He is still standing

Note : 
1. This post is to explain the reason behind writing the topic              "My New Friend"
2. This post is dry and boring . So please bear with it.    Thanks for your time.

He is still standing. His gesture is imperceptible, unobservable, uncountable but he is standing with a clarity of thought . He is having a train of thoughts running on the tracks of tough-truths passing through the stations of Uncertainty and Expectations to reach the destination of Self-actualization. He is standing in an isolated corner of a crowded gathering. He is not alone but feeling lonely. Its not because of Failure or Depression. It is because of his consciousness that compulsions, obligations and circumstances keep him busy in executing his Brain's threads. He is neither complaining nor blaming. He is still standing. He is just looking around for that supportive shoulder, for a few seconds at least , to lean on and sigh, if not ventilate. He wants to move to take the happiness he finds in those small events and incidents , which may seem insignificant to others, but he cannot move.

He is still standing. He is just thinking about the race of rainbow he had dreamed. He started off it very well and indeed he was one of the front runners. He might not had the assurance of success then but he has got the right means and tracks to explore the potentiality, possibility and probability of worldly Success. But, suddenly he stopped running the race in between, for the reason, which is known only to him. He is just standing beside the race tracks. He is being surpassed and humiliated by everyone and within no time he realised that he is seeing them at the horizon. Then started the brickbats from the social pressure. But, he is still standing. His legs are asking him, daily, to take the run. He is dumb to the questions of his legs. He is still standing witnessing the sunrises and sunsets , daily, with a hope of a tiny slice of rainbow at least. The success obsessed society started the blame game with more intensity and it was quite obvious. He is listening to them but he is still standing in searching of the options to bear the humiliation and insult . He knows the reasons very well for his standing . He is helpless. How come he can answer to society's rational, logical , genuine and concerned questions where he is unable to answer his own legs. He has to be silent bearing all the mounted pressure on his shoulders and without complaining because of the fact that one cannot ask others to show care, concern, affection and love. They should blossom, unplanned. Emotional feelings are not verbs to manipulate but they are adjectives to erupt naturally. He stopped expecting care, concern, affection and love from others long back and he is searching desperately and deliberately for those 4 things within him, bearing the bags of unheard feelings and emotions, because he hates animated and wooden expressions of concern and care.

He still stands there. He even cannot respond to some genuine responses from others and in return he has to bear their ego lashes. His list of tags kept on growing. He is still silent and emotionless though his heart says that, " I am saturated, enough, i just cant hold this volcano of emotions. I need a channel to flush them out". He is still standing. His heart questioned him , " Why do u suffer so much for the things u were not responsible consciously ". Then his emotional and psychological vibrations gave his heart the answer that he has got a rational reason for why he is standing there. His heart and legs are supporting him by saying that they are ready to fight against everything except for the reason he has said. He is not bothered about the image but the way he is standing. He knows very well that his contenders are he and himself. He is competing with himself but certain things should happen at the right time. He wants to evolve to the maximum. He wants to broaden his wavelength of perception. He hasn't still got the command on Wisdom, but he still craves for realisation. It is not that he is sad but he is not happy , in spite of pleasures and comforts. Anyways, he is still standing, not for sympathy, but for solution.

Now, he has to run a race meant for someone else where neither his legs nor his heart are interested but his stomach is. May be its a matter of self respect as a human being that is making him to prepare for the new race. He has got only one feel good factor that at least he knows what is happening with and within him. Sometimes he feels that he is abandoned and dejected but the issue is so complex and obscure that even the best perceptions and empathy may not give their compassion to him. He has been offered many promises and assurances by many persons that they are ready to catch him if he falls. But they remained just promises of words and few raised the eyebrows instead . Anyways, its all about bearing the pain without showing and complaining, and, he is habituated to that. May be this is a part of evolution of life. He is learning to adopt and adapt to the new race with a pinch of new perceptions and flavours. But, in search of a shoulder......... he is still standing.

There is No One Best Way

" There is No One Best way "...... I follow this quote quite religiously with conscience and rationality. You can find this quote on many of my books i read. Recently, I did realise it in a more deeper and broader way, after coming across Ravindranath Tagore's writings. What I understood from Tagore is that,...... only the ignorant try to imitate the behaviour of others. Intelligent people do not waste their time on that, they develop their personal abilities and talents , for they know that no two leaves are alike in a forest of a hundred thousand trees. They know their potential and scope. They try neither to imitate nor to emulate. They just create their own path and carve a niche for themselves. No two journeys are alike on the same path. May be god is also intelligent and seeks diversity in everything he creates. Here I do not want to talk about imitation with respect to careers, jobs, passions, fashions, interests, tastes, orientations, preferences, priorities, perceptions, likes, dislikes as all these are very much related to relativity and subjectivity. Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he doesn't possess.

All these years, I have come across one special type of imitation, where people want to love a girl/boy only because someone else is doing that. They do feel it as a status symbol and think that it brings special recognition among their circles. I do not know whether they do this for the sake of publicity or popularity (There is a difference. Popularity is a social disease). Even we tend to imitate in expressing our love to our dream. I am not saying that it is a mistake. Everyone one of us are in search of our dream girl/boy. Most of the times what happens between a couple is that they love themselves in others. I feel that the beginning of Love is to let those we love be themselves, and do not twist them to fit our own image and parameters. Else, we love only the reflection of ourselves in them. We have to accept them as they are rather than the way we want them to be.

My primary concern is regarding why do people imitate even in the matters of success and failure. Why we are so stereotyped even in responding to success and failure? Why do we draw a sharp and distinctive line between Success and failure? Cant we overlap them as a package ?

My friend Karthik is a fine example for that. There were situations in his life where he could not even cry properly in the malady of depression. He was cornered totally and was feeling utterly low . He had neither a leaf nor a fruit to pluck. But he realised that he has got still one more thing with him that can take him to heights ie, HOPE. He buried the past, which is dead. He embraced crude truths and naked realities. He came to know that Success is a mere Perception and very much relative. He felt that success is not getting over every examination that life keeps throwing at you. However, Success is definitely is in accepting who you are and more importantly following your heart and instincts. Fate conspired to give Karthik one more chance to fulfill his dream. He recognized that the art of living lies not in eliminating but in growing with troubles. He says that dreams do not vanish as long as we do not abandon them. His heart conveys that he is not a victim of a Failure, unless he thinks he is. He lives life believing that glass is half full. Now, karthik talks with me with a smile of wisdom which says that " Beyond academics, life skills also matter ". He did not leave anything to luck, he takes up challenges. Anyways, he has got his key to Success.

Now, you may ask me whether Karthik is a success or a failure. I strongly believe that 'A man who has done his level best is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure'. Karthik is a Success in his intent and a failure by chance. I do call Karthik a success, because he has learnt the "Smile of Wisdom", which cannot be imitated but has to be achieved in every one's own way. We may not have the choice regarding the events that occur in life, but we do have choice in responding to those events. The strange thing you may smell is that why did i write about Imitation, Love, Dreams, Success/Failure and Wisdom in this post. Yeah, I do have a purpose here. I want to share with you guys that " the wisdom lies in not imitating love for someone else dreams to achieve our Success " . It is my key to Success . I am absolutely sure that this key will not work for you guys as I said at the starting of this post that " There is No One Best way... "

My Ride wid Failure

I have seen failure up close, in different shades and flavours, angles and aspects. Of course, I tasted it. I could sense it's odour. In fact, failure was my best friend and it was suppose to become my shadow with conviction and conscience. Failure had eclipsed me in such a way that there have been so many times in the past that I had wanted to walk away from the hitting, the hurting, the haunting, the hunting and the humiliation. Every sunrise seemed like a sunset. Every event turned into hibernation. Every colour looked black. Every bubble became square. Every statement sounded like a biased and prejudiced criticism. It was so intense that even Rahman sir's melody could not cheer me up.

Life, and my own actions, pushed me into such a tight and strange corner from where there was no place to go. Yeah, I was absolutely cornered. After I reached rock-bottom, the only direction for me was up. I am not sure whether it was a compulsive compulsion or determination. May be it was part of survival existence in the process of evolution. So, I stopped blaming bad luck and bad timing for my actions and actually began facing my fears. I complained against myself. Earlier my finger used to point it's direction towards circumstances, situations, obligations and responsibilities, but now it has rotated it's optimistic pointer towards my abilities and opportunities. I told myself some tough truths then which made me to keep going against odds in my life in search of eternal self-actualization, rather than relative numerical success . It wasn't easy handing those moments those days. Introspective self assessment and analysis, without expectations, along with my enthusiastic passions did yield positive results.

Now, I have totally embraced the fragrance of my failure with elegance and dignity which enabled me to taste a new flavour called self-confidence. The definition, flavour and colour of my success have changed now. The new success has nothing to do with other's opinions, acknowledgment and perceptions. I can hold the sustainable happiness with open arms. I can see brightness and life even in a dry leaf with contentment. May be we need, at least, one opportunity to face the intense, tough, naked truths at high temperatures so that we can mould ourselves to evolve better in tasting the failures. Now, I am enjoying the committed journey in tasting new flavours and sensing new aromatic fragrances. But, still, Failure is one of my best friends for influencing me with it's tough truths and naked fragrances.

Anyways, have you got your tough truths??

Cheers,
Karthik.