Done and dusted

I wasn't used to being below par

The first time it happened, blamed the tester

The second time, I found faults with the test

Excuses followed: the system, the culture, the skill, the will

But soon it was the norm

I am just average now, most times

And occasionally, I am not good enough

I wasn't used to being below par
But I found I was anyway, and that I don't care

I didn't think life could be so tiring

But I was wrong too, for I am exhausted

I didn't believe I had no ambition

But I do not now dream any dreams at all

I did know I was fungible and replaceable

But now I realize I don't need me even in my own life

I asked myself what mattered

And answers started dying up

Love, friendship, happiness, purpose

Reduced to mere good-to-haves

What for, then, to wake up from the sleep?

Where to find the energy to breathe?

Why don't I stop asking silly questions?

Is it all over yet, or do I need to repeat?

The actual conversation

What you begin to say
but skirt at the edges
What your eyes betray
But your vocabulary hedges
I read it, I hear it
But I shall wait to listen
The tears maybe unshed
But in your eyes they glisten
You say words betray
But they're still being your allies
It's ok, I shall wait, until you figure
The truth is easier than the lies

Rules of the game, please?

Is this a journey with a goal?
Are we actually trying to get some place?
Or are we delusional, in this rat race,
merely, for the thrill of the chase?

Is there a zenith, a winner's post
for whoever runs at the fastest pace?
A blissful, content, shiny life prize
If only I outlast this "short, tough phase"?

What if I tire, what if I am hurt?
Where would I go if I fell from grace?
What if I can't win, is there a darkness
for the losers and quitters to hide their face?

What if I am afraid, running alone?
Will someone be waiting if I return to the base?
What if I realize, at the end when I've won
That I am out of time. That life beat me anyways...

Loser!

Sometimes, your very best isn't good enough.
It happens. For some things, or for some people, you at your utmost highest potential are just not good enough.

Does not make you a total loser.
Except when you do not let go and move on.  

Statistically insignificant

It's fall; winds blow all day

And leaves shed all around.

Another moment, another gust of wind

And a few more leaves shed

Probably means nothing special to you

Statistically insignificant, a comma in an epic.

But the leaf, each leaf 

Has a very different narrative

Profound, poetic, personal

Emotional, secretive, transitive.

But you'd miss all those stories

That leaf will just be a relic.

Once, you lived on the tree

The leaves were all distinct, all friends

Now reduced to multitudes of color

by time and distance, to seasonal trends

Would you ever be friends again?

Or would life always be so frantic.

It's so easy to drift apart

Almost the natural order of things

You start flying in another direction

With the slightest change in winds

Sure, other trees will fill the void

Sure, elsewhere you'd rediscover the magic

Probably this one doesn't really mean much to you

Statistically insignificant. A comma in an epic.

Fair and square

I have spent a lot of time thinking, realizing, re-realizing over this weekend, how little so many things matter. Things that seem SUCH A BIG DEAL when they are happening, matter so little after some time. It is humiliating, almost, to remember how much time, thought and emotional investment went into those meaningless things. I was shocked, for example, to realize how little I remember certain events, several words and even some people that occupied so much of my consciousness only 8 or 9 years ago. I guess the lesson is I should not read old emails. 

But there's another lesson. My roommate says we pay so much attention to stuff to keep ourselves occupied, "to kill time" so to speak, because life would be too long for most of us if we didn't fuss over the small stuff. If we didn't give in to emotional response and rational over-thinking on most of what life serves us. She is probably right. But it is a little disturbing too.Does that mean life really has no meaning? Or, more likely, most of us never manage to find that meaning and just survive, deliberating over one issue or the other to "kill the time"? Is the point of life to just "kill the time" until time is up? That seems kinda disappointing, doesn't it? 

That almost makes me want to call time and stop living. What's the point, anyway?

Maybe it is the fast-approaching winter and the shortening days filled with chilly breeze and falling leaves, or maybe it is just the colossal amount of thinking B-School provokes me to do, but it feels more and more these days that "what matters most to you and why" is definitely the world's hardest question. There aren't that many things in the world that feel "worth mattering", these days.

Which leaves us with the ones that do seem that they "should matter".

Like morality, the sense of right and wrong, and the courage to do the right thing. It feels like that should be the most important component of the leadership of this world, more than "skills" and "fit". And yet, hardly ever do we screen CEOs, employees and politicians with it. Hell, I don't think we even know how to screen effectively those who are "just faking it". And yet, "intent" seems to matter somehow. That grey fuzzy area of intent, really does seem to matter more than words and often, even actions. 

The other close cousin of morality, honesty, seems to matter too. Honesty allows us to be human. To make mistakes, to forgive mistakes. Honesty allows intent to survive. Honesty allows us to work together, without agenda and conspiracy, and we can often solve problems better together than alone. Honesty allows affection and trust. But honesty is so Goddamn uncomfortable so often.

There's one fundamental thing that humans have an innate need for, and that is fairness. Humans may not behave fairly, but they always want to be treated fairly with those they consider their equals in that context. The absolutes itself do not seem to matter, fairness is relative and desired by everyone on all ends of the spectrum. People get upset over low salaries, but outraged if they get a salary hike just a little bit less than their peer. It is ironical, of course, that often we are ok with unfairness as long as we are perpetuating it on other, or as long as we are the beneficiary. Mostly though, we just choose to ignore unfairness on others until it starts affecting us. We know it instantly when we feel prejudiced, but we are blind to our own privilege and prejudice. But the noise aside, the bottom line is clear. People demand and deserve to be treated fairly. And honesty and the right intent can go a long way in removing unfairness from this world. Discrimination on caste, gender, race, sexuality, religion, profession etc is unfair and must go. Starvation of some while others waste resources is unfair and must be corrected. 

It is hard, but restoring fairness in this world seems like something that matters. Something worth thinking about and acting upon. 

Beats "killing time".

The tunnel

Somewhere in the kingdom of Night

Is a big lake of tears

A gleaming tasteful variety of droplets

But prickly, like spears

The lake is communal

Draws in from every home

Yet the tears in it are lonely

Each drop has a distinct moan

In the kingdom of Night

Pain doesn't release with blood

In the season of love

The lake would often flood

That's when I suppose

The powers that be

Negotiated a treaty

With the queens of sleep

And built a tunnel

That opened in the pillows

So dreams got some time off

To holiday in the willows

And so now we often find

Deep in the silence of Night

The tears erupt from the pillows

And denial loses the fight

I feel betrayed by the queens of sleep

They promised me escape and peace

Instead I lie here waiting for the flood

These trickling lonely tears are such a tease...

Sometimes I can't believe people want to be friends with me...

...thanks! :)

Hurt

You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you.

I like my choices.

Power and powerlessness

We found ourselves thinking about different types of power today, specifically different ways in which power is held, exercised and experienced. Power that can abuse and stomp out disagreements, , power that concentrates responsibilities with a few so everyone can focus on solely their tasks, power that changes the world every night when you sleep and doesn't let you question why, power that is all about building consensus, interpersonal relationships and group decision-making, power that allows debate to foster but gently nudges towards the right thing by reserving authority. 

A few days back a professor said in class: Power corrupts, but perhaps, powerlessness corrupts even more. The conversation then was about examining what people might be willing to do and what personal values they may be willing to sacrifice when they feel helpless and powerless. Driven to the edge with defensiveness, most people will resort to one or more of anger, violence, crime, defensiveness and non co-operation. Needless to say, that is an avoidable situation for everyone concerned. With that background, I found myself wondering about the responsibility of power and those who have it to use it judiciously, in a way that's better for many more than it's worse, in a way that makes those without not feel excluded, in a way that provides direction and peace instead of pushing people into chaos. 

Most leaders - and many of us aspiring leaders - have a high need for achievement, an affinity for power and an eagerness for responsibility. Even if we didn't reach out for it, we wield some form of power in certain contextual settings. And on the other hand, almost all of us as human beings can identify with feeling helpless, almost outraged, in one sphere or the other of our existence, which may or may not be personally very relevant. We definitely have a responsibility to acknowledge and examine our power, the way we exercise it, and the impact it has.

I hate timezones

Why couldn't the world be one small, flat, uniform place?  

ज़िन्दगी भर तुमको चाहा , चाहेंगे तुमको ही

पर है कसम किसी और ज़िन्दगी में चाहेंगे तुमको नहीं

(to be continued)

Adjectives

Life doesn't care about adjectives. At best, a handful of adjectives in some permutation manage to closely describe one narrative of life as it has already taken place. But strictly only the past. Because the present is unfathomable - we being too busy trying to live it or survive it to even try understanding it. And the future, well, the future is the tricky mistress. It tempts you to dream, to paint a picture, to sandbox and call it a variety of adjectives - how things will be. But life carelessly, nonchalantly but almost deliberately brushes them aside and paints its own version of the future. By the time you finish grappling with it and are able to begin comprehending it, comparing it to your imagination, you realise how shallow it was compared to the depth of reality. You also realize how brutal reality is, and how life couldn't care less about the adjectives it was supposed to conform to. Maybe it throws a moment or two here and there to humor you, but the palate of life's art is too complex for us to label with mere names of colours.

Adjectives, you're more or less useless.

Change is a good thing

Change is a good thing.
What makes it hard is not the change itself, but our tendency to want to hold on to the unchanged
We resist, often illogically, to move away from how things "used to be" even if the past seemed highly imperfect and dissatisfying at the time when it was the present. It feels comforting, I guess, to hang on with screeching tooth-nails to the familiar, when facing the unknown.

I think we would do well to remember that "change is a good thing", because it is inevitable anyway. And because it is less work flowing with the current than trying to unsuccessfully swim against it.

Just saying.

Forever

I wrote your name
In my palm,
Everyday, until
it dissolved and wrote itself
Permanently
In the lines of my fate
Until, your name
Became my name
Until, it became
my fate.

So now, can I stop?
Is the pursuit really over?
Will you stay, like your name,
in my life
Forever?