TOTD: Insignificance

It is not annihilation that I am terrified about. It is insignificance.

Point of No Return

There are times in ones life when one reaches a point of no return. When the emotional, financial and time investment is so much that one cannot walk away. Even when the risks of moving ahead are staring at ones face. Even when the chances of success are mind-bogglingly slim. But one is too involved, and has no choice but to keep moving ahead.

On the other hand, at the point of no return, the cost of walking away is more than the cost of staying. And when the risk of staying is less than the risk of walking away.

It is terrifying, paralyzing, agonizing. This point of no return.

But strangely liberating. To know that one needs to do what one has to do regardless of the results. If one wants to live with oneself in the other breaths that follow this one.

I grit my teeth, take a deep breath and square my shoulders, and I tell myself to take the next step. And I do. And the next step. And the next one. And the next. And I just keep walking. Walking on and on and on.

Single Point of Failure

"Ishikawa Diagram" - A "Cause - Effect" theory that I have known and heard about being practiced in one of the companies I worked for. For the record, I have never formally worked on it, nor have I been trained on its usage.

The idea of the Ishikawa diagram is to take a desired Effect (read expected result), work backwards and think of all the causes that can potentially contribute to it, and document them. Focus on making sure the effecting causes execute well, and the effect will automatically happen. It identifies the possible points of failures, and makes the executor aware of it, so that no point of failure can derail the expected outcome. Very elegant. It works.

Being aware of what the causes are, can and will, influence what finally happens. So far so good.

But how much of a weight does each of the causes has on the effect, is the one question that takes certainty out of the process. Finding out the weight of each cause is subjective, messy and ambiguous.

As I look back in my life, and look ahead, I find that in most cases, a single point/action defined the success or failure of a desired outcome. The weight of the action was not obvious when it happened. It was just one of those things in the action-stream. In most cases, I could not have impacted that particular causatory action. I could not have foreseen its impact. But it is true that the impact of that one action changed everything moving forward, from that point forward. Like a cascading wall of effects. If that one action at that precise time went well, everything went well. If not, then rapidly downhill. In hindsight, there are single points of failures in endeavors.

I focus these days on identifying those actions, the ones that can make/break to cause the outcome that I want out of any situation. The rest, I ignore.

No Ishikawa diagrams for me. One single point is all that I am looking for.

Dreams

Some dreams die early. And that's a relief. The ones who die, even loved cherished ones, can be put behind and one can get on with life.

The ones that I am tormented with are dreams that refuse to die. Dreams that hold me in their bear hug and refuse to let me go. Dreams that do not let me accept reality the way I find it. Dreams that continue to keep me awake at night even though I by now know that they can be just that - dreams.

There was a time in my life when I loved dreams. They were visions of what could be. And they were mesmerizing, seductive. I used to surrender to them whenever I was at leisure, and I used to hatch plans of making them real. Some of them did turn into reality - some by those hatched plans, some by benevolence, and some by providence - and they promptly lost their seductive appeal as they turned real. In a way, they died for me, even though they technically did not die.

And then there were the ones who died. Died because they got killed. Some of them were killed by loved ones, some by destiny's cruel turns, some were born weak, and some of them were killed. By me. The ones I murdered are the ones that I sometimes still remember, the rest now have been forgotten, as they were the ones who I had to wrestle with, and kill them before they killed me.

And then, there are these dreams that live with me now. Some of them I think I still cherish, though I am not sure, not all the time, anyway. Some of them I have tried killing at some time. For some, I have fought for them for years, with back breaking passion, with loved ones, not-so-loved ones, and downright evil ones. Some I have fought with - days and nights on end, sometimes with hard reason, sometimes with brilliant harsh reality, but they have survived. If I kill them, and thats only if I could - Lord knows I have tried - they would kill a part of me. Not leave me whole. Or they may just take me down with them. They are too strong.

I am tired of these dreams of mine. They used to be pleasant to me earlier, not anymore. Maybe they have waited for too long for some action from my side - an action either I could not, or would not do, or providence would not let me do. These days, they do not let me be happy. Lately, they been hollering for attention, screaming for action, and worse, have sometimes made me drop perfectly acceptable situations to run after them. They have me work for them, slavishly, desperately, ruinously. They mock me when I see myself in the mirror, they laugh at me when I laugh on small triumphs, they kick me out of comfortable sleep... Oh, they are demons who feed on me!

Go away, Dreams! Go away. Yes, I no longer need you. I don't need to run after your grand visions, your unquenchable thirst and your deep desires. Go away and leave me in peace. I am too old a woman now, and I now just want to be. Just be what I am, and not what I could be.

Please just go.

All Izz Well

This line is very popular these days. My daughter says it to me before going to school, her friends say this to each other, youngsters tap on their chests as they walk jauntily, and yesterday, I even saw a T-shirt emblazoned on it.

The "3 Idiots" fever is upon us. I enjoyed the movie too, immensely. A tale entertainingly told, about the most primitive deep rooted desire of ours - to make meaning with our lives. And this is in India, where making meaning is something that several of our country folks can only just dream of, most managing to just about survive. The setting is the young India, the youngistan, as they call it in the bubble gum kitshcy vocab that goes around these days.

Young people will dream. As they have always done. Always should. Always would. And every generation dishes out these feel-good movies, where the young are told that what they do, can and will, matter. Feeding them optimism and idealism. Thank God I am not young anymore. All this "All Izz Well" chant does not generate a fervor in me.

Most of our lives, All is not well. For most of us, what we do, does not really matter to anyone, except our immediate family, whom we feed and clothe. Most of us do not find what we love to do, leave alone being competent to do it. Most of us just survive.

The odds of finding the one thing that one was meant to do in the world are stacked against one. There are so many things in the world to do, how does anybody know what they are best at? Who defines best? How does one know that one is good at building bridges when one has never built one? Or even seen it?

I am not sure why this is so. There are people who DO find what they love, indeed, I am one of the fortunate ones, as I love what I do - not all the time, but most of the time. But only I know how long it took, the knocks I braved, the search that it took, the work after it, and even when I am here- my moments of doubt. So many of them. When I run into stone walls, barren fields, abusive team mates, irate customers, I despair still, and wonder if it was worth it all. This fleeting feeling of love for what I do -will it matter to me, really really matter, in say 5 years from now? In ten? Would it matter to anyone else?

How many of us really find what we love to do? And how many of us are sure that this is it, the thing that we really were sent to this world to do? How many of us really know what we want? How many of us even know how to go about finding out what we want? And when we do find out, how many of us make a mistake? How many of us make a mistake, and then get stuck there, like a helpless fly in a spiders net? There are divorces in marital lives - but none in the professional life. Once an adult takes up a profession, he can never really shrug it off. Why isn't there a notion of divorcing your earlier-acquired-profession? If people make mistakes in finding mates, and give a name to it (divorce) for correcting their mistake, why is there still no word for changing ones profession?

Oh, don't give me that hogwash of the universe conspiring to give me that I really really want! Just tell me how I can figure out what I really really want, and what I am good at. And that too early in life, in youngistan days... the rest will fall in place.....

Strident Optimism

Watched a wonderful play a couple of days back -"Happy Days", written by Samuel Beckett. Exemplary acting by the cast of two - Patty Gallagher and Joe McGrath, performed in an intimate theater setting, like the one at NCPA I used to frequent at Mumbai, the location Rangshankara, Bangalore - which even has its announcements in the voice of Girish Karnad, an old friend sitting besides me, and a young niece on the other side, watching a play like this for the first time. A rare rare treat, in more ways than one.

The play itself, left lot more unsaid than the narrative itself. I was so intently listening to what was being said, that I could not reflect on what was not being said. Age, me thinks. There were times when I could listen and reflect, both at the same time. Ah, well…... Guess age has its compensations, such as being able to appreciate and ruminate over a play like this. Age is better. Yes, it is.

Coming back to the play - the play was about a woman, Winnie, buried in sand, waist down in the first act, and neck down in the second one. No reason evident on why it was so, the sand being a metaphor for many many things. She could be buried in a meaningless existence, a soulless marriage, a dead-end job, whatever. And the sand was just taking her deeper and deeper into the earth, to non-existence, slowly, inexorably, and presumably, agonizingly. And she has a husband, Willie, who lives around her, maybe due to the matrimonial bond, or some other, who is mobile, and yet chooses to live in a hole, crawling in and out of it, sometimes using his elbows and sometimes his head.

The play is about the optimism of Winnie, of her being determined to have a “Happy Day”, despite her being buried the way she is, and her efforts to reach out to Willie as she masticates over the memories when she was not buried thus, engages in her daily routine which she turns into a ceremony, murmurs half forgotten prayers, and tries very hard to reach out and engage with Willie, urging him to connect with her, terrified as she is about "talking to herself". She does not complain about being buried, but just accepts it the way it is, refusing to use the revolver she has in her bag at all times, which could end it all at one go, that which is any case is ending slowly, excruciatingly. She has her days of panic, when she fears about Willie not being there, and her days of doubt as she wonders what people (Shower/Cooker….or something that ended with an ‘er’) say about her, and resigns herself to existing and surviving, and tries to choose the perfect time to “sing her song”. And in all this, she is perennially gay, thanking her God for the thousand mercies, and once even curses mobility, the one thing she does not have, being buried so.

The play ends when Willie crawls out of his hole, one Happy Day, and reaches out to her, to maybe give her a kiss or maybe to make the revolver kiss her, maybe to end her pitiful yearning for intimacy with him, or snuffing out her pitiful existence- difficult to say, which, and when Winnie finally, finally, sings her song. Lilting, not musical, not good, but yet, her song, the Winnie song.

As I walked out with friends, I could feel a disquiet within me. This was an optimistic play, in a way, as Winnie is so hell bent on being happy, and yet, I felt so sad inside. No, this was a terribly dark sad play, I reflected later. Her insistence to be happy, in a situation which is so obviously an unhappy one, is sadder than everything else.

No wonder, the flyer that came with the play called her a “Strident Optimist”. Winnie is optimistic, but her optimism jars. I wish she wasn’t so, I wish I could tell her, “Winnie, it is’nt getting any better, you are just fooling yourself! Your optimism is sad. Very sad, sadder than the wails that you have throttled inside. Cry, if you must, but don’t smile. You are in a hell hole, and it maybe better to just end it, rather than go on this way, it may be kinder to die than to survive.” Maybe thats what Willie decides to do that after all. Kill her rather than face her strident optimism.

I have no idea of what Beckett meant when he wrote this play, or what others say about it. Maybe after I am done thinking about it, I would look for what others have to say, but for today, I need to think more about what he meant, and what sense I can make of it.

To me, the play typified the pain that we all go through, terrified of being alone, of talking to no one. Just like Winnie, we are all scared deep inside when the day will come with the ‘words will cease’, when our breaths are wound down. Just like her, we reach out to find companions, who would care, who find us lovable, and despite finding that the “Willie” we are with, does not care or does not want to, we incessantly try and find meanings in our relationships when maybe there aren’t any. We console ourselves with optimism when sometimes it is obvious that there isn’t any sense in it. And that’s the darkest hour. When we know internally that we are even faking hope.

It happens. It has happened to me. Hopefully, it wont ever happen again. But it did. Then I survived because there was nothing else to do but survive. It did not make sense to survive. Survival seemed worse than death, but survive I did – as I made the notions of going through the day, counting seconds, counting minutes and then hours, every single day, waiting for the sun to rise and set, willing myself to live the next second, even when it made no sense to, as I struggled with the multiple options that I could use to end it all, and found none to be satisfactory.

I survived. And it wasn’t because of hope. Hope had died. But I could not die even when hope had died. I remember a friend asking me of those days – "Just how did you survive?" And I remember answering him – “What else was there to do?”

Inane reason, but who said truths aren’t inane?

Willie survives, and so do the most tortured lives. Not because survival means something better, but because annihilating oneself is tougher and scarier than survival. So, one takes the easy option - Survives, fakes hope, puts on a cheery smile, and calls is optimism. Strident Optimism.

This is so dark, so full of despair. I recognized it because I have been here. Maybe Beckett had been here too. But wait wait wait….That was then. I am not at that emotional junction today, not today. No No.

Today, I would have chosen to take the other perspective, the other path. Not in its emptiness, not in despair. Not even in hope. But in acceptance - not in optimistic way that Winnie did, but in simple, stoic acceptance. Not in right or wrong, good or bad, but accepting reality the way it is, and dealing with it in a spirit of benediction to myself – not because the universe is kind – I still think it is indifferent – but because it is kinder on myself if I think it that way. Lame? Faking it, you say? Yes, maybe.

But could I sing my song, the way Winnie did, in my acceptance mode? No. I don't think so. I wish I could though. Stoic-ism does not lend itself to songs. Singing songs would definately be better, if I could figure out how to. The way, Rabindranath Tagore did. Where I can believe in the benediction of the universe, surrender to it, and believe that there is a beloved waiting for me somewhere, after this worldly existence, even though I have no means of really knowing that He is there, and sing my song, like Tagore does...with so much certainty.

“The song that I came to sing, remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing and unstringing my instrument.
The time has not come true, the words have not seen rightly set; only there is the agony of wishing in my heart.
The blossom has not opened, only the wind is sighing by.
I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice; only I have heard his gentle footsteps from the road before my house.
The livelong day had passed in spreading his seat on the floor; but the lamp has not been lit and I cannot ask him into my home
I live in the hope of meeting him; but this meeting is not yet.”

-Gitanjali, Rabindranath Tagore

Some day, I hope, I can feel the way Tagore felt when he wrote that. And I hope that on no day, I feel like the way I think Beckett must have felt when he wrote Happy Day. No, I don’t want to go on that path again.

The day I feel like Tagore did, I would be at peace with me, my existence and that of the universe, and that day, I would need no “Willie”, nor would I need to fake optimism, strident or otherwise. Till then, stoic-ness is what I will stick to. Try to.

The Race Not Won

Not winning the race
Is not pretty at all.

They say
Its the race thats important
But when the trophy slips away,
Its not pretty at all

They say
Do your best, leave the rest
But the could'a-should'a thoughts
Are not pretty at all

They say
May the best man win
But when the best man is the judge's son
Its not pretty at all

They say
Its the journey that matters
But when one reaches a cul-de-sac
Its not pretty at all

They say
Dream, and the universe conspires to give it you
But when one the dream becomes a burden
Its not pretty at all

They say
In the long run it is for the best
But when the run itself is short
Its not pretty at all

I say
Nothing succeeds like success
And when optimism makes a fool out of me
It is really not pretty at all

Courage: The pre-requisite of being an artist

It needs courage to become an artist.

An artist creates things that are non-essential for existence, but things which provide meaning to existence. Artists create beauty - in pictures, words, forms, dance - and most often than not, create them on their own notion of what beauty is. Many times the world does not agree, and sometimes it does. But the artist creates. Not because it is needed. Not because someone wants it. Not because it would sell. But simply because he has to. He creates because he must.

What does being an artist mean? It means that you would somehow create something of beauty that would be liked by people. An artist does not have a business card that calls him a Creator. Nor does he have one that calls him a Vice President - Manufacturing. Nor does he get a salary check from some one. He is his own university, he is his own factory, he is his own marketeer, he is own innovation - he is one man everything. He is stripped of all the paraphernalia that most professions has. A business man has his money, a career bureaucrat his post, a politician his constituency, a manager his salary check, a doctor his dispensary - and all of these give substance to the profession, and the man who practices it.

An artist is a stripped-of-everything profession. A man or a woman stands bare, with no protection, except a vision of beauty that they wish to share, with no protection, no props, no sustenance.

Which one of us humans can live a true-to-thought life like this? Where we have no place to hide? No degree to hold on to, no house to show off, no car to drive to - where we stand as ourselves, and ask the world to believe us simply because, because.

And yet, artists needs to depend on the same world for his daily bread and sustenance. So, maybe an artist needs to prostitute his art, for creating something that people like - regardless of whether it matches his vision or not.

Hungry eyes

I wish I did not have these visions.

Of blue oceans, and blue skies and blue hills and blue trees...

I am tormented by them - these visions - and find it difficult to focus on my daily life as my soul yearns for them, and rubbishes everything that I do have. I have everything that I can materially ask for, and emotionally want - my cup of life is full. And yet, yet, there is this yearning, which keeps me awake at night, and browse furiously through books, and the web - looking for that place that I can call my home.

Actually, it is not the yearning to call a place a home, it is perhaps a yearning for having lived and travelled and smelt other smells and mingled with other skins, and seen the beauty of nature. I just want to go back to nature.

I am selfish enough to cling to my air-conditioners and my neatly kept home to manage my day to day life, but my eyes - they are the ones who are hungry. They clamour for food they like, for food they can enjoy and savour, and I struggle as they take over my entire persona and make me feel as if I am one big starving eye.

Why is beauty such a need? Why are my eyes so hungry? Why can't they leave me in peace?