Go find that someone who's not human

Pause long enough if you indeed can, and you will see what's really going on. It's not exactly behind the scenes - it is in front of your eyes, but you can't see it. Your eyes are defective. They need the scales to fall, the penny to drop.

Around 80 percent of readers are going to abandon this post right here. I'm not surprised and I don't care! I'm not trying to act like I know better than you. I am worse than you in many ways. Far worse. Those who really know me would have pressed the buzzer long ago.

All of that aside, don't you ever wonder what has happened to any patience our human race ever had? I can almost hear the screaming, "get to the point already! I don't have time!" We're hardly a couple of paragraphs into this post. 

So why do we need to know RIGHT NOW? This instant? Can't we wait for it?

Why do we have to know EVERYTHING? Can't we leave any room for mystery?

Why do we have to turn the spotlights on every detail? Can't we leave some things alone?

Why do we have to name things all the time? Isn't that merely a form of denial - a way of "homogenising" everything? Why can't some things be left unsaid, undone, unnamed. unknown, awaited?

Why are all the wheels in the world squeaky suddenly?

Why does every loop, every thread, need to be closed and circuited? What's wrong with leaving some things open ended? Why do there need to be results all the time? So what if some things actually do not produce results? Do all such things become invalid because of that?

Do we have to solve for every variable in this world? Every time?

Why does every single thing have to be binary - either succeeding or failing, with nothing in between? Can't some things succeed at times and fail at others without making the news and everyone's red-eye target?

Thank heavens that even though we insist on knowing everything all the time and controlling everything all the time, there are a zillion things that we cannot know and cannot control no matter how successful we get at doing so. Such things remind us that we are limited and ensure that we don't become bored. They also keep some mysteries intact and away from our prying eyes and nosy-parker minds.

It's ironical that even though we insist on knowing everything and looking under every carpet, we accept the answers that present themselves without questioning. We want answers but we won't wait long enough to work out whether an answer actually works or not, whether it is really credible or not. We are so impatient that we assume answers, many times. We act on these assumptions too. We are both feverishly nosy as well as childishly gullible, all at the same time, with everything.

Therefore, everything that's really important remains under wraps and shrouded in both mystery and controversy, because we accept pat answers and leave no room for subtlety, nuance, shades or depth. We don't have the ken for complexity, really, no matter how vehemently we multi-task. As you can imagine, this is both a good thing as well as a bad thing, because life is more complex than it is simple. So, with our present (as in, this age) approach to our quests for knowledge, we're not going to be able to learn very much about it that we can really work with. Not that this ever deterred us.....

What are the important things in life anyways?

We somehow cannot agree on this. Some of us say it is the here and now. Many of us say it's happiness. Some of us say it's the future. Very, very few actually will admit that it is where we came from and how we got here, that really has the power to endow our lives with purpose and meaning and shed a beam of light down our present paths and where they are leading us. 

We very rarely pause long enough to appreciate that though we do know that only the big picture, with origins, the present and the future, will make complete sense of our lives, we usually opt to live locally in the now and ignore questions of origin ("no one will ever be able to find out, so why try") and destiny ("we'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it") Along with the pivotal questions of origin and destiny, purpose, which is the jewel of life if we cared enough to admit it, also becomes somewhat of a diamond in the rough and in the dust.

The question we're usually most concerned with, even though many of us are ignorant of this and many of us are in denial, is this thing called identity. "Who am I?" still remains the most pivotal unanswered question. Many of us go through life without ever having asked it; and almost all of us substitute anything for it but the truth about it. 

There's a big technology revolution going on these days. Almost every human being is becoming increasingly traceable, monitor-able and track-able, but the real distances between us are opening up in yawning chasms without even broken rope bridges between. We are getting up to within jostling space of each other, but the possibility of us remaining strangers forever has never ever been more than a heartbeat away. Nearness and communication have become increasingly inversely related. The nearer technology brings us, the worse we seem to be able to communicate.

Whistle blowers come and go. Actually, trumpets are blaring in our ears. Real insights are waiting for the eyes that care enough for a second opinion about the diamonds in the dust. But most of us just pass on by. Our faces are grim; our outlook like a pronounced judgment, and there seems to be some force within us that will keep us going, even if it is in the wrong direction.

The image I get of life on this planet is that of a nuclear treatment plant in which alarms are blaring because the radiation walls have fallen and the toxin is everywhere. The sound of the alarms is deafening, and the sights of radiation damage, unimaginable. Yet, most of us go through this nuclear treatment plant impeccably dressed, blissfully unaware and/or immune, ostensibly not harming ourselves or others (never mind the radiation damage), perfectly mannered, smiling as we drift towards eternity, even as we mutate imperceptibly, inexorably and irreversibly into eternally feral beings without knowing it, as if life was nothing more than a comedy of manners. Can we not hear? Can we not see? Apparently not.

We are on a systematic hunt for all mirrors - to destroy them so that we will never have to look at ourselves again. The picture of Dorian Gray has already been altered willingly and there is no remorse at it, or even anger. Every single dial at the nuclear plant is spinning out of control, but we think it's just a manufacturing defect. Even though our attempts at fixing this defect have failed miserably again and again.

Now that I've painted us all into some dark, sinister corner, you may ask, what are we supposed to do? Don't you have answers instead of these infernal questions? Can you not offer hope rather than doomsday prophecy?

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

Answers cannot save us. Every single answer we figured out has only led to more questions.

Solutions are always temporary. The wrong people always take them and run, leaving the rest of us holding the bag. It's always been that way.

The thing we've always failed to understand about life is that there has always been a need to RESTART it. Technology should help us with the analogy that goes with this word "restart". However, when a virus hits a microchip, restarting is of no use. You need to replace the motherboard. Change the chips. Virtually, re-make or re-model the computer.

Now since we've lost the instruction thingy and/or have failed to do it perfectly, the magnitude of this "re-make" is unthinkable, and those among us who know this have already given up trying to do it on our own. We need help. Presumably, we will get help if we first give up trying on our own and then actually ask for it. Ask where? Ask who? Ask what?

Ask the maker of life, obviously. There's got to be SOMEONE like that who knows what's going on, surely? 

So, go figure. Never was there a time when more depended on us having to "go figure".

If you believe in meta data, so much the better. There's ALWAYS meta data. Yet, meta data also stops with someone who knows themselves completely; and obviously this someone isn't human, or we'd have been able to fix ourselves perfectly by now. 

Don't look at me now - I've only done what I was supposed to do - sit by the wayside and blow whistles. Go find that one who's not human.

……and, another bright spark - on teaching kids

When you came to me, you were exquisitely beautiful. So much so that I could not look past your beauty for a long, long, time - it held me in thrall, captive. In one sense, I could look past everything else about you - your smallness, your untidiness, your nano-second attention span, your inability to sit still at all, your loudness, your default disobedience, EVERYTHING. Initially, for a long, long time, I completely forgot I had to teach you something, because your beauty just captured my heart.

You touched my heart very deeply by just being around, many, many times. When we spoke, I didn’t remember much of WHAT we spoke as much as the fact THAT we spoke. I loved the way your eyes lit up like bright twinkling points in the night whenever something caught your sense of wonder. I loved how you went berserk when your mind actually grasped something, even something minor and trivial (like how the wheels of a bus go round, for example).

You fulfilled me without having to do anything; there was nothing imperfect about you. Nothing. You were always the highlight of the day, the thing that made me smile even when other things and adults constantly wore me down. You became, in a manner of speaking, an idol.

For a long time, it became enough for me just to see you everyday, to spend time with you, to watch you grow. I wanted to be there for all the changes that came with growth.

It was only when I reflected on the fact that you were meant to grow, that I came to my senses. I realised I had been given you so that I could help you grow. I began to realise hard, cold facts like you needed me, in one sense, far, far more than I needed you. You weren’t there for my enjoyment or pleasure (though you certainly succeeded at that without even trying) - you were there because I, the adult, had something really pivotal and essential that you needed to grow, which I had to give you so that I give an account to the One Who gave me that thing.

It was then that I realised that it had become selfish of me to want you to be with me, and yet not give you the very thing I had that you needed. In idolising you, I had thought only of myself, not of you. Then I also remembered how innocent you were, and then I fell into deep anguish that I had, in fact, used you instead of helping you grow. I had failed! It was crushing to realise that only I could give you what I had, and I had been consistently failing to give it to you.

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

At that time, I thought I must give up because I was so angry at myself; and I saw you, in all your beauty, now with the imperfection of lack - you lacked what only I in this whole world could give you, and your growth was stunted because I hadn’t done for you what I was supposed to do.

I thank God above that I did not wallow selfishly, thinking only of myself; had I done that, you might have remained imperfect and stunted the rest of your life, because only I could give you what I was supposed to give you. No one else could have done that for you. 

I thank God that the deep, deep love I had developed for you came to my rescue. It goaded me into action; I realised that I wasn’t supposed to leave you the way you were when you first came to me; that would be a far worse sin than my selfishness with you had been.

I saw that my love for you must find fulfillment in my heart, for me too, because it wasn’t entirely a selfish love. 

I then resolved to never leave you until I had given you what I was supposed to give; to stop using you and start giving to you.

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

THEN began the process of trying to give you what I had been ordained to give you. In those days it became very hard indeed; and I must say you made it no easier for me. I now began to see your bewitching beauty as something indeed bewitching beyond bearing - the temptation to be selfish was always there, waiting to move in. I also found that in your innocence, you had no idea what I was supposed to give you; and you were constantly in the way of receiving what I had to give you without even meaning to do so. You began to frustrate me - sometimes you pushed me away and cried.

I realised you wouldn’t be able to help me fulfil my love for you in any way. Then many things that had at first endeared you to me now upset me beyond bearing because they were, stubbornly yet innocently, hindrances to your ability to receive. I realised how hard my task really was; my eyes had indeed opened.

I just stuck to it because of my love for you. I had a mission, and I would not quit no matter how hard it got because that’s what friends do for each other. I put my nose to the grindstone and started the long and lonely trudge to the real you, hidden deep inside you, that was able to receive what I had to give.

Sometimes you helped, but most times you were just unable because you were just growing. But I still remember your affection and your love that you showed many a time, all innocently and always without warning; these in no small way made everything easier, and more than easier, WORTH IT.

Sometimes it was like the early days, when you would go absolutely and uncontrollably berserk when you received a bit of what I was giving you and knew it; you understood. At other times, I softly cried that you thought I was such a nuisance and so hurtful to you. Growth hurts, we both realised.

I just want to tell you this - I would do it again for you if I had to, without batting an eyelid.

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

The whole thing was almost chemical, electronic even, maybe there was a robotic element to it. I realised that you had switches, just like I did. What I had to do was find them for you and turn them on, because you couldn’t do that by yourself. 

But you were this impossible, bumbling, energy-dripping bouncing ball which I could not hold down, and even when I could physically get you, I could not engage that mind of yours!

I had to engage that mind - or, no matter how close I came, all my efforts, all the years, would have been useless. USELESS! The thought chilled me.

So I did a number on you. I FOUND ways to get into your mind and there I searched frantically for those switches. WHERE WERE THEY?

You kids bury those switches. I have to tell you that now, after all these years. The maddening thing is that you hardly know how you do it, yet you do it expertly even so.

Then I realised that you buried the switches because other adults failed you. It was the only escape hatch you had been given to protect yourself from harmful people. The harmful people, far from loving you or doing their duty to you, just filled you with layers of dirt. Just plain ‘unadulterated’ dirt. This dirt made you behave really strangely - first, you buried the switches, then you began to hide clues too. Sometimes even the scars would disappear, leaving me with nowhere to start.

So I began digging. I held you close and felt fiercely protective, so fiercely that it began to cost me. I didn’t care what it cost. I just went on doing my work. Layer after layer, red herring after another, false positive after another.

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

So you want to know where this story ends?

Today you walked in to my class. After half a century, maybe. You were not beautiful, at least not in the way you had been when I first saw you. That made sense - you were now an adult.

But you were complete, in a way that you had never been in those years. And being complete made you beautiful in a whole new way.

I know this because you told me things about those years that I had been unable to see even then - the fact that I had finally been able to find the switches; and indeed helped you turn them on. And the light that flooded into you carried you through life, and here you were, telling me so - after half a century.

You asked me what I saw in you during those years, that I never stopped working on you. I really don’t know, I said. I just did what I had to do because I loved you and understood what I had been placed in your life to do. In fact I neither remember at what point I found the switches, nor turned them on. I guess once I found them, you turned them on yourself. It was easy THEN - child’s play, so to speak.

And here you stand, speaking highly of me. Now. Half a century later.

I didn’t tell you, but I will sleep easier tonight, because I can rest knowing I finally gave you what only I could give you; and you received it, and accepted it. But it’s more than that. Much more. 

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

In the dark, in bed, I thought about you. The years rolled back. At one point, in those years, I had only been painfully aware that you needed me and I should not fail you; but tonight I realised that I had needed you too. Not in the selfish way I remember back then, but maturely - to help me grow, just as I was supposed to help you grow. I realised that, had I failed you, we’d both be incomplete today, and that would have been a cosmic tragedy - true failure without remedy.

And I lie here and think of all those who came before you and after you; some, I succeeded, some I failed. I’m only human. The awesome thing is that there were others like you, each one as special as you; though none as special in the same way as you. Pleasantly, yet strangely, even among a constellation of ones like you, each of you remains individually special, and uniquely so.

Thank you for helping me. I want you to know that I would do all of it all over again should you need it, no matter what it would cost me.

Ode: A child

Life is fun.
Life…..is me.
Life is sometimes a big deal, a very big deal.
Sometimes it ain’t no big deal
And I can’t see what all the fuss is about.

I can see things you can’t see
Or don’t want to see
I don’t know if you know this
And sometimes I don’t even care whether you know
Sometimes I wish with all my heart that you could see,
Especially at those times when I can’t tell you.
But it’s okay if you don’t.

Do you see something about me?
I do. There are a few people who do.
I don’t know who they all are but I know some of them.
Some tell me. Most don’t.
I don’t care as long as they see.

This is a beautiful world
And this life is a thing full of deep feelings
But to see this you need eyes. My eyes, maybe.
I’m afraid many don’t have my eyes. It’s okay.
If you did have my eyes, you would see
That life always passes by when you’re not looking.
Some call me a dreamer. Maybe that’s what I am.
But I see life passing by and I can see all its colours.
Some colours, in fact most, are wildly and exhilaratingly vivid and iridescent.
Others are full of the hues of sunset. Warm, maybe, but ultimately sad.
I’m just thankful for the colours, whatever they are.

Sometimes I feel alone, but not in a lonely or sad way.
Sometimes I feel utterly alone in a devastatingly lonely way.
When I’m happy alone, I just wonder why everyone can’t see what I see
When I’m lonely alone, I wish more than ever that someone would actually see what I see.
Some do see and I am thankful for them.
Those who don’t see, well, it’s not their fault.

Life has a few words.
There is such a word as ‘noble’.
Some things that are always going to be right
No matter who we are or where we find ourselves.
Some words about life mean many different things.
‘Beautiful’ doesn’t always mean that we can see it.
But if we did really wish in our hearts to see,
We would.
Beautiful also means pretty.
Pretty is when I feel good about myself in a noble way
And when I am not thinking only of myself.
Maybe sometimes people are looking at me just like they see life passing by,
Those times when they do see.

Maybe I try to be those things I like.
The colours of life.
Sunrises. Flowers. Rain. Sunsets. Summer sun. Beaches.
The mountains. Snowflakes. The unending sea.
The happy skipping doggies.
It’s simple, really, when I think of it
Sometimes I can capture all of the things I love
In a smile. In the wind in my hair.
I’m very thankful that it’s simple
Because sometimes I know that for many, it is anything but simple.

I remember when I see life passing by.
I can’t forget. Guess that’s just me.
I need to remember the good things
So that I can be them.
Because sometimes I just get the feeling this isn’t a good world,
And we made it that way.
So I try to be part of the good things.
So people can see the good things all the time.
They need to.

So if you’re reading this,
I’ll ask you to remember
If you’ve seen me you’ll never say the world is a bad place
Or that life is only a thing of sorrow
Maybe you will ask where I came from
And maybe you’ll go ask The One from Whom I really came
And when you do, my work here’s done.

"The reign of good comes; I hear its footsteps at our very door!"

How long will we lust after earthly appointments and earthly power?
As the world's largest 'democracy' turns kingmaker,
Why choose we amongst those that are merely men
Whose sway extends but a breath in time?

I am asked to say,
Justice delayed is not justice denied
If an injustice toward our yeoman lies without atonement,
A time comes, I hear its footsteps at our very door,
When atonement will be required of us.

Why does evil prosper forever?
Yea, not forever, I am asked to say,
The reign of good comes; I hear its footsteps at our very door
For the evil man, it comes inexorable, unending and unendurable
Unanswerable, a crushing weight, a fatal wound with no remedy
Yea, the reign of good comes; I hear its footsteps at our very door.

I see a bloody cross
A symbol of foolishness and weakness this day
Yet I see it - a blazing unquenchable fire that consumes all
Today we nail One to that cross and think, here is an end of it
But in the day that comes, I hear its footsteps at our very door, 
Trapped without escape we will be, every last one
Unless refuge we find under the wings of that very Cross, today

Do not worry about the cause of justice, goodness and love
Today weak, desolate and friendless
Their Embodiment does not slumber, nor sleep in stupor
The Timekeeper stands alert, if merely silent
For the appointed day
You asked for justice, goodness and love
And finding none defended, denied the Timekeeper
When the reign of good comes, I hear its footsteps at our very door,
It will last till all evil is purged forever from all memory

Even now I hear trumpets. I see seals opened
That had been shut for eons
Like a nuclear station where the alarm ceaselessly blares
When all hope is gone
All around me every thing hisses, get out of here while you can
We can cover you no more
The reign of good comes, I hear its footsteps at our very door
Inside me is calm without a ripple, for I am now good
Because I have been washed clean by Divine Blood
A pristine cleanliness in a restless corrupted sea

Look up, not down
Look up - the sky itself speaks;
Now look around - the nations speak too
Mighty rivers even now dwindle into children's brooks
Petty kings today, gone forever tomorrow
Precious black flow,
Even now it keeps the wheels turning
But while the nations bustle about,
It dries imperceptibly
The reign of good comes, I hear its footsteps at our very door
When no one cares for the precious black flow anymore

And of that Sacred Mount,
That City of God,
That chosen race of God
Take careful heed today
The reign of good comes, I hear its footsteps at our very door
Those ancient gates fling open
Glorious, for The One to Whom His people gather
There will be no more rubble or smoking grave pits
The Sacred Mount will be exalted above all the mountains
To it will all earth's people stream
From it will flow life-giving streams
That heal the earth

The reign of good comes, I hear its footsteps at our very door
When the earth's riches will be replenished and free
And no one complain of want
Good will reign, justice will be crowned
Love will be the imperishable jewel
The Rightful King rules in righteousness and justice
There will be no usurper, no snake at His heel
No intrigues, no desolations
The earth will be full of the Glory of its Rightful King
Righteousness like a never-failing stream,
Justice a river flowing forever
Rain in its season and fruit in abundance
Every man under his own vine and fig tree

But lo! Twixt this day and that
Evil bursts forth!
The Warrior King even now prepares His holy right arm
Which brings Him victory
And the evildoers sit at tables
Speaking untruths to each other with grave countenance
The chosen race we will destroy, they say
Conspirators band together, masters of intrigue
Those that speak of destroying entire peoples
In the quiet of power's tall corridors
Look! War and not peace
Deceit and not truth!
And yet, the reign of good will unfailingly come
I yet hear its footsteps at our very door!

Come, do not tarry;
The trumpets, the trumpets,
Seals you never knew, now opening
The four winds of the earth
This is not the time to build houses
Or treasures on earth
What can be shaken will surely be shaken
So that what is unshakeable can be clearly seen
Come you now to that lonely hill
On which, many eons ago,
You killed One you thought was a mad Carpenter
Come now, there is refuge there, even a fortress
And you will come to no harm
Your soul preserved for when the reign of good comes
I hear its footsteps at our very door!

Life is....

Life is fragile.

'Fragile' is its most descriptive word, I think. The only other word that remotely qualifies is 'elusive'.

Now I speak of earthly life, that is to say, 'creaturely' life, and not Divine Life. The Divine Life is anything but fragile. And yes, the Divine Life is different from our life.

And I use the meaning of the word 'life' as in statements human beings make such as 'life is....' - that is, in a kind of descriptive sense, not definitional. 'Life is a shortbread butter cookie', though most formidably unanswerable, can hardly be definitional, I think, even if expressed by a two-year old.

Life, someone famously said, is what happens when you're not looking. I might say, of the one who said it, 'a famous person once famously said, with insight that I had not thought him capable of'.

Anyways. Somehow I agree. The moment I start trying to 'catch' life or distill it into repeatability, it hides or dies. It happens surreptitiously when no one is looking. And once it happens, it might almost said, it's almost impossible to simulate or repeat, even under conducive conditions, like death can. You can go on killing someone, for example, when the circumstances are favourable, such as no resistance, and so on. But you cannot go on creating life. Once life dies, it cannot be resurrected.

Now I must say again, I speak not of the Divine Life, nor of the Divine Life in some of us. I speak of the stuff of earthly life, creaturely life, in a descriptive sense.

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

Will I ever be able to play the piano quite like I did, on a specific occasion? Will I always be able to find the words for each successive situation, as I did for a specific one? Will I always be able to express myself with the scalpel-sharp precision and blessed economy of words as I once did?

Will she always look at me like she once did? Will I always have the 'absolutely right' friend to be with me as my circumstances need as I once did?

Will there again be an hour before sunset as magical as yesterday's? Will my favourite mountain always look the same? Will the clouds be as magical tomorrow? Will the light catch my garden as magically as it did that day? Will the rain be as absolutely delightful and opportune on another day as it was on that day?

Will my two year-old always look as loveable as when she was two? Will my teenager ever ask a question with the same maddeningly bewitching innocence as he did once?

Will this life be as enjoyable if I had it again? (a big 'if', as it usually turns out)

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

Yes, it is like catching a soap bubble to weigh it on a scale. Like a mad scientist who once weighed a man just before and after he died and concluded that the human soul weighs 21 grams.

Life is unique, unrepeatable, unpredictable, and uncontrollable. It will have its way.

You can alter it perhaps, but you can't have it again. Opportunities for adjustment are not infinite, nor will they be available forever.

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

There is one thing we can do, however. We can NOTICE. And once we do, we can enjoy it. Life may be a moment, but what a tragedy if we fail to notice.

Since it is what happens when we're not looking, let's make our looking count.

This could just mean taking a half hour to walk in a garden between 4:45 P.M and 5:15 P.M on a day when it rained in the afternoon and then the sun came out. There were still dull-grey clouds in the sky, but every one of them had a silver lining and the dappled sunlight touched every single green leaf. You missed it today? Okay, you tell yourself, I'll see it tomorrow. And then..... it rained all day for years after that and the sun never came out.

It could mean spending an hour with a two year-old without trying to change him in any way. Letting yourself be and letting him be. So what if he wrecked the house? So what if he put the ice cream into the chicken broth and insisted on drinking it? And what if, in the middle of all of that, he called your name just once, plaintively, melting your resistance? Yes, there is tomorrow. But this happened today, and you didn't notice? What a horrid little lifeless creature you must be!

It could mean catching a ratchetty 85 year-old in a particularly reflective and chatty mood. You thought she had just gone senile, didn't you? What if the time you spent with her helped her stay in a good mood for many days afterwards? Yes, there is always tomorrow, but why are you counting on it when you know better? How many tomorrows anyway?

It could mean making paper planes in the office for ten minutes. It's a scientific thing, you know. It's not easy to make those turning planes turn. Yes, there is tomorrow, but what if there's no more paper, or no more time?

It might mean that I visit Kilimanjaro before I die, for example. Or Jerusalem.

The stuff that life is made of - all of it, comes with an enjoy-before date. And you can never know or change that date to suit yourself. If you missed it you missed it and you can only hope you make it before the enjoy-before date, while there's still time.

It amazes me how much time I've spent trying to make people 'see'. In the words I use. In the pictures I paint. In the photos I take. In notes I play. I've not always been successful. Part of that is because I am a farcical bungler and a bad workman, but an equal part of that is because people are as obstinate as mules, blind as bats, short-sighted as tyrants, jaundiced as prejudice and bigotry, unforgiving as granite, or just plain unwilling to stop and notice life.

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

There's another type of person, who wants to CONTROL life. This kind of person wants to capture it, cage it, auto-play to someone else so he can gain from it and extort the price of enjoyment from another.

This kind of person also wants to see how much life can be squeezed out of every situation, every resource, every person, every enjoyable thing, every pleasure.

This kind of person gets drunk on repeatability and return on investment.

This kind of person will just never understand that life is free, that it can be given away but never hoarded, profiteered from, captured, bought, sold, monopolized, patented, branded, and so on and so on .........

It never occurs to such persons that life cannot be captured. It will not be caged. You don't create life; you just enjoy it. And a huge, huge part of that enjoyment comes from helping others enjoy it too. There can never be any "net" life. All of it either gets noticed and enjoyed (and so used up), or a good part of it is wasted. No one sees and no one knows it, so no one can enjoy it. It can never be created again, at least not by human beings.

Do you find yourself spending all your waking hours doing math, even perhaps for a living? Being fascinated by constructs and contrivances (read as technology)? Solving problems? Casting a leering eye on any hoard-able, profitable thing (including people)? Measuring everything? Trying to put 'life' on screen in a 'reality show'? A shameless opportunist? Caged by your own desires for yourself?

THAT. THAT is what the famous someone meant when he said life is that which happens when you're not looking. Life WILL pass you by, because it is fragile. Perishable. You cannot HANDLE it and make it malleable like a tangible thing. You cannot measure it or engineer it to happen again.

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If we would come to our senses, we would treat life tenderly, because it is so fragile. It is seriously hampered by short-sighted people, and disappears altogether among empiricists. We would stop trying to 'make it pay' and 'valuate' it to justify its existence. Our touch on the world would be a divine touch, an imprint so soft and beautiful that we would indeed leave this world a better place.

I've met far too many whose touch on life is crushing, a weight it cannot bear.

Go gentle.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.