Influences

We should never stop learning from our influences; but at the same time it is important not to obsess about our imperfections and gaps in our education but live life as is. It is always a balance. And complexity is at the root of it.


As a child, I took those age-old maxims (necessity is the mother of invention, a friend in need is a friend indeed, do to others what you would do unto yourself, etc.) to heart and I believed firmly in the goodness of my child friends and adults around me to do the same. Numerous instances of heartbreak and trust exploitation notwithstanding, it was, and is, in my personality to continue to believe in their fundamental, universal applicability. As I was growing up, I tried to draw strength from whichever maxim struck me as apt for a particular situation.

At the ripe age of 27,  three realizations dawned on me: that there were too many maxims to fit into any coherent way of life, there were many maxims that conflict with each other (e.g. my mom advising me to pay attention to my Ph.D and stop helping my sick roommate the extra bit), and almost all maxims leave it to the implementer to interpret the degree and magnitude of their import (e.g. how much to help a friend? What if he asks for all your savings in his need?). Enough was enough, for it was a confusing life being led astray by whatever past moralities struck one's fancy at different times. Some wise, spiritual texts then revealed to me that there lies a few uber-maxims that are antecedents to most others, and what's more it was simpler and at the same time more practical to be guided by these spiritual ones. And so, my mad rush through life, led helter and skelter by all lights that shine, has turned into a walking race now, with occasional detours, but nevertheless broadly sticking to the lit, visible course.

Soon, I hope, I would remember to rest, to start with in spurts between spells of walking, and then eventually, at the finish.

Prominence in society

A prominent position in society demands a perfection in personality and a price that few people are prepared for. An insecurity here, a little bit of ego there can cast aspersions on the noblest of intentions. With a level of scrutiny that growing up in a stable milieu can hardly provide testing grounds for, mountains are easily made from mole hills, actions and words taken out of context and blown out of proportions, often coloured with the careers of journalists, the pronouncements of society that is only too happy to think as a crowd for the crowd in the eternal quest for patting itself on the back, and the eye of the individual narrowed under the weight of past baggage.

I recently read the story of an American couple who discontinued graduate studies in established universities and continued them on the wildest of terrains in sub-Saharan Africa. I can only guess as to what meaning of life and what lofty goals they set ought to discover and achieve. Right there, in the beginning of that story itself was a parallel, though loose, between their lives and the life of the Grizzly Man, made famous by Werner Herzog, though I would, with much less hesitancy, brand Timothy Treadwell a conscious lunatic.

To quite literally cut the long story short (the article meandered in great detail in the New Yorker for pages and pages seemingly detailing every single interesting conversation that ever happened), the couple started off with the noble intentions of studying wildlife in their natural habitats, found themselves at the centre of a poaching epidemic, discovered they had the means for a local solution to the problem, dedicated the following years to implementing the local solution, and at some point the determination to rid the locality of the epidemic overtook their personal lives and, if some accounts are to be believed, morals even, only for governments, society and the media to begin indeterminate investigations into their foibles and recast their whole lives in new frameworks that sought to be consistent with their perceived, glaring faux pas.

"To bear a ring of power is to be alone" goes the immortal line from Gandalf.

To bring on the burden of the ring while still discovering oneself makes the said burden much more difficult to bear and lo and behold! there's a stumble. Such stumbles are indeed necessary as opportunities to learn about ourselves, but society is far less forgiving than we are of ourselves. I would much rather we develop first and then set out in society to help others. I take heart at the pearls of wisdom from people immeasurably wiser than me.

“All men seek peace first of all with themselves. That is necessary, because we do not naturally find rest even in our own being. We have to learn to commune with ourselves before we can communicate with other men and with God. A man who is not at peace with himself necessarily projects his interior fighting into the society of those he lives with, and spreads a contagion of conflict all around him. Even when he tries to do good to others his efforts are hopeless, since he does not know how to do good to himself. In moments of wildest idealism he may take it into his head to make other people happy: and in doing so he will overwhelm them with his own unhappiness. He seeks to find himself somehow in the work of making others happy. Therefore he throws himself into the work. As a result he gets out of the work all that he put into it: his own confusion, his own disintegration, his own unhappiness." - from No Man is an Island, Thomas Merton.

Life's beacons

Our lives need guiding forces to set us on a path and make sure on a periodic basis that we are on it. There cannot be too many forces lest we spend more time being led astray on many paths at different times. The paths themselves cannot terminate somewhere close by else we would reach in quick time and need to find new forces and paths next. By corollary, the forces cannot be materialistic in spirit nor can they be transitory or a fad of the times.

Life's beacons are both tactical and strategic simultaneously. Their strategic property arises from the fact that they would be the necessary and sufficient answers by themselves when we ask ourselves at the end of our time the quintessential question "Have I led a meaningful life?" They are simultaneously tactical since we can and should take day-to-day decisions with a view to staying on the path lit by these beacons.
My life's beacons are family security and spiritual growth.

Family security includes the physical, mental and financial aspects of security where physical security encompasses the basic needs of shelter, food and clothing, mental security encompasses education, a safe, secure home for children and adults alike, living with and serving the elders in the family, and financial security is limited to the money required to lead the life as guided by these beacons and nothing more.

Spiritual growth comprises of both physical conditioning and mental conditioning. Daily leisure time and yoga are I feel enough to ensure physical conditioning. In particular, adventure and competitive sports are neither required nor recommended due to their effects on mental conditioning, though leisure could very well be achieved with a game of tennis or a hike in the park.

I consider mental conditioning towards spiritual growth as the most challenging feature of my life's beacons. It demands daily leisure time, an openness to appreciating new experiences, striving for knowledge at all times, and a calm, ego-limited, balanced mind.

Examined using these guiding lights, I can see immediately that experiences of the arts - be it music, movies, theatre, paintings, photography - are all necessary though not sufficient exercises in expanding my vista. The same is true for travel to new places and hiking in areas of natural beauty. At the same time, I can also see that activities like tennis and chess, intellectual discussions with friends, and photography are, beyond a certain level of involvement and obedient following, not required for my life to be meaningful.