soul

War

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He was a man of few words and often of silence – seeking to overcome mountains of doubt.

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Climbing that mountain was a tedious task, one he saw as too much of an ask.

“I am no trekker”, he thought, imagining himself crumbling with the boulders.

“Besides, I would rather go for something suited to amateurs.”

“Someday, I’ll conquer this too. Someday.. ”, he said glancing at the tallest of them all.

“Until then, a good amount of practice on the smaller ones will help.”

Classifying his doubts as the minors and the majors, he cut out a strategy to bring them down one at a time. The minors looked easy with their innocent profiles – profiles that hid all their defiance. Five battles down the line, he realised that underestimating the minors was a mistake. And with that piece of wisdom, came more doubt. The antagonist’s army gained strength with every battle it won. More territory, more weaponry – the stakes were high.

The man’s weapons weren’t made to last –swords of pretense soon gave way. The shields his ego had so carefully built started to crack. He was fighting a losing battle.

He knew he wouldn’t win the war, so an alternative suggestion was accepted –there would be a treaty. Neither the doubt, nor the man would bother the other. That way, they wouldn’t have an opportunity to clash and there’d be no battle in sight.

The treaty went through and the man lived in peace for an entire month. That was until all the chaos in his mind came back to haunt him. He had been betrayed, the treaty violated. Peace, yet again, was a distant dream.

He consulted his cabinet of wisdom in an attempt to find a permanent solution. The ministers had an array of suggestions, but none appealed to him. The parliament lacked a sense of purpose.

So he picked up a pen and set it to paper, attacking his doubts word by word. Some perished, some stayed and a few others absconded – victory increasingly imminent with every letter he wrote.

And on the spur of the moment, a writer was born – fueled by his obsessions, relentless with a passion. This was victory, or so he thought. Doubt’s days were long gone.

Tired of the conflicts his mind so diligently conjured, he took to writing for it would set him free. Instead, it held him down with an inescapable addiction.

He was now a soul that was willingly imprisoned, yet inexplicably free.

 

 

The Santa Thesis

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Toward a cottage in the middle of nowhere, he walked through the snow.

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Joe had been a student of the arts, and spent a majority of his time away from home –studying in college in the middle of a city far far away; following which he had taken up a job.Of course he missed his family. But there was something he missed even more.It was the feeling of being at home –at peace, in comfort, away from all the hustle and bustle,whiling most of his time away on the couch, cocooned in the warmth of a brilliant novel.Life in college made him a busy young man, with a social presence as lifeless as a dried carcass in the middle of a desert. He craved interaction, social meetings and simply spending time with his people.

It was holiday season and Joe couldn’t resist the idea of reuniting with his family. He stood on the porch outside, and knocked twice. He could barely move. It had taken thirty minutes of trudging to get to this place – and even as he was protected by multiple layers of winter wear, he could feel the chill.

Seconds later, his father was at the door –he hadn’t been expecting Joe and a knock on the door late in the evening had taken him by surprise. Needless to say, his father was pleasantly surprised. “What a remarkable Christmas this is already!” he remarked and gave his son the tightest hug. The upcoming week held promise aplenty for Joe and he looked forward to the New Year filled with optimism to the brim.

Celebrating Christmas at home had lightened him up considerably.The holiday season was nothing short of top notch.But he dreaded returning to college – to endless assignments, to a social life that was conspicuous by its absence, to missing his people, to wishing he could experience it all again, albeit without having to wait for another year.

“How I wish Santa was for real!” he thought to himself. “If I could ask him for anything right now, it would be a life as lively, colourful and refreshing as the Christmas tree.”

A week after Christmas, Joe packed his bags with a heavy heart and set foot to return to college. Throughout his return journey, he couldn’t stop obsessing about being taken over by the mundane again.As the bus he was in raced forward – destination bound in a relentless manner, he looked up through the window at the night sky. He couldn’t help but stare and wonder about the magnificence that was the universe.He had heard about the ‘thoughts become things’ theory all too often, but he had never given it a try.A supposed lack of a few things had made him somewhat desperate.He thought it was hard work –not physical, but mental.

The following week, he made a conscious effort to discard all the pessimism in his life. From thinking patterns to behaviours –every ounce of his mind would be subject to thoughtful reforms. He didn’t bother about whether or not it would work –he just went about doing his thing, hoping for the best.

A month later, Joe opened a large case that lay idle in his apartment for years. He didn’t remember what it contained and his curiosity got the better of him. Besides, it was the weekend and it looked like a good time to clean up.As he opened the case, his eyes sparkled.It was a six-string he had bought five years ago.

“Damn this thing. I haven’t touched this in years now.”

As he strummed the first notes on his old companion,he reminisced the last time he had used it –it was a Christmas carol in a church outside the city. “Those were the days”, he recalled. He had played it everywhere he went back then, and to anyone who insisted.

As he proceeded to clean all the nasty dust off his stringed pal, he realised that Santa existed. And although he didn’t always turn up in a red suit,he was always there – waiting for the slightest hint of faith to show up on his mind so as to make its way to the soul.You didn’t always have to wait for Christmas.

 

 

Go for glory!

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Regardless of whether you are a working professional, are a student or a sportsman, you’re ultimately doing it all for one thing – Glory. That winning feeling or the sense of accomplishment is so addictive, you never want to let go. But life has its own ways – throwing surprises at you all the time. Some of these are pleasant, some not so.

Let’s face it – getting your share of victory takes a good amount of work. And most of us are in for it, at least as long as it looks all easy peasy. The moment things start getting tough, we tend to back off; our inner defences are activated and our default survival mechanism kicks in, telling us not to do it because it’s apparently a threat.
This could apply to any situation that forces you to get out of your comfort zone – to each their own.

Yes, this so-called ‘survival mechanism’ is for real and research says it has been a part of the human instinct ever since our earliest ancestors walked the face of this planet. The fact that it’s still part of our instincts is a bit unfortunate for two reasons:

1. This is the 21st century for God’s sake. Back in the Stone Age, when man didn’t have a permanent home and wandered from one place to another, his survival instincts kept him wary of any approaching predators so that he could protect himself from any imminent threat.

Human life has come a long way since and we are not nomads anymore.

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Life’s obstacles are not hungry grizzly bears running at you like it’s lunch time.

2. A bunch of meteorites isn’t about to hit the planet anytime soon.

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So take a moment to calm down and free your mind of all the chaos.

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Because a lemur is insisting? Yeah right.

Sportsmen also crave their fix of glory. How often do you see an ambitious batsman trying to hit the ball for a six, only to get out caught? Or a footballer trying to dribble past four defenders, only to be brought down by a well-timed tackle?

Of course, the hunt for glory doesn’t always end in failure. And we deserve to seek the best for ourselves, even if it involves a slight degree of risk.

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So don’t judge how things may end, and try taking the leap of faith.
The uncertainty involved gives you a rush of adrenaline. You might succeed or at most fail, but that’s as bad as it gets and you still live another day having learned from the experience.

Many of us look at successful people and feel a sense of awe. They have an aura of greatness to them. What many of us fail to realise though, is that none of them have been overnight successes. Your path to glory has to entail consistent effort.

This TED talk tells you how to NOT achieve your dreams. 

Nationalism alert!

Indians around the world are making it big these days – and while that gives me immense pride to be a compatriot, I have also derived a huge amount of inspiration from them. Be it Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Indra Nooyi or someone else – they have all had to work their way to the top with a lot of effort and patience. So let’s pledge to never give up on our hunt for glory, for it could be just around the corner when all hope seems lost.

So..

Each one of us is on their own journey. They say, the soul is eternal and keeps transcending from one realm to the next. Our time as humans on earth is one of those realms.Make the most of this time to dream, do and achieve. Stop being so afraid of falling short, and even if you do, be sure you know that everyone does at some point.

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True glory comes not from never falling, but rising every time you fall.

“And why do we fall? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

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Well, couldn’t have skipped that. Batman flicks have taught me so much.