Some Illogical Thoughts

Standing at the backyard, looking at the hundreds of fish struggling to survive in a small water body accumulated due to heavy rain, my mom said, "I wonder why God had to create the world which has so much pain and struggle. I laughed it off and said, "if only God existed".

I consider my self to be a non believer. And yet sometimes I find myself asking the same question (in a different way, may be). "What was the necessity for the entire creation? The world with whatever pleasure it might provide, doesn't seem worth so much of pain and suffering". Such was my state of mind today when a female dog with her six puppies innocently looked at me as if wanting to know why I was supposed be to sleeping in a comfortable house while she along with her children stood drenched in the heavy rain? Because my species was more capable and did a better job in creating all the luxuries for itself. And among the members of my species I happen to be one of the more privileged ones.

The pain and the sufferings may not mean anything in the true sense of the universe....but it is still very real for me.

The Software Engineer

It was six in the morning when the clock stretched out its arms to its fullest and the alarm promptly rang. It was a soothing tune unlike the typical harsh alarm tunes that used to wake him up during his student days. Nevertheless, he disliked it as much as ever. He quickly turned it off and decided to lie down for a while. Within no time the second alarm rang...this time it was harsher, to give a final warning that there was absolutely no time to waste!!

He woke up with a jerk cursing himself for sleeping for so long. He had an early meeting scheduled and was supposed to be in office in an hour's time. He quickly got ready, dumped his laptop in the car and grabbed a slice of pizza left from the previous night's dinner, to have it on the way and started from home.

It was the beginning of the week and as most Monday mornings would have it, he was not particularly in the best of his moods. "The ever prevailing monotony of my life and so painstakingly have I kept it alive....may be I don't know any other way of life ". He was contemplating his life which tiresomely followed the same pattern without any tangible deviation for years now. "And they talk about work life balance- do they even know what life is?" He cursed all the policy makers of the corporate world. Suddenly he remembered Abhinav - his college mate. Abhinav was the brighter of the two but had never started his career in Software. Instead he chose to be a school teacher. "If only I had chosen to teach like him". "I would have had all the time to spend with friends and more importantly with myself....and here I am almost lost, forgotten by all my friends and by my own self". "Or may be I could have continued with music, made a career in it...like Wilson did. He appears so passionate about music even after so many years. I may have a bulkier bank balance but it doesn't make me any happier".

Thinking of all the real and imaginary career avenues that he had closed on himself , he reached office. Most disinterestedly he wrote a few important mails, attended a couple of meetings, worked on the piece of work he was urgently supposed to finish and managed to grab a few cups of coffee and smoke in between. However he was still in a parallel world surrounded by friends, family and fans where he was everything but a software engineer. Finally He decided to pack his laptop and leave much earlier than his usual time.

"I cannot continue weaving the same pattern...I cant roll the same rock every day. I must bring in some change in my life...I must quit being a software engineer!!" he said to himself. He went home and took out his guitar which had rested in peace completely untouched and undisturbed for many years. He played the tunes that he had learnt long ago. But, the tunes sounded different from how they were meant to sound. He tried for a while but the guitar refused to create music the way he wanted it to. He gave it up and picked a thick book by Camus that he had bought when he was traveling for a business trip last month. He flicked through the pages but even the book failed to evoke any spark of interest in him. He finally switched on the television and browsed through all the channels available but didn't stop for more than a few minutes at any particular channel. It was only eight o clock, not even the time when he started from work on a normal day. He stared at the empty space for a while not able to decide what to do. "The rock has to fall down anyways, why bother about what rock I have chosen?", he concluded. Finally he took out a can of beer, opened his laptop and started working on the presentation he was supposed to give the day after. He worked up till midnight and emptied a few cans of beer till his eyes drooped. He fell on the bed and lay down with a smile....it wasn't such a bad night after all!!

A Heavy Relief

She woke up with some discomfort, feeling a little heavy in the morning. After idling around for a while she stepped on the weighing machine, which was an integral part of her morning activities. She got a shock to see the machine indicate a number much higher than what it showed the previous day. She stepped down, not quite convinced with what she saw. She shook the weighing machine hard in an attempt to correct it and stepped on it again. Again the machine quickly crossed the number it was supposed to stop at and halted only at a much higher figure. She pushed the machine away and turned to the mirror expecting the mirror to defy the machine and reveal the truth. On the contrary the mirror quite complied with it as if they both had together decided to play this prank on her.

How on earth could she possibly grow so immense in a day? She recalled what she had the previous night. She had had the usual soup and salad that she was not particularly fond of, but found suitable to maintain her slim figure. She was so proud of her thin waist and made such efforts to maintain it and now with in a moment everything was lost. She had kept a check on her weight everyday religiously so that even a slight increase could be controlled in the following day's diet and exercise. And now it was almost impossible to do so with such an enormous increase in a day. She sat for a long time thinking about how it could have possibly happened and what could be done about it. Was she really awake or still dreaming? Or may be her mind was playing a trick on her....or had it been playing a trick all this while uptill now? Was she ever any different or was it just an illusion? Did anything really change last night? Questions kept ringing but there was no answer.

Feeling utterly dejected and completely hopeless, she stepped out of the house to grab some fresh air and relieve her mind of these thoughts. She walked aimlessly for a while and entered a restaurant on her way. She was in no mood to count her calories. She looked through the menu and stopped at an item in the section of ice creams, which said “Last time I ever saw my waist”. It was a triple sundae with chocolate and nuts. To go along with the insensitive joke played on her and to revive her sense of humor she decided to order the sundae, which was placed before her in no time. She savored the ice creme as never before. For the first time in many years she experienced a large Sundae without being burdened by the guilt and fear of adding calories. She enjoyed the ice creme till the last bit of it. She picked up the menu again and started checking the section of creme milk shakes. She was free to order anything from the menu now. She had nothing to loose, nothing to worry about - The calories did not matter any more!!

An Upgrade

Much disappointed by their most complex creation so far, the Gods called for an immediate meeting. The design flaws of this creation had become undeniably evident. Once settled in a comfortable life, they got themselves busy with the absolutely unnecessary task of getting bored. And to overcome this boredom they completely overlooked the strict rules of self sustenance and procreation laid for them by the Gods. They started getting involved in self destructive activities to eradicate boredom and yet were seldom successful. As if this wasn't bad enough these creatures with their distorted state of mind, came up with ways to prevent procreation and got involved in futile sex for the sake of mere entertainment. Their minds had gone hay wired to the extent that they had started questioning the very purpose of what they were meant for.

Seeing the disastrous failure of their most ingenious design that they took pride in, the Gods realized that it was time to bring in the next version. After much consideration and arguments they settled down on the name "Zuzu" for their new creation. To avoid the inconvenience of being charged with breaking the copyright rules by their flawed creation and for the sake of originality, the Gods traveled back in time and coined the name.

The gods put in their best minds to work on this new creation. No single design flaw could be tolerated. For seven continuous days and nights they worked on this creation. Finally on the eighth day the Gods launched the "Zuzus".

This was the smartest creation ever to exist in the history of the Universe. With their high level of skill set and enormous intelligence it took them no time to create all favorable conditions for self sustenance.The main activities that this creature was involved were to to improve its ways of sustenance, to find better ways to energize itself and then to practice this task of re-energizing with food, sleep and physical exercise in the most optimum manner. This creature was involved in the act of sex only when a "Zuzu" expired in the family to create a new Zuzu and maintain a balance in population. The Zuzus did not waste any emotions on the Zuzus lost due to old age or in some rare case by some other disaster. In fact they almost never wasted any such emotions which negatively impacted their longevity. They were absolutely flawless and followed all the rules without any deviation. The most ingenuous enhancement was in the form of a button attached to each Zuzu. It gave these Zuzus the ability to turn off their minds when they were not busy with any of the activities meant for them and hence avoided the much dreaded boredom in their predecessors.

The Battle Within

There is a "sane" and an "insane" part of me, that by their very nature are in constant conflict with each other. The sane side belongs to the society; follows its basic rules; pushes itself reasonably hard for a respectable earning; has its own idiosyncrasies that all the other sane people of the world possess; suffers from possessiveness and insecurities; feels the need to accumulate wealth much more than what is required for a healthy living; gets envious of men and women doing a better job of meeting the petty needs of life; at times, tries to put its point vehemently; resents at people not being able to understand or appreciate its own point of view; likes admirations and approbations, even though they may come from people it considers irrelevant and of no consequence; tries to form an impression in the society, the impression may not always be taken in good light but it is an impression all the same. Also, subconsciously tries to form an impression on itself and this time it is important that the image is held in high regard. With that comes deception and delusion.

The insane side, on the other hand is rather wild and untamed. It is in constant awareness of death and the impermanence of everything around. The thought may not always be depressing or frightening. In fact, at times the insane mind comes close to being ready for everything nature holds for it. But the thought brings with itself a good deal of other ideas, emotions and mysteries. The insane side pushes itself to come out of the delusion and know the truth and yet it knows that there may not be anything to be known and even if there is, there may not be any way of knowing it. It struggles to find a meaning for its existence and is not ready to accept the social pattern of life without exploring the other possible patterns that life offers. It also has its own package of instincts and emotions bestowed by nature on all human beings but they are not corrupted by the deep rooted social conditioning. It has less regard for the society it lives in and does not bother much about the opinions of others. And it tries to paint a truer picture of itself and doesn’t hesitate using the grey shades even though it may not always be the best one.

The emotions and thoughts are rather contradictory when either of the sides dominates. And the actions based on any one of the sides cause depression and dissatisfaction when the other side comes into dominance. It doesn’t seem possible for the sane and the insane to coexist in harmony and peace - which ironically is the ultimate goal for both. And therefore, it seems more logical and sane to subdue the sane part if not completely eradicate it and let the insane live on.
- Abstracts from the insane part when mind was in its control.