Take a step back

Life is what happens to us while we are busy making other plans.

Let me tell you a story.

Today morning was a beautiful morning. Perfect sun, perfect temperature. I left the main door open to enjoy the beautiful sky outside. Just then a wasp, a big bee, 5-6 times the size of a honeybee wandered inside my door. AAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!

I was morbidly afraid of the 'beast'. I knew better than getting into her way and hid in my kitchen while the bee went into my bedroom. Obviously, she was looking for a way out of this prison of a place. I mean, she is a lady of the outdoors, clear skies and pretty flowers. The bedroom curtains were drawn but there is this small ventilator on the top of the windows which is covered with glass. She saw the light there and tried to escape from there.

She tried and tried and kept on trying, somehow thinking that the glass will give way somewhere. I empathized with her but more than that I wanted her to leave, so I opened the curtains so that she would see the light from the window and escape.

But, she didn't. She was right above the window but kept trying to get out of the ventilator. Struggling with the glass pane.And struggling. And struggling. She just could not see the open window.

Do you know where I'm going with this? The bee was so occupied with her struggle to get out of that small ventilator that she could not see that a whole big window is open right next to her. Ever wondered how many times we do that? As I stood there watching her, I thought about that. (And than I ran back to my kitchen)

Wouldn't it be good that ever once in a while we step back and look at the bigger picture? Maybe we are struggling for the wrong things in the wrong place.Who knows, a bigger door has been opened for us. How sad is it to know that when we are engaged in our futile escape from the small ventilator, an entire large window is waiting for us.

The update on the bee is that she was wise enough. She must have seen the window and she did escape after I don't know how long. I didn't dare to stay and look at her struggle lest she gets frustrated and charges at me, maybe transform into a monster, wrap me with her huge wings, take me to her den and slowly torture me to death with her family of poisonous wasps. Weird things happen.

First impression

Whoever said that "first impression is the last impression" was an idiot!

How is that even possible? People have gone horribly wrong with me and I've gone absolutely horribly wrong with people when it comes to first encounters.

Now, maybe this is true of job interviews or more formal meetings when you know that 10 minutes or so is all you have. But what about when you meet the same person over and over and over again? Don't your perceptions go through one of those huge revolving crusher machines every single time? Well, mine do. Till I reach a stable point where I have figured out the person reasonably well.

Blame my geminian fickle-minded-ness. My opinions about a person can go from one end of the spectrum directly to the opposite end in one meeting which maybe the 2nd or the 12th. That doesn't matter. What matters is whether that person is buried so deep under in my 'good books' that one/two actions or statements will not make me tear up his/her page.

There have been times when people have not even registered with me after I have been around them for over months. Then stuff has happened, we came close and we became best buddies and continue to remain so. There is no scope for a first impression when I don't even remember my first meeting with them. Su, God gulty, abs, Rajesh, Suzie, Sho all fall in this category.

I have always grown fond of people or un-fond. I have drifted towards people or away. Gradually. By the time I realized how much I love these people, I have forgotten what my first meeting with them was like.

What should also be noted is that my finding a person so-damn-cute/attractive/ohh-m-g is invariably always followed by my asking myself "What the eff were you thinking?". My people evaluation kit is grossly under-stocked.

To make things better(??), I have consolation in the fact that other people too have been wrong about me before they got to know me better. I have been thought to be a snob, a loner, a spoilt brat, irresponsible, not-interested-in-studies, callous...I should stop. Well, these opinions have changed over time and that is the only reason why they are mentioned here. There is no place for negativity on this blog, especially if it's about me.

Now, whoever said "All that glitters is not gold" made so much more sense. There is an entire science to understanding people. People are complex and there is so much more to them than just first impressions and first hand-shakes. If it was not the case, I would be highly unpopular!

2nd touchdown at Auroville!

Quite amazing considering my non-travelling track record. The place is bliss and the fact that I would be allowed to sleep in the car made the offer too tempting to resist.

We stayed at Sharnga guest house. This place and its people have now become so familiar, it feels like home. This time around it was off-season (translated as heat and humidity) and Sharnga was almost empty. The last time around, it was teeming with people and that was when I fell in love with Auroville and Sharnga.



I had a good 4 days at Auroville last time. Like I said in my earlier post, at the time there was a general lack of clarity in my thoughts. (A very handsome man I met, and I mean very handsome, once said that I should look no further than a bacardi if clarity in thoughts was what I was looking for. But in this case, no amount of bacardi helped.) And so I was there at Auroville, looking to spend sometime on my own and think things through. What I did experience in those 4 days was way above expectations.

The place is absolutely breath-taking - acres and acres of man made forests and no sounds except for the birds and the occasional peacocks. People there live as one community, everyone contributes to the community as per their capabilities.

I saw teenagers plucking oranges to make marmalade and taking care of birds and chicks. Their concerns are widely different from our concerns of traffic, noise, latest gadgets and designer clothes and shoes.

Peter Choate, a Canadian professor and social worker, was also staying at our guest house. Random discussions led me to discover that he is a psychologist and I jumped at the opportunity and asked him to help bring clarity to my thoughts. He was immensely sweet and agreed. How he must have hated that moment because I behaved like a color blind person who is being told about the beauty of reds and greens. Despite the block, he persisted and drilled a few things in my self-consumed head.

The most important lesson that I came back with is that there is no use of wasting any emotion on things of the past. What has happened, has happened and nothing can change that. What we should strive for is to do our best given the present circumstances. Maybe we all know this at some level but when something goes wrong we do tend to think about it and there are a lot of 'what-if's and 'why-me's. Peter explained to me the futility of letting the past dwell in your mind - not only is it completely futile, by staying in the past you miss the present.

So now I have been going on and on about the 'present' and the 'now' and very soon I will be left with no friends. Then maybe I can again go back to Auroville and probably never come back.

what category are you?

its amazing how you can learn such profound things just by chance, just by conversing with different people. i met this lady the other day. she was into psychology and pschiatry and human behavior and stuff.. quite learned and experienced in her field, a professional. she told me this fact which to her was very routine, one i think she told everyone who came to her, very ordinary and normal. but it explained many things (read human behavior) to me and has to an extent changed the way i look at things and look at myself.

she explained that people in general can be categorized into 3 categories viz

• category A: these people hold themselves responsible for everything. they take full responsibility for their actions and maybe also for things that are beyond their control. "if i would have done that this would not have happened" , "i should have seen this coming" , "its all my mistake. i didnt take proper care" or "i didnt try hard enough" "i shouldnt have said that" , "i should have said that". this is how they generally react to situations.
  
  they always take a lot of care and time while making decisions. their thought process goes like if i do this, then 'a' will happen, then 'b' will happen, that'll lead to 'c'..i dont want 'c' to happen so lets not do it. something like this. mostly their decisions turn out to be good.

• category B: these are the people who always blame the other person. "he didnt do that" , "he did this" , "if he hadnt done this...." , "if she hadnt said this...im not responsible" , "he didnt tell me earlier, its not my fault" and so on.
  
• category C: then we have the category C people who blame everything on fate, God, chance, enviornment. "God wanted it this way, what can i and you do" , "fate didnt want this to happen" and so on.

also, she said, though people follow these categories broadly, sometimes they may stary into a different category. like a category A person can blame fate sometimes but the general trend is that she will blame herself.

her analysis was that Im category A person..(thats why more lines written under that :) )
and since she's told me this, ive started seeing things in a better light. i understand how some people can so easily blame others for something which is so blatantly their own mistake or oversight. i understand that some things for which i held myself responsible for so long might never have been in my control. i understand that as an individual i can only be responsible for what i do, not the reaction to it. thats the other individual's prerogative. in short ive stopped blaming myself and holding myself responsible for every damn thing.

with the gyan over, what category are you?