Love and Hate for the Rule-Breaker

 We all love the rule-breaker and hate him/her too. Wow, English is so complicated like that with genders. Hopefully this writeup won't be too complicated.

What motivated this inquiry, not surprisingly, was a reel on Instagram, where a guy spoke about the average number of seconds another person waits to respond to you in different cultures within Europe. In the more "northern" countries, they wait for an average of 0.9 seconds while in "southern" countries like Italy and Greece, this time is 0.2 seconds. He also emphasized in relation to this, the general values of personal space and self-restraint in the long pause countries vs emphasis on passionate expression and enthusiastic solidarity in the short pause countries. This is one reason, he said, "western" Europeans perceive immigrants to be "rude", and immigrants perceive the "western" Europeans to be unnatural and awkward.

First thing I felt was good and so vindicated. I am not a southern European but lets say the culture is the most similar to more "natural" parts of the world. This was one of the conflict points in my previous relationship, him being German. To him, I was always cutting him off without letting him finish his thoughts, was too emotional, and sometimes impolite because I didn't say stuff like please or spoke in the imperative (although the tone of my voice expressed exactly what I meant). I did try to explain to him, but I also tried to adjust to him a lot. So much that it went against me and I started getting physically sick. At some point I started rebelling. I felt really heartbroken when we broke up, but in terms of my health I felt so much relief to finally not have these expectations placed on me.

If culture can affect your development and health in such a fundamental way, I can see why it could be so, so difficult to adjust to a new culture. The professional or other superficial interactions could probably still work, but with personal life it could make it difficult for you to be yourself. Even if you are super aware that nobody is "wrong" here. But who adjusts? Whoever adjusts their health is going to take a hit. It dawns upon me that it's almost always women who adjust! In spite of them being the more frail one from among the 2 genders. It's women who have traditionally left their homes and families and everything they knew to go live in another society and adjust to their rules. Somehow women have always been expected to have this superpower, which was by the way never acknowledged because people in the society could only see the sweet deal that a man is going to provide for the woman. And today even that is not true in so many cases, and women still adjust. They move, they learn the language, they learn the culture, they adopt a new identity. Women have always been immigrants. I guess, the maximum protection they could provide against this was to marry close by and within the same culture/society, so as to minimize the adjustment and it's impact on health. I guess my ex also subconsciously expected me to adjust. But I wanted us to meet halfway, I wanted him also to learn about my language and my culture as much as me. That was not acceptable to him. 

I mean, I don't blame him. Perhaps it would be bad for his health after all.

I also think that a part of me was very tired of fighting against the society all my life, and for once I wanted to just fully give in and try to be a part of it, try to connect to it somehow, try to find a belonging. It seemed a bit easier for me in that society as it seemed to have less irrational rules and diplomatic behavior as compared to the society I grew up in, where it was impossible for me to belong. I also found love there, which I never found in my society of origin. I wanted to feel belonging. I thought I could push myself to meet the expectations here. Finally there was some chance that I could actually realistically integrate, and I wanted to take this chance.

In Germany, I see that people are sometimes jealous and even angry at me for being too confident. Happened in India too. Whereas in the US I was more appreciated for it. I see that they feel angry because they have adjusted to the rules in a very fundamental way and cannot break out of it. So, they get angry at somebody who is able to get out of it. "Why should only I suffer?" I imagine their logic. And if I suffer because of my failure to adjust they think it's a character flaw. Honestly, I want to say to them, "You adjusted to these rules, yay well good for you!". It's not bad, it's just a system. Like any other system, it has some rules. People in the system internalize those rules. Those rules gives them some benefits but also hold them prisoners. For example, let's say you are unable to bring yourself to publicly talk about a topic you are no expert on, because in your culture you would be making a fool of yourself if you did that. And then I who has even lesser knowledge than you perhaps, go up to the podium and confidently talk about whatever I know, it makes you jealous. Because I broke the unsaid rule "don't talk about something you don't know about". And then you hate me that I broke the rule. But usually you are not consciously aware of this. You can only feel some rage or hate.

What you are sometimes consciously aware of is breaking of more superficial rules. Rules which are not internalized in your biology so deeply but rather a rule which you wish you could break. And when someone actually breaks that rule, it gives you permission to break it yourself too. And then you feel really good and you love the rule-breaker. It is one of the things my ex actually found very attractive about me. It made things lighter and fun and a bit adventurous. But then when it went "too far" (invited challenging interceptions) it wasn't fun anymore. And, as in my previous paragraph, when it was that they put themselves into a subconscious prison which they cannot break out of because their biology is formed that way, and then they integrate this by justifying the existence of that prison and voluntarily agreeing to be inside it, they hate the rule-breaker. They feel threatened. I guess they are scared that others in the prison could get encouraged and leave and that they would be the only one stuck alone in the prison? Or probably they just hate their own limitation.

A memory crosses my mind. I was learning how to drive on a Zipcar I rented, with a friend of mine, when I hit the curb and possibly damaged the car. I was like backing up to drive properly again and he got so, so angry. He was like, you just damaged the car. You are supposed to just be scared, give up the wheel and let me drive the rest of the way. I was like, "what?" I understand I made a mistake. But it doesn't destabilize me so much that I cannot drive anymore. I will learn from my mistake and try to be more careful. Why is that a problem? He just couldn't cool down and see my point at all. To him, if I made a mistake I am supposed to feel a lot of guilt and repent. He went to the extent of calling me a psycho.

Another memory crosses my mind. I was at an afterparty to the Holi festival organized by the Indian Students Association. There was a young, loving couple in the group. The girl was kind of in the limelight (idk in all Indian groups there are always few girls who are in the limelight and want to be the main focus, bla bla, I am struggling a bit to describe this phenomenon. But in this case, for example, it was a dance group, and these 3-4 girls just went and stood like in the front of the formation - I am guessing there might have been some polite diplomatic negotiations amongst them still, but all of them get to the front. And they decided all the dance steps and just dictated them to the others. It's not democratic, they don't care about the opinion of the others - the other dancers are just background props to them. Let's say there are those who are very competitive, and there are others who don't want to compete and so they just keep quiet and let things happen. My story is different, I didn't belong to either groups, I was a rebel thereby getting attention without competing or following stupid social norms :).) Anyway, this girl was in the limelight group. 

But this is a story about my prison. This girl, she meets a guy there she is very excited about and they both get drunk and are low-key flirting. Her boyfriend is right there. Everybody is right there. I start to feel extremely uncomfortable. I am also drunk and at some point of time I start talking about it to a small group of people. You guys are so conservative about everything, how can you all be ok about this? How can her boyfriend be ok with this? I don't remember everything but I remember I was really mad about this kind of behavior being casually accepted. How much I had suffered inside and destroyed my soul when I cheated on my ex-ex-boyfriend. How much! My world came crashing. Even before that how much I had restricted myself from talking with guys I found interesting. And when stuff happened, I found absolutely no vindication, no consolation, no understanding, no explanations, no sympathy, no empathy, nothing! From my friends. It was not even a topic for them while it was eating me alive. On the other hand, what a  catastrophe it was for us - me and my ex-ex. And here, it was ok, just a part of youth. Like, why was I punished so much then? Yeah, that was my prison. I was so, so disturbed.

So did I get out of that prison? You must understand that it was simply a part of my biology, my sexuality. I think I viewed relationships in a more sacred way than they did, they probably viewed their relationship to parents like that. Whatever. I couldn't break free just like that. I sort of did though, but it took so many years. To find some understanding and compassion for myself, for the part which went against the prison. I believe the prison has been removed. In its place stand some healthy boundaries and a knowledge of my biological and sexual needs that I listen to and that guide me. The rebel is working with the team. It maybe took 10 years, but I am not angry at that girl in the party anymore. I think I was jealous that she was so confident to express that part of herself and be accepted in a society which never accepted me. I was also jealous that she was not more insecure than her boyfriend. I am not jealous of these things anymore. At this moment, I even feel zero interest in getting any validation from the society. Probably i've got a lot from my friends and especially my ex, I've also given a lot to myself and I've kept away from triggers. But perhaps most importantly, my boyfriend validates me a lot. And of course, therapy! :)

Spilled Milk

 ... Bella Ciao Ciao Ciao...

As I came across a snippet of this revolutionary song while scrolling, the first words that came to my mind were "Spilled Milk". And you might ask, why is that? So let me explain.

As per my limited knowledge, this was an Anthem for an Italian revolutionary workers movement. I wondered about these movements and revolutions. What makes loving parents take up arms, take to the streets and fight to death, endangering the lives of their loved ones? In what universe could that be a rational thing to do? Instead of, say, find a small boat and escape to a distant land away from this chaos and rebuild a simple, hard-working but happy life from scratch. 

And the answer that came to me was: because there is no other way. Not because it is physically not possible, but because it is emotionally not possible. I mean, once you have come face-to-face with suffering and injustice of a certain level, this is now spilled milk. You cannot put this back into the glass. You cannot undo the knowing of evil. Then, how do you continue living? It would damage your psyche for sure unless you fight with this evil. (Of course, you could join forces with this evil, but that would damage your psyche even further.) Even if you sail away to a far off distant land, you are taking your damaged psyche with you. The resolution to the problem of survival may have been solved, but the resolution to the psychic damage from meeting evil would always remain elusive. And if you ignore it, you will unconsciously pass on the trauma to your children, generation after generation would suffer without even knowing why. So, it makes sense that you might want to take the full force of this blow and. not pass it on to the next generation's burden. 

All this is of course my speculation. It is hard to know how they felt unless you are in the exact same situation. There are places in the mind you haven't traveled to, a privilege you should be thankful for. But the mind develops through little explorations, isn't it? Well, how much of this is growth, and at what point does it becomes damage? There is no answer to this because it really depends on the specific case. Every experience, every blow - can either be used for growth or for damage. No one is to blame, but both these outcomes are possible, I think depending on how much effort you are wiling to make, how much you seek.

In other words, the solution to every "mental health problem" exists. Some are of course more difficult than others.

Someone is going on with life, there are some rules and everything is great. This goes on, until something breaks. Until one day one is faced with a situation that abruptly breaks this paradigm. The milk is spilled. A door has already been opened which you cannot close. You cannot unsee what you saw. Well, then instead of fighting with it, you find a way to harmoniously live with this. Is this dysfunction? No. That is literally how experiences expand your brain. This is your new life now, and it necessarily needs to be different from your old life. There is no definition of how little or how much this can be before one starts calling it dysfunctional. Actually, dysfunction doesn't exist. Of course, some ways of attempting to solve this new problem are more constructive than others. But all instinctive attempts make sense and do take one closer to solving the psychic wound.

And different people have different kinds of psychic wounds. Which makes putting people in boxes inherently a violent thing to do (although I understand that the brain does this to simplify things especially in a perceived dangerous situation where it is imperative to act fast). Anyway, the people in the Swaminarayan community have a psychic wound where I suspect their focus has become very negative. And they have found a way, a ritual, a practice, that helps them live happily or maybe take them closer to easing the pain from this wound. The absolutely need the exceptional prostrate submission to God. Someone needs dancing and singing, someone needs silence. Someone needs sex, someone needs celibacy. Someone needs rebellion, someone needs submission. People need different religions, different lifestyles, different political systems even. I don't understand the need to fight for a "true" system. But I don't know, if you say something works because of absolute faith, then you cannot not believe this to be the absolute truth applicable to everybody - and thus by definition prevent you from seeing the nuance. In fact, in this situation, the nuance becomes your enemy and somewhat of a threat to survival. And you fight it like one, I guess. People fight to preserve their systems. 

Sometimes, this could become a vicious cycle. Or a dirty little puddle, as I want to call it. The system itself can induce a specific kind of psychic injury which makes the system necessary for survival. That's quite a scary thought. Maybe it's possible to transcend these things. As I said earlier, some ways of trying to heal are better than others. 

Moral of the story: don't be afraid of spilled milk. Accidents happen all the time and milk can get spilled by mistake. Anytime, anywhere. Keep cool, calm down, take inventory. Denial is not going to help you, and crying or panicking will certainly not. Trust that there are sponges and cleaning gear available for everything you could have possibly spilled. Spilled milk. Or blood. Or stinky trash. Or sticky slime so hard to clean. There is always a way. If you keep calm and look for a solution. There is no need to overreact, nothing is lost, it's a small setback but it can be taken care of. Relax. Breathe.

Don't be too attached to the past. Do not cry over spilled milk.

When things seem to be at their absolute worst, remember one thing: you can always make it even worse 😈  Lol, don't do it.

Satyameva Jayate : The Truth always wins

Yes, this used to be a boring sentence, I heard from here and there. Mainly, on the bottom of the Asoka pillar with the four-headed lion, which also appears as an emblem on my passport. Yeah, it's the same anthem. It could just as well have come from the mouth of an old man moralizing. Something like, "Honesty is the best policy", you know. Not something you would tattoo on your skin, or psyche, or want on a label stuck to you for the rest of (or a significant part of) your life. It could have been something more interesting, something with literary depth, perhaps a beautiful and reflective and romantic sentence from a good author. But oh...

And today at 33 years old, this sounds so profound and meaningful to me. Oh, how life changes! How it expands and makes us see more and learn more. Sometimes you can't keep up, you have to zone out to apply brakes on the growth, it happens much too fast and chaotic. Then it slows down to use only one part of your brain as a background process. This path - though subconscious or unconscious - actually takes up the majority of your processing power. But it's not a problem. The complexity of our immediate experiences in the world is too small and can be handled by a much smaller GPU aka the conscious mind. This whole arrangement thus causes a pseudo-split in the circuits processing different things. It is possible to go on like this forever, to live out the rest of your life as per script, oftentimes known as Fate. You might think you write the script, but you are actually deeply 'inspired' by your motivations and likes and wants and desires, etc, you know not comes from where. Yes, it comes from your subconscious. To some insightful people, who can glance into your subconscious, with a lot of knowledge and brain computation power, it is not a very difficult task then to 'predict' your Fate. Sometimes, if your Fate is leading towards something negative, it is even possible to use some spells or magic, aka somatic psychology, to produce a shift in your subconscious that can help you evade your Fate. So yes, there are hacks. Like motivational videos, relaxation techniques, fantasies, etc. 

However, the subconscious is a powerful force, many times stronger than you. You cannot fight and suppress and win, like many religions like Christianity propose, by asking you to not commit sins. Yes you can have temporary victories and I guess the world can roll on it for a while, I guess it is possible to have continuous distractions too. But it all got to give way at some point. Unstable equilibriums have short lives. I mean, don't get me wrong, they exist because they have a purpose - get you over and across an insurmountable barrier. But the same energy that was your friend and got you across the barrier now becomes your enemy if you continue living with the same energy. One has to learn how to say thank you and good bye to friends.

Given that for most people, you don't get to be the slave-master (not even a good one), nor the slave (which some people try by avoiding accountability), the only thing you can do is build a life-long friendship. If nurtured well, this is the most sacred and deepest friendship you will ever have. In my opinion, you need 2 main ingredients. One is trust: you have to build trust by showing up consistently and lovingly even if it gets hard sometimes. If you win your dragon's trust, there is no feeling you can ever experience that is more exhilarating. You are overcome with so much love and gratefulness. The other ingredient is fun: you have to enjoy doing fun things with your dragon. I know we are not often told this, but fun is powerful magic. It creates bonds like no other. Your dragon is a shape-shifter and many versions will come along, sometimes even multiple ones. Sing songs and dance and make love with all of them. For the little ones, make them pretty and colorful and give them enough kisses. And let each one of them come and go without resentments. These elements, Trust and Fun - together conjure up a beautiful sense of security and blissfulness.

Does too much knowledge interfere with magic? Maybe they compete for trust, but I think awareness can integrate them. One got to basically trust and build faith in the process. Not merely talk about it.

Did I digress? I probably did, I don't know. But I was basically talking about how I grew up. What really happened that made my brain capacity expand and understand more complexity than say 10 years ago. So much that today the words 'Satyameva Jayate' sound infinitely profound. No, it's not petty moralizing - that was the only association we had with truth as children perhaps. And later, I associated truth with love and trust. But now I see this phrase as an expression of something beyond this life. That it talks about a process over many decades and even generations. Hundreds of years that civilizations rise and fall. Many people try to erase the truth. Maybe they burn books, they kill people, they destroy evidence. And yet, what is true emerges from the depths. It always finds a way. Evidence of course gets harder and harder to destroy, but there are attempts to dilute it with propaganda that sometimes gives a temporary illusion of success. I believe however that, no matter how good we get at using advanced technology to suppress the truth, even if there comes a day when it is possible to destroy every shred of evidence even from our own memory, the truth remains somewhere buried deeply in our psyches and will emerge victorious from the depths whenever the time is right. The truth always wins.

The Fall

 Life is interesting when you are going through something. But aren't you always going through something? That is the very definition of life - and yet you panic. Because you fear the wind pushing your ship around and forget that when at the steering wheel the wind is your friend. When you are surfing, the waves are your friends. Yes, they are unpredictable and they should be, because how else is a dance possible?

I thought I'd hate everything. I thought I'd see the world through dark grey shades. I had fallen in love with the winter, grown attached even. And I didn't want it to end. I was scared. What I didn't know was that I had just fallen in love. When spring came I fell in love with spring and when summer came I fell in love with summer. I fell in love with my friends, I also fell in love with strangers. I fell in love with the guy sitting beside me in the tram. I fell in love with the shopkeeper who gave me free baklava. I fell in love with the colors. I fell in love with Berlin. I fell in love with life. And this wouldn't have happened if I didn't first fall.

Purple Cabbage

 I was asked to do some quick and short creative writing with 'purple' and 'cabbage', so here we go...

When you mention marinated purple cabbage among the list of ingredients in my tacos, you needn't say no more. I'm already drooling, waiting for my taco order. I forgot whether it was barbacoa or carne asada. I forgot whether I asked for extra cheese. I do remember though, that I asked for generous amounts of red salsa and green salsa and guacamole. Staring at the counter waiting for my order, I already feel my teeth biting through the slightly sour and crunchy purple cabbage while an explosion of juices from the delicious salsa and flavors from the tender meat fill my mouth. I'd slowly savour it as time would stop, until it reached my stomach with a wholesome gulp and a kick of euphoria. I was rudely woken up from my reverie by a man telling me - "I am sorry, we are out of purple cabbage. We only have green cabbage. Would you still like your tacos or would you prefer your money back?"

My heart sank and then I felt angry and then I made one of the most difficult decisions of the day. "I'd still like to have my tacos," I said. So, I had my tacos with boring but standard green cabbage, which wasn't so bad. I was satisfied enough with my day.

Crisis Again (but fainter...)

 

 

I was almost going to post this on my Instagram story because it resonated with me on some level, or wanted a certain someone to see it to understand, with a slight bend towards coercive social shaming that this is one proud way to live, in fact the trendier one. Maybe I wanted to shame other people too, I don’t know. Or maybe I didn’t want to, I was just considering the implication of doing that. Because that is what it would mean had I shared it to my story. But I didn’t because it did not resonate with me on that level. 

Yes, I do think I am indeed that kind of a rebel. And I am happy to see I am not alone. And I do see other people caged (but who is to say I have no cages?). But I don’t think it is wise to look down upon another person’s experience, even if it might feel like it is spiritually backward. First of all, needing to look down on other people’s life choices and feel extremely snug and proud about your own, in order to feel good, shows a poor source of confidence for your own choices. It is a trauma response. Interestingly enough, going through that stage is a necessity though. For the ego and for forward propulsion out of the injured state. I did go through that stage, I look back now and think. Identifying with the song “I’m an Albatross” exemplifies this avatar. Or archetype, if you’ll call it that. You need to become ‘something’ to handle ‘something’. You could choose either, based on which something you can control. It’s an interesting topic to delve into.

I'm an Albatross:

After realizing how much bucketloads of crap I had put up with because of the 2018 drama in my life (it was very shaming in some way, hard to explain. Kind of like, someone looking at your most vulnerable parts and laughing at them… ), I became dead focussed on ‘sanity’ and ‘normalcy’. I had zero tolerance for bullshit. But honestly, the drama was a blessing in disguise and I knew it on some level even then. I was now a fierce tiger and dealt excellently with any bullshit coming my way. I also got blessed with amazing people who are my best friends even today and my most favorite condo in Tempe. It felt like magic, like God was blessing me. I shed off weight by disconnecting from the old. Any weird stuff coming my way slipped off me like water droplets off a lotus leaf. My fighting spirit intact, I felt invincible. And then the epitome of sanity and normalcy and beauty and harmony, cherry on the cake, was delivered to my doorstep as my roommate who then became my boyfriend.

I held on to this trajectory even through the difficult times that followed. I fought through and achieved heart-warming success because my conviction was strong and my goal seemed closer than ever. I was indulging in it all, perhaps refusing to see when the trajectory had changed and got out of my control. I was after all not as powerful as I thought. I am only human (and everybody else I thought as fools in the past were humans too). And the goal I thought was attainable turned out to be a pipe dream. Thus, it is a thing to have strong convictions and fight for them. It is also a thing to be humble enough to realize some of your convictions may be faulty or erroneous. I guess that’s what we mean when we say we are all searching for the Truth. And then religion has tried to answer this question, and so has capitalism or socialism or any other forms of philosophy. But religion does not give a direct answer and instead has all these twisted messages that one is supposed to interpret and make sense of. Whatever that means, one thing seems clear to me, that the answer is subjective. Otherwise, the answer would be known by now that we have been around for thousands of years. We are all on a journey.

The motive to me seems, is to live your best life. And keep in mind ‘best’ is subjective too. Basically, it means do your best - and that’s so vague, lol, I really love that we have such words which have an exact meaning but are still so unspecific. Anyway, for most part, it means attaining awesome states of mind, living inside a healthy body, enjoying and seeking sensations that Nature has to offer. And the way to do that depends on how we are able to synergize our internal experience with the external. Both of these can be tweaked, and so the confusion arises how to go about it. Honestly, it is a different dimension and we cannot fathom it. But we are able to go one step at a time, and then the integration will cause a movement in this dimension, like the integral of dx in mathematics (lol). The problems that might arise are: someone might pursue ecstasy, or someone might use negative experiences to determine their path (because those are more easy to know clearly). The right thing will just feel right, and you will know it if you let yourself know it.

So, how about the relatively recent 'crisis'? Without the minimal social support I had before I couldn’t be a fighter anymore. It will take a while to figure out what exactly happened with me. But this is not the first time I have experienced a crisis like this. At this point, I just realize there is so much to learn and accept that I don’t yet. I want to get to know myself better - but there’s no saying that that’s something unchanging (gotta find out too about what it is that’s constant). And which aspect is the dragon? And I guess at some point I will have to submit to whatever archetype is taking over me because that would be the next stage of development. Sitting on the fence is not an option (but still required for some time for the sake of healing). This avatar would rise and then it would fall and crash again. And I would still be okay. My previous crisis was guilt, and now my crisis is fear. I just have to carry it with me and caretake it and it will disappear via assimilation. I’ll be fine. I’ll be better than fine.

Selfishness

 I was inspired to resume writing when I recently read an article that reminded me of me - the way I drew analogies from life. I was like, why did I ever stop? Thoughts flit through my mind and are lost without a trace, like a particle-antiparticle pair created from nothing and destroyed unto nothing. Fatigue seems to have caught up with me, years of struggling to just make it over the line. Whatever another may argue, I think it was necessary. There was no other way to get what I want. Such is the world.

I thought I'd start with this topic about selfishness because it is my immediate answer to the article I just read. Although I have never before thought of the world the way the author does, I agree in many ways. I do think there is no universal one size fits all and some people are always going to suffer. Sometimes it's their own fault, sometimes it is not. Well, 'fault' itself is a hard-to-define word. There is no justice in this world, I believe that strongly. So, what is my response? I want to protect my soul in this cold, cold world. I am not saying people are bad, but they are all flawed and destructive, including myself. And most importantly, everybody has very limited knowledge and are making life decisions through games they don't even know they are playing. 'Why' seems to be a long forgotten word.

Given now that I was born into this mad world, I need to find the treasure that is mine, that is hidden, but I can get there. Most people don't even believe they can have a treasure! But sadly, some of them actually don't. Some people are so deep inside the well that they can probably never get out. They say, you can do anything - but that is bullshit. Some people are mentally disabled, they can't do 'anything'. Some people are poor. There are millions of other problems that people suffer from. But life is still worth living if you believe in it. They accept that suffering will always be a part of their life and make peace with it (a relevant religion or philosophy definitely helps). Having thus conquered pain, they set a realistic goal that can make their life better. In this process, they are able to live through the same emotional states another more privileged person is able to live through. Maybe even better. And thus they win at life.

Curled up and Cozy

So, I am back in the world of blogging, hopefully for good. I hope this lasts... or do I? This is the comforting place I go back to when I am not in an actively happy state. But am I sad? I don't think so. I don't know how to describe this state but it is what it is. However, this blog is not about my state. It is about thoughts that come to me. Which usually happens when I am in this state, lol. But I'd like to share this piece of me, for whatever it's worth, to anybody out there, in this world, in this cosmos or beyond. So, hey! Welcome to my blog. :)

PhD.

 

How to keep our Immunity caring about the System

(this article originally appeared on the blog 'Lord of the Flies')

Life is a perpetual struggle, as it should be, forcing thermodynamics to its limit. 

One way to put up the milestones might be your achievements. Or it might even be your failures. Or it might be all the things you let go. Or it might be all the people you have ever loved. Or it might be all those things that you lost. Or it might be all the fairies you have believed in. Or it might even be all the fairies you stopped believing in. Or it might be the behavioral walls you built around yourself, to protect, to become immune. 

We are all born with soft, delicate baby skin, but this world is not a place for that. Our skin hardens and obtains the right complexion and toughness that is required to survive in our environment. It is a natural process. We gather antibodies only after suffering from the disease and surviving. In most cases, isolation is not the solution because if it takes the form of a delayed onset, it harms more than it helps. 

Over time, you become immune to everything. You become immune to bullies at school. You become immune to your parents’ negligence. You become immune to the unavailability of your brother. You become immune to the rude remarks of your sister. You become immune to the selfishness of your friends. You become immune to getting bad grades. You become immune to the prejudices of your professors. You become immune to rebuke by your employer. You become immune to the plight of the beggar on the street. You become immune to the sensitivity of your companion. You become immune to the emotions of your friend. You become immune to the dejected faces of people whom you disappointed. You also become immune to chicken pox and influenza. 

Being so immune is good. No one can hurt you, because no one can reach you. And in the meantime you can coldly play your cards and climb the socioeconomic ladder. 

But as we build this strong fort around ourselves for our protection, it must not become a labyrinth for our souls where we get lost. Yet it often does. The fort becomes more real than its occupant. 

We start by building baby forts. But when we are babies they look really big. We learn to gulp down a few things by getting used to them, or by using some form of "rationality". The highest of all walls we built around our ego, because we know that it has to be protected at all costs, because we know that any harm to it will shatter our confidence to fight, to live and to love. We always protect it, no matter what. 

To counter the risk of another person shattering our confidence, we just HAVE to believe that the person is a fool, and we are sucking up to him/her for OUR benefit and nothing else. But how can you ever respect a person if you have to wear armor whenever you have to face him/her? 

In the desperate attempt to protect ourselves, we shut out the reality we do not want to believe. We refuse to accept our own vulnerability. That might make us feel brave and give us some degree of satisfaction. In fact, it might be a great strategy to buckle up and move on. But to what extent? You lose track... is this person really you, is this really what you wanted? 

People vilify things they once loved because it hurts them to believe otherwise. 

Those battles we had fought in our childhood, fading away like a dream now, look like mere skirmishes. It was easy to stay immune to the world outside your home then, because there was some "apparent" self-sufficiency because your family was taking care of all your needs. Now it’s like you all have been thrown into a pile of candies and you get how much you take. You have to fight and the ugly face of survival appears. This is reality. It can get ugly. 

All the morals, sensitive thinking, reflection -all that held meaning, is just plain lost because you can see that it is not only taking you anywhere but they were empty casks that held nothing at all, no "real" value, nothing to face the reality. They can shade you from the sun for some time, but when you realize that you have got nothing left in spite of being so true to yourself, you realize it was your mistake to believe that people get what they deserve. And seriously, is not that the most illogical thing? Of course, people get what they take - it is so plain and simple. 

It hurts to fight and play dirty games to get something you love, because that is not how you romanticize. You want your lover to stay with you and love you back; you don’t want to have to fight with others to keep him/her. And so it goes with any work that you love, because you think it is yours. That is why competition hurts. Because you have to ‘prove’ that you are good- all the time. And you have to fight, even with those people who do not even "love" that work but they just want to be there for the bucks. And then you realize they are not even wrong. That is how things are and that is how they will always be. 

When you were out of the system, you never cared about it, so you never criticized the system, because there was nothing wrong with it and it seemed good, it is just that YOU were not interested. But then you were forced to fight for your living. So you stepped in and you immediately started getting scathed. Although you played by the rules, you started seeing the imperfections and the loopholes and you started feeling disgusted and hating the system like never before. Maybe, you have to become mean. You do not mind acting mean but it is so much effort! But what if you really become mean? The fort you have built has become you then, and you have lost your identity. 

But you should be more afraid of the fort than the reality around it. By building the fort you have made yourself even more vulnerable that something outside you can just get inside and change you! 

To prevent this, there should be something in your life that brings out your hidden softness. Some constant light that will always provide warmth and keep burning even in the coldest, windiest night. Something that will never let you forget who you are and why you are doing whatever you are doing, that will always show you the direction and whisper- keep going, I am here right next to you. Of course, its mere faith, faith in a person, faith in a process, faith in a deity, but faith is important. We must not become immune to this light. We must make ourselves vulnerable to it and let it tear us apart if it will. It is a gamble you cannot escape. 

There must be some way to find this light. Or is time the only answer? We should not mind as long as there is one. 

 

Opposites Attract!

(this article originally appeared on the blog 'Lord of the Flies')

 

Have you ever wondered why there are two genders: Male and Female? 

There could have been only one, and everyone could have just passed on their genes directly to the next generation; things would have been much simpler. Or there could have been three, with the same kind of forces playing between them in pairs, as in between male and female. Or there could have been four, or five, and so on. 

Yet there are only two sexes in all animals. Even plants. Even bacteria! Why did nature choose only two? What’s up with the number two? 

This question has baffled me for many years. And other than the existence of some mysterious symmetry I could never find any explanation for this. 

And so the question remained for many years, the continuum of confusion broken somewhere by a sudden insight into knowledge in the middle of some dream, which faded away in the morning and I collapsed back into confusion. I knew I had the answer, I just was not able to find it. 

Since this is a biological question, it is more likely to be answered by the theory of Evolution. All biological beings have evolved to the present state because the present state has offered them some advantage in terms of growth, survival and competition. But what is the advantage of having two genders? 

Could it be genetic mixing? Genetic mixing is very useful for evolution, since it creates new kinds of gene combinations that can be tested to perform under the changing conditions.  But genetic mixing could have happened even if there were three genders. That is true. However, if the process of reproduction would have required three people, the probability of three willing candidates coming together would have fallen rapidly, therefore reducing the growth rate. But what if the process required only two, but these pairs could be formed in three ways? That sounds pretty logical... 

The problem here is that reproduction is actually quite big a deal, it consists of so many complex processes like pass on the information, make the child and keep him somewhere safe while you do that, take care of the baby’s health and nourishment, help him/her to grow and learn, and many other cares. A single person can do all this, but then there would be no genetic mixing, in which case if this person does not have the faculty to, we could say, survive a storm, both the person and his baby would die. So what we need here is some sort of collaboration with another person who has that faculty to survive the storm. That person who can survive the storm would also be willing to collaborate with this person because he/she might have got some other quality like, say, survive the heat. By sharing their qualities, they can potentially create a baby that can survive both the storm as well as the heat. It is possible that the future would consist of only the storm, or only the heat, but since you do not know the future, you have to gamble. That is how mating arose. 

In that case there could be just one gender and people could mate with whomever they chose. However, if you have to gamble anyway, collaborating on just one issue is not a very good gamble. There got to be a handful of them, and since both of you are now investing in one project, the responsibility is fairly shared between the two of you. Sharing could have occurred by both of you taking turns to perform the same function, but it could also be that one person performs some of the function and the other does the others. The latter will increase the efficiency of the functions being performed because each of you will then acquire some degree of specialization in the functions you chose to perform, although it will make the gamble riskier. Millions of years ago, on the unstable, unpredictable Earth, the efficiency became the important factor since there were so many gambles anyway. 

In the course of time, this specialization increased to the extent of becoming encoded by the genes! All the complex physiological and psychological differences between male and female boils down to the asymmetric twenty-third pair of chromosome: the XX for female and XY for male. 

And thus arose the two genders. 

Polygamy or Polyandry could have probably arisen whenever one person of a particular gender could increase his/her efficiency multiple times and so could provide for multiple partners of the opposite gender. 

The problem with having three genders in which any two can form pairs is that it cannot happen for reasons of complementarity. If you have to form a pair anyway, you will have to share the chores equally, in which case having a third gender is not at all required. And if the chores were shared equally between three, any two forming a couple could never be capable of providing complete care. In that case collaboration between three persons will be required, which is first of all, as I have said earlier, difficult to attain (the probability of compatible three meeting each other would be so low), and then also difficult to sustain given the number of opposing views that will increase the fighting! 

According to scientists, all of this can be represented in terms of energy costs, although research is still on. 

So two it is, till date. And they continue to fight the temptations that biology conferred upon them to keep their genes afloat. But with the Earth’s changing geography, and the changing society, and the millions of years our sun will continue to burn, who knows the future? 

 

Resurrecting Paradise

(this article originally appeared on the blog 'Lord of the Flies')

"Gar firdaus ae baruhe zamin ast, hamin astu hamin astu hamin ast... "

These famous Urdu words uttered by a Mughal Emperor (most probably Jehangir) aptly captured the beauty of Kashmir once upon a time. The translation would be: If there is paradise on Earth it is here, it is here, it is here. 

 

In this beautiful valley, amidst the splendor of snow-capped mountains, somewhere among the lush green fields the breezes still blow. The peaceful waters of the Jhelum river still scintillate rapturously under the benevolent sun, seeming to have lost all bloody memories of the past, ignorant of the sound of gunshots in the distance. The smiles of its people having faded away, the grandeurs of nature bestowed upon this war-torn land and the many beautiful gardens constructed here by mankind seem like a mockery of its fate- the fate of this ‘paradise’. 

Kashmir has recently been in the news once again for the wrong reasons: ceasefire violations by Pakistan. 

Sixty-six years have passed since the first conflict began, and Time has twisted together the myths and the facts so capriciously that it seems almost impossible to disentangle them today. 

Sixty-six years ago, the Indian subcontinent became independent from the British rule, and two nations were formed: India and Pakistan (later on, former East Pakistan separated from Pakistan as Bangladesh). And ever since then, India and Pakistan have been fighting over Kashmir. 

I am from India and, until now, I used to hate Pakistan for this. 

What I knew was that when the British were leaving India, some Muslims started demanding for a separate nation exclusively for Muslims, perhaps insecure of being dominated by an overwhelming Hindu majority, probably also fearing vengeance given that most Mughal rulers, with the exception of Akbar and a few others, were not particularly kind to the Hindus. What they could not see is that the two-hundred-year-old past was long forgotten ever since the Hindus and Muslims came together and embraced each other, united to fight against the oppressive British rule. Another reason was perhaps that India aspired to be a secular democratic, and ‘secularism’ was not something the orthodox Muslims were very fond of. Also, it would have been highly unlikely that the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, would let go such a great shot at power. 

It was a deadlock that was difficult to resolve, since all Hindus and some Muslims did not want this separation. But the British couldn’t leave India till a consensus was reached on this matter. They alternatively proposed that all the states having a Muslim majority be allowed to constitute Pakistan, and this became the demand of Jinnah and the Muslim League, as opposed to the Indian National Congress. When there arose talks about an interim government constituting both the parties, the Muslim League felt threatened and launched the 'Direct Action Day' in Calcutta, which turned into a campaign of violent aggression and worst kind of Massacre, killing around 5000 people. Muhammad Ali Jinnah said: 

Why do you expect me alone to sit with folded hands? I also am going to make trouble. 

The Indian leaders were desperate for Independence (probably also for power?), and everyone was tired of the 200-year long fighting. It was also heartbreaking in general to see the people who once fought together on the battlefield now kill each other. The only solution was: Pakistan. 

And so Pakistan was formed. East Pakistan and West Pakistan, on the two sides of India. Few years hence, East Pakistan would separate from Pakistan to form an Independent nation called Bangladesh, owing to differences arising from language, culture, ethnicity and many other factors. (India had helped Bangladesh in this war, which is infamous for the Pakistani war crimes that are often compared to those that happened during World War II, giving Pakistan another reason to hate India.) 

 

Even after the partition was given a thumbs-up, terrible violence followed, leading to the worst kind of riots India has ever seen. Nobody seems to know the real reasons. It could have been the result of a cycle of rebuttals. Also, when it was agreed that states with a Muslim majority would go to Pakistan, some people in these Muslim-majority states took it upon them to ‘create’ this majority by destroying the minority as far as they could, because the majority-minority ratios were usually like 60-40. Since in those days there were no proper information channels, and radio was a luxury of the rich, there could be many rumors being propagated and people reacting to them with blind emotions. Amidst the confusion and lawlessness no one really knew for sure where Pakistan ended and India began. It took months to contain this violence, which killed millions of people. The horrors echo to this day. 

In such a way, British India was divided. However, there were some parts of India which were not exactly under the British: these were known as the ‘Princely States’, and they stayed mostly independent of the British rule in return for huge sums of money. These states were granted the freedom to choose whether to join India, or Pakistan, or stay independent. These Princely States included some Muslim-dominated states with a Hindu ruler, and some Hindu-dominated states with a Muslim ruler. Although they had been given a ‘choice’, it was not exactly their choice because there was a lot of pressure from the local people. In all cases, except Kashmir, the religious dominance, and sometimes even the location, determined the fate of the state. 

Kashmir, however, was different. Located on the India-Pakistan border, it was a Muslim-dominated state with a Hindu King, who chose to remain with India. This was not acceptable to Pakistan, and they have always wanted Kashmir ever since. They have also attacked and occupied a part of Kashmir. 

Pakistan looks at India as a Hindu country, while the truth is that India has more Muslims than the entire population of Pakistan! 

Today, the people of Kashmir, as citizens of India, participate in the general elections and state elections in considerable numbers. I take that as an expression of solidarity with India. The Ministry of Kashmir majorly comprises of Muslims, accurately representing their population, and they all see themselves as Indians. Lot of people from Kashmir are going to different parts of the country for higher education, or for jobs, or settling down in inter-religious/inter-caste marriages, it does not matter: the views of the educated generation resonates with the ideas of a ‘secular democracy’. That includes a lot of people I personally know. 

I have always condemned Pakistan for wanting something that does not belong to them, wanting to force themselves on people who do not want them. And it is not just Kashmir. India has suffered many 9/11’s in the hands of Pakistani terrorists, many bomb-blasts. I can understand if some people in a country turn out to be bad, what I cannot understand is how all the people in a country can harbor so much hatred for their neighbor. No, Pakistan does not feel sorry for the people they have killed in India. In fact, if they do, they get killed. Pakistani attacks are also threatening the Indian democracy in a way that ‘Islamophobia’ is increasing in the country, and our own Muslims are being segregated against, looked upon with suspicion. 

I have always hoped that one day I wake up to see that there is no Pakistan in the world map. 

Meeting Pakistani delegates in a school-fest did not help. Becoming a fan of Pakistani musicians who made it big in Bollywood did not help. Reading Khushwant Singh’s accounts of a high society, where the ultra-rich Indians and Pakistanis apparently had no differences, did not help. The marriage of the Indian tennis star Sania Mirza to the Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik did not help. 

It is like, "fine, they are also normal people, like us". But how can we proceed from here unless the major issue is resolved? A part of Kashmir still remains with Pakistan, and the people of Pakistan still believe that Kashmir is theirs. In fact, Kashmir used to be one of their election issues before they stopped having elections and sank into this cycle of alternating democracy and dictatorship. Kashmir, of course, remains their foremost issue. And in spite of what the whole world can see, how can they still believe that they have got a better economy than ours? Why do they mistake the soft corner Indian Muslims might understandably have for them as some sort of support? The strong Muslim cast of a recent Bollywood movie, D-Day, which deals with a wishful Indian operation in Pakistan in search of a most-wanted terrorist, sends out a message. And I guess Pakistan got it when they banned the movie in their country. 

Today, India and Pakistan are trying to be friends, without referring to the Kashmir issue. Now, how does one put all this unsettled business behind and set about to make friends? One of my friends has a Pakistani pen friend but I cannot understand that. If I did that, I would be faking, as I am sure many people are. 

Yet something unexpected made me look in the other direction. 

The Indian Media is on a high note these days, and recently NDTV succeeded in inviting Pakistani professors to a Panel debating the Kashmir issue. And the professors were quite cool, I really liked them! In the course of the discussions I came to know the root of the conflict, which was much more subtle than I used to think. During the partition, the ruler of Kashmir actually wanted independence, probably due to greed for power. This was not acceptable to anyone and it was decided that a poll would be conducted in order to decide whether Kashmir goes to India or Pakistan. But that poll never happened. Pakistan attacked Kashmir before that, in an attempt to overthrow the King, and this propelled the King to react by pledging allegiance to India. Immediately, Indian troops were sent to defend Kashmir. The Indian troops had managed to secure about two-thirds of Kashmir when the United Nations ordered a cease-fire. Since then, one-third of Kashmir remains with Pakistan, and the dispute continues. (China has also got a chunk of Kashmir, but that is another story.) 

Pakistan realizes that it was a great strategic mistake to attack Kashmir. Some Pakistanis even deny that the invasion happened with the knowledge and support of the State. Some Pakistanis also argues that the King of Kashmir had sought India’s help during the attack but that did not mean he wanted to join India. 

Along with this, Pakistan highlights the atrocities committed by Hindus on Muslims in Kashmir during the riots while India highlights the reverse. The scenes of trains full of slaughtered people arriving at the stations, in both the countries, have not been forgotten. Under such circumstances, it is natural for people on both sides to hate each other, especially so when they are introduced to the partial knowledge at a young age. 

Could a reality check at a younger age help? Two years ago, three young Pakistanis set out on a mission to create a History textbook that presented the History taught in Indian schools and those taught in Pakistani schools side-by-side. The two Histories are apparently quite different. I am quite jealous that this awesome idea should come from Pakistan. Although still waiting for widespread acceptance, and probably some more painstaking research, with this venture they not only created history but also won my heart. 

And so did this photograph: 

 

 A Kashmiri farmer crosses a barbed wire fence to check his crop on a foggy 

morning on the outskirts of Srinagar, India (AP Photo/Dar Yasin) 

Here is a common farmer from Kashmir, who is living his routine life, earning his daily bread, oblivious and indifferent to the big deal people are making about his land. In the fight between two nations we have perhaps forgotten the people of Kashmir. What do they want? Will it be fair to conduct a poll now given that a lot of Kashmiris are still in refugee camps in the adjacent states, too afraid to return? Or should we just forget the past and accept the Line-of-Control as the National Border? Does Pakistan want to keep the dispute alive as an election issue? There is no consensus. It could be an issue that is being strategically kept alive so that it could be used to advantage at an opportune time, by China or the United States. 

Many people think that the first step towards resolving the Kashmir issue is friendship. Friendship on a personal level could produce something fruitful after a few generations, but at the moment that kind of thing is more tangential to the current problem. As education in Pakistan is improving, a lot of people are coming out of the cocoon, becoming more aware and doing good work, and also extending a friendly hand towards India, so there is some hope. Friendship on a National level though is very tricky, given that Pakistan has breached treaties it signed with India in the past. The political climate in Pakistan remains unstable, cross-border terrorism continues, and until this stops I don’t think we can proceed towards peaceful negotiations. 

Omar Abdullah, the Chief Minister of Kashmir recently said: 

"Thinking that the relations will get normalized in such a situation, that is impossible. We will surely talk, but the results that we want out of that dialogue, we cannot achieve those till such things (infiltration and ceasefire violations) are not stopped. "

And I agree with him.