The little voice

It's always whispering,
Muttering curses, little bits of
Self-flagellation.
It's soft, and often hides
Around company, shy,
Doesn't like to be shown-off much.

It's a nag, though! Constant,
Creeping,
Inspired, with an Imagination
That is vivid, artistic
Almost!

I shut it up, swat at it,
Tell it to eff off,
And it retreats, for a bit,
When the sun shines and the grey cells
Stay busy.

But back in the quietude,
Its favourite hunting-ground,
It springs,
Vicious, like a marauding
Predator, on my dreams.

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.

Just a thought.

The world will be strewn with people you could not save.

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.

Bits and bobs

You know those times when you realise that you were wrong about fundamental things? It's a strange sensation. I think the mind takes time to adjust to it. Instead of acclimatizing and evolving ways by which it can deal with the situation, the brain goes in to overdrive. I don't know if it's always the case, but mine starts sprouting bits and bob of popular culture and oft-heard adages. 

"The best laid plans of mice and men..."..."I tried my best, but I guess my best wasn't good enough.."... "What doesn't kill you makes you stoooongerrr...", etc. 

It's like a constant cacophony inside your head, with things you always knew coming back to haunt you and tell you that you've gone and put your foot in it this time. The corny song verses are the worst, yurgh. They even come with the accompanying bars of music. After a point, you realise you need to tune out, or slowly go mad. 

Here’s to them

Of the long talks and the longer walks,

The gut-busting laughs and nasty on-dits,

The jokes that only they understood.

Here’s to love, the sort that surely must

Have engendered envy; the sort that

Sometimes is surprising is even allowed.

Here’s to happiness, sorrow, anger, lust;

Extremes, always, hardly tempered,

Hardly neutral.

Here’s to what was – here’s to what seemed

Eternal.

Here’s to the good times, the bad times, even the worst of times,

But always times,

Always tangible, like live wires, like electricity;

Never dull, never placid

Or painstakingly normal.

Things that make you question.

You can be in the middle of the most mundane, routine, regular day when an existential crisis hits you. Often, it's the strange, small things that make you question the validity of the life you live, or the work you do, the routine you have chosen to control you. This is all despite having made a conscious decision to adhere to that routine and disregard all the rhetoric on how you should give up your city job and chase your dreams all the way to Tuscany, on the back of a handsome, leather-jacket-clad stranger's bike :)

Small things, indeed, like a routine survey that questions if you feel content in the workplace and if it aligns with your long-term plans for life. Or like an in-the-middle-of-the-rush moment when you find yourself staring out of the windows of the city's tallest buildings, looking down at Colombo's twinkling lights and wondering how you ended up becoming something you had one day vowed you would never become.

Maybe "crisis" is too strong a word -- I think I'll stick to "wonderings," although, of course, that is not a word, per se :)