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
Thursday, March 28, 2019
 

I couldn’t help but wonder how sometimes we obsess over something that is missing in our lives, something if it were present would make our lives perfect, and something that we wish we could have…and then we imagine how life would be if we had it. Because we are so intently focusing on this ‘missing’ element, we don’t realise the value of the thing that we do have and that is making our present life pretty pleasant, if only we thought about it instead of the missing thing. It is only when this particular thing is on the verge of vanishing that it hits us that life wasn’t bad at all owing to this thing and maybe we could have actually enjoyed ourselves a bit more instead of worrying. And then we start to think of how life would be when this thing now vanishes and probably this becomes the next thing that you keep obsessing and worrying about instead of maybe learning the moral of the story…which is, that there might be something or the other that makes life worth living and we probably need to reflect on what that is rather than reflecting on what we’re missing… and count ourselves lucky to have it while we do.
To share an example: Ever since I arrived in the UK I have been wishing to make some like-minded friends with whom I could have the sort of warm friendship that makes one miss one’s family less. But as anyone who lives in the real world knows, this is a tall order at the best of times. I have generally been unlucky in the friends department…maybe this merits another blog to reflect on the whys and wherefores but one main reason could be that in Mumbai I certainly wasn’t surrounded by the likes of people I would want to be friends with. I did wonder if things might be different here but again the combination of circumstances I am in (what with research being highly isolating and all that) isn’t very conducive to making friends. I felt this was the one thing missing in my life that could potentially make everything so much more enjoyable. I somehow did not even notice much less appreciate or value the one or two good friendships that I did make because they didn’t map to this idealised version of friendship. I was pining for the ‘imaginary’ friendships so much so that I completely lost sight of the immense value that these real friendships brought into my life and that I almost took for granted. It was only when I learnt that I might be losing these friends very soon that it hit me… that in fact I had been lucky to have made these friendships, and if I had thought about it, they had actually made my life so much more pleasant.
I feel that instead of focusing on the non-existent elements in my life I need to try to look for beauty and harmony in what exists. Maybe then I will be able to savour life for what it is rather than in retrospect for what it was or for what it could be… It seems to me that this is probably a symptom of the human condition (or at least this one human’s condition ;)) that we seem to be perpetually caught in…we are not happy ‘in the moment’ because we are looking to the past with wistfulness or to the future with anxiety…we yearn for what we don’t have and when we get it we no longer value it or we don’t value what we do have and yearn for it after we have lost it!
 

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 12:11 am 0 comments
Sunday, March 24, 2019
 

A broken soul

A soul that is broken
And somehow woven
By delicate little threads
Invisible to the outside eye
But painful to the wearer
A stitch sometimes tears,
Sometimes stretches, sometimes edges
Close to breaking again
The wearer does not forget
What made it break
Yet neither does it remember
For it might break again
Shattering the illusion
Of being whole
But only to the outside world
Not to the world inside
That will never be whole again
 
A kind word, a noble gesture,
Makes it cry
A harsh word, an unkind gesture,
Makes it weep
Memories of long-forgotten fractures
erupt like a volcano
Frightening the poor soul
rushing out, rolling down
fragile eyes, warm cheeks
Melting softly…
 
~Me

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 3:11 am 0 comments
Thursday, March 21, 2019
 

I had an experience a few days ago that has left me feeling very low. It has made me wonder about the ideal balance between criticism and praise. God knows I am guilty of tilting toward the former…but being a recipient of the same medicine has made me realise how bitter it can taste. I guess I, like most people, thought that I was deserving of at least some praise, and maybe I wasn’t. The reason I might have given only criticism and no praise, if I did, is because I felt there was nothing praiseworthy about something… but whenever I have found something to be praiseworthy I have always tried to convey it, or so I hope? Along with my criticisms. So one conclusion could be that there was nothing praiseworthy about what I did.
Assuming there was something remotely praiseworthy and assuming the concerned person knew that there was something, what could their sole focus on criticism be motivated by? I can only imagine that with all good intention they wanted me to focus on improvement rather than letting me get ahead of myself. The truth is though that had they given me even a little bit of praise and encouragement, I would have found their criticism so much easier to bear or digest or assimilate. I feel like I would have felt motivated to do better… to improve… to show that I was capable of a lot more…to aspire to more of their praise. But now… I feel… what for? Do better for what? To be told I had a long way to go? Improve for what…. To hear I could do even better? To aspire to what… more criticism?
I have always aimed to do well anything that I set out to do. If I am bad at something I will generally not do it—unless it’s something like housework and there’s no getting around it. But when it comes to anything I voluntarily do, I put my whole and soul into it…and I don’t do so for praise… I do it because I am almost compelled to… because it gives me internal satisfaction…. But I cannot deny that when such work is in a position to be evaluated, the evaluation means a terrible lot to me… it doesn’t mean that I work harder because I work as hard even if no one will evaluate it… but there is a different type of satisfaction that I look forward to in the end… one could call it praise, one could call it appreciation, one could call it a slap on the back, anything… but it makes a hell of a lot of difference to me… When I look back I think that I have not always been sensitive to how important praise or encouraging words are to people… and now when I was deprived of it… I felt only too keenly what it must feel like… to put yourself into something wholeheartedly believing you’re doing your best and to look forward to hear some good words… only to get none. Only criticism.
It is sad because I feel that when this happens not only do you stop looking forward to appreciation which means you lose a key source of motivation… but the opposite party loses even more… the opportunity to be a source of positive influence.

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 5:07 am 0 comments
Thursday, March 14, 2019
 

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair
Hover through the fog and filthy air”
~ Shakespeare (Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 1, 12-13)
 
The first line popped into my head out of nowhere today. When I say nowhere I mean I haven’t read or thought of this line in a long time but somehow today it just bloomed inside my head like a flower… and it seemed to connect with something that I was thinking about quite a lot in the last few days. I find it very strange that this line that happens to perfectly sum up what I was reflecting on should find its way to the surface of my consciousness… it makes me think about how all the knowledge one gathers gets synthesised in the deep recesses of one’s mind.
I have been asking myself what one must do or could do to prove oneself to be a person of solid integrity if integrity is not a given. Obviously you could ask why I need to ‘prove’ my integrity to anyone at all because if it is there it will shine through. And that has in fact been my position so far. I have always believed that when you have integrity and when you are a person whose integrity is visible in your actions (not a hypocrite), it will be obvious sooner or later to anyone who comes into frequent contact with you—if this anyone also has integrity and the sense to recognise it when they see it. If a person doesn’t have integrity, I believe they won’t see it in others because it’s not in their radar. If a person has integrity it is not necessary that they have the moral intuition or intelligence to recognise it in others, though I somehow feel that if one consciously lives with integrity as a value then it must be because they have an evolved moral sense and they would be able to notice it in others. So… it seems to me that letting your integrity or honesty or uprightness speak for itself is a good idea… and I feel that this has always worked for me…so far. I have I should say never faced a situation where I have not earned the trust and good faith of anyone whose trust and good faith I valued—I valued it because they also had integrity. By contrast, it is usually the case that when a person does not have integrity themselves, not only do they not care about integrity, I also do not care to earn their good opinion…so it works both ways.
Well… so what is the problem now? It is that I am caught in a tricky situation where simply being myself appears to not be enough to demonstrate that I am a person of integrity and it also is that I do not know if the person to whom I wish to prove that I am a person of integrity is deserving of my trust and good faith… probably even they’re facing the same dilemma where they aren’t sure about my integrity and cannot convince me of their integrity because in the environment we’re in…fair is foul and foul is fair…you do not know whom to trust or how to signal your trustworthiness especially to those whose trust you wish to gain… hmm… have I made this sound very complicated? Since there is nothing much I can do anyway I will just do what I always did… be myself… and depend on the fact that integrity will win the day… one way or the other…

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 4:22 pm 0 comments
Monday, March 11, 2019
 
I’m not someone who likes small talk much but I’m very fond of conversation. You might ask what the difference is because one man’s small talk might be another man’s conversation… but for me there are a few things that make a conversation very distinct from small talk. For one, a conversation will go deep into a subject rather than merely skimming the surface and for two, a conversation isn’t a polite way to fill time nor is it necessarily ‘polite’ (now that’s small talk). Other things that come to mind… the topic of a conversation would have some level of resonance with both parties (without which they cannot really want to go into depth) and it would engage the mind in some way (in a way say the ‘weather’ can’t). I might have added that a conversation is usually had with someone you know well or reasonably well (or maybe wish to know well?) because it requires a certain amount of freedom of thought and expression…but I would grant that sometimes you may meet people whom you just launch into conversation with because something seems right.

Now, as is the way I seem to always begin my posts, I intend to talk about one thing and then talk about something entirely different. ‘Conversation’ itself was quite incidental to the point I had intended to make. That point is that these days it’s become almost impossible to have a conversation with most people because of the blooming mobile phone! I don’t know about you (dear reader, yes you!) but I tend to put my phone away when I am with company. I might check it once in a while but rarely and if I am actually in the middle of a conversation, I won’t check it at all. Even if I hear a beep or a ring. However, I have noticed for a while now that most people have one eye on the phone and the other ear on the conversation, and frankly, it’s not much of a conversation for me. Imagine animatedly talking about something or sharing something when the other person is intently staring at the phone, sometimes typing, sometimes scrolling, and sometimes even taking a call. It puts me off the conversation completely. I switch off from it, and many a times, from the person. I find it disrespectful to say the least, even if not meant as much, and I feel that it reduces a conversation to something less than even small talk…because with small talk both are equally engaged in something pointless but here only one person is engaged in something that may well not have a point.
What I have been noticing though is that it’s not just this person or that person or my brother (he’s a big culprit in this department) who does it but I would be hard pressed to think of anyone I know who actually doesn’t do it…apart from older folks like my mother or aunts who aren’t into smartphones or social media or obsessed with it. I also have a sense—though I might be wrong—that men do this more than women; I mean, women probably are on the phone as much or more than men but when in the middle of a conversation they tend to be a bit more tactful (though it is quite possible that they’re mentally distracted anyway).
It seems to me that all this has taken the joy out of conversations. Which is why nowadays when I meet people who actually listen and converse intently without peering into the phone every few seconds, I feel really pleased. There is a lot to be said about the virtual world but I’m of the opinion that it should complement one’s experiences in the real world rather than diminishing it… which is unfortunately what seems to be happening…

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 6:44 pm 0 comments
Sunday, March 10, 2019
 

Upon a Sweet Interlude

Dare I hope this were true
I fear not.
Dare I know what I knew
I think not.
Dare I believe I have a clue
I guess not.
Dare I dream this was more
than just a sweet interlude
I fear not, I think not, I guess not!
But...
What if the heart hopes, knows, and believes…
what it dare not?
 
~Me 

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 2:15 am 0 comments
Friday, March 08, 2019
 

I have been grappling with a deadline since I got back to the UK. Now that that is ‘out of my system’ as we used to say in my corporate days, I feel a bit peaceful and at rest. The trouble is I seem to have more ideas to share when I am in a state of ‘busy-ness’ than when I am at rest but guess it’s only my mind trying to tempt me with other thoughts when I should be focusing on one thing alone.
One of the things that I have been meaning to talk about for a while is the ‘charity shop’ concept that I discovered here. Basically shops affiliated to large charities that accept and then sell second hand-clothing at low prices. This concept seems to have existed here for very long but it seems to be gaining in mainstream popularity now what with the emphasis on sustainable living and the ‘Marie Kondo’ effect (that reminds me I had something to say on the topic of Marie Kondo too). I found the whole idea of charity shop shopping extremely surprising when first I heard of it. I remember in my early days here chatting with two friends (one of them more of an acquaintance) and this acquaintance from Spain had a wedding to attend soon so she said rather nonchalantly, “Let’s visit the charity shops over the weekend for a dress”. That’s when I realised that most ordinary people shopped at charity shops here and not necessarily those who couldn’t afford to shop elsewhere.
I guess this came as a surprise to me from an Indian cultural perspective. There is something of a ‘stigma’ attached to wearing second-hand clothes (here they are called ‘pre-loved’) in India unless it belongs to a close or distant relative. Generally one gives away one’s clothes to siblings or cousins or other relatives if they’re in great condition but if you don’t know anyone whom they might fit or have a use for them or if they’re a bit too old, you would give them away to maids or anyone else you know who would ‘accept charity’ or in short, the ‘poor’. You could even donate them at the local church from where it is again distributed amongst the poor. One could always argue that charities also exist to ultimately help some or the other section of society so instead of focusing on some specific cause one is generally helping those in need. And it wouldn’t be a completely invalid argument except that I am at present interested in the perception surrounding ‘second-hand clothes’ rather than the purpose of charity.
It seems that in India because clothes are generally donated to the ‘poor’ there is a sort of discomfort about the idea of ‘second-hand’ or ‘used’ clothes’ as it is automatically associated with financial distress. Here comes another peculiar aspect of Indian culture. Middle class folks in India lay so much store by success that being poor is seen as something to be ashamed of or a personal failure of some sort. When you look at it like that… it seems rather natural that second-hand clothing has never had much acceptance. On the other hand, donating second hand clothes to those beneath one’s status is quite common no doubt because it helps elevate one’s status as well as moral profile into the bargain.
I find the concept of the ‘charity shop’ in the UK far more democratic in this sense—it brings together everyone, rich or poor, in the collective mission of contributing to some particular cause while also getting people to think about the value of things in a more conscious way (apart from giving access to a wide variety of well-preserved quality clothes at cheap prices). It also doesn’t create or engender class distinctions between ‘givers’ or ‘patrons’ and ‘takers’ or ‘receivers of benevolence’. To me just the idea that I as an ordinary person may give away something to a charity shop and I as an ordinary person could buy something from a charity shop as I would buy from anywhere else (while helping a cause) involved a shift in thinking about myself as a ‘class of person’ who is in a position to give or a position to receive. It made me think about ‘things’ in a more collective sense and how we could maximise the use of such ‘things’ rather than adding to the collective waste. Made me think of the phrase ‘circle of virtuosity’…

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 1:02 am 0 comments
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