Whose luggage am I carrying?

What is all this buried within me? Is it really mine? Or does it belong to you? 

No meaning, no being

I've stopped seeing meaning, relevance in anything. Especially texts. Prose, poetry, gyaan...
Anything can be substantiated with logic. Anything can be bolstered with emotions. Then where does this leave a lost soul in a sea of words, ideas and fantasies? Where's meaning? where's life? where is the path and where is the goal? What is the purpose behind doing anything? Why am I here? What should I do? Why should I?

It is usually pretty easy for me to figure out what I don't like, what I dont want to do, what should not happen. But it is immeasurably difficult to arrive at what is good, what should happen, what I should be doing, what should I aim at. That's the justification for laziness. for inaction. But that indecision is also a decision. One that I did not take, but remained by default. Am I OK with it? No. Yet I remain stuck, struggling, trying and thinking all sorts of things. With no head nor tail. No fulcrum, no movement. And the world moves on. Life goes on.

Get rid of spects. Naturally

Yes it's true. It helped me and it can help you.

I recently heard of this place in Pondicherry where you can do a course to get perfect eyesight. At first, i did not believe it. But when I found that a cousin of mine had got rid of her spects thanks to a similar centre in Kolkata, I decided to give it a shot. The methods they teach are astonishingly successful. The success rate seems to be close to 100% for those who diligently pursue it. It is very surprising to see that such a method exists and is hardly advertised/talked about. Although most eye doctors say that there is no non-surgical treatment that can cure nearsightedness, it's their lack of awareness and nothing else.

For those who want to try it out:-

School of Perfect Eyesight, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry - 605001.
Ph: +91 413 337156
email: auroeyesight@yahoo.com
Website ( click )

In Kolkata:-
1st floor, 6, Jadulal Mullick road, (Malapara), Kolkata
Ph: +91 9433560964 ; 9231585284

P.S. -- Although there's no "catch", be warned that it does take effort and diligence to achieve results. Don't expect to pop a pill and reach heaven.

Competition

Is competition desirable? is it inevitable? is it a "natural" law?
Competition as a virtue seems to be one of the central pillars of "free market" economics. Since competition motivates us to do a lot of work, produce a lot of "goods", and consume a lot as well, it's really great according to the economists' definition of happyness. The more you consume, the happier you are. The more medicine you drink, the healthier you are.

But there are some other results of competition as well. It leads to discontent. It makes you jealous. It drives out other feelings like love, compassion, distorts our sense of justice. Overall, it has a lot of undesirable direct and indirect effects on us. Unfortunately, however, these things are not studied by economists. It's almost as if they don't matter at all in the "larger" scheme of things.

The survival of the fittest was a theory for evolution of species. But now it is being applied to the theory of social organisation. It is being used to justify ruthless competition as a virtue. For many, it has become an "obvious fact". Nothing is more deceptive than an obvious fact. And we are obsessed with a million facts. Whatever doesnt fall into the category of "fact" becomes "myth"!! A relevant question to ask is, who decides what is fact and what is myth? From this question stems the tag-line of modern society: "knowledge is power".

cinquain poetry

computer
ambiguous technology
helping, distracting, betraying
they confuse you hajaar
ultra-idiot box

experience and self-realisation vs. 2nd hand gyaan

I've always been in favour of experiential education rather than the theoretical education done in schools which usually has little or no meaning for the students. But when talking to a friend recently I realised that this also applies to life in general and not just from the social construct that we call "education".

I often have the urge to speak out what I feel about something and the opinions I have on various issues. Usually this is because I feel that there are many flaws in the story the we are enacting as a society. But then there has been a process that I have gone through that has helped me form these opinions and I suppose this process is important and not just its end-results.

So I have realised that it is better to let people go through their own learning and experiencing processes and realise their truths themselves rather than trying to convince them to believe in my own world-view.

Cuddalore trip

Last few days have been pretty active. First the cuddalore trip on fri and sat, then the human rights workshop (@ IITM) on sunday, a talk by an ex-collector of cuddalore... happily exhausted i am.

The cuddalore trip expanded my reality sense. I had already known about the terrible pollution over there but its one thing to know and another to actually experience it yourself.
Also got to interact with the people who are living with that pollution everyday, who regularly see their children faint as poisonous gases are released from the industries. Listened to the story of fishermen whose livelihood is being affected due to fish dying because of toxic effluents.

Apart from the deadly poisons, cuddalore is and extremely beautiful place. We got to experience this beauty through a boat ride on the river Uppanaar. It is very sad to see such beauty being destroyed by greed and apathy.

Found and lost

Walking along the paved wide road that I had always been walking on, I had begun to think about where I was really heading to. As I sauntered along absent-mindedly, I came to a small opening in the woods. It beckoned to me.

I dont really know where my destiny lies and I have only a hazy picture of what it looks like. I dont know if it exists at all. It seemed for a while that this narrow path through the woods might lead me there. I asked a few passers-by about it. With a scared look on their faces, they warned me not to go there. For my own safety. No one seemed to be going there. It looked like it had been ages since someone took that path.

I waited at that spot, contemplating, trying to make a decision and failing again and again. I was scared of the dangers that might be lurking there.

And while I was lost in my confusion, the tide of people walking on this road took me along with them. For fear that I'll get left behind to a lonely starvation, I walked on.

As I continue to walk, my pace falling, I keep thinking about that opening. I walk at the edge of the wide paved road... in the hope that I will go into the woods at some point...

Have you ever wondered where you're walking?

Update: I wrote this long time back and dont relate so much with it now. My perception has changed.