New years resolution

As i sit here..thinking of the year gone past. I realize that it has been a year of big mistakes and tremendous learning. Not that i am afraid of the mistakes.. what i am afraid of is the learning part of it. Somehow that was never a part of my character. There is an old saying in Hindi. Which goes as "kutte ke dum 20 saal bhi fukni mein daalo woh tedi ke tedi hi rahegi". It means that a dogs tails no matter how long you put it in a pipe, will remain bent always. (Well i am not a very good translator but this is very close i think). I am so sure i would have been a dogs tail in my previous life if not the dog itself.

My life has been full of non-learnt lessons and repeated mistakes. It might have to do with my inflated ego and hyper confidence that i inspire in myself. Some how it was never my problem, it was the mistakes mistake that it occurred to me. How dare did it happen to me, I'll see to it that it is never strikes me again. Its always been the fires fault that it burnt me, it should have been aware that it was ME who was touching it. I'll see how she dares next time..

I hope i got the point across.

So here are my happy new years resolutions

1) Will listen to what others have to say on my opinion and consider it seriously.
2) In the end i promise to always disagree to my own opinion because i know that would be the worst.
3) Stop chasing the myth of Job Satisfaction. Its not there and its a tool your bosses use to fool you into all kinds of trouble.
4) Change my current company and chase the above myth there.
5) Stop acting over smart, or even considering myself one. Otherwise i wouldn't have been writing this blog and would have been celebrating this new year with my family instead (its been one month i have not had my occasional weekly drink :-( ).
6) Reading this list once weekly to keep track.
7) Start trusting Suraj Barjatya and Karan Johor for telling me "FAMILY COMES FIRST "
8) You have no damn right to hurt your loved ones and making them sad. This is the last time in my life i have made them sad.
9) Get a tattoo "LIFE IS SHORT"
10) Get another tattoo "YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE"
11) Maybe another tattoo "DON'T MESS YOUR SHORT ONCE IN A LIFETIME LIFE"

Happy New Year.

Do you believe in Magic

Two thousand odd years ago, a guy was born.. who talked about things like love, forgiveness,tolerance.. and they nailed him for saying so..

They thought they have won, killed his body, his thoughts, his ideas.. But today two thousand years hence, we still remember the guy who was nailed. To an uninitiated, common laymen we don't remember the names of guy who stuck those nails, who forced the throne of thorns on his head, the names of the guys who whipped him or who ordered him being whipped. All of us know the name of the guy who was on the receiving end.

The thought survives.. the story still is alive

We don't have to be a very religious, of any particular faith, color or creed to appreciate the tale of love and humanity. We can be atheist but still can feel the magic of the story when a guy was born and stars changed course to announce his birth. Don't we all want to live that moment in that lone silent night, in that desert 2000 years ago.. breathing the cold night air.. be with those Shepards.. who saw magic.

Maybe it was not true, maybe its just a tale, maybe the story is fake.. but that's not the point.. the point is that this tale exist. And if it is just a tale of human imagination.. it is more than magic.. the magic of human thought, its hope, that things would turn for good even with costs attached, its longing for a goodness in man to return.

Had it not been magic in the tale, it wouldn't have survived. It proves that even with all the corruption of human mind and action, we still believe in good and love.

Even when we know that that he does not exist..or charges 20 euros for a pic with himself, do we have the guts or the heart to tell our year 5 old daughter that Don't hang that socks, Santa wouldn't come..he is not there..he is a myth created by the market...

Innocence knows no corruption, no hate, no malaise.. by preserving it by putting chocolates in those socks.. we know we are atleast willing to let that Magic survive.


Merry Christmas

Of Mind and Games it Plays

The other day i was feeling so miserable... being all alone here, it felt like just leave everything, and fly back to India. It was friday evening (TGi Friday evening for people and it was like OMGi Friday again for me) and i was in misery; the empty home was awaiting my return and as i trudged back home, opened the door i had just enough energy to throw myself on the bed and for 1 hour it was just lying down coming to terms with my situation.

My Mind was at it again.. thrusting me into the whirlpool of negative thinking( and with it the associated, miserable feeling ). I have always known it, of its ways, except when it is at work. A small event, a smallest of trigger starts it and when the environment is right for it to feed upon, it pushes you into the never ending tunnel of dispare and darkness. The worst part.. its like a chain reaction.. which feeds on itself and the feeling grows exponentially. Lying on the bed.. my breathing became laboured and i was just like trying to stabilise, control myself against loosing my sanity. Imagine "Me struggling against my own f***ing Mind to keep a hold of myself, to keep me from sinking, to regain my senses." Its always been like that; a struggle of me and my mind. And believe me it is the biggest of the battles i have fought all my life and most of them in the loosing cause.

That guy always got me somehow. And because i wanted to change myself, to stop being a looser to that one and a half kg of matter. Actually it should be less than that; a large part my brain is with me. The parts that control my external sense (God bless me if even that is not with me and this is a make belief that i am in Finland) and their co-ordination. Some part of it that is actual me.. i mean the one i feel with, the part of brain that is actually me fighting that alter ego of mine that might just be less then a milligram. (Neurologically it looks like that part would be some kind of follow up process or judgement part of out mind that helps us reflect and retrospect, act like a devils advocate sitting there helping us double check our decisions and check their validity and counter arguments -- MAYBE) somehow this guy got out of control and instead of acting a solemn devils advocate it started acting as the devil itself. Always trying to DO things in someway that is against what my-part-of-mind wants to do.

The guy always got better of me; it used my eyes, my ears, my nose, my logic, my part of brain and then it always came up with something extra which it did not share with me untill it was time for war. It was always a step ahead of me.

Well am i judging the devil correctly or is my-part-of-mind is actual devil having conquered and brainwashed me against the other guy and spreading the above propaganda.

OK here is the dilemma -

Leave India, your family back home and come to Finland for professional satisfaction and get a hold of yourself.

One guy says you did wrong and brought all that misery and the other guy says yes Vikas this is right decision.. common don't be so emotional, you have to be professionally successful for your kids and family...

aaahhaa NOW...

Who the damn is actually devil. And who the damn is writing all this.. :-)

Well the above case does smells a lot of Freud. That guy 100 years ago did came up with these three Ego-Id-Superego concept. Somehow there are always two within you who are always in tussle. And most misery comes out of this.

Successful people have always found ways to choose and support the right guy.

or

Happier people have always found ways to choose and support the right guy.

Both adjectives/conditions above are temporary and again can be one-and-the-same or at-odds for different people.

The fight that issues within, people finding ways to fool the mind. Like

1. Keeping the curtains down and light inside bright to fool yourself and not believe that it is just 1 hour day( see arctic syndrom@ jmatthan.blogspot.com ).


2. Scott Adams fooling his brain ( which was affected by focal dystonia) by using graphics tablets.


3. Mirror Therapy for Hemiparesis.

Imagine you trying to beat your own mind. Then who is you? We'll continue this..

Romancing the snow at 32

It was a delebrate decision. I wanted to be alone for some time, be with myself and a bit of introspection.

I am a very boring guy to be alone with and this I have realized now.

There are times in life when you realize that things are not going your way or you are just going with the flow. Sense of no-contol on your life. You want to do something but can't. You are just doing things you don't want to.. things you are not happy with.. you have no free will.. ("free will" thats a seprate topic which i will take up later). Your goals getting further way from you and you cannot do anything. This is a time when you realize you need a shock therapy. A slap on your cheeks to wake you up. To get out of you comfort zone and do something uncomfortable.

Thats why when a chance came to choose a years deputation for Finland.. reluctantly i agreed. I knew it is not going to be easy being away from family .. two kids, a loving wife.. dotting parents, brothers who where more of friends.. all these who, no matter how much you loose, how much you underachive.. how much you screw up.. were always there to support and cheer.

Leaving them behind, putting up a brave face of a non-emotional being..not feeling the pain of sepration.. I landed in Oulu with heavy heart.. as always a confused mind and a tried body..

...thinking was it a right decision.. or again as always somebody has already made a decision for me and i just followed..

That was the back story guys and gals..

At 32 i saw my first snow. The chill in the air, slippery walkways, warm people, a frozen white world.. Thats northern finalnd for you in December. Things would change but "Warm People" i hope would remain same all year round :-).

It feels like being in a movie..so much beauty..silence all around when you are in the woods.. you can see footmarks of animals who have walked on snow. Snow on leafless trees.. all of them announcing christmas.. they just lacked socks and lights in them. Snow on cars.. and their windscreens.. snow that just felt like cotton when you hold it and the chill in the air is such that it takes a while to melt even with your body heat. A world so pure it looked surreal.

You forget your freezing nose.. your cracked up lips.. chill running up your shoes when you romance the snow.