Culture, conditioning, and childhood. These are the three things that a man carries throughout his/her life. Any possible freedom in mind begins only with their annihilation. Our reality, reactions, and responses are their prisoners, and cleaning our mental slate is almost next to impossible as one or the other influences our thought processes, actions, and resultant circumstances. The whole edifice of our karma is their blessing or curse.
Price and benefits
Sometimes the price that you pay outweighs the benefits you get in return. The 18-hour work for extra dollars and the 3-hour internet searching for coupons and discounts for saving a few pounds belong to this category. We plan exotic trips to god-forsaken places but the long flight journeys, visa issues, and poor accommodation make the fancy beach and unique flora and fauna pointless. The promotion might be good but sadly the trading off of family and personal time might not be.
Distance
Closeness is always dangerous and threatening for people. The fantasies, mirages, and appearances that they created will falter and break away when there is less gap. That’s why we are scared of love and avoid intimacy with friends and partners. And being distant from everybody, for this reason, calls for an inauthentic living, lies, and fake lifestyles. This eventually creates a distance within yourself with yourself and alienates you from a sense of purpose and meaning in life. Being tightly knitted is chilling but it is honest and perhaps simple.
Is there nobility in suffering?
Definitely not. Being a Dostoevskyian is sick and saddening. Why should any suffering have meaning at all? And we never search for meaning while we are happy. Is it to accept the helplessness and then seek some pride in it?
Friedrich Nietzsche says that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. But suffering rarely made any men stronger. Either they get used to it or become egotistical to accept that they too are weak and can weep.
Even after the Nth time, pain cripples us but humanity and so-called self-advertised strong men find it hard to swallow it.
This has a negative consequence—No one is seeking out help and is crushing their lives simply in the name of being stoic. This is a disease and a plague for us all.
They are dumping the waste into the subconscious and growing their Jungian “shadows” and society is raising sociopaths in the name of strong Spartans.
Acknowledging this can heal the sore souls and spoiled spirits. It’s time to stop searching for meaning in martyrdom and affection in affliction.
3 Things from Rocky Balboa that changed everything.
We all know the famous Rocky speech which he gives to his son about life and how it knocks you down.
The resilience and hard mindset of Rocky are truly inspiring and life-changing indeed.
I saw the movie when I was in high school and since then the wisdom has been around in my ears. Here are a few of them
- 1)Quitting is never an option.
Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.
You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you are hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!—Rocky Balboa.
This is perhaps the most inspiring line I’ve ever come across. Rocky teaches about the value of persistence. It’s easy to quit if you think about it. Life knocks you down with that business failure and you go on alcohol and drugs. That’s simple and a safe way out to your La-La land.
But to continue to dream and standing up is hard because it forces you to accept the responsibility and mistakes you made which almost and always shatters your ego. Being sedated is secure and un-troubling.
No one is immune to failure and has a vaccine shot to prevent hits that life throws at you. It’s part of the process and remember the world is NASTY and very mean. People will stab you and put you down unless you take the charge.
Drink that bitter cup of responsibility and be a champion.
- 2)The Doors of change are open to all.
“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.” —Friedrich Nietzsche.
This is probably the only idea that matters in your life. It’s not Lao-Tzu-type old irrelevant philosophy but a noteworthy one. Once decided, you can be whomsoever you can be and do whatever you can.
Gandhi was an ordinary lawyer but when he was kicked out from a whites-only carriage in Pietermaritzburg, the incident changed him completely. He changed himself into an activist to stand up against racism and subjugation. That change later liberated millions of Indians from the colonization of the British empire.
Likewise, Siddhartha vexed by life’s shallowness decide to change and sat under a Bodhi tree. Well, he became the Buddha by finding enlightenment and went on to be the light of Asia.
“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” That’s what Albus Dumbledore wants you to hear to change your life.
- 3)It’s never about winning.
“The journey is the reward.”—Steve Jobs.
Winning matters but what matters more is the process and the journey. Because the journey changes you like nothing else. Take Elon Musk and Tesla. Even if he had failed, his insane work had already transformed him and place him at the peak where the 1% are.
Suppose you worked for 5 years and the writing career didn’t take off as you expected. You still have less traffic and don’t have enough money. But think about your skills. Five years surely means something. Writing skills made you a better thinker and no one can articulate words as brilliantly as you can among your peers. And you can still go freelance or work for a magazine with that skill you got there in the mind.
Never think that all was a waste in the end. You never know how the dots will be connected in the future.
Hang on!
Goodness
Nature is never good. The tsunami and earthquakes don’t bother about the lives they take away nor does the cyclone care about the crops it damages which puts hundreds of families in misery. Likewise, the lion doesn’t pity over the life of a deer baby. It hunts mercilessly and eats belly-full. In fact, the viruses and bacteria families kill millions of humans every year, and not even kids are spared. We never judge and question the character of nature. However, humans are judged left and right and are given the highest form of judgement.
Forcing
People often force their worst personality traits onto others. If they are liars then they demand you to tell a degrading lie on their behalf to others. For instance, a friend goes on an exotic and enjoyable trip and then portrays it as work stuff and make you a part of their lie when he/she needs convincing it to boss or partner, to give a simple enough example.
Our loyalty and friendship then are dependent on us mirroring and adapting to his/her bad personalities.
Architecture
How people build houses, what they put in them, and what colors they use reveal a lot about their personalities. The artistic decorations or the minimalistic styles show what kind of lifestyle they choose. Likewise how they organize space, arrange toys, and clean windows show the importance they give to the details. The green-minded ones putting plants, the film geeks displaying classic movies, and other such bizarre tastes tell the stories of people. The things we own reveal what we are. For instance, a person having a great audio setup at home or vintage paintings convey their hobbies and the balcony chairs exhibit the philosophical bent of the people living there. The smell, the marks on the floor, and the dining table all give clues about the individualities and their preferences. Next time when you visit someone’s house, try to pick the life they created in these items. of course, this is not to judge but to better understand them.
Plans
Jiddu Krishnamurti in his work “The book of life” remarks that reality is simple but escapism is complicated. The boring day is pretty normal with coffee sipping, book reading, and sleeping on the couch. However, we won’t let that happen. We won’t let simplicity flow into our lives. The escapism we seek on Sundays further exhausts us. The constant screen switching, partying, surfing everything on the internet, traveling to mosquito-ridden places, and shopping don’t give space for relaxation that we hanker. These weekend plans are so complicated that in the end, we have to figure out what exactly made us happy and if not, carry on the dissatisfaction to Monday. Neither body nor mind is well rested.
Putting aside these weekends, in real life too, the book, walking in the park, conversations with loved ones, cooking and eating tummy-happy foods, and ending with the reflection on life are far better than the above-mentioned list.
Talking
Everybody is shy to start a conversation but everyone wants to talk. People find it awkward, embarrassing, and weird to initiate a chat. Hence they won’t make the first move and simply wait and expect that the other guy understands this. But the others too think alike and in the end, only silence is shared. Avoid this and by all means, you take the so-called initiative, the train/flight/bus journey for the rest of the time will be at least exciting and entertaining, if not enriching. And you might learn something about something. You never know where the wisdom that you need at that point in your life comes from.
Thy Vox 