Sunday, August 31, 2014

The Survival Guide For Young Lovers- Why Relationships Fail


Hey fellas! I've been writing about love for a while now. I've written about being friendzoned, being rejected, being alone, and getting over the problems that people falling in love face. But the issues of love don't just end with a happy ever after tag. Believe it or not, no matter how hurt or traumatised your unreciprocated love might have left you, it is the committed ones who actually get the raw end of the side-effects of love.

Relationships is the word of the day. And this post is being written to tell you why modern-day relationships fail over and over and over and over again. I'll let you in on a little secret. I am very obsessed with grammar and that really irritates people sometimes. So, the fact that I ignored my compulsiveness about grammar when I wrote "over and over" so many times should be enough to emphasise how fragile present-day relationships have become. It is a funny thing really. People who have always been single in their lives die to get into a relationship, but the people who do fall out of them faster than they actually get in.

I won't waste any time. Here are A Few Reasons Why Relationships Fail these days-

  1. Technology- Boys and girls, don't even think that I am declaring you innocent. Modern day relationships are a failure 11 times out of 10, and my maths is perfectly fine. The reason is nobody but us. But yeah, technology plays it's part too. It sabotages our relationships 24/7, and it does it very slowly. How, you ask. Think about it. You spend almost the entire day with your girlfriend/boyfriend or nearly none at all. Pick one, because the intermediate option is either not available or not chosen. Now, when you get committed, you talk for endless hours on the phone, text like 100 times a day, chat like every second on WhatsApp and Facebook. In many cases, your "hubby" has your Facebook ID and password too. All this digital closeness sounds really romantic but seriously frightening. That's how we become these days in a relationship, totally glued into the person we're with. And trust me, even married couples don't spend that much time talking to each other. That amount of closeness with somebody may seem good for a short while, but it is really frustrating in the long run. And it ends relationships. Very effectively.                                                                    
  2. Haste- It takes time to fall in love with someone. It takes even more time to trust someone. My best friend shared her first secret with me 3 years after we'd become friends. That's the advisable pace for developing a healthy friendship, so do your math and you'll realise how much time you need to actually know someone enough to take the big step with them. That is exactly opposite to what we actually do. We fall in love first, leave the trust part for later. Or we just jump at the opportunity and start trusting someone we just met. The results are disastrous, and that's no surprise.                                     
  3. Immaturity- Yes, we are adults. We are capable of deciding our own paths and making our own decisions. But that doesn't mean that we aren't immature and impulsive anymore. We make mistakes and we don't learn from them. That's how we are. And the sooner we realise that we aren't ready to make tall claims about love yet, the less hurt we give and get. Of course, we don't talk about love anymore. We just use the more "mature" word- like. And then we prove our immaturity yet again when we get so worked up about people we just like.                                                                          
  4. I Don't Even Have A Word For This One- Now you'll realise how complicated commitment is. There is a factor that destroys so many relationships, but I don't even know how to put it in words. That reason is our tendency to try and be something that we are not. We try to be a husband or a wife to a person we just met when we get into a relationship. Agree with me or not, this is the truth. We don't care about the responsibilities or the duties or the sheer amount of patience that love demands but we get all possessive and protective and caring about the person we "love". See, I am a believer of love, but the version of love I have seen with almost all of the committed people I ran into in my life, is empty. It is a fake, and no matter how good a fake looks, it can't replace the original.


Life can become a hard place at times, and all of us need companionship. Sometimes in very special ways. But getting into a relationship and actually holding on to it are two different things. I discussed the problem today. In my next post, I'll mention the solutions. In the meantime, stop and think a moment. If you're a committed person, you'll see that your answers are hidden in the very questions this post puts up. If you're single and available, you'll understand why every committed person calls you lucky. That's life buddies. The grass is always greener on the other side.

Friday, August 29, 2014

10 Things About Men You Must Know

Dear girls of my generation. Before I begin, there is one thing that I will clarify. I love most (if not all) of you. You are charming and lovely and simply great to have in life. I say it on behalf of all guys of planet Earth, you simply make our lives beautiful and unpredictable.

Great, so now I've said the good stuff. Now comes the stuff you may not immediately agree with or like. To put it bluntly, you are all very unfair to us. Yes, that's not even a fraction of what the guys put you through, but you must be reminded that you are not always wronged by men. Sometimes it is us who get wronged by you as well. We wrong you by treating you as inferiors, some objects of entertainment, and by humiliating and torturing you. You wrong us by thinking of us all as monsters, whilst most of us are not. And that's something that must be changed.

So, here's 10 Things About Men You Must Know-
  1. Sex Isn't Everything- While it is a fact that men mostly crave for your bodies more than you, it isn't a mathematical rule that applies on everybody. It is more of a statistic that turns out to be correct more often than not. Let me put this straight for you. We want sex, numerous times and from various sources, but sex isn't the only thing on our mind all the time. So try to get over the paranoia and try to see things clearly. You'll find more angels than devils if you look properly.
  2. Our Aggression Isn't Our Reality- Okay, being a girl is a difficult job. The reason is us men. But being a man has it's own downsides too. You can't be too sensitive or people will laugh at you and think of you as a wimp. You can be too insensitive but not everyone's self-conscience allows it. In fact, our seeming insensitivity and aggression is our mask which conceals our true self. A little patience can bring out a very caring, soft core that you would've never imagined by yourselves.
  3. We Can Be Faithful- While you blame us for being unreliable and materialistic lovers, we can actually be quite honest and faithful if we really care. Believe it or not, men turn out to be more reliable friends than women to both the sexes. And in my life, I've seen an equal number of cheating girls as I've seen cheating guys in relationships. Same holds true for the loyal ones.
  4. We Are Misjudged Too- Every time you say "All men are dogs" or "Men will be men", you seal our society's fate of being doomed. It's a psychological fact- if you criticize someone too much, they simply stop caring. In our society, every guy grows up hearing how hopelessly bad and insensitive men are. And thus we become as we are accused, because it doesn't matter anymore. Even if you are good, you'll still be looked upon as bad.
  5. Respect Must Be Mutual- Girls, it is right to stand up for yourselves and your honour. But sometimes you take it too far. Yes, we aren't your superiors, but we aren't your inferiors either. If you fight for your equality, we are there with you. But if you want special treatment and perks, you simply go against the very concept of equality. Don't jump the line, share the run of life with us.
  6. Being Men Isn't Our Fault- Okay, we don't understand your problems. Yes, we don't know what you go through everyday. But how can we, unless you tell us? It isn't our fault that we were born with the X-Y chromosome. If a guy has earned your trust, he deserves to know your problems and your troubles, instead of being whiffed off with a "You won't understand, you're a guy".
  7. We Are Better Than The Worst Of Us- Men who rape and victimize you aren't real men. They might be everywhere, they might exist in every aspect of our society, but they still aren't all of us. Please don't think of all of us as monsters because of the few of us who actually are.
  8. You Need Us Too- No matter how much argument goes on between men and women, they'll always end up together. That's how we were created, that's how we are meant to be. Together. If you just stop despising all of us, our coexistence could get just a little more pleasant.
  9. We're Not The Enemy- The only way to win a war is to know who the enemy is. And we aren't your enemy. Your enemy is a particular and very recognisable mindset that our society lives with. Believe it or not, an independent girl won't come out of a household where the mother treats the boy and the girl separately. You may not know it, but you hold a lot of power in your hands. Learn to use it when time permits.
  10. Boys Do Cry- Well, we aren't as insensitive as we are perceived to be. You, must understand that between our emotions and adrenaline, we get aggressive when we get hurt. Now I don't know how to tackle this, but try to understand us. You'll get less angry at us, and you'll hate us less.
Dear girls, I'll say it again. We love you, and want you to love us too, even though we don't exactly earn it in day-to-day life. The world will be a better place if we only understand each other better. Now there are uncountably many blogs and posts and essays and articles out there that present your perspective. I supplied one that presents ours!

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

The Survival Guide For Young Lovers- 10 Reasons To Never Give Up On Love

Dear readers, if this picture isn't the best possible image that can be used to represent your heart, then you are either from another time or another generation. Establishing a theory as universal is always a dangerous thing. But I dare. And I say this with utmost surety. Each and every person who belongs to our generation has had a heartbreak at least once in life (or is about to have one). And as they say, once bitten twice shy. A broken heart can't be mended. So we just put it back together and lock it away, so that nobody may hurt us again.   
That's how the cycle of love goes. The picture on the right says something that none of us can deny. Whoever wrote these lines did an awesome job. I can't think of any better way to express the message this pic conveys. I can only say that such is the nature of love. Not love, in fact. Love is a very feral and pristine feeling. It's uncontrollable. What varies with our experiences is trust. We put our trust in people time and again. We get betrayal. The next time somebody makes our heart skip a beat, we muster all the strength we can and turn our back at them. We are too afraid to trust again.

And that's how we live these days. Every time some friend of ours gets hurt, we don't hug them and say- "It's okay, dear. You'll find someone better." We say- "I had already told you that he/she was not worth it, but you were too stupid to understand. This world is selfish. You should be too. Be practical and face the truth."

Now the irony of the situation is that this "practical" friend described here will eventually commit the same mistakes that the "stupid" one did. Tried and tested fact. We are all "stupid". But our very nature is to vent out our pent-up frustration is to brag about how bad the world is. Trust me, the world is only as bad as we are.

My point is simple. You'll make many friends in life. Most of them will advise you to not get too involved with anyone and live life "practically" (which translates to selfishly). Don't follow them, because the moment they start falling for someone they'll dump their own principles and become "stupid" like you. We have become a negative race of people because the only thing we spread is negativity. Get out of it, there is a lot better world out there.

So, here are my 10 Reasons To Never Give Up On Love-
  1. You'll Never Be Young Again- While it is true that there is no age for love, but for most of us there is a best age for love. And it is now, at this very moment that is escaping your grasp. It's better to take a risk and regret it than to not take a risk and regret it. And love, my fellows, is the most beautiful risk you could ever take.
  2. We all Need a Companion- Again,a very petty argument is that a girlfriend/boyfriend is companion enough. "We don't need to fall in love for that"- you say. Well, I am sorry to say, but this blog is not for school-going fellas, but for real grown-ups. And while the concept of a fun girlfriend/boyfriend relationship does seem lucrative, that's not the company you'll want when the time comes.
  3. Love Is In The Air- While you are busy being strong and showing your cool nonchalant attitude, hot singles out there are dwindling by the second. If you like someone, now's the time to say it. Before they get booked!
  4. There's Always A Next Time- If you want to know the relevance of this point, I'll suggest you watch the movie 500 Days of Summer. No matter how hard you get hurt in love, you'll always find someone who makes you fall again. And as I humbly pointed out in Reason number one, better today than tomorrow.
  5. Every Wrong Option Is One Step Closer To The Right One- I didn't say this. A scientist named Edison did. When famous people say something, it generally turns out to be true. So don't worry if you got betrayed by someone you loved. You'll make a better decision next time.
  6. Losers Give Up, You Pile Of Shit- Where's your ego, my friend? How could that person get away with what they did to you? They deserve to know that they had a gem that they traded for a lump of coal. Find someone better and teach them a lesson. Besides, you are worth a great person. So if an asshole dumped you, all for the better.
  7. Don't Do To Others What Someone Did To You- Evil is not a tendency, it is a cycle. When somebody does something bad to us, we take revenge. But then we also do bad to others. We try to justify our mistakes by saying that the entire world does it, so why not us. My point, the world will always be evil until an exception springs up. Try to be that exception. You always believed in the idea of kindness, hope and love. So take up the task of actually making others believe in these. Influence people instead of getting influenced by people. You are a person after all, not sheep.
  8. Opportunities Don't Last Forever- There is a fair chance that there is someone out there who is slowly making their way into your heart but is blocked by your over-caution. I don't say that you should rush and give them a chance, but at least give them a fair chance to prove themselves. They won't wait for you forever. As SRK politely told the entire world- "uss haath ko tum thaam lo, wo meherbaan kal ho na ho".
  9. It Feels Good To Be Able To Rely On Someone- If you have someone you can trust, your life becomes infinitely better. I won't say any more, it's a tried and tested formula.
  10. You Believe In Love After All- No matter how much you deny it, you believe in love, and you believe that you will find it. So, drop your mask and live free. Be honest with yourself. The reason why we always end up blaming the world's deceit and lies is that we are not honest ourselves. Let go of the lies, embrace your truth, and see what becomes of life.
To wrap it up, I'll add another miscellaneous reason to keep falling in love. I believe that a broken heart can love much better than a perfect one. It has seen pain, so it knows care. Life is all about choices. Don't try to make perfect choices, try to make good ones.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

The Survival Guide For Young Lovers- Friendzone Revisited


"Why should we continue to be friends with a person we love but who doesn't reciprocate our feelings? After all, you end up getting frustrated every time you see that person with someone else. A friction is bound to develop once you confess. So, I can't agree that friendship should remain. That when you have millions of options available. Just go out and explore, or you'll neglect the potential love of your life trying to exhaust your brain-cells trying to please that one person."

This, dear readers, was a friend of mine commenting about my previous post. My reply- "The easier way isn't the right one, not outside the domain of mathematics."

Guys and girls, I never said that it will be easy to cope up with a situation where you get Friendzoned. The feelings are always pretty messed up, frustration keeps on mounting, everything becomes increasingly difficult. It seems a lot easier to simply run away. There was a time when I was in that situation too. I fell in love with a friend. The feeling wasn't mutual. Trust me, I too decided to give up that friendship and take my own separate path. For days and weeks on end, I kept saying to myself- "She rejected my love, now I'll reject her friendship."

Luckily, I clung on. Today, I am grateful to have that girl in my life as my best friend. American Pie is not the ideal movie series to quote things from, but I will quote a dialogue that fits very well in this situation.

"I'd rather have you in my life as a friend than not have you at all."

Love is a strong feeling. So is the pain of rejection. But parting from a great friend is always more harm than good. Besides, didn't you fall in love in the first place because your friend did his/her job too well? You may not like this analogy very much, but leaving a friend just because you fell in love with them is like firing an employee because they excelled at work.

Anyways, my friend (who has recently renounced lots of her older self to switch towards practicality) put forth quite some arguments that need to be countered.

First of all, why you must continue to be friends with a person you fell in love with. The reason is quite simple- that is the only right thing to do. Your friend was there with you when you needed somebody. They made life happening for you. That is why you fell in love with them. So it would not only be unfair if you left them, it will be stupid as well. Unfair, because it is your duty as a friend to be on their side when they need somebody too. Stupid, because you are pushing off a strong support of your life with your own hands.

Still not convinced? I knew it! So let's move on to argument number two. We end up getting frustrated every time we see our flame with someone else. Dear readers, all arguments aside, this is the primary and most important reason why friendzoned lovers drift apart from their flames. Correction, this is the only reason. This is the one key thing that spoils many kinds of relationships all around the world. Frustration. And this frustration comes out of one very human quality. Possessiveness.

Now, I did mention in my previous post that don't ever get over-possessive about the friend you love. But obviously, it's easy to write out but very difficult to actually pull-off (again, something that I did mention last time). You can't get rid of your possessiveness in a day. It is very hard to do. It takes time, and a few outbursts from the victim of your possessiveness. But given proper time and effort, it does happen.

Again, this is not a very convincing solution. But this is life, friends. One thing leads to another. That's where argument number three comes into the picture. Just go out and explore, or you'll neglect the potential love of your life trying to exhaust your brain-cells trying to please that one person. Now this is an argument that I totally agree with. You must go on with your life and explore the possibilities. That's why I pointed out the need to continue flirting and enjoying after you get friendzoned. I know it isn't easy, but it actually helps. And yes, you must give time to all of your friends and not just the one who swept you off your feet. If you even honestly try to do so, you'll find that your friendzone issue becomes exponentially less frustrating. As I previously said, a good bunch of friends can pull you out of your worst nightmares without even breaking a sweat. To put it in a fancy single line- You can't get possessive about someone unless you subconsciously believe that they possess you. Set yourself free first, and you'll see that it becomes very easy to give proper space and freedom to the one you love. This particular advice will not only help you to cope up with a friendzone issue, but also when you successfully get into a relationship with someone. Yes, possessiveness is an issue for the blissfully committed too.

And yes, a friction is bound to develop once you confess. That's very true. Once you confess for a lost cause in love, a great deal of awkwardness settles in. That awkwardness is a time-based issue, no advice or remedy can clear it out for you. The only chance you have is your understanding with the friend you confessed to, and the passage of time. Rest assured, awkwardness is like fog. No matter how thick it is, summer comes and it vanishes like it never existed.

My friend said that with her experiences and based on what she had seen in other people's lives, being friends after getting friendzoned is not a good idea. Not in her opinion anyway. I don't have any counter-argument or cheeky retort to challenge that opinion. I can just say that, in my opinion, the first sign of maturity is originality. So, I'd suggest that you must not make an opinion about anything based on what you saw in other people's lives. You should learn from their mistakes, yes, but you should always keep room for the crazier alternative. Most people in this world give up too soon. That doesn't mean that giving up is the only way, or the only practical decision. If you think that you can be a little stubborn with life and take the road not taken, you should learn to always give your friendship another chance. After all, in theory at least, love is meant to open the doors instead of closing them.

Monday, August 25, 2014

The Survival Guide For Young Lovers- When You Get Friendzoned

This, dear readers, is the most accurate representation of love as it occurs today. Gone are the days when stupid old Cupid would make a grand (and obvious) entry into our lives. The bow and arrow are old technology, relics of a bygone era. The modern day Cupid is sneaky and tricky. So is love.

Most of us are so fed up with the concept of love that we have long trashed the term and replaced it with "more mature" terminologies like INFATUATION and ADORATION. We are human beings, we have certain needs. If we meet somebody who understands and fulfills them, we might return the favour. 

Okay, maybe that was too extreme. But a living, breathing person said all this to me. More importantly, this is a very popular opinion. I won't justify it or oppose it. All of us have been in and out of love at least once, whether we'd openly say it or not. And that's why we deny its very existence.

But that's not my topic today. I am here to talk about the worldly manifestation of living hell for a person who is in love (I mean, who is greatly infatuated) with someone. I am here to discuss the state of limbo that most of us poor souls are lost in. The horrifying, terror-striking, FRIENDZONE!

Those who haven't been there, consider yourselves lucky (or admit the truth that you're denying). Those like myself, I can only give you my deepest sympathies. 

Most of us have that friend who just sweeps us off our feet without even knowing it. When that person speaks, the rest of the world stops for a moment. When that person laughs, it is your heart that stops. Every thing that you do, everything that you speak or think, includes that one person. But while you think of that person as your only soulmate, he/she isn't even aware of what is actually going on. So, when the calamity strikes, it strikes both of you. That's how the trap works.

It wasn't your fault that you fell in love with your closest friend. But it wasn't their fault either. When your friend did those little special things that he/she never does for anybody in the world, your heart saw all its dreams come true. But your friend had no intention of giving you the wrong signal. As helpless as you were to see hope where none existed, he/she was equally so.

That's all well and good, but the question is- what next? You can't just be friends with someone you love and live with it. Sooner or later you'll get frustrated with such a compromise and an outburst will follow. Or you'll just slowly withdraw yourself from your friend until the whatever remains of your friendship is just a formality. In my opinion, both of these actions are unfair, not only to your friend, but to you too.

What I am going to say now is easy to write but excruciatingly difficult to do. The best way to cope up with the Friendzone is to live with it. You can't fall in love with a person in one day. It takes time, lots of it. And if you've spent a lot of time with somebody, it's natural that you struck a nice friendship with them. Just because you fell in love with them and they didn't have the same feelings for you shouldn't be a reason to end such a strong bond.

As I said, it is easy to say so but very hard to actually pull off. So, here's the do's and don'ts for you if you've been Friendzoned-

Do
  1. Confess: If a Friendzone issue is plaguing your life, you must spit it out to your friend. He/she is above all your friend, and being your friend, they deserve to know your problem, even if it concerns them. Hiding things will only make them worse.                                                                                   
  2. Clarify: You fell in love. Not a sin. Your friend didn't. Not a crime either. As long as both of you understand this, there is nothing to worry about. If you understand each other enough to not be affected by the fact that there is one-sided love creeping into your precinct, your friendship will go on smoothly (and who knows, a no today can be a yes tomorrow). If the understanding isn't strong enough to cope up with this issue, I'd say that it's good that your relationship was limited to just friends. Either way, if you tackle the situation with maturity, the problem will vanish automatically.                                                                                                                                                                   
  3. Be Normal: I know, I know. It's very tough to be normal around someone who makes you choke and gasp at sight. But hey, you managed to pull it off so far! All these days that you were just a careless jovial friend and you did good. You can continue the good work!                                           
  4.  Maintain a Group: For you, the one friend you love must be the top-priority as of now, but don't forget that you have other friends as well, and so does your flame. Spend time with your group. If your group is the same as your flame's, you must ensure that you give time to all of your friends and encourage your beloved to do the same. You may not believe this, but a nice group of friends can pull you out of almost any trouble.                                                                                                             
  5.  Flirt: You love somebody who doesn't love you. Bad news! But there's an upside here. You're still single! And so is the friend you fell in love with. So, in my humble opinion, it isn't wrong at all if you flirt with him/her. Go on, it'll cheer you up if you do it only for fun and not expect any hopeful response out of it. Flirting is a practically, if not scientifically, proven formula to relieve you from stress.                                                                                                                                                                         
  6. Develop a Hobby: You would've realized by now that handling a Friendzone situation is very much like handling a breakup (and still staying friends). Positivity rules. Let it guide you through the dark times.

Don't
  1. Get Possessive: If you are a hot-headed control-freak, please ignore this point. But if you are not, this point can make or ruin your life. Nobody can cope up with extreme possessiveness, especially if it springs up suddenly. If your friend doesn't know about your feelings, he/she will be confused. In the other alternative, if they know, they'll be frustrated. Remember, it isn't your friend's fault that you fell in love with them. Your possessiveness and control over their life should be within the limits of a friend. Trust me, I say this for your own good. If you go down the road of possessiveness, you'll end up getting hurt by the very person you love.                                                                                              
  2. Neglect Lesser Mortals: Yes, don't neglect other elements in your life. You have family, you have friends, you have work (and studies, yeah I know it's a lame point). Your love shouldn't get in the way of these things.                                                                                                                                    
  3. Sink into Gloom: The last thing your friend wants is to see you unhappy. So, if you do love him/her, live with a smile for their sake. No, don't even think about faking it. Both friendship and love demand honesty, and you're in a double-whammy. There, you're stuck again.
To wrap it up, I'll just say that life is too short to live with regrets. And trust me, losing a worthy friend because of failed love can be the biggest regret of life. The best way around a problem is through it. There, your Friendzone awaits you!

Friday, August 22, 2014

Ego- The Fallen Angel!

 Today's post is about ego. We know how it spoils our relationships, we know how much it damages us, we also know how it keeps us from following our heart at times. So this is how we see it!

That, my friends, is your biggest mistake. Ego is not your enemy. It's just a thing that exists. Good or bad depends on how we handle it. It's like fire- use it carefully and it becomes the very reason why we advanced from the stone age. Be careless with it, and it burns everything you ever loved. Ego is like friction- it is a necessary evil. It protects us time and again, but we only notice it when it starts hurting us. Whose fault is it, then? The answer, my friends, is that the fault is ours.

Ego is a part of our mental and interpersonal environment. It is a device that ensures the overall success of our entire social existence. It's like an organ of the machinery. That's why we never notice it, not until something goes wrong.

There are many who consider ego to be a swollen pride mixed with overconfidence and arrogance. But ego is just a harder term for self-respect. Ego is the amount of respect you have for yourself as compared to others. There is nothing evil or wrong about the existence of ego. We make it wrong when we confuse it with pride and arrogance and mix these chemicals which were meant to remain in separate flasks. Result, kaboom! Our world goes up in flames and we blame poor old ego (generally it's others who do the blaming while we are caught up in our vanity).

Mostly, we never mention the word ego until we want to attribute a negative point on someone. Self-confidence is the term that we assume fit for all humble beings. When it swells up to monstrous magnitudes, it becomes ego. That's why I referred to ego as a fallen angel in the title. Angels were supposed to be wise and brave and benevolent. They were meant to fight evil and spread peace in the world. So, when one of them switched sides and turned evil himself, the very idea of angels became hazy. Why would people believe in them as heroes and follow them? That's why the turned angel was stripped of his title and rechristened Satan, the devil.

That's how we dealt with pride and self-confidence. We couldn't justify these qualities as good if they existed in bad people as well, so we fashioned a new term for their darker counterpart. Ego.

And that's the mistake we make. By assuming that ego is any different from the good qualities that we possess, by naming humility and arrogance as opposite tendencies, we block our own route of improvement. Satan couldn't flip his switch again, but we can. Only if we know that ego is not an enemy. Our way of interpreting it is.

We are a society of people who give up on people before they can get in a position to hurt us. Giving up is our prime talent. And I can't say that it's a very steep measure to give up on a person with a swollen pride. 'Arrogant' and 'asshole' are synonyms in our society.

The problem is, we didn't bring the present scenario. We just landed right in the middle of it. And although we claim of being modern and smart and different, we do the same mistakes and pay the same price. Love, friendship, affection, people, we give up on all of them one by one because we get hurt and humiliated trying to preserve them in our lives. And a person's arrogance is an outstanding excuse to abandon him/her.

I wouldn't say that you should try and give people a chance. Social-work is not our agenda. I'd just ask you a simple question. What if the arrogant person under observation turns out to be you? It's not impossible, you know. You could be the most humble person on the planet and yet there will be times when your pride becomes overconfidence and overconfidence becomes ego.

What would you do? Would you just say- "I don't give a shit to the world"? Probably you would. But that's a mask that everyone wears these days. We are humans. We try to show ourselves as strong and independent, but we all need people at our side in the end. So, if your entire neighborhood boycotts you one fine day, would you not expect your best friend or your mother to understand your problems? We can't see the truth of a situation until it happens to us.

And that abandonment is the first stage of a person's downfall, in the moral sense. Going back to the analogy, there was an angel who once turned evil and was cast away. No doubt he deserved it. But what next? Satan was abandoned, by God, by the very entity who is at everybody's side no matter how good or evil they become. He had no friends or allies. So he moved on. He found company in similar people, abandoned souls, and became their leader.

That's what we do to an egoist when we leave him/her alone. We abandon them, so they find people of their own kind and mix until they reach a point of no return. I don't have any ideas about how God should have dealt with Satan, I don't even know his story properly. But I do know that our society makes a mistake when it tries to keep criminals in the company of criminals and cripples in the company of cripples. We, the so called normal people are normal only because we get to meet and know people not like us. Don't they show in the movies that an evil man is forced into the company of a wonderful woman and changes for the better?

My point is, Satan deserved punishment, still does. But if he had gotten a chance to stay with the other angels, he wouldn't have fallen so far. Only, I can't extend that theory to cover every murderer and sociopath in our society. I don't because I have no idea how to practically implement this theory. But when we talk about a person who we leave alone for his/her ego, we can give them a better option. We can give them a better chance. As a person, we must learn to live with the ego within us and in others as well.

Don't fight ego, embrace it. No matter how hard you try, you can't get rid of it. So it's better to turn it into an ally, understand it, and guide it properly. If you want to be good, you'll have to turn your ego to your side. You'll have to realize that you can't live properly if you let your ego grow either too weak or too strong. Be like a diamond- everybody may wonder and gasp at your vibrancy and your dazzling charm. But if somebody tries to defeat you and to gobble you up, you're the hardest substance known to man. Everybody knows that the beautiful diamond will rip them inside out if swallowed.

That's how I see ego. A fallen angel who can be turned again. Whether you succeed or not is up to you, but ego will stay either way. But your perspective about ego might be different, maybe better too. I will be waiting for different ideas. Until next time!

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Love Love, Go Away...Come Again Another Day!


"I was born a romantic and I will die a romantic."
If you feel like puking at this outrageously cheesy line, you're the ones who must read this blog.
The romantics, you'll read it anyway. And for the balanced and matured types who are just too nonchalant to care about shit like this, I'll suggest that you read it once and continue with your browsing.

I'll begin with a confirmation. There are people who say that love is God. Trust me when I say this- by all practical logic and realism I can summon, I declare that they are right. Love is God, or at least analogous to God!

'There we go! Here's another star-struck daydreamer who is about to brag about the silly idea of love.' But don't hit the exit button yet. I said I am being realistic, not romantic.

I'll say it one more time. Love is like God. Why? Well, there are numerous reasons. No matter what category of people you belong to, you will agree with me when I say that even though nobody has actually seen or heard love, a lot of people still worship it. Pretty much what we do with God.

There are many ways in which people perceive love. Some believe it to be the exact mushy mushy stuff they show in the movies, while some say that there is nothing like love. It's just care, affection, infatuation, whatever you call it. Similarly, when we talk about God, some of us talk about the idols we worship while some don't believe in the orthodox idea of God and replace it with some unknown entity who made the world. Love unites us and divides us at the same time, pretty similar to what God does.

That's the greatest similarity between God and love. They are both concepts rather than anything tangible. The degree to which we believe in them or the way we manifest them in our thoughts are more of a choice.

I believe that the idea of God was perceived to organize people under a common set of ideologies. God was the concept that bound the very grassroots of our society.

So was love. Maybe it is just infatuation. Maybe its just an idea that we made up to cover up a lot of lesser feelings that we wouldn't heed to unless they were combined under a greater concept. A parent loves his/her children, provides them with the best, even if it means to sacrifice his/her own comforts. It is a love that arises out of duty, but is it just limited to it?

A friend's or a lover's love arises out of common interest and the good time you spend with them (and a little contribution of bodily desires too, when we speak of lovers). But the friendships and the relationships that actually go a long way are based on a lot more than that. That is the point. You can't explain love, and the human tendency is that we want everything simplified. What we can't understand, what we can't analyse and judge, we fear it.

We are a bunch of broken hearts. That's another reason to avoid the idea of love, totally drop it even. But as I mentioned in my last post. Life is a Temple Run game. You can't get it right the first time, not in 99 out of 100 times. Doesn't mean that you just drop the idea of love as a bad habit.

There's a lot more worth writing, but between your attention-span and my own laziness, I guess I will write another post about love some other day. In the meantime, your ideas and suggestions and comments are most welcome. After all, these posts are meant to make you think, and we tend to think more in the middle of an argument! 

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Life- A Game of Temple Run

Life has its own ways of teaching us. Sometimes we learn from what people tell us, sometimes we learn from our own experiences. Our mistakes, our deeds, their outcomes, they are all great teachers. And yes, the greatest teacher of them all is time. But life isn't as easy as it looks, and all of us know this sooner or later. And we all find this out the hard way.

The most important question is, how do we approach life? The answer is simple. It's not my damn business! Not your life at least. I, or anybody else for that matter, can only give you a few directives and suggestions. But you'll have to figure out your own way. To put that in an analogy, wouldn't it be ridiculous if somebody came up and asked you- "How should I play Temple Run?" You'd probably say- "Just keep running!"

And that's what life is- it is a game of Temple Run. We keep running, we run into obstacles, get shattered, and then start all over again. Not always, though. Sometimes we use a 'Save Me' gem and continue our run from where we were interrupted. That's the fun of it. As long as we live, we're constantly exploring things this game throws in front of us. Sometimes we make the right choices, sometimes we don't. But, call this a very general experience, life never stops giving us opportunities. Yes, the next opportunity may not be as good as the last one, but you could count on it. There will always be a next time. There will always be a next run!

So, the next time you fall, remember to get back up and start running again. The confusions, the obstacles, the bonuses, they are all temporary. They are all features that make the game interesting.Your emotions may overcome you (they do that to me all the time) but they will subside. No matter where the road takes you, it will take you somewhere. Just try to ensure that you choose wisely. If you can't, there is always a 'Save Me' gem in your pocket. It is more commonly known as hope. Hold on to it. Trust yourself. Trust your instincts. But most importantly, trust the dynamism of life.

Have fun, and keep coming back for more interesting ideas about life, and whatever comes in it.

Life is a Garden. People, the plants!

People are like plants. They need solid ground (trust) to stand. But make that too hard or too soft (too possessive or too complacent) and the friendship withers away. Sometimes our friendship becomes like sand. Complacent, ignorant, so self-obsessed that it won’t hold any water (warm moments). All you can grow in there is the occasional cactus. And trust me, not everybody is that robust. At the same time, if your friendship becomes bedrock (testy, possessive, and paranoid) people go away.
You have a variety of friends. There must be one so radiant and positive that he/she brings joy to people and life to the party. That’s your sunflower. There is almost always a friend who loves you or whom you love. Great, we got a rose in your backyard (or an entire bush of roses, going by the modern day). Remember; where there are roses, there are thorns. Would you be foolish enough to place the roses next to the delicate sunflower? You have a friend who is kind and helpful. That means you’ve planted a little sapling of a fruit bearing tree as well. Don’t let the grandeur of the tree crush the little daffodils growing under its shadow. Every plant needs nurturing, so does every friendship.

Your life is a garden. People are the plants. They need water (warmth and support), sunlight (positivity), air (attention and time), space, and lots and lots of love. I don’t say it’ll be easy. The thorns in the roses will prick you. The sunflower will attract bees (lots of attention and trouble). The fruit-tree will make you work hard, asking for more time and attention lest the fruits (kindness) start to rot. But you’ll realize that true happiness, true peace, will come only when you learn to maintain your garden properly. I don’t know how, you know Farmville better than I do. But that is what you have to do!