Living in the moment

All of us have heard of "seize the day" "live in the moment" and other catchphrases without having any idea of how to put them into practice. How can you seize today when you are worrying about your tests tomorrow? How can you live in the moment when you are dreading that next moment is going to be filled with anxiety because of a presentation in office?

There is a story in Upanishads of a hunter who is sitting on  a tree trying to hunt a deer and sees a snake slithering towards him. When he looks down to jump to escape the snake he sees a crocodile waiting by the side of the tree. Facing certain death, the hunter looks up, and at that moment a drop of honey from a hive on a branch above him falls into his mouth. As he savours the sweetness of that drop, he experiences pure happiness.

This story was stuck in my head for a while now-just lounging there in one corner of my head without really achieving anything. And unexpectedly,  today evening I understood what it was like to be the hunter.

For the last few days I had been obsessing about Rolf Potts- his writing style, the kind of travel he promotes and his general awesomeness. I have read all his articles, seen most of his videos and all of his interviews so thoroughly that it got to the point where I could predict the answers he was going to give. And in every article of his, I always find at least one line that makes me go " Yes! Wooow, you are amazing". I thought I had read all the stuff he had ever published.

Today evening I had a meeting I wasnt looking forward to at all. I had to go through it because it had to be done but that didnt make me stop being grumpy about it. I reached the venue earlier -it was a wonderful coffee shop-one that I would have loved to spend time in  if the context was different. As I sat thinking about my upcoming meeting it was impossible not to let the niceness of the place wash over me. I knew there was about fifteen minutes for the meeting to begin. I ordered something nice and on a whim opened the twitter account of Rolf Potts.  As I sat sipping hot chocolate and reading some brilliant RP tweets, I knew what the hunter experienced.

Unfortunately, I also knew how the hunter felt while being devoured by the snake afterwards.

Where did the weekend go?

"When you are eighty, it seems like you have breakfast every five minutes" said some old guy (I think) 

You must agree that time is flying faster as you grow older. Ever remember thinking "wow where did all thse months go" while you were in school? Now it seems as if you just got used to writing 2014 in cheque books and its already time to start changing to 2015. What has changed from then? You still have 12 months every year. and 7 days every week. Why do some of these days whiz past with no trace of them ever having been there? 

The answer lies in one word: Memories. 

When you were young, you were doing new things and you were making memories. And the days seemed longer. As you have grown older, without memories to mark your time, it seems like its all one big blur. You will be able to attest to this with your own weekdays. They remain indistinguishable from one another-your brain doesnt think it worthy enough to secure a space. 

In contrast, think of your vacations-If you have done different things on holiday, you can vouch for the fact that on a Friday, your Monday looks soo far behind, suuch a loong time back and quite a distance away new things done and  the new memories accumulated have occupied a substantial space in your brain. And by definition, the more memories you accumulate in your mental drawer, the longer the time seems. 

There, your simple way to stop time whoosh past you. Stop. Do new things. Do things that are rememberable. Until the lab coats figure out how to transfer your brain to a computer so you can immortalise yourself, this is the only possible way of extending your life. 

Face your fears while traveling. Literally

"Oh my god oh my god oh my gooood Geeee" I clutched G's hand in utter panic as I saw my nemesis just a few feet ahead of me. I was in Plitvice, dammit, supposedly one of the most beautiful places in the world.  I was not prepared for this. I had not traveled halfway across the world to unexpectedly stumble upon the one for whom I had harboured a deep mix of fear, hatred and revulsion for as long as I can remember.

The snail, for its part stared insipidly, presumably unmindful of the stuttering panicking creature a few feet away.

Yes, all that drama was for a snail.Amongst my earliest memories is one of me running inside my house in abject fear of a snail that had found its way to our house. Wherefrom I developed this fear is not entirely clear- though some investigations point to my very elder-sisterly elder sister who, possibly used fear to establish her authority over me. And to this day I remain extremely disgusted and repulsed, and scared even though the rational part of my brain knows that its irrational. And this fear is so deeprooted that I involuntarily wince and flinch when I am unexpectedly shown a picture of a snail.

I explained all this to G while carefully walking on the road, my hypersensitive brain detecting more snails in the foliage on the side of the road. G was understanding but baffled at my apparent preference to get killed by walking on the road rather than step on the sidewalk. We managed to reach the guesthouse where we were planning to stay the night, to wake up early next morning to go to the National park.

There was nothing to do except sit in the room as it was raining outside ( which was what brought the wretched creatures out in the first place) so I spent the evening contemplating if I had let these nondescript molluscs ruin what was possibly the prettiest place I would see the whole of the trip. ( For those who do not have an irrational fear of things (curd, cheese, cows, whatever) you would never understand this post. Also, you are incredibly lucky. What the rest of us experience when we see the objects of our fear cannot be really explained in words- Imagine a cyst or a tumor in your body filled with hair and teeth. Imagine touching that with your bare hands. You are able to fathom some disgust level? Good. Multiply that by 1000). I could imagine my mom mocking me and imagine my friends laughing about this misadventure. Thats when I decided that I wouldnt let it happen. I would try and ignore them. Lets see what happens.

Next morning, I wore two pairs of socks- I dont know how that extra layer was supposed to protect me- Rationality in the presence of snails has never been my forte . As soon as we entered, it was clear that the park was mercifully free of snails.  Soon after, we had to cross a brilliantly underhyped "flooded trail". The water was ankle-deep so the rational thing to do was to remove shoes and walk. But I wasnt having any of the rational nonsense that day. Sure, the park was 8km away from the snail colony we had seen, but hell, animals have crossed seas and colonised islands. Given infinite time, 8km  was nothing for a particularly determined snail. No, I would walk the flooded trail with my shoes and two pairs of socks. We finished it without incident and I forgot about it.

The next day, we were exploring some small towns and G spotted a bush which she thought was lavender, pulled a small leaf and invited me to smell it. I calmly stepped back and told G " I am not coming any closer, there is a snail there" ( of course, g hadnt seen it.) I was overjoyed. I hadnt flinched, jumped or panicked. Maybe I had overcome my snail fear!

Yes! Yes! YES!!

A week after  the trip I was at home watching cartoons with my one year old niece and a new cartoon called "Dreams of speed" started. As soon as the protagonist came on screen, I screeched, winced and closed my eyes.  I realised that my fear was still intact. So much for my rejoicing.

As they say.. Whatever happens in Croatia, stays in Croatia, unfortunately! 

Why we believe in the supernatural, godmen, the paranormal etc

The Infinite monkey cage is an extremely witty irreverent discussion hosted by the hilarious Robin Ince and the delectable Brian Cox. And in one of their discussions they touched upon a very beautiful point of uncertainty and control.

Humans hate uncertainty. Very few of us can thrive in an uncertain setting for long and we love to believe that we have control on whats happening around us. And when we lose someone important to us we hate to believe that we dont know whats happening with them and if some conman convinces you into accepting tio talk to your loved one, you will gladly fall for it despite being  scientific minded otherwise.
And same is the case with the multiple homams that godmen make people perform. To say that "Its because your ancestors are unhappy taht your son is falling sick" attributes a reason and thus something we can do something about and control, as compared to " sometimes shit happens". Instead of sitting simply we believe that we are actively doing something about the problem and that accords us a grip on the whole situation. This is always preferred over the whole " we are just pawns in the game of fate".

The same thing is true for multiple things- You were involved in a car accident because you had committed some sins in your past birth and now you are absolved of it sounds more soothing than " its was just a random occurrence, could have been anyone. Accepting that the universe is random and that you have to make the best of what it throws is not as easy as typing it. We always look for other solid reasons to know why this happened to us, what we can do so that it doesn't happen again etc.

And ghosts emerge from the lack of knowledge of what happens after death. To say that we just stop existing seems unacceptable to most of us so we fabricate stories about people continuing to exist after death and whats more, routinely visiting their past lives.

Thats what it ultimately comes down to. Your ability to handle uncertainty is inversely proportional to your belief in astrology, psychics, and other similar phenomenon.  Think about it- Is it easier to believe that someone voodoo conspried to make you hit the car, or to rationally wonder whether it was just a matter of probability?

Just when exactly, does one give up ?

This post is inspired by and entirely dedicated to the Brazil national football team and to their disastrous performance in the semi-finals last night. Everyone knew that Germany was the better team and that Brazil is most likely going to exit the finals, specially given the fact that Silva was not there to defend and Neymar was occupied with the broken back thing, but no one could have predicted the level of humiliation Brazil had to go through. Poor markings, haphazard formations and an abysmal morale led to what is probably the worst defeat Brazil has ever faced. Before half time it was clear who was moving to the next round.

But this post is not about my analysis of the match. There are enough articles on that. 

What touched me  and somehow what no one is talking about is the lone goal scored by Oscar in the 90th minute. Well, of course no one celebrated it. Fans didnt know whether to laugh or to cry. His teammates didnt come rushing to his side, hugging him and pushing him down in a wave of affection and happiness. In fact he himself didnt look relieved and didnt look at anyone for acknowledgement. He simply continued playing as if it were a goal scored during a practice session.

Thats the difference between him and most people. Knowing that that one action isnt going to change the outcomes, yet doing it unselfishly, not to add to his own meagre goal  count ( one more goal would have made no difference) , not to bring glory to his team and country, but merely doing it because it has to be done. Never has a goal been more futile and more unwanted and disrespected, but that didnt stop or deter him.

There is something to be said about that spirit which lets one keep playing for the sake of playing when the game is over, when your exit from the World cup is inevitable and ignominy is anyway a few minutes away- all the other players showed signs of physical and mental fatigue- Luiz was visibly disturbed, Marcelo was incredibly sad but somehow found the strength to run, but Oscar merely continued playing with the same puppy face with which he started in the Croatia match. 

Well, the media might not be talking about it- they are too busy showing us photos of saddened fans , glowing articles might not be written about him, but hey somewhere in the corner of the world there was one blog post about it. 

Far far away from what Oscar or anyone would have wanted from a world cup goal but it is what it is.