Category: Thoughts uncut

Life Is What You Make It

“If you have not made somebody’s day happier, if you’ve not appreciated something good that has happened to you and if you have not felt thankful to be alive, then you have wasted that day of your life on earth!”

~Preeti Shenoy, Life Is What You Make It

Alright, before I start about the book, let me just declare that I can’t tolerate love stories. Surprised? Yeah, I get that a lot.

Bleeding hearts, love letters, sleepless nights, butterflies and all the other insane things people relate to love – I hate them all. Particularly when the author takes up multiple pages describing how blissfully painful the sensation is.

I totally hate when simple events are exaggerated. Oh, I can’t stand to read how people in love, trip over something as tiny as a pencil and break their leg! Love isn’t about such mindlessness and I dislike it when authors illustrate it so.

Having said that, I was a bit tentative about reading the book. Knowing it was a love story, I had evaded the book for some time now. It was only when I held the book and read the description on the cover that I realized that the story addressed a bigger issue; a disease bigger than unrequited love; Bipolar Disorder.

I so wanted to read the book after that! 

I wasn’t new to the condition; I’ve read blogs of people who are bipolar, and a few other articles too.

So the adventure began. It kept me awake through the night, and that doesn’t happen often, in the case of books that is.

I’m not into reviews, so here’s the story in short. It’s the life of an Indian girl, whose ambition penetrates her love story. She is the brightest student in her MBA batch, until she starts showing signs of bipolar disorder. With her recovery, ends the story.

I only felt that the learning-to-manage-without-medication process was too quick to be true. It is a lengthy process, as I understand, but it seemed simple in the book.

Bipolar Disorder seems to have a simple solution, and trivial matters, like trusting the “weird sisters“, end up tragic. Maybe that’s the queer thing about the written word. But that’s a topic for another time.

Another Face of Poetry

I am utterly surprised at how useful Quora is. I love poetry, and though I may not be the greatest of amateur poets, I enjoy the company of good poetry. It was all thanks to Quora that I discovered this new form of poetry, (OK, it’s not entirely new; it’s just so to my knowledge. (Though that reminds me to be a bit more mindful of the things that interest me. #NoteToSelf)) that they call ‘Spoken Word Poetry’.

I’ve heard poets narrate their works, but this is different. It’s not about narrating a poem that fits on a paper so well; this, is something that cannot be recorded (and is ineffective) on paper. It’s the ultimate power of speech merged with the art of poetry. A little bit of digging into the topic made me realize that it is indeed a long-existent form of poetry and that it is I who was stuck in the medieval age.

I must say that I enjoy this form, as much as I appreciate the written form. (Though I have to admit, nothing beats the smell of print (fresh or old) on paper!))

For your auditory pleasure, here’s Sarah Kay, delivering her poem “If I should have a daughter” on TED Talks. (The poem is only a segment of her speech.)

Enjoy!

We’re all Storytellers

I sometimes find myself wondering if I could ever be a writer. Writers seem like an elite force. When we think of writers we can only form an image of our favourite or not so favourite writers who flood the world with their narratives. Why is it so? I sometimes hear people discouraging aspirants saying that you need certain qualities to be a writer. Some of them, are totally agreeable. Like you have to read a lot to find a way to express your thoughts in the written form. Where else would you find the words that aptly point out a certain thought?

As far as I can tell, there is just one golden rule to writing: reading. They go hand in hand, and compliment each other well.

Of course we can write without reading too, but such pieces of writing would lack clarity, and in a sense, sense!

The other myths however, like you have to be descriptive in every aspect, or you need to be an extrovert, talk to people about random and stupid things. These supposed ‘rules’ are just myths.

These beliefs should be busted and due time, they will be. We all have our unique way of looking at life and interpreting it. Also, all of us have our own life stories. When we write it as it is, it becomes an autobiography. When we refer to our lives and borrow certain incidents and events from our minds, in a piece of writing, that becomes a novel.

It could become a flop or bestseller, but that depends largely on the marketing tactics.

So, we’re all storytellers. We all have it in us. Some have kindled the fire; some are tying to; and some others just prefer not to be engulfed in the flames.

We’ll never be younger!

I recently came across a slideshow on the Internet that displayed the 15 most common causes of death. It included drowning, falling objects and suffocation and a few other things.

Speaking of death, I wondered how I would want my death to be. I had never before given much thought to it, but once I did, I really had a lot to mull over.

I thought of the random school shootings that happened in the US. How would I feel dying in such a way? I would obviously hate it.

Sometime back, I witnessed an accident. There I was, in the railway station, waiting sleepily for the train to arrive, and I was suddenly interrupted in my thoughts of the sound of a girl shouting. She had tried to get into a train that had begun to move, and she fell onto the to platform. For a fleeting moment, I had my heart in my mouth. I could only marvel at the girl’s luck of not falling on the tracks; the train was slowly gaining momentum and would have crushed her.

That’s when it really struck me. How feeble our life is. It is then that I thought of how selfish and silly we are most of the times; considering ourselves mighty when we throw away our lives. It’s in our nature, as I understand it.

There is no guarantee for the next breath, yet we strut along as if we have forever to do what makes us happy. (I know for a fact that this is not going to improve my procrastinating skills. (That is conveniently irreversible!))

How often we forget that we’ll never be younger!

I have made a decision. I know now, how I don’t want to go.  My mother used to say, ‘do not be a football of others’ opinions’; I don’t want to be a victim of others’ decisions and faults. I want to ‘greet Death as an old friend’.

People Aren’t so Disobedient, After All

On an earlier post, I mentioned that I had enrolled in a Social Psychology course online. It goes well, (in case you’re curious) but the serious thing is that I had to watch a video of a renowned experiment in Social Psychology conducted by Dr Stanley Milgram on our obedience to authority figures. I know it sounds dull, and trust me, the twenty-minute experiment video was duller. But the result and the after effect were shocking. I really cannot embed the video for your viewership, but I can share the results with you which will surely test your belief of your obedience, as it did mine.

This experiment related to why people obey and do what they are asked. Obedience to authority is common, every where. It happens; people obey. Even when they are directed to consciously hurt someone else, they’ll do it. That, is shocking, and that is the result of Dr Milgram’s experiment.

The experiment asked unsuspecting people (subjects) to administer shocks of various voltage levels to a gentleman; (who was in his fifties and had a heart problem) everyone did it. Some discontinued halfway through, and others (due to continuous persistence of the experimenter) continued to shock the gentleman. (despite his protests) The experiment was conducted in 1961.

Now, you might have thought, like I did, that that was ages ago and that people nowadays are much more disobedient. Not true. Sadly.

A recent, similar experiment revealed the exact result.

The knowledge was depressing. I felt so uneasy when I saw it happen myself. But later, I realized that I should have expected it. I live in a society that loves to disobey rules explicitly, but obeys authority implicitly. It’s so obvious; from childhood, children are taught to unquestioningly obey their parents. That’s not wrong; instead, what I like to imply is that parents, teachers and the society as a whole, does hardly allow children to question their beliefs and habits. Children should be able to reason their beliefs. Blind obedience can harm, not only the obedient person, but also those around him.

PS – In the Milgram experiment, the fifty year-old gentleman was not really electrocuted. It is just what the experimenters wanted the subjects to think.