tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-110959362024-03-13T21:28:19.188+05:30Thus I SpakeBy the essence and the nature of existence, contradictions do not exist! If you find something inconceivable, check your own premises. One of them is wrong! -- Ayn RandAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-70728122667339364662011-09-30T14:37:00.005+05:302012-02-13T22:28:47.843+05:30The Stranger<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">He stands away<br />A Watcher 'midst the sway<br />Confined to an ego<br />Severed from the fray<br /><br />For He is a Stranger<br />He peeks at the world<br />Nothing ever touches him<br />Nothing ever will<br /><br />(He) Can't see their faces<br />(He) Can't feel a thing<br />Love, life and pain and hate<br />(He) Just doesn't play the game<br /><br />He thinks he knows the truth<br />But doesn't find a meaning<br />He sees well inside of you<br />Sees the ugly you<br /><br />For He is The Stranger<br />He stares at the world<br />And doesn't find a meaning<br />I don't think He ever will</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-73401707389981034282010-06-24T00:57:00.003+05:302012-02-13T22:38:01.063+05:30Ethos<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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purpose is a heavy word .. too heavy. meaning. thats nice. not too heavy. I am afraid of heavy. </div>
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What gives you meaning? what gives YOU meaning? Existence is. nothingness too is. these are nothings. plants, bugs, animals, men, ahh ahh, rocks, water, nickel ... exist.</div>
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is it external, meaning? clothes you wear? facial expressions? people who look up to you? down at you? your actions? people who respect you? people who love you? </div>
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... Love and Respect... words that don't have clear meanings, non-absolutes. words that impart clarity based on the subject and context. relative, non-bloody-absolutes. </div>
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similar to meaning... a simple word. here it carries weight. just like those words ... eventually relative. man is a social animal. social... give and take, trade. degrees of give and take. love and respect, based on give and take. </div>
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imagine an epitaph ... "loved and respected by many". the worth of a man. greatness or degrees of it. a "sentence" at the end of life. "meaning". the judges, the juries and executioners? well, all men .. people you spent your life with. ... "standing. credibility. respected and loved". man, a social animal... this is not social. how much do you let it affect you, in everyday life?... every second of it? </div>
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meaning is external.</div>
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<br /></div>
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... think about morality. think about it judging you. No man can judge you. if they do, its their morality that judges you. men don't, can not. that is the reason behind that epitaph being a non-absolute. </div>
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... </div>
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... to transcend. word of saints. used by saints, for saints. man doesnt transcend. he (and He) sculpts the transcendental. isn't it always "in the image of"?</div>
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how does it spring from within? </div>
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could you try and break free?</div>
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... insulated and without a string</div>
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the fountainhead, the wellspring</div>
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when you transcend</div>
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only you will know</div>
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all else is just words</div>
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the pure transcendental .. </div>
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is only by you, and within you</div>
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.... cliche ... all of this. these words ... a language gets tiring.. sometimes. eventually, ... nothingness.</div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-20797449391733338842010-06-22T03:17:00.004+05:302012-02-13T22:27:32.838+05:30Pathos.... sometimes the world collapses around you .. bit by bit ... one moment you are grasping the paradise, one moment you aren't!<br />i have felt like writing after a long time ... some things you can count on ... some things you just cant ... things are ... mostly just things ...<br /><br />colors get mixed up in words ... and time gets mixed up up in nothingness ... sometimes friends just "are" ...<br />colors get mixed up in words ... and words aren't fuckin' enough ... they are a cliche... last 2000 years of mankind has seen to that .. amply!<br /><br />How do you get impervious to pain ... how do you?<br />How do you get to a point where in you dont care about the words? you just know the right thing and it doesnt hurt you anymore? ....<br /><br /><br />Things are ... and a rebel exists, just for a cause<br />without a light, ...a moth is meaningless<br />a presumption ... forgive me ...<br />... but pathos, as he belives..<br />is written .. how do you rise to greatness?<br />... ... how do you?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-25052672665532921482008-04-18T01:15:00.003+05:302012-02-13T22:27:57.756+05:30The None, the Me and the IThe place is drawn-tight pocket, filled with fluid. I am gasping for breath… I look around, arms flailing to understand. Draining my mind of non-existent thought, the air seems to choke me. There is a primal darkness, never felt before… a pressure of thousand skies seems to beat upon me… I wonder why me?... now?<br /><br />He enters the room. I look at him, like I have seen him before, but can’t make out… he whispers. <span style="font-style:italic;">You are now, you are awake… we have been waiting.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Me.</span> I… like an amnesiac. I realize my whiteness, like the brain wiped clean. The hollowness is like never before. <span style="font-style:italic;">You?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">…black and white are all I see… in my infancy. So above, so beyond, I imagine… </span><br /><br />The realization of existence… is hitting me. The world is waking up… it’s like stirring up from a dream, the dream of nothingness. The frames collide and try to form a consistent whole. While I remain the ever watchful, the air around me starts to breathe. Objects lighten up. They take color, lend me a characteristic. The sounds echo. Words form in mid-air and take shapes.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Hey you, they say. Me. I? it starts to fill up. The hollowness ebbs. Till you know the essence! Till you chew it, till you spit the unneeded, and gulp the rest! </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-86243962622489179132008-02-01T01:05:00.001+05:302012-02-13T22:38:17.349+05:30Just Mad at Mankind!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It’s a Saturday morning, lazy and cozy… and I and a friend of mine sit talking about random subjects. It’s just in the nature of man to enjoy an escaping slug, just sit and while away time whenever possible. <br />
<br />
It’s been a while that we have been discussing the differences between Socialism and Communism. Now, I just have this amazing sick feeling imagining Communism, forget me talking about it.<br />
<br />
Why is it so that every rule intended for the people and by the people ends in an amassing of power?<br />
<br />
Why is it so that people love Dictators, at least to start with until their eyes open wide to reality? They loved Idi Amin too, as they loved Hitler… and some like Dr. Goebbels loved him right till their own very sorry end.<br />
<br />
Why is so that everyone wants power? What is the nature of this compulsive drive to influence others with oneself?<br />
<br />
I would say mankind is doomed. I don’t like dystopia, and yet I can’t say I believe in utopia. Then the only choice I have is a helpless hope that we would come to terms with our intrinsic nature. My friends would put it down to conserving your XX or XY as the only reason and excuse for this lust of power. I disagree. What about all the sadists which enjoy their sadism when it is quite plain that a particular action is not going to conserve their genes in any which manner?<br />
<br />
The bourgeois, which takes a hollow pride in mentioning that every revolution was brought about by the middle class, forgets an obvious fact that their share to pride is just their sheer number… something which would have stood with them if they would have resisted the dictator in the first place.<br />
<br />
I have come across only one scientific solution for such a quandary. If and when does the common man realize that: What works for everyone in a group is that which works for himself and the group.<br />
… <span style="font-style: italic;">I hope you know the source of the last line.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-59138417847943033702008-01-19T20:09:00.001+05:302012-02-13T22:28:32.437+05:30Where Am I?Sometimes life revisits you... There are the times that have passed you... And you have passed some. All comes back...<br /><br />There have been times of ecstasy,<br />and moments of intense pain...<br />the lives that passed you...<br />...and seconds of glory and fame.<br /><br />I walk down the alley.. the shadows are high on the wall. So much so that the darkness seems brighter. i am trying to go back. not where i used to belong... no. where they belonged to me. all the notes that the air shied away from, the lyric that could have spawned a language ...an association of cultures; all the voices that sang; all the feet that tapped to the name.<br /><br />the alley leads deep. to a closed house.<br /><br />i enter the room and i find Joshua doing his routine on the guitar. there is another person whom i don't recognize, making a sound arrangement which is completely unfamiliar to me. what kind of an arrangement is that, i ask him.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">have you ever picked up broken glass and built a pane out of it?</span><br /><br />I have seen broken glass, and wished it could be remade. a fool's hope.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">i pick up broken glass, and melt it into a shape. thats what i do... remake stuff</span><br /><br />Who are you?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">the dream maker. </span><br /><br />i happen to look at Joshua when he glances towards a corner and i see the girl ...and who are you, i ask her?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">I am everything that has remained to pass, between you, you and you.</span><br /><br />Wow, i wasn't even aware so many mes existed in the first place.<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />There always are ...there are yous which you want to be, yous you fear and yous which are you...</span><br /><br />Heady stuff, I think. So what are you guys doing here?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">We have been waiting for you!</span> The dream maker and she reply, in unison.<br /><br />Joshua is still going through his routine. <span style="font-style:italic;">They have been here all along Aditya, since the times, but we never knew about them.</span><br /><br />My head starts spinning, falling down deep, in labyrinthine arcs. Frames of time come together and dissociate, collages of intermingling lives ... just like pieces of glass. Don't know why, but when I come to, my feeling of strangeness has vanished... all of it seems somehow right. The alley, the house of shadows, Joshua, the bizarre routine, the dream maker and the girl. Everything but one thing remains unexplained... <span style="font-style:italic;">Where am I?</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-22014369918998808432007-03-25T17:37:00.001+05:302014-02-27T18:09:16.318+05:30Overcast<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There are overworlds. there are the underworlds. there are fighters, there are underdogs. They are a reversible creed. just turn the coats around.<br />
<br />
Its not about how much you can fight, how many blows you can deliver. its about how hard can you get hit and still take more... and stand up. what is longest yard? how long is long?<br />
<br />
I am not talking about suffering. Oh!!! what a farce...<br />
I am talking about living it. about pushing it.<br />
<br />
who needs an opiate<br />
who needs a hand-to-hold,<br />
who needs a typification<br />
who needs a need?<br />
<br />
what is a high, what is a fall<br />
what is a love, but a reckless ambition<br />
a call to arms, and a plunge for all?</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1174469843875336752007-03-21T16:05:00.001+05:302012-02-13T22:29:20.247+05:30Suicide Note 2.You sit in a train, and face a crowded mass. you want to scream, to wake them up. Wake them up for what?... I wish I knew.<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />Isn't God a mere idea? </span><br /><br />You go through your everyday life... immersed in triviality. Frantic is the ticking time. Lifeless routines and Newtonian rhyme. All you need to know is where it all started.<br /><br />Life, clinging on to the side of a dungeon-pit<br />a clawing dragon at the base<br />and a hungry beast at the tip.<br /><br />A coward victimizes and dangerous is any desperation!<br /><br />Devouring books. Plunging into worlds created by other men, made in their eyes. Addiction. A substitution. All is an act of escapism.<br /><br />God is but just an idea, to hold their hand and an opiate mere.<br /><br />I have but known this -<br /><br />that pure energy and will lies in nature's serene indifference.<br /><br />that there is a will to power.<br />and only man's inertia makes him mediocre.<br /><br />that intellect is not enough<br />neither is feeling<br />that body is not enough<br />nor is the soul.<br /><br />Men are only animals, they are the cages<br />me, I am not the cage... I have but come to know what it is <span style="font-style:italic;">to be in</span> the cage.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">.... Death... you look so pretty, dressed on the wall!</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1167971397382471122007-01-05T09:43:00.001+05:302012-02-13T22:37:22.480+05:30Suicide Note 1.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Kneeling to the flow of mankind, colossally huge. Same biology, surprising ideologies. They say empty can rattles the most. "There He is, in the sky, when you feel small, just look up high".<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Death... you look so pretty, dressed on the wall!</span><br />
<br />
If there were a He, did He live only for seven days? Or probably a few multiples of seven? I hope it was only a few. That few has been bleeding us for the last two thousand years.. at least. What if he and Mephisto were friends? Probably they were just enjoying the simulation!!<br />
<br />
Would you look at me, with scars on my soul.<br />
<br />
His calling card lies on the desk, staring me in the face.<br />
<br />
Take the prayer away, blaze the candle, blow the clouds away.<br />
<br />
Me and my bitter hands,<br />
Cut broken glass and<br />
somebody else's god<br />
<br />
Living and dying, passing. The slippery tread of thoughts. Flitting from one world to another...flitting of one world to another. Seeking haven, seeking composure, seeking without stopping, always seeking...<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;"><br />Death, you look so pretty, dressed on the wall...!</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1163337788221881982006-11-12T18:50:00.001+05:302012-02-13T22:29:48.847+05:30Sunday Dusk!Sunday evening. The sun sets. You look at the skies far above. Coconut palms make themselves felt, kites dive from within the grooves, touching the clouds. There is a pleasant evening wind blowing across the tables, shifting the shadows cast by the candle. The piano croons Pianoman, Billy Joel. The wind blows harder. People croon along and the twilight deepens. Kites disappear.<br />Artists change. Louis Armstrong takes the podium. beautiful tunes play on the breeze, taken along with it to the orange of the sunset.... Eyes deepen into thought...<br /><br />The fickle nature of happiness, ever looking for a new master. Gosh! Monday dawns tomorrow! Alrighty then!<br />The season starts tomorrow!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1162312636499726562006-10-31T22:06:00.001+05:302012-02-13T22:30:38.187+05:30The rise of Epinephrine!I slump after a prolonged adrenaline shock... the body experiences the fatigue it should have experienced piecemeal everyday for the last thirty days... This was my first encounter with a client... and the same for the company I work for. We are a start-up.<br /><br />I met my deadline today... nailed it exactly where it belonged... right on the *#$%ing head! feels good, I tell you... the time as it went by, the last thirty days... i cant remember them as different days at all, they kind of merged into each other!<br /><br />I was driven... the aggression piled up and drove me, the adrenaline made me feel that I was shooting at enemies from behind cover, dust flying everywhere, moonlight skitting through the air, glinting off the flying sharpnels... combat... it was exactly that, metaphorically!<br /><br />"Oh come on...! there's nothing so holy about nailing a time-line!"<br />I will feel that too, but probably after i get used to it.<br /><br />For now, I am letting my body recover from the shock....<br />... and stock more adrenaline... for the next time-line awaits behind the shadows, crouched for ambush!<br /><br />P.S: listening to War for Territory - Sepultura!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1160824462765962162006-10-14T16:40:00.000+05:302006-10-14T16:47:51.926+05:30Catch-22I leave here and step outside. the sun hits me hard, making me squint, my eyes barely opening, feeling like a man not exposed to the light for years together. I, after spending the night between clothes strewn hither and thither, books-the sole occupants of the floor, shelves, the study table, and even the cupboard, have reveled in my existence. the step outside this, out of my selfish feelings and their physicalities, of simulators and prediction, of subtulties and art, of the voilence of thoughts and their nearness, destroys it. the sunlight bears down its petulance on me, making me notice the heat, notice the drabness of the tar road, of chocalate-wrappers tossing on the wind, naked-red brick walls, of garish laughter...<br /><br />Black then white are all I see in my infancy.<br />red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me.<br />lets me see there is so much more<br />and beckons me to look through to these infinite possibilities.<br />As we loathe, so above and beyond, I imagine drawn outside the lines of reason.<br />Push the envelope, watch it bend...<br /><br />i feel like striking back. no, not by destruction... but i feel the voilence, the voilence for apathy. reminds me of flaring nostrils and speed, of taut muscles and powerpacked uppercuts, of flaming iron and swirling swords, of action and the splendor of nonchalant confidence...<br /><br />.... and so my desk welcomes me... for the few minutes i wonder why is it that I am Here, and then do i start seeing the music of life, of simulators and prediction, of power and sight, of autonomy and production... <br /><br />With my feet upon the ground I lose myself<br />between the sounds and open wide to suck it in.<br />I feel it move across my skin.<br />I'm reaching up and reaching out.<br />I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me.<br />And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been.<br /><br />--Lateralus, ToolAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1159458363286608762006-09-28T21:08:00.001+05:302006-09-28T21:16:03.296+05:30the sickly crunchI converged my body into deep shadow... just wanted to hide away... ghastly feeling... yes... probably so that I could save myself from those things that scourge the earth. deep, dark and voilent. the street lamp threw a dirty yellow through the air, and the leaves of the tree held cobwebs between the blades. trapped, held and sticky. Sickly. Remembering it now makes me angry.. <br /><br />hell yes... sooo very angry.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1158161645407333242006-09-13T20:56:00.000+05:302006-09-13T21:04:05.416+05:30melanchousu left me in my mess of thoughts... of thoughts not sorted, of thoughts interwined... of thoughts unturned... they still lie there... like a feeling of half-open lips which expect company. all the moments between us remain just there... i look at them by raising my eyes. your presence waits there, like it formed and has stayed there since... <br /><br />when i listen to you talk now, it is as if it never stopped... a conversation without a beginning, without an end. just threads connected at intervals, intervals of great depth, of great meaning... of great compassion...<br /><br />how do i tell you that i feel voilence... voilence that is all-consuming and all-giving, both at the same time. one corner here, one there...echoes of the undisturbed sweetness....Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1157383759264568042006-09-04T20:57:00.000+05:302012-02-13T22:36:35.380+05:30saturnalias...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
the excrescence of wisdom,<br />
the bigotry of youth,<br />
the feed-fast burning of the thoughts,<br />
you bloody old-fool...<br />
<br />
they knew the start, <br />
<br />
they knew how it began,<br />
<br />
they knew how it lived,<br />
<br />
if only they knew how it ended...<br />
<br />
"watch the weather, watch the change",<br />
the excrescence of wisdom,<br />
the bigotry of youth,<br />
watch the feed-fast burning of thoughts, <br />
<br />
they who knew the small,<br />
<br />
they who knew the living,<br />
<br />
they knew how to do it all,<br />
<br />
but they too fled,<br />
<br />
at the moment of all...<br />
<br />
it arrived to me once,<br />
hideous bodies all around me,<br />
the orgies of hubris,<br />
and the gloating on one's own pimply soul...<br />
<br />
they who knew the wind, and its songs,<br />
<br />
they who knew the meaning of it all,<br />
<br />
they who knew the spring and the fall,<br />
<br />
knew that the knew nothing it all.<br />
<br />
....watch the weather, watch the change</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1157195245673594552006-09-02T15:55:00.000+05:302006-09-02T16:37:25.703+05:30the swing of the pendulum...The time has come for a sprint, a leap, a touching-of-clouds. its been many months now, i have been learning how to maneuver the current while taking care not to be thrown out by its force... cause the earth spins...she is the attractant and efferent at the same time...<br /><br />Be it the mustering of the winds, be it the gathering of all the threads in my hand, the single artery beating with the blood-pulse, ready to mingle with zillion particles... impart oxygen, make 'em alive again...<br /><br />The silence before the storm they call it... yes...it is time...to merge the brute force of intellect and the wordless calm of will...<br /><br />adios...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1155483600293949202006-08-13T21:09:00.000+05:302006-08-17T19:10:06.546+05:30Another day in my Diary...Date: Morning, 8th of July 2006. <br /><br />It was a bus ride. The tar road escorts us right up to the plateau before the top. Tar roads aren't fun at all; I can't help from feeling. A crisp cold wind bites through my skin and opens up my eyes with goose flesh. We start walking upwards. The boys start joking and laughing out loud at each other's expense. We, far away from our usual routines, without disguises of polite behavior, and senseless pride, let our mouths loose with laughter. <br /><br />We have been walking for about a couple of hours now. My steps fall steadily, awed by the solemnity, but disagreeing to get weighed down by it. I walk so as to behold the peak in its complete truth, without a single man-made color intruding in my vision. But nature is like a vamp trying to attract you by her incessant machinations.<br /><br />Your eyes meet the end of the skies in whiteness, and rise upward with the far away flung mountains… in whiteness. She grabs you in her most elemental, and you take a bow. You let her and she seeps into you, smarting you, but you don’t want to be, not so easily… Alas, you take pleasure in Her beauty and acknowledge Her with a smile, with a salute and another shiver from a spine. <br /><br />…The cloud-wind starts to blow fiercely, and howls in my ears. My facial muscles play their part by going from a cold-resist to you-knocked-my-socks-off expression. My jacket bellies out, the wind filling it and trying to drag me over the cliff. I have arrived. I smile ruefully at my attempts; She was successful, and She beheld me in my awe. <br /><br />After trying to get blown by and into different poses on various cliffs with lenses and shutters obliging, we took cover from the wind under a huge rock. Its sides are furrowed, chiseled by the wind, with incessant shears on its surface but a smooth underside. My eyebrows make vie and I get lost in thought, but my friend jostles me, “<span style="font-style:italic;">Woye, kitthe kho gaya? Ye le</span>”, he says, handing me a bottle of vodka. The heat catches me unchecked as it flows down razing my wind-chilled insides. After a couple of minutes and some more gulps, each one starts back, with a song on his lips, daring to smile as much in the chill, with faces red and his insides hot!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1150903476121631052006-06-21T20:44:00.000+05:302012-02-13T22:36:09.727+05:30'Cause Some Soul-searching was Due... :-)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Darkness is imprisoning me<br />
All that I see<br />
Absolute horror<br />
I cannot live<br />
I cannot die<br />
Trapped in myself<br />
Body my holding cell<br />
----One, Metallica /...And Justice for All.<br />
<br />
.....We have handled this theme before in some of earlier posts, Us and Them, Where to Guv... and I, Speculator. But this time, lets try to see it through the work of some contemporary artists. <br />
<br />
<br />
There are always guys who do not identify with what they see around. The world seems too disagreeable and often trivial. The bourgeois values not only appeal to them, but instead suffocate them. Colin Wilson calls such people Outsiders.... <br />
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There can be types of reactions to this phenomenon: One is disillusionment, frustration. The other can be Creation. Creation of what, you may ask. Creation of your own values, your own code, your own path, way, Your Tao. The latter seems to come only after you have gone through the first one. <br />
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So... Lets take an example... Jim Morrison. Popular vocalist and lyricist for The Doors. Popular, for his theatrical performances. Negatively popular for his antics and his many "suggestive" acts. I picked Morrison because he is a perfect case of an Outsider. Let us examine this verse: <br />
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Let's swim to the moon, uh huh<br />
Let's climb through the tide<br />
Surrender to the waiting worlds<br />
That lap against our side<br />
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Nothin' left open<br />
And no time to decide<br />
We've stepped into a river<br />
On our moonlight drive.<br />
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----The Doors, Moonlight Drive/Strange Days.<br />
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Here Morrison quotes the state of an Outsider well. "Lets go through what we can see approaching, and surrender to what there is". Then mirrors the feeling of "no-way-out". His reference to the Moonlight Drive can be an analogy to life, the dim recess of disillusionment. <br />
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The Outsider is typically faced with a question of sorts: Why I am here, What is my purpose here? He goes through his everyday actions without a hope of an answer. There is this Negation of life. Mediocrity of the world he lives in assails him.<br />
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Witness the man who raves at the wall<br />
Making the shape of his questions to Heaven.<br />
Whether the sun will fall in the evening<br />
Will He remember the lesson of giving? <br />
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----Pink Floyd, Set the controls for the heart of the Sun / Saucerful of Secrets. <br />
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And...<br />
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You know the day destroys the night<br />
Night divides the day<br />
Tried to run<br />
Tried to hide<br />
Break on through to the other side <br />
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---- The Doors, Break on Through / The Doors.<br />
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These words also talk about a Schism, another phenomenon that exists in an Outsider. Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf elaborates on this quite well. Harry Haller (the hero) calls himself a wolf of the Steppes. His diary is filled with his attraction towards bourgeois values, the docile, and at the other end his diary confesses dark thoughts, the Animus. Hesse ends the book with a way out of the schism Haller feels within himself. As he cannot find a meaning in his surroundings, he turns towards himself, eyes upraised inside. <br />
The only answer to such a question is to find The One Activity that consumes him, where he sees the purposeful and the meaningful. To borrow my brother's phrase, it can be called "One's Primary Imperative". I could call it The Activity of Salvation. Salvation not in the religious manner, but rather as the life-giving activity. <br />
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Nietzsche in his Thus Spake Zarathustra talks about the Ubermensch (Overman, literally). The concept is beyond the scope of this essay, but to take into account some characteristics of the formulation: Nietzsche's Zarathustra is a man who has discovered the solution. He knows his Imperative, his code to reversal of negation of life, to more abundant life... a heightened mode of living where flesh, emotion and intellect are in balance (..Me drawing on William Blake). <br />
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Such an Ubermensch knows how to walk the tightrope of life. He becomes the creative force in the society, an inventor, a scientist, a musician. At other times he becomes a saint, a healer, a Buddha. <br />
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Oh my child of love's creation, come and step inside my dreams<br />
In your eyes I see no sadness, you are all that loving means<br />
Take my hand and well go riding through the sunshine from above<br />
We'll find happiness together in the summer skies of love...<br />
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----Symptom of the Universe, Black Sabbath<br />
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Ayn Rand talks about such men in her novels, though her illustrations have been drawn through a different method. Such real life Ubermensch have probably stumbled upon the answer to Living. To such Men.....<br />
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Over the mountain watching the watcher.<br />
Breaking the darkness<br />
Waking the grapevine.<br />
One inch of love is one inch of shadow<br />
Love is the shadow that ripens the wine.<br />
Set the controls for the heart of the sun.<br />
The heart of the sun, the heart of the sun.<br />
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----Pink Floyd, Set the controls for the heart of the Sun / Saucerful of Secrets.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1150551019568257682006-06-17T18:55:00.000+05:302006-06-21T14:03:21.353+05:30Us and Them!If, we turn into a wingful subject<br />They will look upon us, with<br />Glances not merry, abject!<br /><br />We with a hundred eyes, that<br />see too much, they would make us<br />Into a poly-eyed monster, drat!<br /><br />For we shall sail, on merry winds<br />Of the Will, and they shall deal<br />Heartrending swats with their skill, Kill!<br /><br />But then, more the number of eyes<br />To see, less the time for<br />Scrutiny. For we shall live<br />The life of a dragonflee!<br /><br />P.S: listening to High-hopes, Floyd! ... amd the next is Symptom of the Universe, Black Sabbath!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1147265313602829822006-05-10T18:07:00.000+05:302006-05-15T12:56:13.036+05:30TempestThe charged air could have actually relieved an atony of the ear. Such was the clash of two styles of music, rich wavelengths of tone emanating from instruments of two cultures. Imagine an untouched canvas, and then the rainbow cast on it with deliberation by a precise hand. <a href="http://www.mezcaljazzunit.com/band.htm">Mezcal</a> jammed with Dr. Suma, her <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veena">veena</a> pulling threads of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swaras">swaras</a> out of air, the deep strokes of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mridangam">mridangam</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabla">tabla</a> punctuating the harmonies. With Meghmalhar in progression, the clouds were almost on the verge on complying!!!<br /><br />Its Wednesday evening, Bangalore's skies roar with heavy-bellied clouds,<br />and winds gather to make a song. <br />Trees wish they could answer its call, <br />and my mind dances to memory's storm...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1147016070087326302006-05-07T20:55:00.000+05:302006-05-07T21:07:58.543+05:30On the Anatomy of Insecurity1. Change <br /><br />When I say “Change”, I refer to facts that are a quintessential underlying of a living being. A living being is defined by the virtue of cognizant behaviour, the process of taking into collect the nature of one's surroundings and deciding the best course of action.<br /><br />Change is the most obvious thing in life they say. Being in the thick of living, (and I mean the word), I can only defend it! And uncertainties just make it complete. Physicists say that electrons have probability patterns and their interactions can be best known as probability functions. Furthermore, infinitesimal amounts of electronic energies (I look at it as “information”) cause ripples even at higher levels of organization in nature, also commonly termed as the Butterfly effect; the fact thus bolstering the phenomenon of constant change in life, which is most of the times unfathomable to us. <br /><br />Needless to say that human behaviour is influenced by Change. And why only human behaviour, I would say that all living things base their actions on on the quantity, quality and rapidity of change. As humans are “prone” to think; by the virtue of our developed “mental faculties”, change may result into an Insecurity... A human-pertinent reflection. <br />The urge to bow, and to let one's own self get awash with an overwhelming attachment to many ideologies is the struggle to hold on to a constant, a will to stem the rising insecurities within oneself! <br /><br />2.Preservation<br /><br />An organism, a species, wants to leave a mark, in scientific terms, it's own information in as many places as possible. The Will to Power, to discharge one's own strength, as Neitzsche puts it, is the ultimate instinct, and a subtle reason for living. The so-called act of self-replication is only a by-product of this will. Leaving behind your name, the results of your actions, in forms of scientific inventions, art, or representative of your own genetic code, mere molecules, derives from this Will to Power. Some of the above-mentioned acts are the work of man alone, but the latter is shared by everyone. The leaving-behind of information is done by every organism. I do not refer to reproduction, but to the exchange of genetic information that happens between all levels of organisms, between viruses, between bacteria, and between viruses/bacteria and animals. Biologists know this (remember Jurassic Park?). Thus, it is this Will that rules it all. <br /><br />Such instinct thus defined; what I would call “Meta-presence”, the maximum amounts of which becomes necessary for an organism to achieve. <br /><br />3. Change and Meta-presence<br /><br />The connection between the two... Insecurities, as has been said, make the living of human life tougher. Our being prone to mental faculties, is a strength and a curse too. Its how you see it. But I shall not go there. A viewpoint is the discretion of the beholder! Yes, so I was saying, Insecurities buildup uncertainties and vice versa. Typically, this represents a challenge, an obstacle. Not only by what these words mean, but by the way of information theory, I would also like to connect uncertainty with higher entropy or disorder. Its been a known fact that all life and other natural processes try to minimise disorder. This just proves that limitation of disorder by all means available is another instinct of the mind and living matter. <br /><br />I now try to connect the information about well-known processes in nature to our lives and thought processes. A happy life happens when we manage to make things work our way! A healthy animal survives as such when it's body works smoothly, a plane flies when all the wheels in the engines run at their precise speeds! Precision and control is a must, noise is always kept at a minimum. Maximum meta-presence can be achieved when such insecurities emerging from constant change are eliminated. And our compulsions to bow, believe, adhere to many faiths and fallacies, to dedicate to causes is an attempt to kill this insecurity. The anatomy of Insecurity is a conflict between Change and Preservation.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1145600504708978382006-04-21T11:47:00.000+05:302006-04-21T12:24:46.160+05:30Where to, Guv? ... An entry in my diaryI had been tossing around on the pillow. Had had an unpleasant dream... Everybody walks away, with a solemn but strict expression on their faces. No goodbyes, no condolences, just a compelling expression on their faces, the necessity to go away! I do not know what it means. It is like young Pierre feels in his dream in Rosshalde, the feeling suggestive of drab wallpapers, like dilute sunlight gliding over alien geography and even stranger blossoms! <br /><br />I wake up, not finding the impetus in my limbs, I let my head rest on the pillow. Alone, bored? I don't know... Its not like me, I assure you. By nature a passionately restless man, I have never had this will not to wake up. A depressing sad smile inhabits my lips for a few moments, then that too flits away. <br /><br />Its been coming to me slowly for a long time, a feeling of living in a mediocrity, with the kind of faces that fit well only in a crowd, blending best there. You suggest Alienation?... I have been toying with that idea for a while... Self-realization? Simply put, what is it that one wants to let his life get occupied by? <br /><br />?????Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1142666147165406862006-03-18T12:44:00.000+05:302006-03-18T12:45:47.176+05:30Cacophony of the BlankBlank paper... digitalized. Black ink… digitalized. An orgy of binary logic clogging up the streams of silicon atoms, like the ions clog up my neural circuits. My mind fragments into a million pieces. Some coherently arranged, some connecting in the oddest ways. <br /><br />I stare... the paper seems blank, still. So many things to put down, so many things to say. You look at me, your face a belay. I try to clear my vision, but the memories grow misty. Your face hangs in the quiet of my thoughts, waiting to hear. <br /><br />Virgin paper. Stylized fonts. Digitalized thoughts. Memory bits float in the darkness of elemental streams, the window opens up a world to me. Leaves grow; but the wind hastens their downfall. Technology tries to reassure you, comforts you, and numbs you. <br />Happy in the sacred liturgy, your mask thickens. <br /><br />Read. Ah, cacophony of the blank, you say. Reduced to quantum thoughts! Too small to see? Or too huge to comprehend?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1142347143730914652006-03-14T19:31:00.001+05:302006-03-16T11:12:01.960+05:30Thoughts on Theoreticians and Experimentalists... a somewhat biology-related perspective...This categorisation of people doing science has been traditionally reserved for physicists. Theory and Experimentation are essentially two sides of the same coin. The coin is Science, or was Physics. <br /> <br />The reason of equating Science with only physics and no other field is that physicists were the people who brought about the concept of measurable science. They started the process of quantification. In Science, physics was the subject that started thinking about nature of life...To mention the fact that one of the most influential pieces of work, "What is life" (which dealt considerbly with biology) was written by a physicist. And to further highlight the position of biology in science, and the richness of structure of the same, I have to say that that book alone brought three first grade physicists to biology... I am a biologist, thus my preoccupation with natural processes! But we are digressing from the subject of discussion here...<br /> <br />So... The numbers that physicists discovered are very important. They illuminate the missing link between types of qualitative behaviour and their interaction. When I say this, I see your brow knotting up...I will explain. Qualitative behaviour in many systems when interchanges from one form to another, happens by the virtue of the dynamics of the system. When a variable reaches one particular value, the system shows different behaviour. Quantification thus illuminates the "missing link". <br /><br />Biology has by large been a descriptive science. It has talked about the qualitative nature of things. I would not call this a failing, as the stance of questioning in biology has been to discover facts, the who's who of relations between components. The sheer number of these relations, and the richness of the relational structure is humongous, and that is the reason behind biology being so descriptive. The paradigm shift in biology from the qualitative happened in the 1950s. The advent of computers was a catalyst and scientists started peering at various sorts of information(<a href="http://lifesciences.asu.edu/bio494/mrosenberg/NatRevGen2000v1p231.pdf">reference</a>). This information was used to measure the organisation between components, namely the informative distances between DNA sequences from different species. The majority of scientists in biology, which brought about this change were again physicists and chemists and mathematicians. <br /> <br />To come to the present. People are now slowly beginning to unearth the labyrinthine organization between the components of life. The patterns that are now being discovered are general elements found in all organized or natural systems, right from cellular systems to the man-made WWW, working of human societies and hundreds of other natural processes. The analysis of these complex systems requires high computing power, the thirst of which is almost non-existant nowadays(Well, this is to all IT and semi-conductor people...enjoy the piece of pie!). Thus, biology is now seen as an answer to many questions, fundamental to life or to the commercial. <br /> <br />Theoreticians do a job; the job of funnelling the experimentalist's thoughts. In so myriad and vast landscape of nature, the labours of the experimentalists yield fractions of answers. Besides, the experimentalist can look at only a limited picture at a time, the inquiry being limited by practical constraints. The theoreticians albeit base their analysis upon experimental work, but the technology they use enables them to look at a bigger picture. No need to say that a theoretician's work is frequently approximate, but the deductions may not necessarily be. A theoretical hypothesis is analysed by the experimentalist, and the checks performed result in narrowing the approximations and assumptions behind the hypothesis. Another theoretician comes along and concludes a bigger picture, the basis of which has been the experimentalist's new results...The picture only becomes refined this way, the hues becoming separable in the process, but mixing beautifully, showing us how changes appear in nature and the inter-mixedness of their connections.<br /><br />Thus, the experimentalists and theoreticians are complementary, each making it easier for the other half to fit pieces together... Such is the process of finding answers... and clarity thus achieved is nothing short of alchemy!!!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11095936.post-1136829532660297732006-01-09T23:24:00.000+05:302006-01-10T19:23:08.306+05:30“Hello!”..Is there anybody in there?.... Go the words of that beautiful song. I feel those words appropriate now, as I return to my blog to take stock of things, my Virtual friends and others to whom I have been connected through words. Sorry for not returning sooner... Was swamped with work. <br /><br />It was quite satisfying when I heard questions like Where are you? Have you updated your blog? Any new post? ... Thank you for keeping expectations, good ones I hope!! :-)<br /><br />...Well, life goes on... By the way, I had a wonderful new year's party... A little late to recapture, but it gets better as it gets older... just like old wine, I guess. The nostalgia of beautiful times hits in a stronger vein, directly proportional to the time that has passed in the interim... with a faint sadness in their absence now...<br /><br />We started with amazing Indian wine(made from rice), and slowly graduated to chilly vodkas (with a dash of lime), working our way through some delicious roasted mutton and chicken... Wow!<br />And to top off the almost-equally-celebrated-through-out-the-world moments, we had three guitarists on board (ahem! ahem!!), who spun a melodious and spontaneous (well, it was a jam) ruckus...<br /><br />Thanks to Poo, Suresh and Anand, and to our most appreciative listener, Devyani!!!<br /><br />Happy New Year Fellas!!!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15564184448174783423noreply@blogger.com4