked off by an article i saw in ‘the week’ about the difference in salaries of profs in the iims and the dudes who pass out of there, it was around 3 times. so, i wondered why the profs were still there – the first answer was an obvious one, they loved what they were doing.
    the other less obvious reason set off a thought process whose results were as follows – if we only look at what we are, what we earn, what we possess etc in an absolute sense , rather than in a relative sense i.e in comparison with what others have, what they earn, what they possess etc we would be more at peace with ourselves and the rest of humanity. there, thats the new theory of relativity. and so we would be able to spend more time doing things that would improve our lives…screeeeeech, just slammed the brakes on that line of thought, we will go there some other day.
    just realised a pun in this – ‘relatives are the source of misery’ 😉
    and now on to
    manuscrypts trivia
    When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers. ~ Oscar Wilde
    “out of my mind, back in 5 minutes” ~ unknown
    ” i do not suffer from insanity, rather i love every minute of it” ~ another unknown

  • If its ok with them…

    it seems the quest for happiness is dogging everyone, (read wonderbug’s post today)…like i wrote a couple of days back, ‘true happiness’ is so dynamic, that we only have just enough time to experience it, so defining it is way way off….Carrying on from yesterday, with most ‘sparks’ from the book i am reading now…..i doubt if our generation can produce a bhagat singh…..who would die for a cause…. just a thought, who knows what his intentions were, maybe he measured his happiness by his martyr status, and made a gamble….but i doubt.. i am still a fan, and believe in the nobility of his intentions…we have produced individuals who would endure for a cause they believe in, the cause is usually money…the college dropout who is the richest guy in the world, the petro giants whose dad started out as a petrol pump attendant in yemen… only stating the rule, not the exceptions…. not taking anything away from their achievements,but the motive..and so it is that most heroes today are industrial giants, and not gandhis and nehrus…again the rule, not the exception….so , society has changed in terms of aspirations and therefore motives…i am not talking of sailors who went in search of treasures, i am talking of commonfolk…where did it all start, hmm, not here, though we had our tatas and birlas, the industrial revolution really happened in europe and america…is that why we always look for endorsements from there…why we compare our quality of life with them, love the coke, mtv lifestyle…dont mistake me, i am not talking swadeshi here, just wondering….prof. amartya sen lauded kerala yesterday for its high life expectancy, low infant mortality rate etc..but with all that, kerala is on a downhill now, the attitude hasnt undergone much change…kerala does have all the indeces of quality of life in a position, where it compares favorably, even with the west…but…..to be continuedmeanwhile, all you guys interested in a kind of lateral thinking, check out this have a great weekend, everyone, not before you check out
    manuscrypts trivia
    “You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.”~ Albert Einstein

  • Is this evolution?

    i read a post in someone’s blog yesterday, i think it was wonderbug (new entrant in bloggers park), old post but good food for thought, the subject was “Has our self-created society and its by-products ruined our personal peace and happiness?”…this is my version of the same argument…. to start with, the concept of society, as we see it, is extremely dynamic….every time we say ‘times have changed’, society is implicitly present….at the same time personal peace and happiness is a subjective issue and itself changes with time….an example materialistically, i was happy with cassettes 5 years back, now i hunt for cds….it makes me happier…in terms of other happiness, 5 years back, i could stare at stars and feel peace, now the scene would also include my wife..hehe…change again….
    i will again choose social interaction as an arbitrary parameter to judge the changes in society, judge is not the appropriate word, coz the judgement is too subjective to be of any use….mobiles, the internet etc has reduced interaction as we used to know it, but it has also brought in chat and blog communities, which transcend geographical barriers, good, you say?, but it also has brought down long chats with siblings, neighbourhood friends etc… isnt that bad?..a balance, but how many of us are able to achieve it, so, is it all that good, or all that bad??joint families are almost extinct, nuclear families are in…extended families are also a minor statistic…i can go to all the entertainment spots with just my wife for company , happy ? yes….but the sense of security and the good feeling arising out of the dependancies and mutual harmony and sometimes lil disharmonies in a joint family is thrown out of the window? a balance again, sorry boss, in this case it is almost impossible….
    yes, it is not possible to get everything in life, but it is also not possible to not think about opportunity costs and ‘what might have beens’…a kid born today will not miss the joy of being cuddled and pampered by grandparents, because he might not experience it at all, the grandparents will not miss pizza coz they have not experienced it at all….i will miss both 🙂 …..but thats not something exclusive to me or my generation…lucky kids?? because they can buy most of the stuff that gives them happiness..or lucky grandparents ?? coz they are happy with the simple pleasures in life…..whos to decide??thats life, the most undefinable, unpredictable, unfathomable thing i have come across……almost done, but not before
    manuscrypts trivia
    got it from one of my egroups…F-aiku: A Japanese PoemI tried my hand at poetry the other day. It’s called “Happiness”. And it goes like this…Free beer,Naked women,Paid vacation,Free beer,Happiness.Some of my poet friends suggested I turn it into haiku. A haiku, basically, is a Japanese poem that contains 17 syllables. Mine had 16. And no matter how hard I tried, I still couldn’t make it a haiku. So now it reads like this…Free beer,Naked women,Paid vacation,Free beer,Happiness.Fuck haiku.:o)- vikramwww.vikramchauhan.com