Confessions of a Born Spectator

Name:
Location: India

I am me.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Unquestionable Truth

Religion and faith are intoxications that help soften the blow of reality.

Life just came back full circle.

Aseem

Monday, June 23, 2008

Zeppelin



This little fellow is officially the youngest member of the Gill family ... :) I believe I am hooked for life ...
Aseem

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

An Idle Mind is the Devil's Workshop

I am alive. I am at peace. This never ending war between me and myself finally seems to have settled down to an extent that I can now hear my own inner voice again. It is not a matter of jubilation but of realization. This world really is my oyster.

Cannot anyone make out the difference between reality and make believe?
Maybe people are blinded by trivial matters. Maybe it is deliberation. Maybe it is just naivety. I do not know.

People are fascinated by, as Alanis Morissette puts it, them transparent dangling carrots. What is normal?
Is it just the ‘accepted notion’ as voted by a subconscious majority too busy to break out of the monotony of their lives?
Is it being led, directly or indirectly, by other peoples’ tastes and opinions?

I believe I am not normal. Not that I deliberately choose to be so but because I believe this is what truly defines me.
I’ve lived my life like an experiment so far and I’ve loved every part of it. Over my entire lifetime I’ve assumed so many roles and facets that I cannot help but marvel at the things I could do if I tried.
Sometimes I contemplate over why people are content with mediocrity. Why they choose to let their lives govern them instead of the other way around. This world would be a better place if everyone only woke up.
Why cannot we drop our falsified, superficial ‘I’m better than you’ egos for a second experience the joy of just … being.

What happened to ‘Being free to do what you want to do’?
What happened to ‘Feeling the wind blowing in your face on a warm winter afternoon’?
What happened to ‘Letting the first drop of rain fall on your face’?
So is life really that hard?
I haven’t truly understood what I’m doing on this planet but it sure feels good to be here.
Now does that qualify as reason enough to stay alive?
Maybe my typing this is proof that it is. Maybe.
People complain that life is unfair. So what?
How can that make a difference to the way you live your life?
If it does then maybe you need to rethink your priorities.
There’s a cobbler, back in my home town, who sits near our local market. I’d say he is at least 70 years or so in age. He uses a wheelchair, has nobody, other than himself, to support him and probably lives on less than Rs.50 a day.
Yet, there are times when I cannot help but be influenced by the man’s straight forwardness and what I would term ‘genuine clear heartedness’. I suppose that should drive home the point.

This world is littered with rich idiots blinded by their own ignorance of the purpose of existence. Money only gets you a false sense of importance. It doesn’t buy you class.

Anyhow,
All I know is that I have no clue about life …








… and neither do you.

That is why the journey can be so much fun

The sooner we realize it the better.

Aseem

Thursday, June 5, 2008

To Be or Not To Be

The following is a letter that a 19 year old boy wrote to his father:

I seriously say to you that business or job as an engineer is not the thing for me. It is totally foreign to my nature and radically opposed to my temperament and opinions. Physics is my line. I know I shall do great things here. For, each man can do best and excel in only that thing of which he is passionately fond, in which he believes, as I do, that he has the ability to do it, that he is in fact born and destined to do it. My success will not depend on what A or B thinks of me. My success will be what I make of my work. Besides, India is not a land where science cannot be carried on. I am burning with a desire to do physics. I will and must do it sometime. It is my only ambition. I have no desire to be a 'successful' man or the head of a big firm. There are intelligent people who like that and let them do it. I hear you saying 'But you are not Socrates or Einstein'. No — and that is what Berlioz's father said to Berlioz. He called him a useless musician when he was young — Hector Berlioz who now accepted as one of the world's greatest geniuses and France's greatest musician. How can anybody else know at what time what one will do, if there is nothing to show. ... It is no use saying to Beethoven 'You must be a scientist for it is great thing' when he did not care two hoots for science; or to Socrates 'Be an engineer; it is work of intelligent man'. It is not in the nature of things. I therefore earnestly implore you to let me do physics


By the way, that boy grew up to be Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha - The Father of India's Atomic Energy Programme ...

Aseem

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Monday Morning

It is Monday morning and I have alarming amounts of lactic acid running through my veins right now.

By the way, is prejudice a vice or just your autodidactic subconscience undertaking its mundane quotidian tasks?


Wondering ...

Aseem