Life's Recompense

At the end of your innings, you are judged by not how wealthy you are, nor how knowledgeable or intelligent you are, nor how famous you are, nor even how much wise you are, nor how much charity you have done. Only one yardstick. How much humanity you have placed over and above each and every objective of your life. That's it. That's the recompense of all your life.

Agree to not agree.....

There is a subtle difference between agreeing to others’ views and to not disagreeing with them. They are not the same. The difference lies in that gap which is variously the repository of empathy or tolerance depending on the situation. It also allows for discovering at a later point that you could have been wrong all the while. An enjoyable parley of thoughts recognises this difference and takes the level of discussion to a higher plane where both parties ultimately realise that in an either or situation only one of them was right, indeed only one could have been right, and the other only had an aberration in the process of thinking. Eventually both experience happiness that A is A.

Exit

Nature prepares you for the final exit.

Just as it prepared you in your first ten years to grapple with the physical world around you, and in the next twenty years, to fend for yourself, and in the next forty years to figure out why you are in this world in the first place, just so when the final exit comes, in the few years before that, nature will prepare you for the exit, and this point of time may vary from person to person, but surely nature knows the time, and you should thank nature for that, for imagine if nature were not to so prepare you, how difficult it would be for you to leave what you always mistook your life as heaven on earth.

So what is this nature? It’s you yourself, stupid! Your waning life and the yo-yo of your desires which dry out at the very end of your life and so you tend to become as they say ‘philosophical’, or ‘spiritual’, or ‘suddenly enlightened’, or ‘peacefully internalised’ to name a few situations.

Leave.

Gracefully.

Never Alone

You are never alone. Even in your most dire loneliness, it's always there. You don't see it, but you feel its presence. Like a fluttering sparrow or a tweeting robin. By your side, perched on your shoulder, walking along with you, jogging by your side, balancing on your bike handlebar, sitting in the chair next to you, on the window sill, on the fridge if you are making tea in the wee hours of morning, laughing with you, weeping with you, listening to music you are listening to on the radio, watching what you are watching on the television, always respecting your sense and need for privacy, never intruding into your innermost thoughts, never overbearing on your anxious moments. It's not a part of you. You are a part of it. Know the difference? Some call it soul. Some call it consciousness. Some call it God. I also would like to call it something, by some name, by some id, And then again, I wonder why call it anything at all? Just make friends with it. True friends never care about names and the tags that go along with. It's there. It's always there. And that's all that matters.

Missing Sock

The missing sock always comes around. Just a matter of little time and yes, a little patience.

Unlie

The recent conviction of India's movie superstar brings out, to my mind, one sad facet of human nature. For as many as thirteen years, as in the case of the superstar, if you perpetuate a lie, it does not become truth (Goebbels nothwithstanding). The truth is after sustaining a lie for a long time, it is very difficult to unlie.

Pack Leader

Democracy concerns constituents more. We still need a pack leader.