Deriving Inspiration - Part 5

Wake me up

Wake me up when this journey ends.

Help me get up from the sands, when the waves stops hitting the beach.

Pull me out when the water stops falling down the Falls.

Remind me to move on when I stop loving her.

Show me the Savings options, when I am done spending money seeing the world.

Wipe my tears when the music stops.

Prepare my grave the day the devotion in me ends.

Tease me the day the creativity dies in me.

Point a finger the day I lose my perfection.

Real life mysteries

Fictional stories, work of fiction are usually considered strange and mysterious.

But nothing can be more stranger and mysterious than nature! Afterall, all those strange ideas and stories originate in our minds, our brains cook them.

The real world and nature is more stranger than fiction.

- Every single person is unique by their appearance, finger print, attitude, behaviour, thinking.

- We fall in love with a stranger and believe them as our soul mate.

- A life is created inside a womb, just when a sperm and egg meets.

- Just because we are born in a cast, or born in a country, we become passionate and patriotic.

- Earth and other planets have been rotating and revolving for millions of years.

- Our heart keeps beating without any energy or power source all our life.

- We become unconscious every night we sleep, and wake up every single morning.

- The food we eat is always yummy, the shit that comes out is always yucky.

What's the strangest thing about nature for you?

Meritocracy | Pragmatism | Honesty.

I was always mesmerized with Singapore's modernity, discipline, cleanliness, yet very much connected to their roots and culture.

I was reading an article yesterday by an Economist who has deciphered how a Third world country was transformed to a First world country.

As per him, the formula adapted was MPH - Meritocracy | Pragmatism | Honesty.

Meritocracy - Only eligible, educated, qualified were allowed to be made ministers and no politician's relatives could walk in and get posts.

Pragmatism - They created rules, laws that were the pick of best of socialism, best of capitalism that's not bound by any ideology.

Honesty - Any mistakes in projects, the ministers had to pay the price, and not some small time Engineers, thereby putting an end to Corruption.

What probably worked for them is the small nation that they are, and they do not have political fanatism, religious fanatism, cast based politics, power hungry leaders, the craze for ideology based politics.

Paradox

Paradox is an artist, a musician, a musical genius, a powerful performer. His music is magical, healing.

He made people heal with his music, he made people forget the pain and left the listeners energized.

He also had this magical touch that healed people of their pain. He hugs people to relieve them of their pains and sorrows. Each time he hugs someone, the person used to get a glow, but Paradox gets a black patch on his body. More he hugs, more decoloured his body would become, making him dark from head to toe, and would become extremely tired.

He had to get back on stage, give one more powerful performance, make crowd cry with joy seeing him perform. As more people cried, his black patches fades and gets his color back.

Music & Nostalgia

Most of my generation's typical weekend "me" time - old songs played on YouTube.

Each weekend, I realise it's a gold mine that we have in the Bollywood music.

Starting from 80s to 2000s, the songs are etched in our memories.

Thanks to our rich hindustani and classical music roots, bollywood has surely gained out of it.

Starting from Kishore, Rafi, Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Alka Yagnik to Ankit tiwari, Arijit Singh songs. All were just melodious and hummable even after decades.

And I am only talking about bollywood, it's another treasure each state with its own local language movie has!

This magnet with music and movies is inseparable. The emotion, the love are best expressed with the tune and lyrics, that feeds to many in love.

Movies like Aatish, Aashiqui, Diljale, Pukar, Raja are still remembered because of their intoxicating music.

When in good mood, sad mood, feeling romantic, want to be alone, partying with friends with a drink, nothing else works but the 80s, 90s music - heart touching, ear soothing!

A Walk in the Park

The greenery, calmness, peace, relaxation, healthy feeling...what else comes to your mind when you visit a Park?

Parks indeed nurtures our body, mind & soul.

It's more than just tracks for walks. It's a kid's play area, meeting point for elders, a place that inspires people to become healthy, lover's paradise, family time, married couple discussing & introspecting their life. It in a way represents the social health and society in general.

Most of us have loads of childhood memories associated with Parks. My wife when she was a school going kid, used to wait entire day for her father to take her to park in the evenings on the pretext to play, but she was more keen to have that Churmuri, that was right outside the Park Gate.

With the birds chirping, green cover all over, well maintained walking tracks, good open Gym equipments, nice seating area, People talking on Phones, some of them laughing, some of them crying. Men talking politics, Women gossipping, Mothers entertaining kids in the play area, youngsters walking with headset on!

It's a place for everyone, it's a place to introspect, it's a place to loosen up, it's a place to watch and absorb the elements that reflects the local society we live in.

Aam Zindagi

The nostalgia, the good memories of those golden days, is not about one or two things. It's the whole package of those days, including simple n small things that made us happy.

Come Summer, it's time for holidays, visit to Mysore and the season of Mangoes!

Having Mangoes with cousins and family was such a fun time. We used to wait to have lunch, just to savour a Mango as It was a ritual to have a Mango at end of lunch everyday.

Parents were Pros in picking the right Mangoes - smelling, touching and hand picking each fruit.

It was such a messy affair to eat a mango, as the juices flowed down till forehand and we used to lick them all.

Eating Mango had 2 parts - taking out the skin, sucking out the pulp and juices. Then comes the Shell (vaate) part, we used to chew and suck it dry!

The clothes always used to have a yellow stain from the Mangoes.

And if a set of Mangoes were sour, Amma used to prepare the Aamras with Chapathi/Puri, such a yummy dish that we craved for.

Now most of us having either Diabetes or Digestion issues, these days we rarely bring them in lot.

Come Summer, no holidays, no Mangoes!

Gyan Bhandar - Part 5

What you seek, what you preach

- Money doesn't matter: for rich people.
- Looks doesn't matter: for attractive people.
- Size and body shape doesn't matter: for a chiseled body.

- Colour doesn't matter: for a fair person.

- Job satisfaction is more important than Salary: for someone who is paid well.

- Religion, Security is more important than price rise: for someone who is not impacted by policies.

- The married ones say "lucky that you are not married".

- Couple with children say "you are better off without kids".

- "It is better to stay home and be safe": for those who don't need to step out to earn for the living.

- "Plan your finances better": to an entrepreneur by an MNC Employee, who doesn't need to worry about paying salaries, taxes and Vendors every single month.

- "I can imagine what you are going through": someone who has never experienced a loss.

No one has figured out everything. People can only act that they do, and advice, judge based on this assumption.

Probably preaching based on real life experience makes more sense, else it just becomes free Gyan!

Are you meant to make it big?

Do you have it in you to make it big?

Are you meant to make it big?

Some of us know and believe we are above average and not mediocres and think we can achieve bigger things in life, say chase a dream or taste success.

Though success is subjective, we all set our own benchmarks and targets.

And this is the moment the struggle starts, which is draining and exasperating. Probably being mediocre and content would be more easier than believing we deserve much more in life.

Hard work is important, but we know it alone cannot take you places. You need ____ and _____. I leave you to fill in the dashes based on your life experiences.

"Success cannot be achieved overnight", no one is expecting it as well, but if the struggle becomes eternal, self introspection makes sense.

Sometimes the passion required to reach the goals, also becomes a drama down the road.

As Morpeous tells Neo "Stop trying to hit me, and hit me"!

Wired to Fight

As some believe in enjoying the journey than the destination, here the destination is supposed to be what you strive to reach, which is presumably rewarding.

If you like the struggle more than what you struggled for, it needs introspection on the self pity towards the journey.

When you fall from the top of a mountain, you feel you are flying for a long time, until you realise your fate later. This is to me is enjoying the journey, though the destination is known to be fatal.

When you are playing in the beach and a Tsunami hits, would you try running for your life, from a 60 Foot tall wave? Do you really think you can outrun? Or rather enjoy the enormity, beauty of the sight, and look for a surf board to rather surf through it?

We all are by default wired to fight it out, and never give up.

Kafkaesque

Being opinionated, having a different view on the world is not always being strange/being different. It's probably just that I believe I am right and I damn very well know I am right, and I have all the reason and logic to justify why I am right.

The question is, do I have to balls to stand firm on my belief and tell the entire world they are wrong? And it's ok to believe that everyone else is wrong, except you on few things.

Just because a mass of people believe blindly in something or follow something blindly, it is perfectly alright not to agree with them.

This phenomenon is called "Kafkaesque".

We have our own thoughts, principles, belief systems, reasoning but they begin to fall apart, when you find yourself against a force that does not lend itself to the way you perceive the world.

What you do is struggle against this with all of your logic, stand a unwinnable ground, but of course you don't stand a chance. That's Kafkaesque!

When to shut your mouth!

We all get excited and eager to engage, give opinion, offer advise thinking we would help the situation by our utterances. It's rather tempting to jump in with our views. Many a times, we will do more harm than cool the situation just by speaking up.

- When you have tried enough to explain to someone, but that person is in a different state of mind and refuses to understand, just shut up.

- When someone is caring for you, looking after you, instead of being ashamed, be thankful and shut up.

- When someone is angry, in rage, to calm them down, just shut up.

- Shut up when you are unsure and undecided.

- When someone is emotional, pouring out, do not advice, shut up and listen.

- When someone is talking negative about someone else, don't interfere, but just shut up.

- When you see no logic, common sense in the conversation or argument, just shut up.

The indispensable

How indispensable are you at your place of work?

Can anybody do the work that you do?

If it's the same job, same activities that you have been doing for 5, 10+ years, what more skills, talent, abilities have you added?

Irrespective of the role, department, what more or how better do you carry out your job?

Even if you are a Coder and the primary scope has still to do with coding, or a sales executive at a showroom, will the client prefer to deal with you, than everyone else?

If each of us can answer these 5 questions, it might help understand where we stand:

- What part of the job that you do, are you very good at?

- Is what you are good at, something that you love doing as well?

- What part of the job that you do, is most productive for the organisation?

- What part of the job that you don't like to do, yet organisation benefits the most from the work?

- How many are you dependant on to do your job? And how many depend on you to do their job?