The Lives of Others

We always fantasise about being someone else. This desire is what gives birth to our creativity. Look at things that we create and consume in the name of entertainment/information or more apt, Infotainment - gossip, stories, comics, movies, paintings, photography, TV serials, reality shows, Movie star gossip shows, social networking,...all of them share a common thread- they tell about someone’s experiences.

The Far Ones:

These people may be real (news, reality show, biographies) or imaginary (fiction)... past (history) or future (Sci-fi)... good (Superman), bad (bad man)  or plainly ugly (शक्ति-मैन ) or even our own past(nostalgia) or future self(day-dreaming). The experiences may be trivial (gossip, social networking) or world changing (natural calamities, wars)... real (20-20) or unreal (गुंडा); all of us have our own set of favourites. We enjoy them, because we enjoy imagining ourselves to be in the shoes of that person, that James Bond, that कृष्ण, that कर्ण, that Federer, that sachin.

The Near Ones:

This is not limited to only famous and public figures, it holds equally true about ‘normal’ people around us too; we want to know as much as possible about what’s going on in the lives of our family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. We want to be as close as possible to being them. Hence the guilty pleasure in voyeurism, idle gossip, the gtalk and the social media.

The Deplored Ones:

I always used to wonder, why do we create and consume horror, gore and tragedies? The feelings they invoke (fear, nausea and depression) are not exactly desired, what we love is not the feeling they invoke; but consuming that experience, of being that guy frantically running away from some slasher, being hung from tree and roasted alive, being Devdas and drowning life in the bottle (well, this on not exactly depressing :P, but you get the point)

The Revered One:

That’s probably why the highest entity we have devised for our own little world- The God is epitome of this collective fantasy, the one who sees everything and knows everything, in other words, one who lives through everybody and everything.

The Rat who Loved The Race

Back again, after a long break...kya kare!

Tragic it is, but even the greatest mind on earth had to run the race, because this rat is so badly addicted to it.

So I kept running around, doing lotsa bulshit on the way, finally reached some-place nice, partied a little, and then looked back...

For my whole life I have been a fierce competitor, and enjoyed every bit of it... nah that's a lie.

I enjoyed it when the going was good and victories were easy. As I graduated to tougher races, F3 to F1 we can say, the joy started depleting as the victories were few and far between, losses were bountiful. It got the wheel running in my little head.

Thus was born this theory.

Life is a journey towards the moving target set by our own mind. It may be in field of work, in social herarchy or in monetary terms or all of these and more. Spurt of happiness is rise, the same of sadness conversely is fall. Human mind cannot perceive position, however high or low it may be. It can only feel change in it.

Our mind is landscape (mind-space seems better). Our idols (Bill Gates, Gandhi, Einstein or apna desi VIjay Mallaya if you will) mark the mountains and people we look down to (Mohalle ka pakka bewda, failed cousins, etc) mark the valleys. Everyone from our pear group (which of course keeps changing depending upon field of comparison), classmates, colleagues, neighbours, sometimes even family members mark our reference points at different heights.

In the journey through this constantly changing terrain , only change in level and not the steady position arouses emotion. Remember, I am talking emotions...not passive satisfaction or sigh drawn from reminding ourselves of our position . Greater the difference in levels, bigger is the impact.

Looking at positions above us inspires yearning and pain.

Looking at those below inspires smugness and reassurance of the path we took.

Bouncer?

Let me illustrate.

We feel good when we progress...through position, money, qualification or new achievement in any field. This feeling slowly turns into indifference when you get used to it. It only peeps in when you meet somebody with lesser assets than yours, as smugness.

Same holds true for setbacks. You feel bad when your boss fries you bad first time, as you get used to the regular thrashing, it slowly it sinks in and you move on. Of course you momentarily feel better when the bastard fries someone worse than you.

Look in your mind, 

Remember getting into that hallowed building (college, office or new home) with heart bursting of joy, I bet you don't even notice it consciously now  some 2-3 years down the line.

Remember your first pay-check? now the latest one, even fatter 3 times does not give that rush of blood to your heart.

Why were you really happy? because you got some XY% or you beat your whole class?

Why were you unhappy about your salary, even half of which you don't spend...if not for the classmates who earned double?

Why you again felt better when you met that old classmate doing a blue collar hard job at half your pay?

Comparison with our past self and with our current peers is what we derive our joy and consequently sadness from. 

We do compete for happiness, consciously or unconsciously; and tragically since we don't have a permanent measure of happiness. We keep running a race with moving targets, fooling ourselves into thinking 'yes, that's my ultimate destination' only to realise it was just a fucking milestone and our dream is still running ahead of us.

The conclusion being, unless we separate the source of happiness from this ever-shifting mirage, we are going to remain captives of our own zero sum game.

The theory is thrown open for discussion, pour in your views. 

Shortcut To Nirvana

As promised, The day has arrived to discuss the "Alternate lifestyle" theory...

Death always seemed like some theoretically unavoidable, but practically unimaginable distant truth I need not worry about... till passing pinnacle of my youth.

Now, it has become a 'Clear and Present Danger"
But is that the only line of thought available for me?
Then it struck me!

I possibly can't stretch my life beyond a point, but if I plan to bring it to the end before, I have got the freedom to do it in the manner I want, and more importantly after living my life the way I want. Now won't that convert the slow shaky खटारा called life into a fucking roller coaster!!!

I mean, imagine ..just imagine, at 25 or around, if you don't plan to drag beyond 33, YOU ARE SO FREE!!!

I.        Consume alcohol, tobacco, sex or the other worldly pleasures as much as you want to, as by the time their health effects start showing up, you are anyway going to be dead!!!

II.       No long term saving, insurance and any kinda long term overhead needed!!!

III.      Go out, be wild, be adventurous, be whatever you want and have fun, even if you die earlier in the attempt to find your fun-life, you won't hate it...at least not as much as the guy who tragically dies at 23 in an accident on his way to Tirupati, ironically...to ask blessings for his 100 years long happy life!!!(You might hate me for writing such ugly facts, but what do you expect, the title reads Laughing Ravana!)

IV.      When you are done with this world, just pop some sleep pills on the day of death CHOSEN by YOU, so you won’t feel a thing afterwards...never.

All you need 2 to do, is unlearn the whole gyan they have tried to ingrain in you (that you are supposed to try desperately to live as long as possible and shite).

It’s tough, I know, but come on man, THINK!!!

It’s a relief from burden of the knowledge that ‘If I live by all these boring diktats, I would die old and miserable after leading a sucking life’.

I.        Remember the last bedridden close old person you saw, I bet you didn’t like that life!

II.       Bet you hate the fact that almost all the things that you like (Sumptuous meal, alcohol, smoke, violence and unbridled sex life and all such other 'nice things') are considered detrimental to your 'assigned goals'.

III.      If you just neglect the inclination to live long, you can have all this fun!!!

It sounds insane, but, hell !  If this is the only life you would ever have, instead of worrying over whether you are spending it right, why not just play around and have fun?

And if you get a second one with memory of this time, great, maybe then you can use the wisdom learnt this time!

The Devil's take on life

I am THINKING... surprisingly I have been doing it continuously for last 26 years or so -16 hours a day.
In fact I am sometimes frustrated by incessant flow of thoughts, but by and large, I have been unconscious about the fact that for all this whale of time, I have been THINKING...
Very common, ain't it?
Still odd, ain't it?

Anyway right now I am seriously ambushed by hundreds of lively thoughts dying to be immortalized in written words.

And the choice is 'CHOICE'.

Don't you think Choice is the greatest power we have?

Choice to live my own life my own way - choice to eat, to not eat, to drink or not to, to sleep and attend morning lecture or finish the second half of the movie, to blog or not... (Don't be too hopeful, I am not done with the torture yet)

But our society systematically strives to turn most of our choices into its own.Let's take a basic example.
For whole of our life we are trained to increase the probability of longer lifespan...eat healthy, don't drink, don't smoke, dont delve into drugs,don't drive rash, don't catch a running train, stay away from goons and police, don't kick street dogs etc.
Now that our long term existence in society is assured of, the next thing is to ensure that u follow the set convention of steady rise in status. Hence, the pressure to study, to get a good job, to study more to get a better job, to work like dog to get a hike, to get a wife(or husband for fairer sex), to get a home etc.

These things are hammered so hard into our minds, that we almost forget, we have got CHOICE!!!

I got the choice of running onto a speeding merc on marine drive.
I got the choice of kicking a passer-by biker on street ( my eternal fantasy ).
I got the choice of getting up tomorrow morning and catching a train to nowhere.

OR I got the choice to follow the pre-programmed routine in my head.

Who else can stop me, but  me? Who else can push me, but me?

The point is, it doesn't matter whether you continue to live the same life or do some crazy stuff,but  it should be a conscious choice on ur part and not an automatic one.
Personally, the knowledge that "turning into a raging maniac is just one whim away" always  amuses and comforts me :)

Recently I have been thinking about a fantastic alternative way of life...more on it, later...

I also want to write more about how human society is a self sustaining, perpetrating, automatically stabilizing and evolving mechanism that it is almost a whole single living being.

I think it is the miracle of the miracles!!!

Inquiries of a restless soul

Life is What?

Is it actually supposed to have some purpose?

What is there after death?

Questions that have haunted me for years, and humankind for ages...

What amazes me much more than all of these questions is the insatiable human curiosity behind them.

Because if you don't have the propensity to find answers to these questions; they are plainly harmless assortment of words :)

Moving beyond, what is the motivation behind living my life?

I ask myself, "why should I continue to live this life?" and continue to question all the subsequent answers with a torturous "why?"

The last answer beyond which I can't proceed is invariably a disarming primal impulse- "Because I want to" !!!

Fuck me!

At the end, there is no better explanation to continued existence of human race, than stubborn continuance of some organic molecules through generations, which keep creating electric impulses stimulating the irresistible urge to live and reproduce....for no apperant reason!!!

Ain't that frustrating?

Ain't that still amazing?

Doesn't that tempt to altogether shun the long held belief system based on logic and science?... To desperately embrace any faith that illogically but confidently and conveniently, answers these questions?

This is the thought that clean-bowled me, a few( 3-4) years earlier. It has refrained me since from making the now-infamous claim that " I am the most rational person on this earth".

I am tempted to continue writing about history of this gloriously stupid claim and evolution of my still-primitive mind since, but nagging sense of my worldly responsibilities is restricting me.

But don't you worry my patient pals; for this restless soul will be back pretty soon...

In the bout of sobriety

So today I have broken the unhealthy tradition :)

Thanks to TheQuark for preservation of the original content, will modify the statement of theory accordingly. It seems my memory has started slowly dissolving in the blood alcohol :) 

What Vish has said is necessary for long term survival of our societal fabric. That's why all our lives, we are trained and rewarded for being considerate and courteous. But come on man, if all of us work towards love,peace and harmony, life would be too sickeningly sweet ;) 

Somebody has to be a Ravana, for Ram to be glorified, Vanar-Sena to be employed and Dasehra to be celebrated :)

Anyway, through the theory , I want to point out and laugh at the existence of multiple parallel standards of communication that we apply in our daily lives which complicate it to no end. One code of conduct for office, one for friends, one for family. Thank God I am yet to have entities called spouse and children in my life. I am not contesting the need or desirability of these standards, just want to highlight the burden of life in civilized world :)...but more on it sometime later. 

And yes,in view of the opinions of the esteemed readers, the author has decided to continue his mission of unashamedly free expression of opinion with absolute disregard towards finer tastes of readers and  discretion of language. Consequently dirty words like 'fuck' and so would be present in abundance in their purest form henceforth.

Still...I advice the seekers of the Ultimate Truth to watch out this space...for the pearls of wisdom are to be found in the shells of coarse talk.

Return of the ?????

I am back :D

and the unfortunate coincidence (I actually desperately want it to be a coincidence) is that I am a bit drunk even today.

So the debate in my mind is...Do I feel like blogging only when I am drunk? or when I want to bark in front of an audience which never shows its boredom, or irritation, I bark through my fingers? Anyway...let's leave this debate subject to future observations of this blog.

Some of my friends have been considerate enough to give me feedback about my last entry, surprisingly, I have been so smart about selecting my friends that all of them have been positive :D

Now being the cynical bastard I am, I obviously know this is some vicious ploy to get me to write some more ridiculous shite so that all my friends can avenge me for my past karma with a diabolical laugh :)

But hell what? Now that I have jumped....who gives a f%^$? Anyway I want a feedback about this too...do my vast pool of readers prefer " f%^$' or a more indiscreet but simple to write and guess 'fuck"? please write back.

Moving on beyond all this triviality ...what should I continue to write about?

My first thought is....I should write about my few pet theories I always keep talking about, especially when I am drunk.

The specific reason being, normally I talk about them only whenI am drunk, so most of the audience is either asleep, aloof or too tired with my rambling to argue. So I have never got any critical feedback about them, hence I have become overconfident about their validity.

This blog is a nice opportunity for all you guys to burst my ego baloon of being invincible theorist, so jump in for the kill!!!

Theory no. 1

I belive boys should not hesitate to use so called 'bad words' in front of girls, why?

if the girl knows the "bad" words
she herself is "bad"
then you don't have to bother about "bad" girls
else
she doesn't know
hence you don't have to bother

A => B and !A => B then B is true, so you never have to bother :D

There are many more such impossibly stupid theories coming up...provided you show your interest by bashing this one to pulp!!

In the hindsight, my ability to bore people by writing worthless content seems to have transcended to my vocal rambling too, damn Alcohol !!!!