You and Yourself

A song by one of my favourite-st bands on the beauties of solitude and the plus points of, sometimes, not really needing other people or their company. Listen to The Weepies if you haven't :)

People

Contrary to popular belief, there are a few people I don't like! I go through life trying to keep and open mind, but there are a few, treasured human beings who REALLY challenge my attempts to give them a fair chance in life.

However, considering them, I feel bad. Pity may be an overly magnanimous emotion but, you have to feel something for people who don't have people. Because they are out there. They don't have friends, because they can't. Because they can't open up to difference, because they can't embrace the fact that people can be strange, but still good. Because they lack that essential ability to love someone other than yourself.

How much they miss out on.

Because they achieve; great things, even. They "succeed" in life, out-classing, out-running, striving for "perfection" (which to me will always be bloody elusive as hell), improving always, seeking the perfect degree, the perfect job. But they never...bond. Or they bond, with "the agenda", that all-purpose manifesto of requirements that an individual must have to qualify to be part of the circle. '

I have been thinking, on the brink as I am of a Big Step, about people, friends and achievement, the dreaded "What do I do with life?"-type internal monologues.
 Come to a few hazy conclusions, I have; primary among which is that being happy is very, very important. Being positive towards people is important. Not holding grudges helps a lot in life. Looking for the best in people aids in reducing manic anger-related episodes. Hatred should be, well, dropped. And you should do the best for yourself, remembering always that there are people around you for a reason, to live with, to help, to share a joke or a drink or a joint or a kiss or a hug or a smile. It's not about being a peachy, peace-loving hippie, it's about being able to talk to that hippie and be a friend to him.

Because in the end, success is necessary, money is essential and Life is serious, but if you can't find love and friendship among the 7 billion people who share your life-space, you really must question yourself about whether you have lived at 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. 

Ask me no questions

And I'll try really hard not to tell you any lies.

I wonder why people think they have the absolute right to know everything about you. Today, I was struck by just how many things people ask you at first meeting, expecting you be willing to divulge without discrimination. This bit of world wisdom struck me today as I met someone new, and in the spirit of cordiality, asked her where she last worked. This unleashed a barrage of questions: How long have I worked, when am I leaving, where am I going, is this my first job, what was my first, blah, blah blah, blah, blah. As I brilliantly diverted her, my mind wandered.

Is it because, now, in the age of "sharing" everything, keeping info to yourself makes you an "introvert", even "a little shy, weird you know", "closed up"? We seem to be expected to tell all-who we  work with, what we do EXACTLY please, how much we make, what we want to do in life, where we WANT TO BE, who we're with, for how long, what the sex is like.We're even expected to rationalize our life choices and beliefs, explain why we go to our churches, give money to beggars, wear our hair this way, decide to not study, not marry, not have a happy brood of kids by the tender age of 22.

Someone called me "closed up" recently. A good friend too, at that. Well, hell, if I don't want to divulge it, you can't do a good damn thing about it :)

But tell me, really, where do you SEE yourself in 10 years? ;)

I love those moments...

When you want to bang your head repetitively against a hard wall. Really.

Or, as a happy alternative, lay your neck gently against the cold steel of a railway track. And then hope that Sri Lankan Railways is not on strike, again.

As a generally non-suicidal individual, these thoughts always fill me with a sense of being in no control whatsoever of my "Destiny" or life. Like today, for God's sake.

Assume you stand at a beginning of a branching in the road you're taking. Yes, very Robert freaking Frost and all that crap. So, then you try to take road A (Also here, it is assumed that you haven't spotted Road B yet), and as you're going all fine and dandy when POW! you trip and fall and fall face-first into...elephant poop. So now you're filthy and pissed and angry with life and yet not surprised because Life has so far been throwing dung in your face for a while now.

So, you trudge back to the road and stand there glumly contemplating, when it starts to rain, drenching you but also revealing...Road B.This reaffirms your faith in life and you happily set off down the road, picking flowers, strewing them at innocent bystanders, petting babies and other little animals and in general making a grand racket about how great Road B is.

Then, one fine day, you stumble across a by-lane, one that leads you straight into Road B. Straight, clear and obstacle free.

The point of this meandering analogy is lost even on me. However, initial sentiments remain firmly fixed in my head. As of now, listening to a Strauss marathon in hopes of reducing them.

On taking a big step

I don't generally like taking big steps; the idea of them are a little threatening to me and they make me feel like they should accompany big, life-changing decisions, of which I'm admittedly not the biggest fan :)
Big steps are all those which-in my head-are taken by people unlike me; you now, risk-takers, bungee jumpers, people who leave home when they turn 18, who go off to the hills with a man on impulse, people who do crazy things like I don't know, get a tattoo, pierce their nipple, have drunken sex on a beach in Hikkaduwa on an unforgettable evening.

Just not me.

Strangely though, what I have come to slowly but surely realize about big steps is that they are often not as daunting as they appear. Sometimes, in mid-step they are aborted, and you can only hope it's for a good reason.
Sometimes, you have to take a number of small, successful steps which will smoothly glide into a big, gliding glide-step thing.
Sometimes of course, as you're walking along alone, amid the aborted big steps and the mundane everyday steps, you find yourself stepping over a puddle, skipping over some rocks and suddenly on the threshold of something that promises to be a very big step indeed. At this point, the smartest thing to do is probably not ruminate over it too much, but to just say wtf let's do this shit and walk on, walk on, walk on because you can'r go back now.

Shame.

of all the various types and colours of shame I imagine a human can feel, the worst, the one which leaves you the worst off, is probably shame about who you are.

 this shame is accompanied by a litany of semi-shames; what you do, what you wear, who you drink with. why you wear what you do, why you speak the way you do.
who you look up to, who you don't. what you bother about, what leaves you with no sleepless nights. what you spend your free time not doing.
how you spend your talents, how you waste them away. what you spend your money, what you don't. what you don't do for anyone else.
what principles you forgo, what easy ways out you take.
which inner voice you listen to; inspirational, defiant, nonchalant or indifferent.

the same shame compounds itself with what you do, or don't,  to alleviate, move away, do better for yourself.