Ode to mirthless smiles and those who don't ever feel sad, ever

Every single one of us fails at life.

I don't view life as a test, and somehow I am not a "religionist" trying to ram Christianity's doctrine of "original sin" down anyone's throat.

Soberly considered, I say again, every single one of us fails at life. We express our sense of this failure (those of us honest enough to realise and recognise it) in ways that are so colourfully diverse, unique - our individual imprint on the canvas we call life.

Surprisingly, the full unabated force of the pathos and scope of failure strikes only very few of us, and this is coloured by religion and religious thinking in many. In others, a stubborn, tottering pretense at dignity is often made, pathetic in its foolishness, yet heartrending in its courage. Some of this is vehement, some nihilistic, some so broken that only unalterable stone remains. Some of us go to The Divine, credibly or incredibly. Some reject The Divine and scoff incredulously.

What was demanded from us by life? Was it just to be a good son or daughter? A good wife or husband? A good father or mother? Or was it to be more than anyone else, more in every possible definition? Ironically, no matter what we expected to be, realistic or otherwise, we know that in the end we fail. "Success", as we define it, is short-sighted, and happiness illusory. All our achievements are indeed the stuff of Shelley's Ozymandius, no matter how belligerent (Julius) Caesar might have sounded when he conquered Britain.

***************************************

Why do I sound so depressing on this blog? Why can't I be happy? Why does the weight of failure fall so heavy on these pages?

Many of my friends believe in God. I believe in God too. So, doesn't God hear these words? God is indeed touted as the solution to all of life's ills. The trouble is that, true as that indeed is, there are always the remains of the day. The trouble is that the claim for the Divine is somehow offered too easily. God is more than merely an answer to my own failures and humanity's failures. How do you cram Someone like The Divine into the brains of slugs like me? Help me understand that. Of course school was easy; because what we learned there were merely lessons. We forget that in the innocence of childhood, most of us never seriously thought that what we learned was indeed true; that the world really was like that. The mind was trained, but the heart wasn't. Many of us got into life with unprepared hearts and bursting minds.

I will never say I don't believe; I wrote earlier that I have no illusions I can make it alone. In the darkness of the hour, I pray with tears.

I guess we may indeed say that somehow, through our stained tears, God has become irrelevant because the pain has consumed us. We are almost not ourselves; we hurt so much that we cannot receive help even if it is at hand.

How can The Divine be irrelevant? History itself has proven otherwise, contrary to the many philosophers who ridicule this claim. I'm not so concerned here with PROOF; I'm just soberly trying to understand how our failure has made the only help we can get irrelevant to us. It is, indeed, a cosmic tragedy. Whereas I myself have taken help from The Divine, and can attest to it firsthand, I know, I feel and I hear the groans of human beings who feel that God is irrelevant. Can you see how great the pain must be? Am I exaggerating it? Am I making too much of it? You tell me.

*************************************

Our drivenness to do things, to "achieve", as it were, is really at its root a mutant reaction that we use to salve our brokenness from the plain facts of failure. Our "will to achieve" has brought many words into our vocabulary - words we use to describe, perhaps, how each of us individually deals with the enormity of having failed.

Dictator. Self-made man. Fierce individualist. Positive thinker. Optimist. Self-made evangelist. Humanist. Philanthropist (as if being moved by humanity's plight is an IDEAL and not default), Conservative. The "good person who harms no one". The list goes on.

*************************************

Tell me where you go to escape responsibility. You're a miserable liar if you tell me you haven't failed. When you go back to whatever miserable hole you crawl into at the end of the day, when you're alone with yourself, tell me you don't cry. Tell me and have it be true. I dare you.

Tell me you didn't harm someone. Tell me you learned someone's language. Tell me you touched another heart. Tell me that you tried, at least. But did you? Or are the scars such wonderful healers in themselves? Do you wear them like badges in the show-window of your life? Tell me!

Tell me you regret nothing. Tell me you failed no one. Didn't you fail yourself?

Tell me you succeeded at life. Liar!

*************************************

Now I will tell you what I've done. I gave in and capitulated. I admitted I was a miserable ne'er-do-well dressed in filthy rags. I failed and I did not lie about it. Not to you. Not to anyone. Not to God. And most importantly, NOT TO ME.

I told you before. I pray. I believe in The Divine. I don't believe knowing The Divine is a miracle cure, an acquittal in court, or a light switch that merely happens to work. I don't believe, even, that there is a sword over my head. There's no feel-good about it, really. How can admitting failure 'feel good'? There's no fear of hell in it - can the way I feel now be any worse than hell? In one sense I've been there already. No, these ideas are constructs. Empiricisms. They reduce the truth to something like it, and rip its heart out in so doing. Believing in The Divine is the end of me, but it is my only hope. This is one death-dealing Rubicon that must be crossed. There is no abdication of responsibility, integrity, intelligence here; and there is no blind faith. Believing in God is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. It is also the wisest thing I have ever done in my life.

What's it like for me to admit failure? I learn to leave myself alone. I learn to be heard when I cry, and be fussed over. I learn to speak the truth, even to myself, even about me, without a sword hanging over my head if I didn't. I learn. I cry. I learn. Sometimes I laugh, even though the happiest thing in the world is tinged indelibly with deep throbs of underlying grief. I learn to listen. I hear cries for help; I learn someone's language so I can help them.

It's not a pretty world, since we all failed. But it isn't a hopeless one, though it seems so.

*************************************

It's possible you might be unmoved. It's possible you believe you succeeded at life. It's possible you think I'm deranged. I have nothing to say if you do. I just hope, for your own good sake, that you're not lying to yourself.

If you do, I wonder how you go out everyday, and not hear the groans of people. Sometimes the cries are so silent that the whole world reverberates with the sound of silence. Scan the faces of people on a commute. Tell me what you see, from the well-provided-for to the derelict on the street.

I wonder how you cannot hear yourself when you cry. I wonder whether you think it will just get better one day for no reason. Whether you think it's just a phase. Tell me, if being 'good' was enough, how come it didn't make the world a better place? Why do you still cry in the still of the night, stifling it so no one will hear, yet desperately hoping someone will? Why does despair hang so heavy when you wake?

"Are you happy?" is still a clincher. You can answer "yes", and gain nothing at all; prove nothing at all. We landed men on the moon, we did, but I cannot stop my heart from bleeding over me.

Our indictment in what we call life is the most important truth about ourselves, the beginning of many other truths.

*************************************

Did this post depress you? Stop kidding me. You? YOU? you who have a thousand ways to lie to yourself?Don't patronise me.

Did I really now? Oh, just go take a nap. Mow the lawn. Take a cold shower. Prepare dinner. Work on that report. Do some math. Play with your phone. Get a shave, will you? Get on Facebook. Take off your shirt at a Guns'N'Roses concert. Buy a house. Get married and have kids. Read Norman Vincent Peale. Take a vacation. Land on Mars. There's a great big world out there. You'll soon forget, and with any luck your forgetfulness will carry you through so you'll never have to feel sad again.

The remains of the day

It’s about ten to midnight.

I can hear the shrill spark of traffic on the street. It’s probably not too much because it’s a Sunday, but nowadays in Bangalore it hardly matters - Sunday or any other day. There is a relatively new pedestrian crossing right outside my window, since there is a pre-university and graduate college just across the street; and every time a heavily laden truck or bus negotiates the raised crossing, I can hear the protest of the axles and absorbers.

I came in late tonight; everyone at home is in bed already. They’re all early sleepers and early risers. As you can probably imagine, I’m neither, and proud of it. I find it obnoxious, inexcusable and absolutely mean that people rise or get to bed early.

I wonder what others do just before getting into bed. Maybe some pray. Others are buried in their tablets or laptops (worse still, their smartphones, which in any case is what they have done all day). There are those absolutely insufferable folk who actually plan their next day. Many of these are exactly the kind of people who will not bat an eyelid if nothing goes according to plan, which begs the question ‘why plan in the first place?’ Some of these will hyperventilate if so much as a fly sits in a place unplanned.

For me, the time before I get into bed is all mine. So many people make demands of me all day and they have to be dealt with, spoken to, ‘answered’ in one sense or another, ‘actioned’ in whatever way, fended off, lied to if absolutely unavoidable, or lost in some sure way if they chase after me. But the time before bed is mine, all mine. Yes, I pray. I have no delusions that I can indeed manage on my own.

As I look around the room, I see a hundred things lying about. They’ve been lying about for years and years and I wisely let sleeping dogs lie (I don’t have a dog). Some of these things lying about are my dreams. Yes, there are some crushed flowers among those. But I’d rather not speak of them.

There are other things that are simply out of place, that is, out of their proper places. They need to be restored, but for the life of me I cannot find the strength. Or perhaps I’m just lazy. Whether I cannot find the strength or I’m lazy depends on who’s asking.

There’s a curious silence during that hour before bed; things and people who spent the day screaming their heads off at me are strangely quiet. I don’t see what the point of this is, knowing full well the screaming will start again tomorrow. Why the space? If there’s one thing that kills me a little at a time it is the intervening night that allows those who scream at me to renew their strength. I wish they would spend it all at once and then be quiet forever.

Don’t imagine the people who scream at me are all others.

One of the other curious things about this hour before bed is that this other person shows up.

He’s exactly like me, so much me that it’s scary.

What’s scary about him? I’ll tell you what’s scary about him – he never sleeps. But even so, strangely, he only shows up an hour before bedtime. When I get into bed, he won’t let me sleep, simply because he’s awake and he intends to stay awake all night, till daylight. He is all of the ones who scream at me all day long. He is them, but he is also me.

If the day had mistakes, he’s not going to let me forget. He’s going to dredge them up. If the day had some small good things or new beginnings, he will batter those things into non-existence and make me forget the good.

I sleep, externally unencumbered, but he puts all my Waterloos around me, so that I must wake with them.

Do you ever think of a big, well-fed bully beating the legs of a wobbly, malnourished child? I do.

There’s just one way to fend him off.

It doesn’t always work. I mean, I believe it always works (and it in fact does), but some nights he beats me so badly that there is no strength to use that way; and I find I’ve fallen asleep without putting him out of the room, so he’s there first thing in the morning.

I told you I pray. I indeed pray. I pray because there’s no other way. If the day has been a battle, why should the hour before bed be a worse battle than that which raged all day? So, I pray.

There is a place I go. When I go there, this other me does not follow, because it’s his Kryptonite.

Some of you probably go there too.

It’s a cross on a hill and a man hangs on it.

For all like me, who have their ‘other me’s’ beating them up all night, there is this place. This Cross. This hill.
More than the cross and more than the hill, there is One.

When I go there, I find that a grisly place dripping with heavy tissue-tinged drops of human blood has turned into…… a garden. Have you ever caught the whiff of fresh blood off a living person who is about to die? What do you think that smells like? What do you think that smells like?

Yes. A grisly place, the finest garden on earth. The cleanest, freshest winds blow there. The fragrance, quite literally, is divine. And I turn to find I am alone. The other me did not follow me into this garden. I am not alone with myself, like the hour before bed. The other me is NOT THERE.

I sometimes wonder how my mind can still bring up this picture. But it’s real; I cannot deny it because it is real. How can the other me not know the power of this place? This blood-tinged garden that wards him off firmly and surely?

And then I know I am not alone with myself, but I am alone with Someone else.

I cannot tell you what we speak about.

***********************************************************

Now it’s almost time to sleep. I know I will sleep, because the room is the garden now. The other me has been asked to leave.

There are still a hundred things lying about. They will be put into their places. I don’t know when and I don’t know how. And I’m not asking. And my dreams? It’s just so liberating to know someone actually understands my dreams and takes them seriously – when I think of the fact that not even I could do that for myself. There’s a line from a song I love – “you heard my dreams, while the rest of the world closed its ears”

Strange things, my dreams. I am astounded because they still live. Then I know it’s only because of the garden. The blood. The cross on the hill. And most of all, because of Someone.

Now this has brought tears and I hate tears.

My bed is a lovely place. It’s slovenly, smells like me, and is pitted and dented. All the same, I have it and I’m thankful. Today, there’s a book by the pillow – it’s called Rattigan: Plays: One. Terence Rattigan was born in 1911 and died in 1977. He wrote drama.

There’s another book too, but that book lives inside my head. It keeps me alive.

My blanket is lovely. Light purple and yellow squares with embroidered flowers.

I pray for dreams that are not tinged with yesterday.

It’s now ten to one, and the street is actually quiet. The week has begun.

************************************************************

Some days. The garden. The cross on the hill. The One.

Some other days, the other me. Resourceful chap – he can never forget anything, good or bad.

Some days I am more alive than life itself. Other days, I survive.

Man indeed does not live by bread alone, I’ve realized, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the One Who gives life.

I told you before. I pray. I harbor no delusions that I can make it alone.

On reality and truth

When I started this blog, I knew that about 90 percent of blog-readers will not read it. This neither surprised me nor dismayed me. It still doesn't.

I really don't see my posts as normal, as a matter of fact. You see, I really doubt very much whether human beings these days are allowed to think for themselves. I'm not talking about people who are under the iron thumb of tyranny or oligarchy in our world, as many indeed are. I'm talking about you and me.

Anyways. It's time the curtain closed again.

********************************************************************************

Reality.

I wonder at the word, because we are being asked to believe in this age that reality is not real. Some time ago I was in a restaurant where three gentlemen sat and spoke philosophy. I admit I eavesdropped, because the views they expressed intrigued me.

One of them kept saying nothing is "really real". "This glass here - it can be proved that it actually does not exist."

Never was there a more deceptive word. "REAL"-ity.

We live in that ridiculous age when almost anything, including the fact that you're reading this post now, can be proved to be unreal, or real, just as it suits you, and no matter what evidence there might or might not be to the contrary.

To take a really ridiculous example, when it comes to the word "I", by a simple sleight of hand with words, it can be proved that "I" do not exist. The unreal edifice so built can also be dismantled equally easily. Do I exist? But who is this "I" who is asking?

"Explaining away" is more the prevailing mood of thought than "explaining". The bottom has indeed fallen out of "old time-tested truths", we are told. Everything, even our most precious possessions, come with a shelf life and a use-before date. After that, their very existence, past or present, can be questioned, proved or disproved just as it suits whoever is doing the deconstruction.

********************************************************************************

"Everyone on the side of truth listens to me", said the man. He was not making a philosophical statement, really. In one sense, he could not afford empty philosophy. He was being tried for his life. No amount of "explaining away" could have helped.

The judge under whom he was being tried snorted contemptuously in reply. "What is truth?"

In other words, truth is almost anything that can support my view of my "reality". That is, I can set you free, or have you killed, just as I like, and then what will "truth" matter? And after I've done what I like with you, I can "explain it away" as unreality. No problem there.

In fact, later on in the same trial, the judge thundered, "Do you refuse to speak to me? Don't you realise I have the power either to free you or to crucify you?"

Some years later, someone reported this trial. His report was not believed. They've spent many centuries trying to prove it didn't happen like the witness said.

Just one example of how "explaining away" is more expedient than "explaining"; and just one more example of how "reality" can be proved to be either real or unreal, depending on who has the power. Of course, since we all have the power to view anything for anything we want it to be, who's to stop us from calling something real unreal? To go further, we can make people believe me even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary!

*********************************************************************************

What's your reality, friend? What is truth? Does it have a sky painted pink and brown water? Does it have more crawling and creeping things than beautiful ones? Paint-by-numbers!

Maybe you think it's not as bad as all that. I mean, evidence is considered objectively in most arenas of "reality"; there are convicts "justly" (another word we use often but cannot explain) tried and executed, in the face of proper evidence, and so on.

Of course. No denying that. But really, if I wanted to, I can deny it, establish my findings and make people believe me. Really. Don't you watch the news? Don't you read the papers?

There are always layers. If reality is indeed "real", it is not a case of "what you see is what you get". Some people have claimed for about two thousand years now that a man rose from the dead. Was that reality? Can you tell? There is equal evidence either way, you know. So, if it's true, reality itself has altered hasn't it. Normally, dead people do not rise up and walk among us. There's got to be something BEHIND this.

Let me try to construct an alternative reality (or at least, a different one). What if there was a world you couldn't see? What if this invisible world overlaps so perfectly with the visible one so that people in the visible world find no evidence in their visible world of the existence of the invisible one?

What if there were powers and potentates in this invisible world? What if they had intents, purposes and designs on people in the visible world? What if these potentates had the power to follow through on their designs? Worse still, what if they could do it by confusing people in the visible world about what is real?

What if there is a cosmic battle going on in this invisible world? A conflict just like we see in the unreal movies people make these days? Among monsters, demons, invisible forces that have designs on people like us in our visible world?

It doesn't sound so far away from sanity, you know. People have thought about "gods" and "demons" for thousands of years now. Who's to say they aren't right? After all, reality can be just about ANYTHING....... any flavour, and I can choose!

********************************************************************************

I really am talking to those of us "normal, good folk" who go about making a living, marrying and giving in marriage, raising children and providing for them, and looking after our parents when they get old. GOOD people, who do nothing "wrong" (what can indeed be termed "wrong" now, if reality itself can be redefined to suit me)

You drive to your workplace everyday. An honest day's labour. You use your mind. Solve problems, sometimes difficult ones. You drive back home. Maybe you stop at a mall. Or a grocery store, a bank perhaps. You make phone calls.

You come back home to a family. Perhaps you help feed children and put them to bed. You share love with your spouse. Perhaps you watch TV. Strictly the news and perhaps sports. Or a senseless movie. In your heart, you perhaps laugh at the drama that goes on in our world, as reported on the news. Sometimes you're moved by sad things that happen. You're amused by heated debates where someone accuses someone else of unforgiveable wickedness, and the accused one always counters that it can be rationalised, that there was no other option. You're amused because you really have no opinion on any debate.

Perhaps you're online. It's nice to connect with others like yourself. You talk about how you can make your life a lot more secure than it is now. You sensibly lay up for the future.

Perhaps you live for years this way, responding to no other challenge other than what affects you directly; you hate "causes". You have nothing to say really, about history, especially about whether it really happened or not. You're surprised and even amused that some people can become so unreasonable when they speak about "spiritual" things - because you see no evidence of anything beyond "your reality".

I'm talking to those of us who are as I've just described. What do you really think? For you, reality is predictable. For about 75 percent of the others on the planet, reality is what happens moment by moment. To stay alive is a miracle, even if you don't believe in miracles. To get a good meal is a miracle. You could, for example, in equal probability, be snuffed out routinely or denied food just because you don't fit in someone else's "reality", someone who has power over you.

Someone can report that to the rest of the world, and everyone who sees it can construct his own version of YOUR reality, to suit HIS reality.

******************************************************************************

Now that I have mangled the word "reality" irrevocably enough, I am done. You really cannot be angry with me for wasting your time - you thought what I've penned here was real. Maybe I influenced that. But if it did not suit you, you would anyways have gone elsewhere and found something else to suit your reality. In any case, we all fashion each other's reality at least a little, don't we, in some sense.

******************************************************************************

But you know, I really was talking about something real - the fact that reality is like an onion, which can be peeled off in layers. The fact that no matter how we can PAINT reality to suit ourselves, it is a stubborn thing that does not change just because we started thinking differently about it. The fact that no matter how much others try to impose their version of reality on us, it still won't change to suit their description.

The fact that, as human beings, we can, at best, just ADJUST for the better. We cannot completely re-create it anew at our whim; and that parts of it are the same for us all and will remain the same no matter how much we try to adjust them. We can only do so much. Anything beyond that is deception. Just because we can successfully lie to ourselves or others is neither here nor there.

The fact that, whether we like it or not, reality has to do with truth; they go together and parts of them can be the same for everyone. There are indeed realities and truths that actually exist for all human beings no matter how cleverly or successfully we might "explain them away". The judge's question "what is truth" does not invalidate the existence of truth.

And most importantly, the fact that there just might be something beyond reality that exists even though it is invisible. If we can admit the idea at least in thought, who's to say that it could be too fantastic or unimaginable - especially when you consider how ingenuous we are at deceiving ourselves about the reality that is visible.

********************************************************************************

The daily grind. Have you ever looked beyond it? This is not just pious talk, you know, or a carefully worded platitude. There are reasons why you do the things you do, in a world such as this. It IS all headed somewhere. There is purpose; good or bad. There is the passage of time; there is history, there is now, and there is the future. These are real, stubborn, tangible things. Explain them away if you like; or accept someone else's explanation if you like. That will not change anything.

Oh, and those adjustments you want to make. Make them while you still can. Just because eternity is a possibility, do not assume that making adjustments will always be possible. We can only know so much.

Look beyond reality. Peel a layer off. Why do you do what you do? Why must things be this way? Why is our life-span "three score and twenty" and not more?

Peel another layer off. Why are some things good to do and others bad? Can I make everyone do good all the time? Can I make everyone do bad all the time?

You can still continue living like this is a time capsule that will last forever, too. Go right back to sleep.......sorry to wake you.

The Greater Coucal and the Indian Pond Heron

The land of granite dust and ornamental stone......one more building.

Around me were the sounds of another grand structure being built. The Business Park is filled with these new, spanking-clean looking structures where the under-30s roam about, feeling as if they own the world. There's not an inch of shade anywhere though; near the "food court" (an awful phrase with bad associations and even  worse food), there are some trees that are clearly ornamental to the degree that the local avifauna will not go within a hundred metres of them. Clearly, the birds know these trees to be alien to South India. I've been through much of Bangalore and its environs and I've never seen this tree anywhere! It must be some young, clueless libertine's idea of "being different" (it's amazing how in this age, "being different" just means being exactly like everyone else who wants to "be different"; we have indeed redefined the word "different"!)

Dismally inhospitable but impeccably clean and green

All in all, the Business Park is inhospitable to any sane man. I must say that. It has no decent food anywhere, no pharmacy except a few ramshackle ambulances, and importantly, no shade. Maybe 20 years from now the trees that have been planted will provide some decent canopy. Even the offices are inhospitable. The housekeeping staff are old hands at petty thievery, and loneliness roams the corridors. The ironic thing is the efforts being made to make the place look and feel peaceful; some meadows which manage to attract some wagtails, while driving away any other bird.

Apart from that, there is the dust. Of dry sand and mud, broken kerbs everywhere, and granite lying about like refuse; and worse still, granite dust that eats into everything. Everyday there is the sound of power-drills boring into granite or some other ornamental stone.

*******************************************************************************

We have eyes only for white golf balls

Next door are the Golf Links. There, some play one of the most elitist, costly games in the world on the meadows. Trees are everywhere; some man-made water bodies too; and pristine meadows. It's avifauna paradise, or so it seems; only the people who play golf there have no eyes for these, I'm sure. The customary  high nets, unsightly and unfriendly to birds, surround the place though. There's a few feet between the pylons which support these nets and the actual wall that separates the Golf Links from the Business Park. Here there is rich plant life, many trees, but no birds want to really go there because it will be a tough and revealing trench to get out of. I have seen chameleons, though, and heard an insect, the one that buzzes at night, don't know what it's called - and this insect thrives there because there no birds to keep its numbers down.

At a few select spots next to the wall, there's enough of a rise from which one can peer onto the meadows in the Golf Links, from the Business Park. It's like how schoolboys peer over a fence eagerly. Precious few spots, actually; because the taxi drivers often relieve themselves near the wall and you cannot really be sure you're not stepping on something like that.

******************************************************************************

This patch of wall is birding territory for me.

Avifauna in the land of granite dust

It's been interesting that in spite of every difficulty, birds do find roosting places, food and nesting ground. They manage to eke out an existence of sorts even though man has done all he can to keep them out and take over what was their habitat completely - even towards the close of the last millenium this spot, where the Business Park stands today, was just fallow countryside, home to all grassland birds. Now there's nothing left except in the military area next to the Business Park, which in any case had always been there.

Of course there are the usual birds we would all expect to see, like the feral pigeons, House Crows and both kinds of Myna. Both Mynas and Crows, in fact, nest in the hollows at the top of some of the steel pylons that support the high nets.

Within the Business Park, there used to be quite a few birds who want to get away from predators, and so make their homes in the pittance of greenery that is now being grown in the Park. When I first came to the Business Park, we had Spotted Munias, Pied Bushchats, Large Pied Wagtails (or White-browed Wagtails, as they are known today) and Ashy Prinias. The Spotted Munias tried many nesting places, but couldn't sustain these, because the Park management was (and, I suspect, still is) devoted to keeping the place green but driving out any birds - a strange juxtaposition of endeavours. The Munias were quite persistent for many months at many places within the Business Park; nowadays, over the past year or so, I don't recall seeing a single one. They've all gone. So have the Pied Bushchats - they have gone back into the Golf Links.

Ashy Prinias have found some success, though, and are regularly seen and heard within the bushes near the Golf Links. The Wagtails have been successful beyond their dreams; they seem to prefer the Park more than the Golf Links! Not a day goes by on which the Wagtails are not seen. They nest in many places, all near the artificial ornamental water structures all over the Park.

Surprisingly, a huge flock of House Swifts keep flying madly about some of the buildings; the flock could easily number about a hundred or so birds. They are sweet, trilling, tiny, flying about really fast and madly, aimlessly, it seems, and are refreshing to watch.

In March and April, flocks of Starlings (probably both Grey-headed and Rosy) passed by in huge numbers, sometimes 300 - 400 or so in a single flock. There are also what could be Indian Pond Herons or Little Egrets which pass by regularly in flocks of about 10-20.

**************************************************************************

Within the Golf Links, there is a deathly lack of bird life in the trees near the wall separating them from the Business Park. Not even an occasional Flowerpecker or a Sunbird; not even a Tailorbird! I've seen about one or two Purple-rumped Sunbirds in the last year, and today I did see and hear a Tickell's Flowerpecker. But it's like a deathly silence otherwise.

There is enough, however, within the Golf Links meadows, in terms of bird life.

Shikra? Eurasian Sparrowhawk? Common Hawk-Cuckoo?

These last few months I have been trying to track down a bird that sometimes roosts in the trees bordering the pylons. The first time I saw it, it was on the Business Park side and looked like a female Shikra (the Shikra being the most abundant expected short-winged hawk in these parts). On closer inspection, serious doubts have arisen in my mind, though. The other difficulty is that the bird is absolutely silent. It could be a Shikra; or a Eurasian Sparrowhawk; it could also be a Brainfever Bird (or Common Hawk-Cuckoo). The colour seems to say Shikra; the behaviour seems to say either Eurasian Sparrowhawk or Common Hawk-Cuckoo. The sub-terminal bands on the tail seem to point to this being either of the latter birds; but neither of these is too common in these parts. This is an ongoing mystery that hopefully will get solved sometime. It has provided a lot of excitement, though, and I love the fact that this could get solved any day now.

Western Marsh Harrier?

One of the other really exciting sights was one evening well past sundown, when a dark, sooty-coloured raptor flew heavily over the D-Block. It was not large enough to be one of the Kites (besides, the tail was held stiff and straight without a fork) and it was definitely larger than the short-winged hawks, though the wing-shape in flight looked like one of them. It was also particularly sooty-coloured. I suspect this could have been a Western Marsh-Harrier. I've never seen the bird again; so perhaps it was a vagrant in these parts. But I do know it could not have been any of the other raptors.

More usual suspects

There are White-breasted Kingfishers that pass through the Golf Links often; because of the man-made water bodies. This also means that Brahminy Kites are more numerous than usual, too. The Black Kites seem to love the meadows and are often found perched on the ground, pulling up earthworms or other insects and such. They are found in huge numbers; I keep peering to see if an eagle joins them; or a harrier or any other bird of prey. There could well be some other raptor out there too.

Asian Koels are found in plenty within the Golf Links, as are Rose-ringed Parakeets, which is all as it should be. I've never seen any of the robins or chats except the Pied Bushchat, though.

********************************************************************************

The Heron and the Coucal

Today was very refreshing and soothing. I did not see any new birds I've not seen before; but what I saw must be described, because it brought peace to my heart.

There had a been a constant "coop coop coop" going on for a while; I was scanning the trees for the answer to my mystery bird. Then there was a splash of white that fluttered down on to the grass in the Golf Links.

I had to clamber up to a point where I could see the bird, and I was rewarded handsomely by an Indian Pond Heron in breeding plumage. The Pond Heron is not new to the Golf Links; I have seen some of them before on the meadows, but this was a close-up.

It's lovely how birds combine colours - lovely and indeed awe-inspiring. The Pond Heron is crow-sized, with a longish neck and a long, pointed yellow bill with a conspicuous black tip. Seen from under when in flight, it looks absolutely white and graceful. But during the breeding season, the back of the bird attains a lovely chestnut-brown or maroon-brown colour which is in fact the effect of the growth of soft, downy plumes of that colour. It is a work of art, like a water colour that has deliberately been allowed to run a bit in gentle streaks over the white flanks. The neck of the bird attains a light coffee sandy colour. An off-white crest, consisting of longish streamer-like feathers, is also visible, though almost always folded back on to the head and never raised.

I am not attached to water birds; I love passerines immensely more. But this was a lovely sight, I must say. Observing the bird's behaviour was even more soothing. It seemed to move slowly and absolutely daintily; wary, I think, of low-flying raptors (like harriers or sparrowhawks) that flush birds from the ground. Sometimes, a measured dainty walk; sometimes a leg raised but not lowered; and sometimes, a sudden twist, turn, quick few steps to capture an insect morsel. I realised that the bird was watching for unwary insects on the grass.

I had observed that the insistent "coop coop coop" had become louder, more resonant and deep and closer at hand. I had been scanning the trees opposite the meadow, for Greater Coucals which are numerous in and around both the Business Park and the Golf Links. Then, from a tree absolutely at the edge of the net, a huge Greater Coucal descended to the ground. These are huge but wary birds; and somehow, in true Coucal fashion, it perceived me peering over the wall, and it was back into the branches of the tree before I could get a decent glimpse. I then realised how deep, rumbling and resonant the 'coop coop coop' call could be, when I heard it up close. After a few seconds, the bird lifted into flight and disappeared into the top branches of the trees opposite the meadow. I saw a lovely but momentary vision of deep, chestnut wings and glossy black body and long, thick tail as the bird vanished into the tops of the trees opposite.

Greater Coucals love to roost in the trees in the Golf Links and are often heard and quite numerous; I've often seen them roosting at mid-day in the trees that are near the Gate 2 entrance.

************************************************************************

It's amazing to watch the birds; they seem so un-self-conscious, peaceful and free. But it is a wild world out there; in the trees opposite the meadow, on the ground, a huge number of Black Kites regularly descend to the ground. These raptors, though mainly scavengers, are not exactly harmless; they can easily take a crow-sized bird like the Pond Heron with ease if they decided to! And in fact, if my mystery bird is really the Eurasian Sparrowhawk, like I largely suspect, a Pond Heron or even a Greater Coucal, though larger than the Sparrowhawk, can easily be taken by surprise and tremendous speed. Being torn to death under the talons of such raptors is one of the worst fates that a bird can meet with! So while the Pond Heron might have enchanted me with dainty movements and lovely colours, it must have been wary as ever, because the arrival of a Sparrowhawk can send all the birds and small animals racing for cover.

***************************************************************************

An hour spent watching the birds is time well spent; I recommend it even if you cannot recognize even a crow or a pigeon. It can bring a curious peace; and a good dose of refreshing and rejuvenation into our thoughts. Try it!! Get into a park within a city; watch the birds; listen to their sounds.

The eternal - examining the evidence

How much time do you spend in a day thinking about eternal things?

Most of us, due to prevailing winds of thought these last few decades, are almost subconsciously trained to think that nothing we see is eternal - whether 'natural' or man-made. Of course we know nothing man-made lasts forever, but we don't even wonder about 'natural' things.

We spend our moments thinking hard about the here and now, and sometimes the future, mostly in terms of laying up for it. But as the 'future' becomes the present and as time rolls on, our lives end in death. Death we dread, but rarely think about. We live like we're going to live forever and never die.

What do I really mean when I say 'eternal things'?

I mean, does anything we see last forever? Well beyond a time when the earthly story of humankind has long gone? Is there something that transcends the story of humankind, which will continue to exist even if humankind and life on earth ceased to exist?

One typical response to such questions is, who cares. Why think about a time when I may not even exist. It's stupidity. A waste of precious time (never mind the answer to the question "precious exactly for doing what? something which might last forever?")

***************************************************************************************

As I look around me (and even within me), I see a very unique dichotomy. We live by sight - by what we can see, touch, feel, hear. But there are those parts of us that are not seen. Have I seen my feelings? Have I seen my emotions? These are intangibles, but no one would deny they really exist. Yet, each of us lives as if we only were a physical body. It's a strange dichotomy.

We work hard for something that will sustain our physical lives. At the same time, we seem to have some intangible life within us - something (or better, some-ONE) that thinks, feels, emotes, cares, hates, loves, hopes, dreams. Has any of us ever SEEN these things tangibly? Can we PROVE they exist? It's a stupid, rhetorical question, isn't it? We do not need to prove these things exist because we KNOW they do and we're not asking for proof.

And yet. And yet, we live as if only the physical body exists. When someone dies, we grieve for a time and then forget they ever existed. That is, as long as we can remember a physical body, the person exists; but when the body is gone, the memories also slowly fade to a point where we may not remember the person who once existed.

We either deny, ignore, explain away, suppress the inner "us". We behave like it does not exist. We know that it exists, but we spend precious little time tending to it or even offering it companionship. Are you your friend? It's a very valid question isn't it.

Simply put, we think that the life of a human being is in the human being's physical body, and nothing else. We either deny or are not aware that there is an inner being, an inner ME, who thinks, feels, prefers, judges, loves, hates, etc etc.

Why am I making this distinction? Isn't the inner me inseparably part of the physical me? Why accord it a seemingly 'separate' existence? Does it have an existence of its own, apart from my physical body? A very good, worthwhile question.

******************************************************************************************

I won't attempt answers to the question. But I do ask, where DID we get this notion of words like "forever" and "eternity"? We know that the physical body has an end. If everything we ever were were only part of the physical body, wouldn't the inner me die with the physical me? Another worthwhile question. However, why do we even define words like "forever" and "eternity"? Where does that idea come from, if not from the inner us? And if it indeed comes from the inner me, how can the inner me, which we believe also dies with the physical me, think of such a thing? Where did the inner me get this idea of "forever"?

Or is "forever" just a notion, an idea, a figment of our imagination, a flight of fancy? Many of us indeed think so. Like we think that there are worlds out there which are also inhabited but (curiously and humourously, as a matter of fact) by creatures that cannot be beautiful like some of us are. I have NEVER seen aliens in any comic portrayed as being more beautiful than human beings. It's curious, but think about it. We seem to think we're beautiful. Another idea whose origin can only be the inner you, the inner me. "Everyone is beautiful on the INSIDE", we say. What (or who) is this "INSIDE"?

When someone dies, prayers are offered for the 'soul' of the person. "May his/her soul rest in peace" is almost a universally offered condolence. How does this 'condole'? By offering the idea (a mere chance, is what most of us believe) that PERHAPS the INNER PERSON does in fact live "forever", and if so, may that "inner person", now free of the constraints of the physical body, live in the peace that the person never knew while he/she inhabited the physical body.

So. Whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not, as a race, we human beings have got some conception of something called a "soul", an "inner person", who, we hope, lives on beyond the time our physical bodies stop breathing. It's a remarkable conception because, if we only thought that what we see exists, such an idea would make absolutely and logically no sense whatsoever; and yet, even so, many of us think it's true.

********************************************************************************************
And SO, SO, I come back to my original question. If indeed there is an "inner me" that lives on beyond the physical me, why do I spend my time on earth thinking only of the physical me? Back to my original question. "How much time do you spend in a day thinking of eternal things, like the "eternal" inner me?"

If the inner "I" am indeed going to outlive the physical "I", wouldn't it make sense to think about how the inner "I" is GOING TO LIVE? Is there something I can do now, while still in the physical me, that would make "life" easier for the inner me that will outlive the physical me?

*******************************************************************************************

Let me change the vantage point a bit. Let's think of what we see around us. We have a world, an "earth", we are told, where we have these curious separations of "water" and "land". Of "earth" and "sky". Of the innumerable KINDS of physical life on earth. The plants, the animals, vertebrates, invertebrates, microbes, and so on. Have we ever wondered whether they HAD to be there? We take them for granted because they're there. But did it have to be a world like this? We are told that the largest planet, Jupiter, is nothing but a gigantic ball of dense gases, with no solid land. Why couldn't earth be like that? We are told that Mars indeed has both land and water (recently discovered), but they're still looking for something called "life" there. Why couldn't earth have been like that?

Curiously enough, among "life" on earth, only we can draw a map of it. Only we know about Jupiter. Ask a Rosy Starling about Jupiter, or a Green Mamba about Mars. A Three-Toed Sloth doesn't even know what the earth looks like from space! In fact, a Duck-billed Platypus doesn't even know we are human beings, or that it looks the way it looks. Can you "call" a Gharial (a fresh water crocodile found in India) and have it come over to you just because you called? A human being might call another human being by name and perhaps have that person come over just because the person was called.

Why do we have this knowledge? Why can we think? assimilate? reason? research? keep inventories? know everything?

Questions we've never thought of, perhaps; but worthwhile ones. It is indeed worth wondering why, among all the LIFE there is on planet earth, we human beings are the only ones who fully know what life is and how precious it is. The odds of this being mere coincidence belies the evidence. It really, actually looks like we were the only ones who were SUPPOSED to know what we know - this world, different kinds of life on it, the skies, the heavens, where Jupiter is, and also, curiously, the "inner me". We were SUPPOSED to know all of this, and ONLY WE were supposed to know.

That's how precious a human life really is. It has this curious streak of eternity about it; this "frisson", if you will - trapped inside a painfully mortal cocoon - a physical body. And this assemblage - the inner person and the physical - called a "man", was indeed, it seems, to rule over all life on earth. And when a man dies, the inner person outlives the physical body.

Why else would so many of us care so much about what gets written on our tombstones? Why do we go so hard after our accomplishments? Why we strive so hard to be remembered at least by people we love and who love us? Why are we careful to live in such a way as to be remembered by others when we die - that is, leave a "legacy"? The word has no meaning if, in some sense, nothing outlived the physical. If nothing outlived the physical, or if nothing existed but the physical, in one sense, there are no such things as memories, leave alone "precious" memories.

********************************************************************************************

And STILL. STILL, our everyday living is crowded with inessentials. Making a living, saving up for a future we may never live to see. It's a tragedy to see the best brains in the world using their enormous intelligence to help a select few on earth make more money.

It is rightly said about us, we live as if we will never die, and we die as if we never lived.

The supreme creature of life on earth, man, lives as if only today and only he matters. Knows and feels the tug of eternity and eternal longings on the inside, but lives daily only to satisfy physical needs and appetites. Living "hand to mouth" is not to be said only of the poor of the earth. Even the richest man on earth lives hand to mouth. If he has it in his hand, he is sure to immediately satisfy his appetite with it and deny it to someone else, if such is in his power.

**********************************************************************************************

So, here again comes the original question. Do you think at all of eternal things? Life beyond death? A time when possibly a man might indeed live forever? Have no wants? No tears? no sorrows? no injustice? When every man has enough? Will there be a time like that? Not the way we live today, no.

And the land and sky - the water and the land - this earth, a speck of dust in an unimaginable universe - do we think why it had to be this way?

What about my parents? my children? Why is there family? Why do I care so much? or love so much? Is it only for life on li'l ole earth?

If there indeed were "eternity", would you want to be in it? If you do, how come you do? Where did that want come from?

*********************************************************************************************

I have to conclude, in the end, that nothing about life on earth is WYSIWIG (what you see is what you get). The evidence is just too overwhelming to support the fact all we see is not all there is. In fact, we actually "see" very little of what really exists.

There must be something beyond life. But I provide no answers. I only ask the question, HOW MUCH TIME DID YOU SPEND TODAY THINKING ABOUT ETERNAL THINGS?

Because what is seen is indeed going to pass away.....but what is unseen, and still exists, will be revealed. What will it be like when that happens? What if it happens when I was not prepared for it?

Spend a little time each day asking the question WHY. Why does it all have to be arranged this way - this life on earth? It is a worthwhile question and a serious one, one whose answer might determine your eternity.

Rock music - style or substance?

With rock music, it is always eternal brinkmanship between style and substance.

Perhaps we should expect no less, because rock music is no longer (and in some ways, has never been since the beginning) JUST a 'music' genre. It is (and always has been) a socio-economic-cultural and sometimes even political phenomenon. The terms 'rock'n'roll' or 'rock' are hardly ever understood to refer only to the musical content of rock, such as it is; they are almost always much more wide-ranging than that. Rock music was never ever only about the music, as could be said for other genres like classical music or even jazz and blues.

Rock music's obsession with itself, its inherent narcissism, was always bound to be in a music where the performer always has to be on the verge of eclipsing the performance itself. For rock to be rock, the performer necessarily needs to make it out to be all about himself, in a way that it never is, can be, or needs to be, in other musical idioms.

The 'music' in rock music

So, now here we get into "so what exactly IS rock music?", a question that I wisely must not attempt to answer within the scope of this piece of writing. Which might lead one to wonder, can we really find out what the 'musical content' of rock music is? To that question, at least, I can readily answer, yes. The musical content of rock music can indeed be isolated from its packaged whole. The 'musical' founding fathers can indeed be identified.

Ingredients

Rock's 'musical content' history goes back, primarily, to the great folk music forms - country music, blues and folk music itself, gospel music included, from either side of the Atlantic. So, rock music is a 'folk' form, not an 'art' form (to speak thus is banal and didactic but I do so only for the development of explanation). Left to myself (and not entirely uninformed) I would trace the 'germ of the idea' back to two categories of components - one, the development of the 'blue note' and the rhythmic nature of blues, and the other, the story-telling tradition in country music, folk music and blues. When I say 'story-telling' I do not necessarily mean only in a lyrical or poetic sense, but also in a musical sense. In a purely lyrical or poetic sense, for a story, poem or ballad to reinforce and amplify its central theme, there needs to be a sense of rhythm, of repetition and reiteration which sometimes closes the loop on the rhythm and at other times sets off open-ended rhyme, inviting counterpoint. Similarly, for a melody or a sequence of chords (or riffs) to close loops or open up new ones, there needs to be a sense of rhythm.



Now rhythm has always been part of the nerve and sinew of rock and one of its founding fathers. It is no less important than musical values (and here I am speaking rather compartmentally as if rock's "musical content" is in all cases a self-contained product always exclusively differentiable from its "rhythm". In the best of rock music, such thinking is a myth and an antithesis; but I speak so here just for perspective.) It is equally possible for a three-chord rock song to be in the best traditions of rock music as it is for it to be a very bad advertisement for the limited and restricted musical scope of rock music; what makes it one or the other is a sense of rocking rhythm and the depth and space that the interpreter (artist) creates. In simple, classic rock'n'roll, 3-chord songs can be infectiously rhythmic and also leave space for mystery and depth; at the other end of the spectrum, in heavier forms (like heavy metal), in the same 3 chords, 'unsubtlety' and an un-swinging, leaden wall of sound become patently apparent.

None of this may quite be traceable or apparent when we listen to the end-product in most rock music; but ah, we must remember that we are only yet tracing out its musical content and origins. We have not yet considered the socio-economic-cultural elements that went into this particular soup!

The blue note

A little bit about the 'blue note'. Traditionally understood, it is a note 'in the cracks', which cannot be played on a musical instrument except by slatting two notes in rhythm (on a piano) or pulling a note to the next (on a guitar). To get absolutely technical about it, the third or the fifth notes in a scale are usually subjected to this treatment to obtain the blue note. The blue note can only be sung, because the vocal chords are able to bring out this subtlety and mystery whereas musical instruments, due to their precise, pin-pointed mechanical structure and organisation, cannot.

The synthesis of ingredients

The basic rock'n'roll riff can be constructed from 3 chords played in a rhythm derived from the blues (or, to be absolutely precise, from rhythm'n'blues), with movement from one to the other involving blue notes. In so far as this movement can be inflected with country music drawls and chord structures, country music is also a factor in the mix; and in so far as traditional, 'unamplified' instruments are used and the song structure is influenced by folk music, folk music is involved. So there you have it - the synthesis of the 'music' in rock music.



I speak as if it is all merely musical; in fact, it is hardly so. The synthesis I have described, far from being predictable, conscious or even by will, has happened over years of development, driven in many cases not by musical progress but more by social, cultural and economic circumstances. A number of factors have been thrown into the soup, not all of them entirely musical.

The artist and the 'rock star'

At any given instance, it is the performer or artist (and his influences, 'roots' or origins) who largely determines which factors go into the 'soup'. Due to this, it is possible to have 'rock' music devoid of its musical content (i.e., neither rhythmic nor informed by blues, country or folk, nor in a lyrical tradition), as well as rock music which is merely musical and not at all a socio-economic-cultural phenomenon. Both ends of the spectrum are equally possible, and though the former usually prevails because of commercial considerations, it is the latter which lends rock its credibility.

It would seem that the 'music' in rock music is largely precise, scientific and empirically distinguishable, and that what we see today is the effect of putting the musical content through a 'humaniser' device. This in fact, is true. To the extent that the artist is in touch with musical roots, rock music either has musical content or is devoid of it.

The 'humaniser' is a Pandora's box consisting of many factors. It certainly was the social, cultural and economic environment that prevailed in the fifties and sixties, which formed the sub-stratum for the development of rock music. Since the beginning, many factors have exerted primary influence at various times. Social, cultural and demographic factors were major catalysts in the early years, when the best rock music happened. This included the entire age of baby boomers and their adolescent values, the drawing back of young people into the dance halls by the early rock'n'roll of Bill Haley, Chuck Berry and the earliest rock stars; later, it was the anti-establishment, social comment and folk-protest sentiments sparked off by songwriters like Bob Dylan and carried further out and then into oblivion by the flower-power era. This was indeed rock's age of primary output; it is perfectly accurate to say that the best of rock music had happened by the beginning of the seventies.



The influence of social and cultural factors meant that at some point of time, the artist would be tempted (a temptation not easily overcome) to think of himself as higher than the music; a form of narcissism and self-worship, inviting something akin to almost deification over ritual. So rock music's early cultural heroes emphasised style and personal expression above substance and musical values, and rock music did its wallowing in self-indulgence and its obsessive narcissism. The rock music concert became a ritual played out in stadiums where the performer worshipped himself in the worship of the audience.

Due to the economic clout of the baby boomers, who were rock's earliest audience, financial considerations and the lack of vision took over in the seventies, and rock's age of primary output was over. Rock became history, mostly; the most creative rock was already over. For a far more accurate and better retelling of this story, about how musical and other factors came together to produce rock music, I recommend Donald Clarke's The Rise And Fall Of Popular Music, and Clarke's entry about rock, in his Encyclopaedia of Popular Music - both books sadly out of print.

Whither rock music?

Now because the musical scope of rock music is so restricted (tied to rhythm, blue notes, progressions, riffs and chords), creative progress is that much more difficult. Simply put, it is difficult to find an infinite number of things to do differently within the structure of rock music. However, there are other interesting ingredients in the mix; the best rockers bring their own sense of presence while primarily working off the unchanging musical form, and add their story-telling or interpretive talents to the bedrock. A new twist on an old tale, simply put, is the height of what can be done with rock music post 70s. That's not to say that this does not happen, or to belittle attempts to do this. The singer-songwriter and country-rock genres did it well in the 70s, and country-rock continues to accomplish it today. Even so, the legacy of its historical development means that style is almost always going to quash substance, unless those of us who want the real substance of rock music go out, look for and find it.



So...what?

The basics of looking for good music, rock or otherwise, always are and have been simple. Music that is in touch with its (musical) roots , played on musical instruments by musicians who bring their own creative interpretations and energies to a basic set of musical tools, is good music. Conversely, music that has no discernible roots, not played on actual musical instruments by real musicians, is always to be mistrusted (and no, technology does not generally count). And so it goes for a song as well. Has the song been actually written and constructed or is it just a mash-up? Has the song a coherent point, however slim and flimsy? Has it any charm (the intangible creativity of the artist) whatsoever? Can the song become more interesting if another performer sings it? Simple questions which bring out the intrinsic worth of a song.

These considerations quickly reveal that more than 80 - 90 percent of popular music out there today is just noise, static or of negligible value. A sobering consideration, all things being equal.

The siege-ramp of the heart

Can there indeed be meaning?

Is it possible that what I see is not all that exists? Can there be something (or someone) that exists, that I cannot see?

Is it possible there's indeed a reason why I am here? A purpose to being here? Can it be that I am indeed going somewhere, unbeknownst to me?

Or is it like I always thought? No meaning. All that exists is all I see. Nothing exists that I do not see. No great reason why I am here - I just am here, that's all. No purpose other than the immediate one, not really headed anywhere.

Am I a fool to ask?

Many of my friends get by without asking, even do well. It's complicated enough to get by without asking, so what am I thinking here? Why multiply complication?

What are my hopes for answers? Everyone has something to say; everyone believes something. If believing something will provide an anchor, there's plenty to choose from.

Are all those who believe something anchored, not adrift in the windless, endless, deathly Sargasso Sea? Or are their 'anchors' illusory, relative, subjective? Like the wind that just blows anywhere, without a beginning or an end?

When will this moment pass, so I can go on living without questions?

********************************************************************************

Every once in a while, questions build a siege ramp against the walls of my heart. I used to know how to live without suspicion, but now I am not so sure. I've got to find something to believe.

Will any old thing to believe do? After all, it must be all in my mind - probably just getting older. Any old thing used to be enough in the old days - nowadays I've seen too much and heard too much. I never feared, but now I am beginning to wonder. And no, it's not the usual religious fear psychosis. I hate to say this and I wouldn't admit it to myself......but there is genuine unrest inside.

Is there a parallel universe out there which sometimes steps into this one? I've got to know. But how can I find out? Who would know? People would think (and I would agree) I'm stark raving mad to ask.

Why won't this world settle? Why must there be more and more decay? Why can't it all get better so I wouldn't have questions?

Maybe if......

But then.....

..........