One

...I am the stranger I know best...

Connection Was Temporarily Reset... Do You Want To Reconnect ?...

Feeling momentarily disconnected from myself... It makes me feel so.. unconnected.. free... suspended... and I am suddenly brought back to "reality"... But it is this "coming back" that is interesting... for the blankness that comes before it is.. well.. blank.. and can't be felt.. or re-imagined.. or duplicated... except the next time it really happens... This "coming back"... I suddenly "remember" that I "am" this "person"... It's like.. suddenly remembering something I have to do.. which is to "enact" being "me"... Like it's something I promised someone that I would do.. An obligation.. That slipped from mind and now sends me scurrying back on the path as soon as it is remembered.. The interesting thing is.. I feel like I have to"be" me..."be" being SUCH a VERB here... And that, so, I am something other than "me" too... And another thing is the nagging feeling that I should "remember" all the details of my life, my past and upto my present situation where I drifted off from and carry it forward with full awareness of all that data ( some sort of memory refresh and reload..)... Not a nagging feeling... but a jolt.. and this is the thought that I think when I wake up from those ever so short "disconnections"...

I love that disconnection.. Love it. Deeply. I have, sort of, felt those before.. perhaps as just "disconnections". No.. Not that way.. That word never featured.. But those "thoughts" mentioned here weren't there... It was more of a Who/what/where am I ?"... "Whats all this ?... This present moment ?..." Or something like that.. A sort of "Is this serious ? Are you taking this seriously ? Oh, this is being alive ?" kind of feeling... Thats the closest it can get to words.

The disconnections these days are deeper.. Of course, to my liking... Why do I like them ?... Because they let me forget myself..

This was written years ago...

Life Is Beautiful...

Yes. Life is beautiful... Not in the way things are usually beautiful... This is not about the pleasant, endearing connotation of beauty... Life is beautiful for Its greyness and blackness... An infinitely deep and beckoning vortex... Shades of black and shades of grey... And silver gleaming knives... They do not draw blood... There is no blood... They just go through you... You know Its gonna get you... Time and again... And each time feels so new... Inspires awe... Sheer awe and wonder... It never fails to get you... This is sheer beauty.

The Fox Theory

An old story goes something like this... A Fox was walking through the forest.. He saw a Bunch of Grapes hanging above. The Fox wanted the Grapes. He tried to reach for it. He did not get it. He tried again. It remained out of reach. He gave up. Then, as is commonly alleged, he said : "Those Grapes were probably sour anyway."

This comment has been distorted and seriously misinterpreted for millenia.

There was nothing wrong with wanting the Grapes. And he tried earnestly to get what he wanted. However, he did not succeed. Not his fault. He tried again. That is what we are all supposed to do if we don't get what we want at the first attempt, right ? So this Fox is not the kind of fox, who gives up easily... Later, he gave up. Clearly, the Fox realised that he would not get the Grapes (at least by continuing with the present methods employed). It was a fact. He accepted it. He did not keep jumping up and down like a moron. He knew precisely when to quit. And he did. Then comes the comment.. This is where the crux of the issue lies.

Isn't it possible, that all he was trying to do, was to be a little optimistic ??? To look at the bright side ???

Isn't it possible, that his sixth sense had warned him that there was something wrong with the Grapes ???

Isn't it possible, that as a Believer in the Flow of the Universe, the fox felt that the Grapes had been denied to him for his own good ???

But nobody gave the poor guy his due. Nobody could stand the fact that here was a Fox who knew how to cope with the disappointment of not getting what he wanted. They rejoiced when he did not get the grapes, yet they were disappointed when he refused to be devastated by the Loss of the Grapes. If he had fallen down weeping, pining for the grapes, the world would have been happy.. But no.. He did not. He couldn't care less. And man, they just couldn't bear this optimistic Fox...Well...

The Fox went his way.

The Giraffe Aspect

Minutes later, a Giraffe walked by.

The Giraffe saw the Grapes.

He reached for it.

He got it.

He ate it.

He died.

The End.

Silent Shifting Breeze...

There is something about the inertia to blog again after a longish break that reminds me of something but I am not quite sure what... That is quite as good. Cuz for a long time all my analogies were about food. Then it was misunderstood concepts in electronics. The latter often did serious damage to any listener who had his or her concepts intact up till that moment. Well...

What are the things that have remained the same since the last post ? Hmmm.

I still love mountains.
Very Much.

No point in describing why I like them. Or how much. Or which my favourite ones are. Or where. I haven't seen them yet, my favourite ones. Or what they mean to me. Lots of things. But I'd better not try to explain. I like thunder and lightning too. Maybe thats easier to explain. Of course, the damage they do is quite another thing. But mountains don't do any harm do they ?

The crystal-seller in The Alchemist.. I used to think what's wrong with this guy.. I understood his problem kinda, but I thought his reasons insufficient. Well... Of late, I think its growing on me too..

The mountains can wait...

The Basic Idea...

Hmmm...

Someone said the blog screams of inactivity. Its very simple. It is precisely when I am inactive that I do end up blogging. Like now, for example... So it screams of inactivity... When I am active, I am obviously busy being active so I do not blog. Or I might be involved in activities that have consequences that force me to be inactive for a while. Like.. ah, forget it.. Then I would not be in a position to blog. So sometimes when I blog it might be because I am inactive but the converse cannot always be true... Wait... what did I just say ?... Ah well...

Wait... Blogging is an activity of sorts... How can a blog, then, be inactive ? Ah yes.. If there has not been any blogging going on, then, and only then, would the blog scream of inactivity... But wait... Screaming too is a form of activity... So if the blog is screaming, whatever it might be screaming, "inactivity" is the last word that should be used in the context or anywhere remotely near it... So... wait... Nah.. Leave it... The blog will soon start screaming if I pursue this any further... Or maybe the screams have died down already... Ah...

See, what happened was this... I was on a train. It was a hot day. But I was drinking hot tea. My mind was moving in a direction approximately opposite to that in which the train was moving... I was confused. I was also listening to confusing ghazals... Cliched Kerala scenery outside. Nice. Somehow felt comfortable in my skin... It happens, those odd moments when things seem to fit in more than usual, even without there being any real changes in the way things are... So what was the point behind saying all this ? Well, whatever it was the purpose must have been served. A good thing to believe... Always.

Supposed Sense Beneath Chaos

Hmm. There is nothing to say. Actually, there never is anything to say. But people keep saying things. All the time. And then suddenly one feels there is nothing to say. As if there really ever was anything to say at any point. There never is. But things seem one way or the other. And we proceed based on these seeming thoughts. Maybe sometimes we know that all this is bogus. But what else ? What else is there to do ? There is nothing to be done. There is nothing to be had. There is nothing in anything. There is nothing. But then there are thoughts. Thoughts. That never stop.

And it keeps me awake
My mind
Gives me no rest
Up and searching again
It has not forgotten
Time and again
Stirs up this unrest
Wish it wouldn't ask
Those questions
Again
Those for which I have no answer
But presently it will
I know

Something feels wrong here
One missing thing
One basic mistake
That's bringing everything down

My mind goes round and round
On the same tracks
Cutting deeper grooves
Slicing deeper

There it goes again
Hopeless
Senseless
These repetitive games
The same old thoughts
Time and again

Desperate to exit this orbit
If only to go spinning off into the unknown....

To cease this tugging at my insides
And break this wall of flesh and blood
And let the nothingness escape
Back to where it came from
Where it belongs

And all that one can do is watch
In those rare moments of numbed calm
And when one watches everything, watches Life
Its like standing with dropped head, eyes gazing straight ahead
Mind calm... oh so calm...
At the edge of a great desert
The breeze blows the dust into swirls
And breathes through your hair
A gentle whiff
The flat dry expanse ahead

Is neutrality really negative ?
Why should emptiness ache ?
Peace isn't essentially pleasant

Question the fundamentals
It removes the ground from beneath your feet
That beautiful floating feeling

And then there is only One
One
Everything boils down to this One
One point
One exact infinite continuous blob of precision
Nothing else matters
Nothing at all matters

How could I ever lose this ?
How could I ever move away from this ?
But I do
I keep doing

Getting lost within getting lost...