Alone Time

For the  longest time, I considered myself to be an outgoing individual,relishing in human companionship, an extrovert. Yet as I am discovering myself, I am realizing that there are signs  that the opposite might just be true.I detest  large gatherings, can barely make it through a wedding, and hardly have any acquaintances- most of the people I interact with outside of work are close friends- some closer than others, but nevertheless, people I trust. I am not part of any group, have never been, no parties, no gatherings, am even vary of going to temple when it is crowded, yet enjoy social interactions. This confusing aspect was resolved when I realized that the people I interacted with were all those whom I trusted, a few close friends scattered all over the world.

We are of course a bundle of contradictions - contradictions essential to balance our lives and that was one of the reasons it took me a long time to accept that I am an introvert .
 Introverts are not always engrossed in books - though they would prefer that rather than dealing with meaningless social engagements, but they are people who shy from limelight, prefer to shine in their own light.

It is not easy for people to understand the need of an introvert to spend time in solitude. enjoy the company of  friends.The struggle to fit into the expectations of society, forcing myself to fit into a group (no groups - cultural or otherwise) conflicted with what I truly desired - company of people I could just be myself.

Any introvert will tell you that society is not so kind if you don't fit into what  is normal and extroversion is generally considered to be normal. Introverts are private, individualistic, a little eccentric maybe, and don't be fooled by the boisterous behavior, the masks are ready for every occasion to hide behind.

Harmony

What happens when the head starts ruling over the heart? Head is strong, logical, reasonable and deals in fact. There are some situations in life where if the head didn't rule over the heart, people would get hurt. Yet, at times, we need to take action without needing approval of the head. Brain is limited, but powerful, heart is limitless and powerless. When we let our love rule, we let the heart take over our logic, we let go of judgement. We turn into someone who is accepting, forgiving and kind.

Seeing a beggar on the street, logically, it would be appropriate to just ignore and walk away- after all logical rules that if you help him, you are encouraging him to beg. Yet, the heart questions, would I still be called human if I can just walk away without remorse seeing someone in such distress? 

The balance between using our brain and heart is delicate. We humans tend to focus more on intelligence than matters of heart, often forgetting that it is the heart that differentiates us from the robots. Encouraging people to be more empathetic, is possible only when we come out of our cocoon of self-importance. Only when we expand our ego to include others can we feel other people's pain. Empathizing is what keeps us real and connected to other human beings.

Let the heart rule over the brain , as long as it takes into account other people's pain and happiness. Selfish decisions callous of other people's feelings are just that - selfish. Decisions taken from heart are supposed to be inclusive of other people, because rash decisions leads to momentary happiness, which  often ends in  long term regrets and pain.

Making peace with your past.

A man cannot free himself from the past more easily than he can from his own body.  ~André Maurois

When you are surging ahead in life and  there is not time to look back, you simply assume that you have come so far away from your past that it no longer matters. Often in our quest to lead a better present and even happier future, we tend to underestimate the power of our past. All we read and hear these days makes me feel like the past is something that you just erase and replace it with the present. Yet how far is this actually from truth? 

Can we really move forward without making peace with our past? Is our past really something we leave behind, or is it so etched into our souls that it is actually a part of our present? After all aren't we made up of all all the bits and pieces of of our past events and reactions?

I personally feel, just like the flowing water, just like the river, we collect the sand, pebbles, some dirt, some leaves, some happy and some painful memories, along our journey. Some we leave behind, and some even though we would like forget, we carry with us till the end. Our past is a part of us - a part of who we are and we cannot negate it. All our mistakes, all the missed opportunities, all the regrets  are like the fragrance of perfume -you cannot see it,but sense it. It is foolish to assume that we can switch off our emotions and fears, just like that. All our reactions in present is based on what we experienced in the past . Yet we are more than what happens to us - we are more than what destiny has stored for us. We have the infinite 

Stop, and look back - stare fearlessly into the demons of your past- let the fears, let the pain and the regrets die a natural death. Until and unless we look back fearlessly and hush down the demons, we will always be running away from them, frightened and distrustful. Look back and see it for what it is - sad, abusive, painful, shed some tears, and grieve for the person you once were. And once when you have accepted that the past is not going anywhere, but you have tamed it and is under your leash to control how you want to , you will feel liberated and maybe even grateful for the unhappy events in your past.

Make peace, find closures, forgive and choose to bring the best memories forward along the journey, respect the pain and keep it leashed, for if you bury it, it will follow you around like a ghost - appearing when  you least expect it. 

Some more of Winnie......

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” 

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.” 

“Some people care too much. I think it's called love.” 

“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.” 

 If there ever comes a day when we can't be together keep me in your heart, I'll stay there forever - Winnie the Pooh

 If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear. - Winnie the Pooh

 Those who are clever, who have a Brain, never understand anything. - Winnie the Pooh

Time to heal

Everyday, we go out of our way to receive life, to live and embrace all the goodness. Every experience leaving a mark on our psyche, whether we like it or not. Over a period of time,all these cumulative experiences are what makes us to who we are. Each modifying our thinking, broadening our horizons and hopefully making us wiser.

All systems in this universe are created to inhale the goodness and exhale the bad. Our body is the same. Even when we eat the healthiest food, the body still processes it into nutrition and crap. Same with our thoughts.. All the thoughts, information, interactions that we openly welcome into our lives is processed by our brain into life enhancing and crap. We are so busy trying to imbibe the goodness,that we overlook to delete the junk , the toxic emotions collected over the time.

Each one of us take different time to heal. We all process events in our life with varied states of intensity.The problem is society expects us all to heal at a standardized time frame. A person who seemingly recovers faster than others is labelled as "Strong" and in our quest to emerge as a strong person, we sometimes pretend that we are healed, suppressing our real pain and surging ahead to next challenges in our lives.

Taking time to heal does not mean we are weak, it just means we are aware of our own threshold points. Letting others to pressurise us to believe that all is fine and to keep marching on is sometimes the only option available to us. Yet there comes a point in life, when even a seemingly minor incident sets a trigger for our breakdown.

Take time to heal, take time to cry, take time to brood. Smiling when you are hurting does not make you strong. It is convenient for people around you to think that you are fine... but smile when your heart tells you to, pretending only leads to disasters, if not today, maybe years from now.

Being In Love

Human nature has always fascinated me. The myriad of emotions, the intricate and delicate balance of our insecurities, doubts, love, our desires, our hopes, our disappointments and joys- all intermingled, and creating a new person everyday. Everyday we change, knowingly or unknowingly either into a better version of ourselves or someone that we hardly recognize. 

Life happens, things change, we go through turbulence, our lives upheaved by situations beyond our control. Everyday brings its own challenge, every new day, we learn to live and find joys and give a positive spin to our disappointments and sorrows.

Of all the emotions, the one that is most complex is when two people fall in love. Love as a generic term is beautiful and everything positive, yet when it casts its shadow in exclusive relationships, when there is an expectation of commitment, it invites jealousy, insecurities, anxiety, sleeplessness, and many other emotions that play  havoc on your heart.

Being in love is when the other person's well being becomes more important than your own. Their presence seeps into your soul and becomes an integral part of your well being, so much so that your happiness is dependent on their every nuance, every gesture, and their every word. Illogical, unreasonable, powerful yet powerless love, sublime when fulfilled and leading you to the depths of despair when unrequited. What is it about romantic love -that can create masterpieces, poetry and art and also cause wars and lead people to unjustifiable horrific crimes?

Deciphering the secrets of heart and understanding the way love works, seems like a task that will remain unresolved even as mankind progresses to cross the barriers in space.

Out of the box

I dread the word group- I dread being boxed up and defined. Look at human race, the moment we define ourselves as belonging to a nation, as belonging to a religion or a sect, we turn from human beings to something else. Belonging to a group can ignite  passions to give up the reason we live - to be alive, mass beliefs can raise us to be either a monsters with no sign of humanity, to kill with no remorse and to hate a race as a whole in the name of patriotism or religion.

Belonging requires you to be exclusive to a group, a community. Belonging mandates you to resign yourself to be defined, to be tagged. My refusal to let my identity be defined by language, religion or regionalism comes at a price of being isolated in the crowd. When you believe in something, you are simultaneously rejecting contradictory beliefs.

All my life, I have struggled to fit in. I am not sure if it is my own resistance to change, or my insistence at doing things my own way,but fitting in has always been a challenge for me. The appropriate word of course would be to belong .

It  is a challenge to be undefined, unlabelled,  and generic. It is of course a bigger challenge to not judge and label others.Intellectual, artsy, traditional, modern, whatever be the term, labels box you, close you up. The journey in trying to be everything, results in you being  nothing and the price one pays for it is of loneliness. As human beings we all have this innate desire to belong, to have at least that one person who understands our inner conflicts, who can look past our flaws and look into our soul.There are times when  the search to belong, to find that one soul who understands the torment leads me to be a people pleaser, a pseudo extrovert.

We are of course a bundle of contradictions, mutually exclusive desires fighting to find dominance. The need to belong in a constant battle with the need to be true to myself.