How do you validate your existence, and do you really have to?

Everything seems about purpose nowadays. As an essentially lazy person, this irks me just a little because it turns out just doing things is not very cool anymore. Like, just reading a book. Just sitting in the sun. Just doing something for the heck of. Why, they'll say? What were you trying to learn, where were you trying to go, why didn't you post it on Facebook, so all of us could enjoy it too?
Everything must have a course to take and an end to meet. I sometimes feel like social media has entrenched this need for validation so deep in our souls now that there's no going back. We post our whole lives on social media -- it's like we're putting it out there to validate the way we live, our friends, our relationships. Look, see, tell me it's awesome! More 'Like's must mean that what we're doing is right. It must mean that we're leading a good, exciting life. It's a form of seeking adulation that most of us -- including myself -- are guilty of.

Seeking validation anywhere outside the self could be seriously detrimental, I feel. When you look to another for the reason of your existence and a ratifying of the principles by which you live, you know you're in deep. Easier said than done, of course, is finding purpose and satisfaction within yourself, and not needing anyone else to give you thumbs-up signs, virtual or otherwise.

It's hard, as you go on. You want to impress new friends, bosses, colleagues, lovers. You want them to tell you that you're getting it right. Our work culture is mostly based on feedback -- our chain of remuneration is based on how 'good' we are at what we 'do'. I guess that's why we seek evaluation and appraisal systems in our personal lives as well -- Tell me I'm beautiful. Say it again that I'm smart. Explain to me about how awesome my life plan is.

To be honest, the simple life is way beyond us now. We're too bogged down in our connected, social, dependent lifestyles. But still, maybe we can try to at least to stop seeking validation in others' eyes. All those Facebook memes must be right -- being yourself is the best thing.

A visit to a home on a Saturday in May

The ‘home’ seems a little run-down from the outside. When you walk in, pushing aside a big iron gate, the first things you see are a lawn that leaves the impression of uncut grass and a fat soft toy of a panda that I first thought was a dog on a bench in front of the house. I find out later that the house belonged to a once-famous actress, Ruby De Mel, who started this place with 10 children with special needs. Later research tells me that this is her home, and that she had a role in the Indiana Jones movie that was filmed in Sri Lanka.

We walk in and are greeted with familiarity and warmth by a young girl who ushers us in – one of us is a regular donor and from the area. We walk into the verandah to the curious stares of three girls – women – on the left, in various poses on the terra-cotta floor. Two are sitting, one is on all fours. All three stare unblinkingly and somewhat unsurely at us.

Inside, the house is spacious, built with the corridors and middle courtyard so familiar in old Sri Lankan houses. The feeling of being run-down prevails, but in a clean, hygienic and slightly familiar way. It’s how you would see any old house that hasn't seen renovations in a long time but is full of people who love it and keep it habitable.

We are ushered in to the eating area. I get the impression of children, adults, in-betweens of varying types. I try to zoom in on their disorder with my psychology-student insight; doesn't appear to have Down’s, but yes, I was told that this is a home for people with Autism. I try to spot the characteristics we learned about – the love of order, the dislike for maintaining eye contact. I do not find it, or I am too afraid to look properly.

We are asked to serve, and this is nice. It feels like you’re really a part of the giving process. Rice, a big aluminium dish of dhal, potatoes with chili, chicken, fish, and salad. A young girl who is a helper serves out the rice, but we dish out the curries onto plates that are plastic or aluminium and have numbers and faded letters on them, written in permanent black marker.

Once done, the helpers call the girls and women in, and they stream in, not unruly but now uncaring of the company. We hover by the door and a stout lady in a Kandyan sari asks us to come closer. She asks what the ‘occasion’ is. It is an anniversary – five years of ups and downs together. We hedge a little; the absence of marriage makes this kind of joint donation a little tricky by societal standards. We stick to just our names. The woman nods understandingly and begins.

It’s very similar to many I’ve heard before. Ayubowan! We are here today because these wonderful people have donated our lunch for us. So, to thank them, we wish and hope for them happiness and health always. She pauses to mangle my name a little and looks over at us. We look somber, I think, to suit the situation. She goes on. We wish them success in everything they do. The girls and women stand with their hands folded, possibly unaware of what is being said, mostly likely only registering hunger.

For the first time, I am just impaled by the irony of the situation. Here they stand, some 20 women of varying age, with mental disorders that will never allow them a full societal life. They will be happy in this home, they are well taken care of, but they will not know real health, ever. They will never know ‘success’, personal fulfillment, the whirlwind romance of youth, doing work you love, being a woman and enjoying what that means in this day. There they are wishing us happiness because we donated Rs. 2,000 each for their lunch. The bronze highlights in my hair cost me more than twice that amount. And they are wishing us – happy, healthy, fit, in love and with the world and our life together stretching in front of us with endless, frightening, glorious possibilities.

The woman mentions our names again, and I look down, feeling depressed. People often talk of feeling “so depressed” after coming to ’homes’. I often get angry at these people for their superficial charity and their fleeting emotions towards people who have a million more reasons to be ‘so depressed’. But, I am depressed at all of this – at me, at them, and at the world and how life works in general. The woman finishes, and the children and women give a rousing “thank you!” (I think that was it, I don’t remember) and immediately turn to their food, quite happy with life.

The happiness space

"You need to be happy with yourself to be happy with other people", a smart and wonderful person said today. This was amid a relatively philosophical discussion, and it stopped me in my ruminative tracks, as it were. Happy with yourself. I have always been happy with myself, at least, for as long as I remember -- those days, when I was asked if I was content, I would immediately say yes, much to everyone else's surprise. Not many people seemed happy with their lot in Life.

To say that has changed seems to signal a shift in the planes of my existence. Perhaps this discontent signifies that we have started challenging ourselves unnecessarily, creating discontent. Or that we have become older, with more responsibilities and more reasons to realise how much life sucks, and how unfair this whole damn thing is to all but a lucky few.

But mostly I think it's because we rob ourselves of our simplicity -- we pack on other things. We strap on expectations of others, societal norms, "personal improvement", work "goals", career "aspirations", and we lose sight of important things, like our inner peace. And the ability to have a quiet moment.

And worse, we make lacklustre decisions that we are verree likely to regret later. They are not bad or foolish decisions, just awfully boring, seemingly "necessary" ones. These often leave us muddling through to "finish up", even if we just want to say screw it, I'm not doing this crap.

But to give our sad selves some credit, it seems that as we grow older, the world around us, the way our attachments change in their own spheres, the awareness of aging and the terrible bloody banality of have-to-do-no social engagements (peppered with inane questions and ridiculous small-talk) slowly attack our IP. Or perhaps it is our lack of IP that causes us to be that affected by this agglomerated melancholy.

I suppose the bottom line is that we have to build our own happiness. I feel lists might help, and organization. Smiling at yourself and telling yourself that no, you are prettier than them, and that no, you started this, now you'll finish it. It means beating down the negative sentiments that dog us about our incompetence, unacceptability, unloveability, undesirability, etc. And I really think it entails a whole lot of not taking yourself too seriously, and not taking all but a very few very seriously.

 It's a bit of an effort, but if we can achieve (or re-achieve) that happiness with who we are, mad flaws and all, we might find that our reactions to those nasty little curve balls Life seems to throw at us are better, more positive, and definitely simpler. We might find that we no longer walk around with bright smile and a slightly cloudy heart (note the clever weather analogy).

If you still can't find that happinness, though, looks like the helpful folk at freaking wikipedia are willing to lend a happy hand:

http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Happy-Being-Yourself

Move over, all existential philosophers who ever wrote tomes on how to be happy with oneself. Wikhow will put all you fellows to shame.

All the country's a stage...

I went to watch a play today, and found myself thinking. The customary announcement "ladies and gentlemen, please stand for the national anthem." rang out and, like well-trained automatons, we rose. No one sang of course, who does that? The hall was dark, but everybody would hear and know that you care and that you're actually standing because of some sense of patriotism, and not because everyone else is doing it and you don't care enough not to.

As I listened to the well-done instrumental version of Sri Lanka Matha, almost literally twiddling my thumbs, the thought popped into my head that I had recently read some raging rhetoric on how language-biased our Sinhalese national anthem is, given that many Sri Lankans are not Sinhala-speakers. This hadn't really made an impression on me and I had instead felt sort of vaguely offended and pro a multilingual Sri Lanka Matha. 

That day, in the dark, I tried to imagine I was a Sri Lankan Tamil. Born speaking Tamil and surrounded by Sinhala-only renditions of everything ranging from administrative machinery to my own national anthem.

 Then I tried being a Muslim, born speaking that dialect of Tamil that Sri Lankan Moors speak. For a second, I felt vaguely uncomfortable, like something I didn't know existed within me had shifted. Then the moment broke and I thought to myself that if I were the sort of "tolerant Colombo Tamil" I know, I wouldn't have wasted a thought on it, I assumed.

The most startling realisation for me was that I didn't know, and couldn't quite imagine, what  it is like to be the other, Because as gung-ho as we all are about national integration and unity, mainstream Sinhala thought points at everyone "else" to be the "others". That is why, I think, even the thought of a multilingual national anthem seems mildly preposterous to many of us, and is casually shoo-shooed by most "tolerant Colombo Sinhalese".

...and all the men and women merely players.

I also realised that I didn't know why I was standing. I believe it was out of some love I feel for my country that I definitely wouldn't term "patriotism", but instead a sense of home that is unshakably bound with Sri Lanka.

For the rest, I wonder why they stood. I also experienced the passing thought that if I didn't want to stand up for the national anthem, for whatever reason, I should be able to do so. I felt though, that if I did, I would be looked at quite askance by all the tolerant folk filling up that darkened auditorium.

I am cuckoo alone.

These few days...I have been feeling mildly psychotic. Psychotic not in terms of actual psychosis but in the sense that I feel my being is being slowly pulled in two dozen different directions at the same time, each requiring a specific, measured, and urgent amount of energy and success to be achieved. This feels like some noxious by-product of growing up and turning adult, and doing all the things "you're supposed to do."

Through it all, however, I have come to the happy conclusion that not only can you please everybody, including, very much, yourself, you also cannot count on everyone being as understanding about your not meeting expectations as YOU would be, were they in the same circumstances. All that 'be kind because everyone is fighting a harder plan' biz seems to be a bunkum in real life. I suppose it's more difficult to acclimatize to the fact when you generally make an effort to be "the understanding friend."

Also, success has suddenly become an internally-measured factor. Yes, let's just all open up about it -- for the greater part of our lives, success is as how the world sees you --parents, teachers, peers. If they are successful enough in inculcating their well-meaning ideas of how successful you should be, soon you absorb it in to your world view..and voila! Le stress!

Sometimes I wonder how some people balance. Especially those super mom types with irritating husbands and crying children and nagging in-laws and let's-meet-up-for-high-tea-at-Galle-Face-Hotel lady friends. I suppose they have learned the lesson of how to achieve enough inner peace and calm to manage life and all its madness. To think I used to laugh at folk who used that cliched phrase, "24 hours in not enough." Now I don't know if I wish there were more than 24 hours or if I'm glad because the requisite hours of rest allow everyone to shut their traps, including my inner psycho goddess. Who I'm sure is gorgeous and well-educated, but can turn in to a raving lunatic in constant PMS mood sometimes.

"My friend, thou art good and cautious and wise; nay, thou art perfect, and I, too, speak with with thee wisely and cautiously. And yet I am mad. But I mask my madness. I would be mad alone."

The Madman, Khalil Gibran.

Ispot on, old chap.

Setback, or sign?

Pop culture - and Fabebook bumper stickers - tell us that setbacks are to be ignored. That these are stepping stones to those elusive "dreams" we're to follow to comlpete our lives. On the other hand, you have The Sign Theory, which states, quite emphatically, that "maybe he left you for a reason...," and "...failure is the lord's way of giving you another chance...," penning setbacks as a cosmic signal for the need to change something. This is confusing, I feel.
These people need to choose and make a damned informed decision.
Because surely, the way you view a roadblock, or a failure, or an FML moment, can change your consequent steps and the way you continue to deal with it.
I personally feel pressured by pop psychology. It has defined me, like most of my peers have been defined by it. We are the generation of beginning-to-love-your-curves and share-your-patriotism-on-Facebook.
But pop psychology is referred to as that for a very good, very literal reason - it's popular and that's about all. Nothing and no one ratifies it or controls it and it grows like a sprawling, colourful, mauling monster of silly ideas culled from average fiction and teenage movies.

It does not give good advice, I feel. 

Thoughts on thoughtfulness

It feels like thoughtfulness has become such a rarity that when it does pop up in real life, it's looked askance at, and even vilified. Most people cannot IMAGINE that a thoughtful word or gesture can be possible without a lurking, evil ulterior motive. This is a likely a reflection of society (thu. I spit on you) perceives the concepts of give and take. You can't possibly give something without wanting something, or someone, in return.
Social analysis  aside, I've come across very  very few thoughtful people. There are kinds people, nice people, people who are fun to be around, etc., but very few genuinely thoughtful folk. Having spent the major part of my life surrounded by family friends who were great in every way, all that is good, and kind and supportive, but no necessarily thoughtful  I was surprised when I went to college. I met K, the kind of person who bakes for elders' homes and brings you flowers on a random days, just because. It was lovely. And it inspired me, not a particularly thoughtful person, to try and be a bit more thoughtful toward people.
But I realised that it's the sort of trait that is best seen in people in whom it is inborn. Else, your gestures feel stupid, look a little stilted and are soon discontinued.

But, by the by in life, I have the luck to come across such people in unexpected places. It never fails to surprise me, or to make me smile. It always make me realise, also, that sweetness, and its appreciation, is an essential for a content life.

The master craftsman

Everybody has an alter-ego they present to the world. It speaks in a certain way to certain people, it addresses the poor in a certain way and the rich and influential in another. It has certain opinions on religion and world politics and what this world is coming to. And it always has a certain way of sounding --intelligent, or resigned, or world-weary, or cute.

We all have a set of labels we keep in our pockets, ready to slip in to our fingers at the correct given situation, ready to be quickly slapped on to our foreheads. These labels define us as we would be defined. Appropriate to situation and person, the label comes off and on.

We decide what best to wear to suit the most ubiquitous label or if to change attire and play around with several labels, play chameleon. We can;t quite decide who takes our breath away, but we decide which ones we keep, which ones show the most promise and which ones show the highest likelihood of our greatest future happiness.

We each have a justification for why we are, what we do, how we dress, what we talk about. This explanation is detailed for some, simple and easy to understand for others...but always ready at hand in case someone bothers to ask

.

We are hardly ever ourselves. We are a careful alter-ego of our reality, masterfully crafted to only show what we need the world to see.

Reconciling

Sometimes finding the line is difficult, because the line between "right" and "wrong" is almost fictional, and is always completely subjective. When making decisions, I find myself toeing the line with unease, a part of me firmly grounded in the strong moralistic teachings that have were faithfully ground in to my by our trusty missionary service, a part of me aching to break free of all this virtuous crap and be the free-thinker that my education and life experience have taught me to be.

Perhaps it is this dichotomy that holds the seed for most of the inter-generational conflict we see today, not counting the internal conflicts that go unmentioned. There's such a tug-of war between the indoctrinated beliefs that we were weaned on and the iconoclastic culture that the Age of Internet has brought us. Where is the line, then? How do we reconcile ourselves?

Perhaps it's east to ignore the struggle--I know plenty of young, educated minds that firmly abhor all things outside belief. "prudes" we call them, why can't they live a little? Maybe this is just their way of dealing with the conflict within themselves, surely it's easier than questioning yourself constantly, God knows. 

Then there's the other lot--the smokers and jokers. The ones the aunties talk about, the ones you whisper about, while secretly wishing you had half the guts to do something that wild. Again, a great way of dealing with, beginning and ending with that beautiful sentiment: fuck this, fuck this all.

But for the rest of us, constantly questioning Life, belief and reconciliation of the self with the two, it's a long and arduous journey towards gaining some peace of mind. Fuck this, I say, fuck this all :)

The weak roar

Sitting around feeling rather blue today. The only thing that makes things even remotely bearable is knowing that there are close to thousands of people in the country feeling exactly the same today.

Sri Lanka-West Indies, Final, ICC T20 World Cup 2012. Home grounds baby, as it should be, crazy atmosphere. A sea of lion flags wherever you look, The kind of easy camaraderie among strangers that you don't find easily in our country. Was so at the match last night, when we lost.

 Whooooosh. You could almost hear the slow descent of hopes and could clearly the see the flags stop waving, the people stop cheering, the crazy guy with "SL" and "T20" painted on his mohakwed head stop dancing,

People will laugh of course. Silly little islanders, going on about their cricket. Look at them, 30 year civil war behind them, no GDP worth talking about, Stock Exchange handled by goons, rampant Law of the Jungle by administered by the ruling class, no one of note  in the vast minefield of world politics. Look at them, crying over something as trivial as a cricket match for God's sake. It's pathetic, they say, it's only a game.

Thing is,when you have so little, when there's nothing really that you can be proud about, cricket has always come to our rescue. People have no food in some parts of our country. Children are raped, with impunity. Law and order have no place. Wealth is monopolised by the same gaggle of people who could afford to watch the match on their ENORMOUS damn LCD screens yesterday, or pay 20K for a bleachers ticket.

In the same vein, the rational part of one says that surely this is NOT a big deal, because real problems we have aplenty and we can't seem to get past the cricket stuck on our nose to get some perspective. But a win would have been it. It wouldn't have made things OK, or brought about justice, or equality or anything morally good. But it would have given people something positive. It would have made the famous (infamous? notorious?) Sri Lankan Smile glow across every feature-from the hard line businessman to the vegetable vendor and the destitute watching it at a public large screen.

So, yes. The country stands glum. People are back at work, "long faces" as we call them here. The little island will get over it, the blame game has already started, everyone would have played it differently, given the chance.

 But there is a reason collective sports and recreation exist, and even the concept's most vitriolic skeptics  will agree that a win would have lifted the collective spirit of a depressed nation. 

The Gurgle Syndrome

Social ineptitude is arguably a sort of wide-spread disease. You see it in a wide range of individuals in the geek-nerd-sheltered spectrum. I see  it in a whole lot of people I know, but have never actually been affected by their ineptitude because of my strong Social Butterfly characteristics.
However, what is worth further research is the effect an uncompromisingly awkward situation of a personal nature can have on a usually highly socially "ept" ahem individual.
Like how a Social Butterfly (SB) can be rendered a blundering, silent, boring, morose wall ornament in a singular situation. True story. Said SB could frantically construct amusing little comebacks, little anecdotes, small jokes, intelligent word sparring in the HEAD, debate it again MENTALLY and finally produce from the vocal chords a sort of...gurgle. Or even like a moronic statement that manages to be moronic, offensive and completely non diverting all at one go. It could be seen as a rare feat of sheer awkwardness.
Obviously, the extraneous factors should be taken in to account here-such as the reactions of the other individuals in group, the willingness of the said individuals to interact with SB, the location of the interaction etc.-however, it can be safely hypothesized that at least a good 80% of the resultant stunted  communication is purely the fault of the unadulterated ill mental health of the said Social Butterfly, SB.

Obviously more research is required in this regard. I'm just hypothesizing here. I could be wrong.