Where is 'Common’s wealth’ going? Rubbish! More importantly, Where are we commonly going?

Indians, games and the disease of procrastinating….

As am scribbling this down, the most awaited event for India is just a ‘September’ away. The capital, meanwhile, combats against the tag team of scams, deadlines, star-back outs, potholes, seeping out ceilings, foreign sport bodies, media vilification, and opposition charges. But hey no-this isn’t an article which will harp on about cliched topics like “Why London is ready and Delhi is not?” or something like “Boycotting games!” All these can be elaborated fastidiously by our eminent Indian writers at the helm of Indian paper media. This article touches ‘macro-intricacies’. I strongly feel India, as a country, needs a holistic political revamp. This will usher new blood in the system and jettison the lax dispensation. The slack event handling is one thing, slack system is another. This ‘disease’ is contagious, and yes-it is definitely not new-fangled! The games plight is a mere micro sample of national predicament. For years, we have been culprit of this sluggish attitude-not only as a nation, but as an individual. Accept it or not-we (and yes me too) are suffering from an Indian disease of procrastination. We love to put off everything from snoozing an alarm to holding CWG. Moreover, we, startlingly, swank it.” Hey, I studied for 2 days and pulled off 75%. Howzzat? Observed my dexterousness? “. It insinuates hollow claim of managing a task that could have been made immaculate. The games, am sure, will be thrown in oblivion a fortnight after media gets a brand new spiced up stuff. Delhi CWG will be hailed as an achievement of Indian sports. Everything else will be subdued. The disease of procrastination, meanwhile, will be passed on in new veins.

We are born fearless, but gradually shun the virtue

The idea of this post was planted in my mind around two-three years ago when I was watching a show on ' Discovery' .The show did a demonstration about how infants understand the 'fear' of depth. To start with, they made an infant crawl on a glass floor with half surface over plain area and the other half over a deep area. The glass created a mirage as if the half line of glass surface was really an edge and as if you would fall tripping the half. Initially, the little infant crawled all over the surface, without understanding the meaning of depth and what it entails. He walked with the same speed on both halves. Then, the scientists threw objects down the deep half by removing the lid. They made sure the baby observed it and re-covered the lid. Gradually , baby started to understand what the depth factor can lead it. In a week or so(don't remember the time), the infant stopped on reaching the half line and preferred not to crawl on other half!!!

So, what my point is that the fear of depth was injected in baby. Naturally, he was born to face the world fearlessly. That's what we learn in life-to not confront fear , rather evade it!!

Isn’t Ambition same as greed??

 ‘Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.’ A line of thought that did rounds in 2011 centered around the death of iconic Steve Jobs. Quite a fillip for the ambitious crowd! But another line of thought, a rather spiritual one, has always focussed on contentment. To stay satisfied with what you have and bask in its happiness. As I write now, the fine line that separates ambition and contentment remains the perplexing issue.

If being content is suppressing ambition, not wanting more-then contentment is futile. And if contentment is mere suppression of greed, the question that arises is- how are the two entities AMBITIOUS and GREEDY different. Just that the former is seen in good light and the latter is an evil cousin? Or that being ambitious is having bigger aims and having greed is having bigger fantasies? I see no difference. The literal sense only obfuscates the issue. Both are quite synonymous with their intents- attaining A GOAL.


So, What one  should be? Content? Ambitious?For me, one can’t be both content and ambitious at once. If you are content with the present scenario, you will never be that hungry (read: ambitious) for your future goals. As the whole world propagates to strike a balance between the two, I am skeptic if such a state exists.

Its a tough call to pick one. Its infeasible to pick both.
Dilemma remains.

My 'Click' Theory

You can't probably give the whole credit of this philosophical derivation to me, but am sure that i have thought of this as one of the most important word in a person's life-CLICK!!

Perplexed ? I'll analyze that. Lets not make this start as a philosophy lecture. I'll kick off with a real-life example. Recently I watched a Soccer match involving Spain and Switzerland. Spain, Euro Cup winner, star studded squad was up against 24th rank not-so-mighty Swiss. Match started, as expected-Spain looked dangerous, hardly giving the ball to opposition. First half read 0-0 with Spain kept hungry for debut goal in Africa. The match turned on its head in 52', when Fernandes of Swiss sneaked a goal , taking 1-0, sadly for Spain they never equalized.Vicente del Bosque's team predictably dominated possession but were hit on the break seven minutes into the second half as the Swiss recorded a first win over Spain in 19 attempts.Neither the veteran Villa, nor Torres clicked but a 23-year old boy from St.Etienne did click-and now he has a story to tell his grandchildren 50 years later! A look at table below says it all:

left column stats--spain

right column stats-swiss

Match Stats

Spain

Switzerland

25(5)	Shots (on Goal)	9(2)
9	Fouls	19
12	Corner Kicks	3
2	Offsides	1
74%	Time of Possession	26%
0	Yellow Cards	4
0	Red Cards	0
1	Saves	5

So, what i want to say is simple: Though Spain worked hard, they never clicked!!On the other hand, Swiss clicked when it mattered, on a world cup day, against the champs. They rose to the occasion and delivered!!

I can relate to this theory too. I always finished in the top three in my class all my life till 11th standard. The big stage was ready. the 12th and entrance exams mattered. What was needed was a click from me and couldn't click:(. Many colleagues of mine, who clicked at the right time-got better colleges.In short, all my 11 years of invincibility was drained by a single flaw...

Over the years following this failure, i realized about this click theory-it doesn't matter whether you click or not all life, you got to click when the moment arrives!

In Cricket, my favorite game, what separates the good batsmen from the great ones is that great batsmen always deliver when their team needs them!

Simplicity

Sometimes after finishing a task, I sit back and ruminate how the process got so abstruse and mingled.Perhaps, it had a straight path and I ended up following a meandering one! Sometimes, while writing, I focus on adornment so much that the message remains unsent.Sometimes, too many thoughts try to outwit each other.All you need to know while walking your path is one thing-Destination. And the rest , I feel, falls in place. Take Sachin Tendulkar- the biggest living legend in India.He has nearly all the records in the book.But what he does is actually very simple-He pads up daily, walks to the field and gives his best.The rest falls in place. How we live is also too 'complexed'.We bear grudges, feign emotions, giggle because the adjacent person is doing so.Actually, we forget that we can be natural and live with an identity that is unique. Perhaps, the rest will fall in place.

May be, what i perceived is wrong. May be, am partially true.May be, am just literally impressive.Or may be, none of these. But I have had an epiphany-that magical 'Simplicity' is the solution to this convoluted life.

Circle theory

It is a thing I have always believed in, but thought of penning it down now. The analogy is something I can take credit of ;)

It is a common realization that once you get over things, they seem smaller than they did. I always thought of this as an analogy with circles. Here is what it is :

 Assume life to be a circle of  infinite radius. When we are in a problem, we are actually inside another circle enclosed within the big life circle. Lets call it : PROBLEM CIRCLE But since we are inside the problem circle, we don't know its radius. We assume it to be a big circle oblivious of its size. We get scared while confronting the problem. When we get over the problem, we move out of that circle and realize that it was a circle of nanometer radius, almost negligible compared to LIFE CIRCLE. Thus, we realize actual weight of the problem when we go out of it..

For example, tenth boards seemed herculean that time. But looking back, we know it wasn't worth the nerves.

The circles of problems are disguising thus. Small when we're out of them and  big when we're stuck.

That ‘Enigmatic Night Factor', with knobs on!!

Don’t know if that happens to you too. Every night i sleep pledging that i won’t screw tomorrow's day like I did today but somehow i feel that pledge gets saved in a RAM like volatile memory, as it effaces away with the dawn. That’s what i refer as ‘Enigmatic Night Factor’- every night it makes you feel like a ‘stereotype Indian neta’, who toys with pledges and promises more than any living body(at least that’s what their image is!)
Wait….There’s more to it than what meets the eye. It’s not just a factor that creeps in and persuades you to take pledges. If it had been that simple, i wouldn’t have called it enigmatic! If you don’t screw a day, a rare but possible scenario in my case, then this factor still comes to haunt you-this time masked as complacency. You keep thinking “ hey! that was a nice day for me, I did it, blah, blah…” and somehow you activate your ‘complacency hormones’ ( i didn’t say i am a biological personnel, i can use that term:p:p)…So, are here with a ‘Jekyll-and-Hyde’ factor, as you never know what it’s up to….but you know one thing for sure …it’s here for your undoing!
That’s why i call it ‘ The Enigmatic Night Factor, with knobs on”…