Through the Highs and Lows of an emotionally driven mind

I guess the problem I face began somewhere during the sixteenth century.

It was the time when the joy and euphoria of ‘The Renaissance’ had begun to fade and population of humans began to grow in crazy proportions.

The time of the artists had come to an end. People were bored of praising them and making them celebrities. The masses desperately needed to earn their bread. The concept of business and trade evolved. Mass production became the frenzy. Mediocrity became celebrated.

Words like individuality, genius, perfection, skill gave way to adaptability, flexibility,productivity and team work. Anyone with basic education was heralded as ‘potential’ for generating money. The few talented souls who showed anomalies were regarded with suspicion and termed as outcasts.

‘Crazy’, ‘mad’, ‘psycho’ and ‘relic’ titles were assigned to condemn those people and curb such behavior. The artist clan began to dwindle in size.

Normal people were given heavy compensations. This in turn gave them access to live the ‘high’ life.

No one complained if they had no clue of what they were doing. If they ever did, they found solace in company and hid behind the mask of ‘teamwork’.

The psychos never stayed long. Either they turned normal, or they perished trying ventures that would have been lauded, fostered and funded, had they been done during the Renaissance.

But among them all, a few took on the world. They embraced failures. They accepted poverty. They renounced the access to technology that made them lazy. They strove hard in what they believed. They fought abuse. Their families shook their heads on seeing them. “They are failures, as they don’t earn as much as others. They are irresponsible, as they chose a different path. They are immature to move away from a golden treasure. They will learn someday, that they were wrong.”

They walked on, oblivious to all their criticism. They found peace in life through doing what they believed in. They found integrity, for they had control over their work. They were merry, satisfied and contended. They were the remnants of the artist clan. Their art was their heart and soul and very purpose of existence.

Am I an artist too?

Posted in contemplations | No Comments »

blank_page

Sometimes I wonder what the whole point of living life is, who are we cheating here? Why work for a full day in a closed room where, if you are extremely lucky, you get to watch the sunrise and sunset through the glass door?

Why work where you cannot feel the breeze on your face and the only air you get is artificially purified ( Somehow, I don’t understand the true meaning of ‘artificially’ purified!).

We say we work to make our lives better, but rarely does it happen so.

……………………………………………………………..
I feel scared of this life. Scared that I might grow too old,too soon. Scared that I might be one of those in the crowd, who thinks his purpose in life is to work like mad and get home during cockroach loitering hours . I am scared of the traffic I see which keeps building year upon year.I am scared I would get stuck here for the rest of my life. Get sucked into a vortex of deliverables to meet and unrealistic targets to set. I am scared I might one day become too engrossed that I forgot to breathe.
………………………………………………………………
Maybe I am not scared at all. Maybe I am fully aware of what I am and where I find myself. Maybe I am the one who is cheating myself, telling the lie that its wonderful here, repeatedly, convincing my brain to accept the lie. Maybe I don’t want to pause to think of the life I am leading, lest all the emotions of quiet oppression that I let myself be subjected to burst into my body. Maybe I don’t want to feel the upsetting force within myself.
………………………………………………………………

What am I doing, fiddling with the knowledge that 99% of the world’s wealth lies with the 1% of its people, of which the ones I serve are a part?
Would I someday walk away from all this and look to teach my children to take a different path? Would I take a step away from this frantic world of development and get back to the roots of the world and help them grow? Would I walk out of all this money and comforts of settling into the (bank) balanced life?
……………………………………………………………….

I hope I would!

I hope one day, I would travel to the rural side of my country, and give them a decent story teller, a knowledgeable friend and companion, and most importantly, a good teacher!

Posted in contemplations | No Comments »

blank_page

Sometimes people ask the question if one would ever write another piece as good as or even better than the one that brought glory. How would it feel to survive, knowing that our best work is behind us and for all that we know, we might never reach such levels again in this life?
Freaky thought, right?
I have to admit, back then, when I declared my urge to become a writer, no one thought I would succeed. Some thought I was mad to pursue a dangerous career which was often unrewarding. I don’t blame them for calling me so because deep down, every writer on earth knows they are mad.

I did have my share of fears; I did sometimes sit in a dark room and wonder what would happen if all my works went unnoticed? What if all of them were dismissed as ill-fitting to this time? What if every single article I wrote never travelled beyond the mail box of the local editor?

I did not know how I was going to live a life as a failure. I did not know what I was going to do as a living. All I knew was that I had a purpose in life, and it was to write, and so I wrote. Did I know this book of mine was going to be the best ever, frankly, no!

Do I believe this was going to be my best for ever – I don’t know about that too! I just carry on doing what I have loved to do all my life. Results really must not matter.

Thinking of why all this pressure of scaling similar heights and peaks and the fear of failure came about, I would like to get back in history.

During the age of the Babylonians, it was popularly believed that the works of arts and literature were the means implied by the gods and the devils on earth. It was widely believed by the Romans that the Daemon took over the control of the artist’s hands or the writer’s pen and out came the master piece. The Greek believed the genie came into the room of the artist or the sculptor and what came out was to be appreciated by the world as the work of a ‘genie-us’, which later was coined as genius.

They believed in this and gave these people the best rooms and often left them in peace. They gave them quiet rooms where they could enter and wait for the genie to come. “Come on” in French was “Allez” which later became “Allah”- they were all supernatural.

This gave the creative people the license to venture out into any unknown horizon and bring out the best in them. Glory or condemnations were both regarded at the same level. The genie was the one who created them and hence the fruits of the masterpiece were attributed to the genie.

Man missed this trick when the Renaissance happened. The glorification of mankind led to the dismissal of the theory of a supernatural angel occupying the human body and producing works of genius. Genius became the tag associated with the men of creativity. They were made famous and known around the world. With the spread of popularity, the weight of expectation was piled on their shoulders. Most of the creative minds were clouded by the pressure of matching the expectations. Fear snubbed originality and soon the number of creative beings in the world began to reduce.

Save the creative minds. Let them be. Do not worship them. Do not place your expectations on such fragile men and women. Let their mind to be free because the free mind can only produce the greatest works.

And to all the creative souls in this world, believe that there are angels around you who make you deliver your piece of brilliance. Let not fear of failure blind you. Let not the pressure of expectations bother you. Let the angels do their work, and let the Gods decide the results of these works.

I do not have the link for the source…. I dont even know the name of the author, for you all to read the real one - that is what plagiarism is all about

Posted in contemplations | No Comments »