To Be or Not To Be

A little kingdom I possess,
Where thoughts and feelings dwell;
And very hard the task I find
Of governing it well.
~ Louisa May Alcott

...that more or less describes my situation!

~A Wise Man Said~

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
~ Aristotle
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
 

Does anybody, ANYBODY, have anything else to talk about, nay, obsess about these days? Gone are the days people used to talk about lack of food—I am sure there were those days—today, it’s all about the problem of plenty of food and nothing to eat. You pick this, you see calories, you see that, you see calories, you eat something, you groan about the calories, you don’t eat something, you blame the calories…I don’t know about the global recession but I sure know we’re all into one kind of global obsession.
 
I was talking to a friend today and that’s when it hit me. Everybody is talking about the same thing! Normal, healthy, fine looking people who neither are nor claim to be aspiring to become supermodels, are all talking about how to lose weight, how to control weight, how to eat healthy, what to eat healthy, what the dietician told them, why they aren’t able to catch up on yoga, how difficult it is to make time for evening walks...get the drift? Now, I have nothing against people working on being healthy, absolutely nothing, it’s a good thing of course and all that. But, when I look into the overall aspect of these multiple conversations, I really wonder if being healthy is at the heart of all this hullaballoo about losing weight. Though everyone seems to be convincing themselves that it’s all about being healthy and fit, it just doesn’t seem as simple as that. There was a very recent study that came out with facts to show that being fat doesn’t necessarily mean being unhealthy and being thin doesn’t necessarily mean you would live longer—but I doubt anyone took this study seriously and started eating what they wanted to, because, you know, you could still die.
 
Then, what exactly does this obsession with ‘diet and exercise’ boil down to? Again, like I said, I am not against diet and exercise; in fact, I am as much on this boat as anybody else. What I am really trying to understand is, is this obsession with diet and exercise really what we like to think it is, a desire to be healthy and fit, or is it something very different, a desire to be thin and attractive or at least the current concept of attractive? Mind you, I am just digging into motives and not judging them or evaluating them at this point: Are we avoiding eating what we like and when we like because we are afraid of developing some form of health ailment at some later stage, or are we simply afraid of developing a paunch and not looking great in that dress next week?!
 
Well, to cut a long story short, the thing that really bothers me is this… does over-obsession with food, especially if driven by current ideas of what is deemed as attractive and what isn’t, healthy? When healthy and fine looking people worry too much about what to eat and what not to, and stop enjoying life in the process, is that healthy? When people are made to feel less attractive because they don’t conform to current ideas of ideal weight, is that healthy? … I mean, in the perceived drive towards ‘healthy’, which is just a euphemism for ‘thin’ really, aren’t we globally creating a culture of obsession with weight and food and calories and diet and thinness that is extremely unhealthy?
 
Think about it…

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 3:14 pm 4 comments
Friday, January 18, 2013
 
“Whatever with the past has gone,
The best is always yet to come.”
~ Lucy Larcom

Nice thought to have when another birthday comes along!

To me, more than New Year’s, it is the onset of this day that triggers a lot of introspection, reflection, anticipation, some excitement, some anxiety… a mix of feelings. Not entirely consciously, I start ticking things on an imaginary list of positives and negatives… things that got accomplished and things that didn’t. Things I did and things I failed to do. Things that luckily happened and things that didn’t happen for me. Where I stood when the year began and where I stand now, and am I richer in any way or poorer? Not in material terms of course, though that counts too, especially in today’s world.

When I consider the recent horrifying things around me (Delhi rape case?), and the utter misery that surrounds me (lived in Mumbai?), I feel blessed in thousands of ways. Having a roof over my head, food to eat, clothes to wear, people to call my own, great work to stimulate me, bosses to appreciate me…—I mean, how kind has providence been to me! Yes, there are some things I should like to have very much. Who doesn’t wish for at least one or two things, which they simply know would make life worth it?

It’s good to wish for, want for, dream for, desire for your favourite things. I for one believe in the positive power of dreams… and the power of holding onto and working on dreams. They come true when you aren’t looking, in the strangest of ways, at the funniest of times, when you have even almost given up…illuminating that little glimmer of hope you have sincerely held in your heart all along.

The best is indeed always yet to come! J

 

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 1:52 pm 1 comments
HOME