The Art of Silence

Soulless

2010-09-01T16:01:00.003+05:00

Dark skies and muddy streets
empty reflections in puddles
between a bridge.

Pointless

2010-06-15T13:20:00.000+05:00

From beyond the clouds dripped bright sunlight

Through the leaves from between the branches

Onto the grey dappled gold clobblestones

Over which a thousand footfalls and wheels alike run

Tirelessly, endlessly, without pause for reflection

On the unearthly beauty and wonder await

For the mortal eye to behold and cherish.

The roses and stones alike stand by watching

The folly of mankind in a rat’s race

For a prize so complex and pointless

A neverending cycle of meaningless toil

Vym - Floating

2010-06-12T19:35:00.000+05:00

World and I

2010-06-12T10:50:00.000+05:00

Platitudes

2010-05-23T22:51:00.002+05:00

Out of Sight....

2010-04-26T01:54:00.003+05:00

Tweeting

2010-04-25T02:25:00.000+05:00

Going green.

2010-04-15T05:47:00.000+05:00

I really like the paragraph in this article about Puma planning to stop using cardboard boxes for their shoes.

"Sustainability is not only absolutely necessary considering the situation our planet is in, we as companies are also overdue to take responsibility," Zeitz said. "We can't wait for governments. Companies have to lead the way and we want to be among the leaders."

I often wonder about all the packaging. If you walk into any store, you'll find tons of plastic going on everywhere. The most wasteful packages I found were in Meat Plus, Ameene Magu, that has 15 gram jam jars, made of glass and iron, similar to the bottles of Purity baby food, but even smaller. More than one serving probably is in the jar, but then you have the packs of single serving jam pouches as well stacked in the freezer.

People, please...

Root Cause

2010-04-11T02:49:00.001+05:00

"I hate you because you believe in different things than me. I hate you because you are stubbornly clinging onto your beliefs instead of choosing to believe in what I believe. I hate you because you are popular amongst the people who share your belief. I hate you and I want to have nothing to do with you, and I might consider killing you because of what you believe in."

I think we all need to identify the root cause of the above expressions and prevent this sort of thinking from causing secondary problems.

Tension Headache

2010-03-28T12:11:00.000+05:00

Aching neck, nausea
I've got a diving mask on my face
It feels rubbery all around
I feel like throwing up.

Tylenol to the rescue!
Tadaaaa

Really Reality

2010-03-19T23:17:00.000+05:00

When you dream, you can't read.
And yet, most of the blogs I read
Are written while dreaming.

Sigh

2010-03-08T23:36:00.000+05:00

Playing around with dactyls, trochees and freeform candences.

Through the falling mists of the mind
one last flicker of a hand waving to me
A hesitation between a sky and a painted
ceiling above my head
I keep seeing the clouds
long after I'm awake...

[Another one in the same beat structure]

I fell in love with cursing and now my father
has climbed up a tree in the sea
I didn't know that a tsunami would be the
result of all that magicking
I am swimming around
washed away in the flood...

Augh, I am bored.

Distraction

2010-03-07T11:36:00.002+05:00

Utter silence. I can almost hear the chemicals combine inside my mind as I think the words that spill out of my fingertips, onto the keyboard, onto the screen, into a server several thousand miles away. There is no traffic outside, no construction noise, no phone calls, no colleague... not even the rumble of the air conditioner inside this room today. Not even the chirping of a cricket.

No-one is online on the myriad chat apps.

Am I supposed to learn from this... the writer of "The (so-called) Art of Silence"?

...

This silence is distracting me.

Moving on.

2010-02-24T22:38:00.000+05:00

The photons have to pry my eyelids apart every morning these days. Every morning, I wake up to a frustration tantamount to panic, as I realize that I am going to be a quarter of a century old next month, and I haven't achieved any of the goals that I've set for myself after I'd fled from the complete disaster of schooling 7 years ago.

It's been 7 years since I've come back to live in this country. 7 years. If I'd broken a mirror in 2003, I'm sure I'm thoroughly cleansed of the horrible sin of breaking my soul then. Or whatever it is, I'm absolved. Surely.

All of my friends and colleagues were a little stunned with the seemingly impulsive decision that I made, by quitting a great job, stepping away from a great career, and leaving the country to stay with my mother. I always wanted to do this though, because I've never liked a desk job. Unfortunately, out of the 7 years, I'd spent only 7 months, having the time of my life with the British Red Cross in the Maldives.

And so, I've given my notice and I'm leaving to India for a while, to sum up where and what I've been and where and what I want to be, and to decide on how hard I need to push myself to get there.

Forgiveness

2010-02-01T12:00:00.000+05:00

Elusive and transient, yet strong and seemingly eternal. People who know me well know that I quite often get into what can only be called a towering fury, and retribution is deemed swift and devastating, rash and impulsive decisions formulate themselves in my mind to pacify the anger and justify the imbalance.

And then, just in the nick of time I stop myself from uttering words or doing things that otherwise will cause people more pain than I will ever have had undergone or will by withholding the anger.

And that's what saves me, every single time. Forgiveness. Nothing else, but that tiny little feeling that I get when I forgive someone.

Effortless

2010-01-08T15:39:00.000+05:00

Over the last two days I've been contemplating over how much my perspective on life has changed. I used to pursue relationships... family, friends, work relationships. Online friends. I used to belong to a non-existent network of people I've connected to, on some level... shared a major chunk of life with.

Over the course of 2009 though, unconsciously I guess, I've stopped begging and following people, in hopes that they'd keep me as a friend. I am forever changing my plans to fit theirs, and walking from Maafannu to as far as Henveiru, and many times across the seas to Hulhumalé and Vilingili.

My friends were very important to me, because I am a gregarious person... I like to talk and listen. I like to sound my thoughts and feelings, hopes and dreams off of my friends, just like everyone else who communicate with their fellow human beings.

Were. At a point of time, yes. But then, I've often felt that they never really cared so much for all of that. People who've openly let me go, I've not clung onto. 2009 was an year I've been cutting down on keeping in touch with people who didn't want to be kept in touch with.

Including family. People who never call on me, people who don't bother responding to my communications, people who just don't give a damn... anyone, everyone. I've stopped giving out my numbers too, to people who I know will not use that information ever. Why fill your brain with useless furniture, eh.

Friendship... relationship of any kind should be effortless. Like swimming. Well, good swimming is quite effortless... unlike some of the styles I've seen around here where people pant and gasp like as if they're drowning.

I don't have to be the only one who misses the others, the others should miss me too. Likewise... I shouldn't be the only one who always calls.

I've got effortless relationships that I can count on one hand. But you know what? I think it's worth the emotional (and temporal) investment. I think that's all I can afford to keep at the moment, emotionally and temporally speaking. And I don't even want to try doing more.

Unbroken Line

2009-01-11T13:44:00.000+05:00

Seconds and Years pass, and we continue to celebrate one after the other. Yet, we are ordered by religion not to observe the passage of time in the cycles of years, rather, hold things in perspective, as a continued existence, and I believe in that particular philosophy.

Not that I don't feel like enjoying the revelry.

When you tend to hold time as one entire lifetime, I feel that things get easier to hold, in perspective… that we don't get so caught up in the moment that we feel like as if we'll life forever… rather, that we'll die one day, and thus live life like there really is no certainty of whether tomorrow will happen or not… whether the alarm on your phone really is going to go off or not.

I think that is what religion is trying to say… there is no time for you to be uncertain… there really is only one uncertainty. Take your decisions now… and not taking a decision is also a decision… the poorest one at that, because you're waiting for something to happen, to change the circumstances, and therefore, the consequences of your decision.