A Heart Missing, A Mind Numbed & A Soul Lost...

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

--“What I have lived for”, Autobiography, Bertrand Russell

The Beauty & The Beast...

I am sure after reading this article husbands all over will convince their wives with, "if you can put it on your face..."

It is amazing what science can do, no?

Self-involved...

I was always bad with details. Details, details, details! I need to take care of the details.


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In other news, kajal has become such an essential part of my life that I just can not step out without first applying kajal to my eyes. But today I did. And I look so incomplete, like something's missing, like I just lost someone. 


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I think we get so involved in our own careers and industry, we often become blind to other industries and professions. Like everyone time those sales people call I ask them to come late around 7-8pm. I get free after 6:30pm but I never realised till now that those people also have their own "personal life". Maybe I am just plain insensitive and when I throw tantrums like, "Your company provides terrible service! Why can't your people come at 8 PM?", am sure the guy at the other end must think me a bitch. Which won't be far from the truth. Am sure he had a hard day and at the end of the day, which should be 7 pm for him too, he just wants to go home and spend the remainder of  day with his family. Or has his own personal work. Or needs to take his dogs out for a walk, has friends he wants to hang out with or needs to give time to his girlfriend or wife. And then someone like me demands he come at 8 pm and he doesn't want to lose one customer so he agrees. I think it's important to be aware of the lives of people around us. Those of our maids, the sales people, the janitors, the office boys, the fruit sellers, the autowallas even. Your own watchman. The man who gets your newspaper. 




I am sure we will be a bit more considerate if we knew atleast a little about their work day. I am positive we'd sympathise and possibly come to care too. 

Spat...

You know not.

Then tell me.

No.

Why not?

I don't want to.

Please?

That will not work.

Then what will?

Nothing.

But I want to know!

Then you will have to find it out yourself.

How?

I can't tell.

Why not?

'Cause I can not.

But why?

You heard me.

You're being impossible!

You're being a pain.

Tell me, please! It's killing me!

I am sorry. I am not trying to be cruel. But I can not.

Alright. Is this how you want it? Fine. We'll play by your rules then.

I am not playing any games. There are no rules.

True.

True what?

Nothing.

What?

Nothing.

Tell me.

I can not.

Why not?

'Cause I don't want to

Why not?

You heard me too.

Happy Clouds...

The weather today is *perfect*. Just perfect. Reminds me of London. And my train journey from Glasgow to Aberdeen. And Glassgow Green. The Castle. And Bhutan. And perfect smiles. And perfect friends. And perfect stories. Perfect happiness.



And somehow, I feel perfect too.

A Blossom...

There are few words that will stir, inspire and make you happy. This is full of such words. If you read just one thing today, let it be this.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.

What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows. 

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway. 

 The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence. 

If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone. Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable. 

Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.

Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone. 

A Cold Winter Morning...

I don't think there can be anything more beautiful than a winter morning. Specially when it has rained the night before.

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing in this concrete jungle. Surrounded by these tall buildings that compete with the not-so-tall mountains. Surrounded by clothes that flutter on the clothes lines along with the trees that sway and leaves that delicately shiver. The distant motorcycle horn that drowns the chirping of birds. The early morning breakfast bustle that breaks the morning reverie.

I should be somewhere else. Not here.