An unsaid feeling!

I have always wondered if  the passengers in my train of life know me as to exactly who I define myself to be! Do you think that you express the true you?

I don’t think so. But I am of course happy for those of you who differ.

There is this new subway being caved into the earth, which I need to constantly pass by most often and much unenthusiastically.  The side of  this work that is going on is artistically margined with decaying trash from all our well maintained homes. The stench is like the parallel universe of the inside of our beautifully perfumed and repeatedly bragged about cars!! And by the side of this repulsive sight, I come across this small tiny crumbled figure, breaking small pieces of bread with her tiny and trembling fingers. It’s not a sight that I wish to see, but it is the gore reality.

The gruesomeness is not the situation, but the unmoved souls that walk past her, with not a single sketch of emotion, even slightly glimmering with a drop of melancholy.

It got me thinking, have we become people so aloof to even dignify this lady of her existence?

We feel emotions of anger, jealousy, love, kindness, empathy, hate and so on. But we all successfully conceal these emotions with the greatest masks of existence such as diplomacy, silence and detachment. Slowly these feelings settle down like the volcano and become rocks that are immovable and inhumane.

We hold on to our unsaid feelings not being able to reach out to those who could use our aid and also maybe ask for a small hand ourselves when we needed it the most! We think if we expose our true selves, we will be plundered of our soul and what remains is just sorrow. We erect a tower of comfort, and what endures, just us on the top of it, confided with darkness and solitude.

Nevertheless, we live in a world where it’s believed to leave something's unsaid. But we are so diligent, that we do not say most of it.

To me it’s essential to be honest of my emotions and say it all out. If we feel the importance of illuminating our true selves as true as we are and not put on a façade like our very own ‘Batman’ then we would know how much of our world is authentic.

Feeling emotions makes us human. Expressing it defines our persona. It opens the world to clarity and compassion.

Like Fydor (Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky - Russian writer) said ‘Much unhappiness has come to the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid’. 

Mistakes... A process that can never get undone!

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.” ― Marilyn Monroe

Overtime I have come to realise, that it takes a lot of effort to accept the truth about one self. We validate ourselves to be accurate and neglect to concede that we make mistakes because it is a part of being mortal.

The consequences lead to disregard a person with an erroneous behaviour as human.  We build an impression of arrogance and egotism towards him or her. We forget that we could be placed in the same place as we are as human as them.

It might be clearly misunderstood, that I am trying to justify the notion of making mistakes. A wrong deed is wrong and has to be reprimanded. But to evaluate the mistake as the individuals character is a nasty verdict.

Each of our decision has a history. It is this past that needs to be evaluated and not the person. By allowing our judgement to be confided in just the character of the person, we tend to foresee the good that he or she has bequeathed in the past.

We call today’s generation to be remotely sentimental about anything. But have we thought that they are what they are today because of the failing families and the struggle to make a place for themselves as no matter what they do, they still find it difficult engrave an identity.

Over time, our social practices have changed.  We do not sit together to eat, we have big homes where the child is left in isolation with no regard of human bonds. Parents are unaware of the lives that their children have paved for themselves.  

How then can we pronounce them as bad, and inclined to make mistakes as it’s in their attribute to do so?  

Our verdicts of individuals who make mistakes are discriminating. We need to nip the bud to fix a problem and not just concentrate on the bad flower. 

When someone has gone wrong, we go above and beyond to demonstrate how bad a person he or she is. We cast them off as unworthy of a second chance. We disregard and refuse the possibility of being treated human. We slowly bury them alive as they forget to respect themselves, because we chose to not give them the possibility of another chance.

Ultimately, we ourselves are standing in their shoe, making our set of mistakes, because we are bend on to think, that we just handle everyone at their best, their worse is not our responsibility.

Then why would our worse be anyone else’s responsibility… 

To look beyond...

Never loose sight of what you cannot see... Tasneem Hameed

Has it ever occurred to us that we need to be aware of the unseen realities?

Sometimes, our open eyes incline to see what we choose to see, thus, closing the curtains on the aesthetic handiwork or the inevitable destruction that materializes behind the blinds, that we have draped across our vision. We consequently oversee the simple magnificence of the stories that unfold, whether they may be pleasant or unpleasant .

I was thinking the other day, how much am I loosing out by just not being able to see beyond the normal. When I go to work, I close my eyes to avoid boring myself with the stream of traffic that is hurrying with bellowing drivers expressing their annoyance and rage!! 

I realized that I lost the opportunity amidst this chaos to see the splendour of the vast blue heavens, a solitary flower that has blossomed on the leafy tree and a drop of drizzle resting on the back of my hands gleaming in the sun light. 

But you would ask me how does it make my life different seeing these trivial sights. You might be pondering, if I am an eccentric. 

Have we not complicated our very existence that we do not wish to appreciate the smallest beauty or grief. I might see  a person in misery, and walk past, with no conscience that my being there could make a difference. How many times have we seen our cruel words injuring our loved ones, yet not made an effort to acknowledge these moments. 

Many have written, many have spoken, but we have turned a blind eye to what we should see. I was travelling in a bus and I saw a traveller as me, clearing out her purse, and flinging away the old tickets back into the bus. She did not choose to see that her act added litter not just in that bus, but in this cosmic world, she was ruining a clean environment for the future. 

We see the smile, but ignore the pain masked beneath it. Sometimes, we don't even look at the smile, because we do not like the person wearing it. We have become a generation that is gifted with the opportunity to make a change by seeing and understanding the world around. But we keep choosing to see what we want to see and never look beyond. 

It maybe strangers, friends, family, enemies or just the world around us. They are showing us a million reasons that explain their existence. If we see them, then we can transform the repulsive circumstances to a more delightful condition. And agreeably what is pleasurable, can be a sight that is shared so that others may know that more than gold, diamond or Ferraris, there are simple joys that can gratify our souls. 

And so we never loose sight of what we cannot see... We will look beyond!

Soul mates forever or just a myth...

Soul mates forever or just a myth that never exists!!

I always argued to all those who told me that a successful relationship existed only when there was "compromise".

I deny and strongly disagree to this.

I believe that when you truly love someone, you would never want to compromise, because we would personally cherish doing something, that we would normally not enjoy doing. This is because it eventually gives us the joy of knowing that we made the person we love happy, simply happy!

Compromise on the other hand, is an agreement between two people who would have to make a conscientious agreement to give up something to maintain the 'deal'. The deal unfortunately ends up to be the relationship that they share... Regrettably when the process of compromise kick starts, it just doesn't get over with. The list grows and grows, but the joy of the bond is lost in the process.

Sadly we humans, no matter how evolved we call ourselves to be; don't deal with compromises as easily as we are called to do it. In simple words, we don't deal with it with a mature mind.

We keep these compromises confined to our tiny lockers and one day, when we can no longer stuff them in, we pour them out to the world. At that time, we forget to 'forgive and forget' and become a broken record that keeps repeating itself and distressing all around.

However, I wonder... I keep thinking that my argument was never worth the while. Ultimately I don't think a love like 'Notebook' is an easy find! It’s a lost treasure in the depth of the ocean!

There are many reasons quoted for relationships to not work. In an article that I once read, it stated that most often relationships never work because most people got into the relationship for the wrong reasons and then eventually lose their identity; thus, losing the crux of the relationship.

There were many more, however, ultimately it all comes to one final explanation. I feel that, we let ourselves be lost in the wrong hands and keep no choices open for us to fix a problem, as we end up compromising!

We forget to spread the vibe of positivity and become the followers of sadness and self-pity! When we compromise, we hide ourselves in the relationship as we do not have the confidence to stand up and say that this is me, and this is what I have made for myself.

To close off, I would like to tell you what I think.

I think I should not expect you to compromise on what you want or who you are, because I love you just the way you are. My love for you is simple. And I hope you feel the same about me too.

And then we can be called soul mates! We will no longer be a myth but the reality that we live to prove, that we exist!

Society we should build, and not just live in...

At various distinguished moments in our life, we would have come across a point, where we tend to compromise on what we intended or wished to have as reality.

I stand today, in one such position where my needs, my dreams and my theory of life may just be a blur image of what I wish but quite far away from the idea of realism. It is like a mirage that always seems to be a lifeline to a fool thirsting for the realms of security.

The life that we dream of is most often the most beautiful one. But the life that we live, is an eye opener. We who dream are some crazy lunatics, bellowing away the craziest idea that stands far away from truth.

What exists is a gunny bag full of garbage, a set of social rules that people take, because they cannot simplify the life that is gifted to them.

There was a custom followed by the Kayan women (which has been abolished to an extent, except to attract tourists), for which no historical evidence is yet sought as to why the tradition was followed; where the women were made to wear neck rings at an early age of five years. The more the rings, the longer the neck used to look. It was said that this outlined what the society then termed as “beautiful”. The misfortune in the custom is that she had a high probability of snapping her neck as the spine becomes weak, eventually.

There is an animated American Musical that goes by the name "Phineas and Ferb". For those of you haven’t seen or heard of this show, you can always you tube it when you have time. It is a story about a big sister, whose ultimate purpose is to “bust her brothers”. The reason I mention this show here is because in one of these shows, Candace the big sister, states a very important detail where she clarifies that there is a part of the society that makes money out of peoples natural insecurities and make beauty unattainable.

To me, I agree with that thought. It’s not just beauty. It’s the profession that we choose, the partner that we choose, the clothes that we choose, the friends that we chose, all expose our social insecurities.

It becomes difficult to be satisfied. Because, let’s face it, we are not driving towards our goals and our aspirations. We are reaching out to what the society has tabled as success.

This is the tragic story that we endure most often, but never complain about. We have become so accustomed to life the way it is.

However, this brings an interesting question to my mind. So what is society? The Google definition states that ‘it is a group of people involved in persistent interpersonal relationships, or a large social grouping that shares the same geographical or social territory , typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations.’

It is a dominant cultural expectation that I worry about deeply.

To me I feel that a leader is someone who defines this dominant cultural expectation. So it becomes necessary sometimes to affirm that the leader is choosing the right direction for its society. And how is this accomplished?

We need to question the normal. It’s okay to break the rules sometimes and to stand out to be different. When we question, we build the opportunity for change. A good leader would know it, and guarantee to build on it. If the leader is not ready for the change, and if you are right, it is time for you to take the reins. But it is important to understand that if change should happen, we need to stand up and differ.

Sadly most of us do not encourage the leader within us. We prefer being a part of a group that allows the sanctity of life to be ruined by being rode upon, by not questioning the direction, the path or to where we are destined. Why, because we cannot speak for ourselves, because we feel going against the others will rip us from the society. We constantly live in the fear of losing our social standing.

What we do not understand is that we were created to be different. It’s our society. We own it. So why not remodel it, with the changing conditions. We have poverty to think about, we have communal riots to think about, we have rape and abuse to think about and act on. Weddings and cultural variance is the last thing we need to worry about. 

Let’s think about a future, where the generations to come, need not live in the fear of dousing their own ideas because they want to be a part of a group and not stand as one and lead to make a difference...

Respect!

The way I see myself, you see me!

The way I love myself, you love me!

The way I treat myself, you treat me!

Yet I find it difficult to raise me up in my own eyes...

Yet I forget I deserve to be loved more...

Yet I forget I ought to be treated better...

Alas! I am insanely blinded in my own fight for recognition... I cannot let go of what I think I want!

And when I turn back, I see a shadow of doubt, when you look into my eyes...

You turn away, assured that you may be better off another way!

Its too late, and I realize, that I failed again.I retreat, realizing I lost the possibility of knowing how it feels to be esteemed. I know not now, what I would be, had I been noble to me more than all around me!

This is the story of each one of us. Its time we respect ourselves before we expect it from anyone else!

WE

"We" were people who evolved and took dominion over the world, that "we" live in today...

"We" feared the wild beasts, storm, fire, hunger and the thought of being alone!

"We" grew from one to two and a million more...

"We" worked together to liberate ourselves from our fears.

"We" remained bound to each other, to continue being powerful and in control...

"We" fostered cultivation; "We" endorsed industrial civilization and encouraged any kind of possibilities that contributed towards the ecstatic feeling of progress!

But Alas!

"We" neglected to reason that we evolved only because it was "We" who made it achievable and not just an "I".

And slowly we bend our heads to execute ourselves and crafted our own destruction...

"We" built barbed wires and divided ourselves... abandoning the joy of togetherness!

The fire that "We" dominated blistered us like a cigarette that burnt our gasp for life.

Starvation that "We" fought together to feed, became the fight of the less fortunate... There was a rich man and a poor man, and they could never be quantified as one no longer...

“I” was branded to a faith, and lost my conviction to being humane as “I” was too involved in saving a place for myself in heaven!

Being alone is what "I" choose, because it gives me the freedom of meeting my self-centric dogma… Family and friends are of no more relevance because my life is just my obligation!

It all culminated to where “I” stand today.

“I” stand alone…

“I” stand in anger with my neighbour…

“I” am starving in my own misery…

“I” am manipulated…

“I” fear I cannot go on…

“I” sense hatred around me…

“I” cling on, scared that I may fail to protect the last of my hope …

If only “I” would have stopped thinking, that “I” didn’t care for what “We” had before, and that “I” only cared for my tomorrow… It would have been a life worth living!

“I should have known, I was just a drop, but together we could have made an ocean”