Verbal Imageries

Forlornness

2012-02-11T03:50:00.000-08:00

Fears apprehending man arise out of the ethics of belongingness. They do not, as many think, arise out of a peculiar weakness subject to an outcome of singular deficiencies like weak mind or body or image. The concept of responsibility is muddled in the myth of just actions usually only system-born. As a collective human being you bear the responsibility of the group to which you have chosen to be a part of. As an individual you take on the universe in all its cosmic vastness because of the separate feeling which is quite like waking up. The real notion that crowds your mind is not whether your group is correct or not in its projections of life or world but that you would like to be a part of it so that separateness is shared. What results from separateness is the feeling of forlornness. If you go to a theatre and react the way others react you do not exist as a forlorn being because as long as you are ‘with the crowd’ you think separateness is shared. But in this shared separateness forlornness does not vanish. You have merely chosen to be inauthentic in your response! When you are by yourself and face your self- deceptions then you realise that forlornness was always there. It is your very nature.

Realizing that you are responsible for your actions may be one of the causes of forlornness. The other is realizing that you are alone. If you are devoid of excuses that you would like to give for your actions, you realize your true nature. There is a problem here. If man is in an island and forced to submissiveness he has only two choices which are either to take the brunt or give in. If he chooses to give in then he has not exercised a conscious choice. The law of self-preservation dictates that the ‘self’ does what is necessary to preserve itself. Then submissiveness is not a choice but a responsibility of ‘the other’. If man is willing to take the brunt, the responsibility is not on him in that his choices were diminished by brute force. His responsibility is on him to the extent that he has defied his law of self-preservation. In other words these are all different occurrences that cannot be accounted for by one individual alone. In so far as man is victimised by this predicament without his bodily acceptance he cannot be held responsible for himself as the situation is outside the purview of what the body can achieve. If however he agrees with the concept of tyranny that he was subject to and defends his group just for the sake of belongingness he is trying to share his separateness but in reality he is only multiplying it because in the end he is going to be alone to face himself for his deceptions.

There is a difference between separateness, forlornness and aloneness. Separateness is the fact of being separate; forlornness the emotional state of being separate and aloneness the resolve to be separate. ‘Going with the crowd’ does not solve the problem of forlornness. Playing to the gallery does not either. Carving out the inner resolve which is absolutely independent of the group is what will get you in touch with being alone. If you do not like to be alone and choose to be alone it is not a contradiction as there is a phenomenon outside the purview of your body and mind that prevents you from being a part of the group. Although this is a choice it is not black and white anymore. Your mind and body have parted ways and there is conflict. Forlornness is then separated. Then forlornness is ubiquitous. It has touched what it desires not to adorn. The inner, being separated from the exterior, resolves to face the meaninglessness of life and the limited capacity of the cosmic force to protect any living being from the calamities that befall man.

On ‘the Search for Happiness’

2012-02-03T05:58:00.000-08:00

One emotion that unfortunately does not have a clear meaning is happiness. Although it is considered a desirable state to be in no one is able to explain without ambiguity what happiness really is. Some say it is a state of mind; others say that it is a euphemism in some sense for the word ‘pleasure’ which is normally a word used in the context of human or animal instincts and there are those who say that happiness in the ideal sense is an illusion. But whatever be the specific meanings that people ascribe to it, it remains a word of the heavens. By ‘word of the heavens’ I mean something that does not have an earthly place as it is not a plain emotion. Yet people are searching for it hoping that they will find it sooner or later. In the struggles of their situations some may give up the hope of finding happiness and be content with their predicament. This is a rather unusual state to be in because on one hand they have not found the state of mind that they are looking for and on the other they give up the search accepting what little they have and they find it! But there is a pathetic fallacy associated with the search for happiness and it is that one usually does not know to what extent happiness is possible and how to preserve it till the end; yet one wants it quite desperately.

From time to time it has been observed that we go through happy moments now and then. If they are outcomes of the dreadful word ‘success’ then you can be quite sure that it is subject to insecurity. Preservation of a success induced joyful state is by no means happiness. Happiness is a joyful state which is experienced for its own sake or when you are involved in an activity that you like without any intentions of benefiting from it in the future. Happiness from this angle never exists in the future. Attempts to discover happiness only leads to creating techniques that will have to be applied to be able to find it. But application is a process which has nothing to do with the end result, which in this case is happiness. There have been people who write about happiness; psychologists who research on the subject and find only their own perspectives of it. Whatever be the attempts to find the heavenly state and preserve it till kingdom come, you should be spared the vanity of associating it with success or priggish talks. It must be noted that one who experiences anxiety does not want to be unhappy but is desperately trying to find this heavenly state of mind. One who is anxious is not just tired but is terrified at the thought of consequences of not finishing the line or entering mainstream. He is anxious and not unhappy.

The only person who really is unhappy is one who is able to see that nothing in life can ever bring him happiness. If nothing can bring me happiness even from within then I would not want to keep searching for it as it is a waste of intrapersonal effort. If I am unhappy then I may consider not looking for happiness at all and this unhappy mind does away with itself. It has let go of my unreasonable search of that which I cannot describe. If I cannot describe it and have no idea of what it is then it does not exist in my being. If someone else finds it in common pursuits then I can be quite sure that that is not my concept of happiness because I cannot find it. Happiness is simply a myth.

The Fear of Disappointment

2012-02-02T02:48:00.000-08:00

Caught in a vicious cycle of hope and despair man tries to make sense out of his life. Assuming that hope is desirable without which he cannot move on is a preconceived notion that the optimist would hardly abandon. Both optimism and pessimism are only states of mind; yet one is eulogized while the other is condemned. There seems to be a lack of clarity as to why one would pursue optimism and reject pessimism. One tends to think that optimism is desirable because it generates positive energy while pessimism spreads the veil of negative thinking. One is caught in the prison of apathy whereby the external world cannot be transformed and so if at all there is any transformation possible it has to be a transformation of oneself. This notion of a ‘being within’ is subject to the most cunning deceptions. The genuine response gives rise to a being that questions the meaningless life in a hostile universe. Then man is divided into two beings where one is secure in the thought that one can still be happy when the world around is hostile and the other is a being of natural response to the ennui called life. Between the two beings a tug of war is inevitable but one who has brought about this situation is sidelined. The individual concerned is responsible for this alone. The individual is not responsible for the entire humanity because in one being there is a restricted response. Another human being brings only another set of responses. Although both have in them a self-paced time and matter relationship, in themselves they are just two drops in the cosmic ocean. – Nothing has changed and the vicious cycle continues.

Optimism as a natural response is one matter but optimism adopted dogmatically is absurd. Optimism can lead to what one may call self-deception which is the consequence of the tug of war between two beings within the same individual. It also arises out of another phenomena which is called the hope and despair cycle. When there is a positive outcome in life that thrills man, he is motivated to hope for more such outcomes in the future. This is a hope that is a natural response to his situation. But even this although natural, fuels the cycle of hope and despair. He is insecure as to how long this illusion of excitement will last. As a result there is a fear of losing hope and this is enough to anticipate despair and disappointment. The mind with its set of ideas about success, friendship, loss and optimism is the seed of disappointment. There are some consequences of this conclusion and that threatens the regular man in whom being is ‘non-existent’.

Coming to the subject of a negative outcome in life that saddens man, he is demotivated to hope at all and falls into the veil of despair. This is again despair as a natural response to a disappointing situation. With this despair persisting there is an attempt to immortalize it which is nothing but the union of two beings within the same individual. The individual who does not pursue this state of mind has no choice but to adopt self-deception and optimism dogmatically. This is of course not a genuine response. In the case of despair as a natural outcome, the individual is dragged into the vicious cycle of hope and despair because of the desire to unite the two beings within him in order to avoid self-deception. This aversion to self-deception is what leads to accepting the vicious cycle but the real exit from the cycle is not self-deception but abandonment. Man has evolved psychologically into a being that may face disappointment but is still frightened as hell at the thought of disappointment.

Haiku

2011-12-25T05:31:00.000-08:00

Charcoals outdated,

In place a huge microwave;

Warmth remains constant.

Haiku

2011-12-25T05:25:00.000-08:00

Stillness like a death,

Tries to overtake wisdom;

Underneath your breath.

A Scream through the Tunnel

2011-12-24T20:30:00.000-08:00

Plastic toys have very little value to adults. Just because they adorn the showcase does not mean that a human being values them. A child tends to play with toys and live a situation for them making them experience an event. Or that is how they create this situation for themselves. Just imagine what it would be like for a human being to be played as a toy. The difference of course is that a human being experiences the game as real and not ‘as though’ it is real. A human being is a bundle of contradictions but it is probably this contradiction that is most daunting and gives the essence of an experience. Without this contradiction there would be no experience. Take the case of someone who with great difficulty buys a Japanese dish and brings it home. But just when he tries to open it he drops it and becomes angst at the outcome of the care and effort that he took to buy it. Here the contradiction is that although he took great care he lost his favourite dish. This is experience. Someone who gives a lecture on life usually does not know what he is talking about. This boy who bought the dish could well look upon himself as a toy played by a heartless spirit.

If a mindset is a choice, then who gave him this choice? -No one. What we call experience gives us the illusion that either the universe is perfect or the universe is imperfect. The person who decides to pursue one of the two courses as his mindset is usually taking himself as a toy played by a heartless spirit. If life goes well for him then he thinks that the so called spirit is compassionate and if it does not go all that well he feels victimised whether or not he calls the spirit heartless. The person however, who gives a lecture on how to live life is removed from this zone and is rarely in touch with it. This is a secure zone trying to persuade the victim to adopt a mindset that the spirit is compassionate. This is just one of the two binary illusions.

Take another instance when a boy is going with his friends to an amusement park and on the way they have to cross a track. While crossing the boy suddenly decides not to cross the track because he had heard of someone who got killed while crossing the track as the signal did not work. He is justified in not trusting signals and he is justified in not trusting his destiny. If we leave ourselves to chance then we are toys and if we do not leave ourselves to chance we are also toys because we are still victims. What one calls life is the result of two opposing forces trying to outdo each other and as they cannot do away with each other they give rise to the product of plastic toys that we are.

Haiku

2011-12-13T03:41:00.000-08:00

It’s a broken vase

That sets flowers free

The price of freedom.

That’s how the River flows

2011-12-13T03:38:00.000-08:00

A day of return I felt stung

Losing one by one my sensations,

The silence of vision and music

Losing one by one my movements

Of my body and mind like a cliff;

I could not grasp with force

The range of all my emotions

I had lost in a split second.

The next minute was never born,

Then in a cold suddenly I could see

That my being held by void

Got a new life like the lexis

Filling my mind with words

Till I could discriminate once more

For that’s how the river flows.

Pedantic Snippet

2011-11-27T05:15:00.000-08:00

A pragmatist will not believe there are flowers unless they make him flower.

Haiku

2011-11-26T22:56:00.000-08:00

When insight is born
Designs of the world collapse
- To create puzzles!

The Rubaiyat

2011-11-24T22:53:00.000-08:00

Alas! Teapot cracks and the tea is free
I'm not from the habit of drinking tea
Caffeine ties the knot of my happiness
By giving me its keys to sanctity.

Gentlemen by the Pillars

2011-11-24T22:41:00.000-08:00

Have you imagined what it would be like
To cross a river without a bridge?
All you have is a pair of legs and will
You can walk on the thread of thin air
If you choose to have nothing to lose
Then you will find the air comforting you
You will have the birds welcoming you
A breath of fresh air is what you will get
It might seem a trifle maddening
But that is not the end of the river;
Madness is just a means to the finish
If you are clear about your goals
You will not choose to fly;
If you are unclear where to start
You have a glimmer of hope.
Trust me, you do not know these gentlemen
They are by the pillars across the thread
Mimicking the dangers of wonderland
You will not lose sight of them
Just because you choose to be wise.

Limerick

2011-11-24T01:50:00.000-08:00

If you get the fruits of fallen trees
You may need to call a Mr.breeze
Seek an appointment
Meet disappointment
The Cold isn't easiest to please.

Pedantic Snippet

2011-11-24T01:46:00.000-08:00

Roads are many but destinations are few - without planning.

The Pathological Controversy of Super Sanity

2011-11-23T21:16:00.000-08:00

It has been a challenge to define sanity. The reasons arise out of the impulse to be guided by a range of what the prevailing era considers normal. While the range is broad it may still not be broad enough. The question then arises as to how much is broad enough. This question is answered conveniently on many occasions. The convenience in contention is largely determined by certain accepted norms so that the definition of sanity becomes somewhat truncated. At this point a circle is drawn which acts almost like a forcefield preventing strong deviations from accepted patterns of behavior from entering the designation of acceptance and hence they are not considered sane.

Although sanity is a drawn range, it seems to grow depending on a notion of collective- acceptance. When one talks about sanity one cannot help delving into the realm of perspectivism. This means that we may have different perspectives and act according to those perspectives but they are accepted as long as they do not cross the circle of normalcy or the broad range of sanity. It would then imply that what was not normal at one point may become normal if the circle expands and the range broadens. While this is convenient and makes life simple for the ones who fit into the circle it can be limiting as collective acceptance is still subject to evolution. You cannot determine with convenience clearly if the range has fully evolved.

One then embarks on the possibility of super sanity which is a layer where there are only visual fields and no sensational impacts on the person who is super-sane. One often discovers that there is no more anything to be cured and one is dropped in the well of motivational despair. When this happens one becomes a subject of what is called the pathological controversy of super-sanity. It becomes impossible to 'cure' or 'correct' any thought-process that is considered incorrect by virtue of the fact that it is only 'considered' abnormal but not abnormal for certain, in the absolute sene. You may start coining jargons, labels and phrases that may have a medical significance but not necessarily absolute significance. If this is the case then the whole circle is blown outside its field of relevance absorbing even the labeller into the well of motivational despair. Just imagine when there are only visual fields or perspectives that have no absolute relevance, what would happen to your inbuilt schema of what you consider as normal? Then the therapist is cured by his client on account of his condition or state of super sanity.

Zen

2011-11-22T21:08:00.000-08:00

Sharp as a sword
A child can point out flaws
In rusty reason.

Zen

2011-11-22T21:04:00.000-08:00

Old tree in the morn
Longs to feel night of moon
But dies before noon.

An Empty Vessel that Never makes Noise

2011-11-22T20:58:00.000-08:00

You are too empty for me to see
Oh skies clear-off your clouds of confusion
Clear is too pristine to understand
You have to be with me before you last
Some creations give you company
But only for a while till they rest
Then all comes down the clouds go up
Begins the fever of separation
Nothing can eclipse you dear skies
You give space for beings of flight
'Now' is the time for you to find your space.

Endangered Chimney - A Smoke in the Sea

2011-11-18T21:21:00.000-08:00

Smoking alone in the haze
Laughing to himself
Climbing the ladder of ozone
He falls down with no regrets.

Choking from feverish pleasures
Singing with a broken voice
Giving himself due audience
He has no need of mirrors.

Realizing trips are healthy dreams
Forgetting importance men enjoy
Death is too old for him to fear;
He falls into indifference.

Without him I become
-A smoke in the sea.

Zen

2011-11-17T02:30:00.000-08:00

Hills of the tide
Crumble before my eyesight
-Losing vision.

Haiku

2011-11-17T02:23:00.000-08:00

Commands the empty lamp
The light to fires sublime
Through threads of darkness.

Poetic Victory in Longfellow’s A Psalm of Life

2011-11-15T20:40:00.000-08:00

There are numerous ways by which a poet translates his feelings of spontaneity to mirror the cocktail of life’s diversity. This he does by virtue of his private experiences. What he feels of life from the depth of his being he carves with the instrument of thought. Most people find it quite hard to bring out the creative impulse in them. Those who manage to do so, express the creative instinct in different forms. Poetry is one such form. This dimension of human thought excites critics as they work their way towards analyzing poems.

‘A Psalm of Life’ describes the spirit of the title in relation to its semantic meaning. Psalm literally means a sacred hymn and this title of the poem might have been chosen to convey the poet’s feeling of that which he considers the sacred hymn of life. The poem expresses completely the need to develop a frame of mind which is needed to live a life! The emphasis is on attitude.

The poem follows a steady rhyme scheme. It is closer to a song than to a complicated play of words. This quality precisely gives it the label of a lyric.

The poet begins by saying that life is as good as an empty dream if it is spent in sleep without action. Reality he says is deceptive in appearance. While imagination is wonderful it does not always find the desired compatibility with reality. Reality as explained earlier mystifies us in this manner.

Life according to him is real only when it is lived. Mere existence is not the key. He expresses with clarity the point of death not being the goal of life.

“And the grave is not its goal”.

He strongly opines that the soul or the real life does in no way appreciate the so called fact that man is dust and to dust he will return. He highlights the famous principle about action being the insignia of life. Our destiny and way of life are not purely for enjoyment or sorrow but action. He claims that only action will take us to a more firmly constructed tomorrow than today. It is only action that will enrich our experiences for a better life.

Art to him has a long life. He compares art with time which fleets like the wind. Our hearts beat and life goes on till we meet our grave. Art and time are beyond life and existence. By themselves they are not tangible but only in forms. We, on the other hand, with our bodies and hearts have a shorter life than both art and time. We need to make use of the shorter life that we have in order to grasp the importance and significance of both time and art.

In the battle of life, the poet wants man to be a hero in the struggle for a good life. He has not been predisposed to being one among the many. It no doubt is easy to follow. Man’s apprehensions are enough to make him a follower. It takes a lot more to be a leader. This is what the poet conveys.

“be a hero in the strife!”

The poet does not desire a form of life in which man only thinks of the future. There is absolutely no point in just hoping and dreaming away. He wants man not to dream or think of the future no matter how pleasant .The line ‘Trust no future, howe’er pleasant!’ could also mean that even if a pleasant future is predicted one should not trust it. The past to him is a wasteland that is gone or dead. Nobody can get back his/her past. Therefore only the present matters as only the present exists. We can live in the present only by acting in the present. With the heart of love, action by efforts and God above, he feels that acting in the living present will be re-enforced.

Just like how great men have made life thrilling and worth living we can do the same. In the process when we exit from the world, we leave with the satisfaction that we have contributed to it in some form or the other thereby living in memories of time.

A dejected and lonely man in his journey of life will take heart from the lives of great men that have gone by. He will receive renewed energy and hope and will act on the foundation of attitude laid down by us.

The poet wishes that we give up our obsessions with fate. He wants us to work and act with perseverance, tenacity and motivation constantly in pursuit of achievement.

Along with efforts, patience is also needed to keep our efforts going without failing in our duties.

This poem quite obviously advocates a type of philosophy not new to most people. It is extremely difficult to be true to this kind of philosophy for the pressures exerted on us by external and internal circumstances. Philosophies are also conveyed through poetry in the hope that in some way, words of wisdom sink into the sub-conscious mind. A poem with a positive message like the one by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is expected to transmit positive signals to the reader. Many, on the other hand, read it for its explicit quality of style, elegance and its easy flow. This shows the various ways by which poetry can be far-reaching. It isn’t just an object of cross-examination. The meter, rhythm and eloquence give it a natural advantage over other arts to spread the message to be conveyed with artistic clarity.

Duty and detachment, action and perseverance are words of wisdom which may tire the reader with a kind of theoretical sublimity difficult in actual life. ‘A Psalm of Life’

is definitely a Psalm of life as it has all the attributes necessary to make it one.

This poem can to a large extent make a huge difference to one’s life provided it is read clearly and taught inspiringly. Albeit a poem is a poem and it is too much to expect it to change an individual radically. While it is only a possibility it cannot guarantee certainty of radical transformation. Change is probably a gradual phenomenon. In general, it has been observed that poems or epigrams display an alarming disparity between thought and action. Taking into account all these considerations, it is most essential for a poem to be admired for its poetic beauty rather then weighing it in terms of practical value.

If a poem can change an individual’s life it has served to its credit a philosophical purpose. If it cannot make any impression of this kind it still remains a poem.

Poetry wins either way.

By Ajay Seshadri

Leverage

2011-11-15T20:37:00.000-08:00

Beauty died the day it was sold
Money is everywhere behold
The heart has turned truly cold
Exhausted is human soul.

A Hypnagogic Hallucination

2011-11-15T03:58:00.000-08:00

I tried sleeping with the lights on

Managing to doze off in my couch

Undisturbed by the sounds outside

Who would know when I am aroused?

When I surpass and transcend

All conscious states in line

No noise in my head

I’m one with my sign

What is this sign that I talk of?

In union with a serpentine spirit

Am I sleeping into another world?

In a world of forestry

Everything I see is green

So is my life within

What I’ve been seeking all along

Is a deep silence within

That when I have found

for no more than a second

escapes my mind like a penance

I’m no longer exactly asleep

Only in this vacant spot

The soul can begin to rise

When in leisure my mind

Is still and observant

Of what goes on within

I am made vigilant

For I notice someone waiving

To me quasi mysteriously

Is he alive or am I awake?

Am I to believe what I see?

I wake up and shudder

To real eyes where my dreams

Were seen as bigotry

A fault in consciousness

Where ‘real’ life could be a dream.

A Fond Deluge

2011-11-14T02:49:00.000-08:00

An elephant can never utter a word

When it is on the wheels upon a table

The difference is the same as it would be

If the elephant were to be alone in a jungle.

The wild hacker isn’t a mob as the crows say so

You would see no such attack in apathy;

The wild hacker is the one who writes a fable

And makes you believe it through empathy.

You may try to force the elephant out

But I warn you no speech works without sense;

The elephant will not budge if you will

The electrical activity is at your expense.

You may try to master force and friction,

There’s an angel holding on to a mammal;

No one escapes hurt through smiles

Unless you wish to be the tamed animal.