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, May 30, 2019
 

I was reading this interesting article If God is dead, your time is everything which expresses the idea, among many others, that “Religion… enforces asceticism in the name of the spiritual; capitalism enforces asceticism in the name of the material.” Basically, if we’re religious, we embrace a sort of asceticism in this life because we believe we will be richly rewarded in another, and if we’re living in a capitalist system (who isn’t?), we embrace a sort of asceticism in spending time doing productive labour. In both cases we in a way give up “present time” in the hope of enjoying a better “future time”.
The author claims that both religion and capitalism are bad for us (and therefore must be overthrown for better systems) because they hamper our possibilities of enjoying life in the moment (and he believes there is no other life). He also questions whether “eternity” or some such realm if it were even to exist, if it is even worth pursuing as a sort of never-ending inert constant state of being? His point is that life or living or experience itself becomes much richer if we believe that all we have is our time here on earth. Because we only have a short time available to us to experience the world and its many pleasures, it becomes that much more precious and brings a certain urgency or poignancy or sublimity or even meaning to our earthly experience. Our sole aim then is to maximise our time, or in other words, to spend the time we have (“only time” we have rather) in the way that makes us most happy…which is difficult if we’re slaving at a job most of the time or putting constraints on ourselves in terms of how we spend our time.
I cannot say that I completely agree. I am not sure if replacing a belief in God and eternity with the idea that all we have is what we have on earth is a good idea for the vast majority of the population. There are people of course who do not need to believe in God and an afterlife and a reward for good acts in the next life to actually lead a moral and ethically conscious life. But, I cannot pretend to be confident that most people fall into this category. In any case, for most people, if believing in something larger, something higher, and something beyond this world helps make sense of their experiences, and acts as a motivation to live out their earthly time in a morally conscious manner, why is that a bad thing?
Also, many people may prefer to believe in an afterlife or something better than this world because this world doesn’t offer them much to begin with. If I were born in a rich family and did not have to succumb my time to a not-so-pleasant job or if I was born with all my faculties so that I could do everything that every normal person could do or if I were born in a country that offered me better opportunities than say a warn-torn region… in short, if I had the best chances for living my time in the best way in this world itself, I would probably not care so much whether the next world existed or not…and it wouldn’t matter to me either way. I also feel that if I were to tell people who have few if any chances at all of living a good life that this is all they have and they must still strive to be good people… because… well, just because …or so that other people who were privileged to have been born with the best chances for a good life could have them… I am not sure if that would not be a rather cruel if not an ineffective argument lacking any sort of motivational bite? I might be accused of being equally cruel if I say that it is better that they have a false reason to put on their best behaviour even if they aren’t living their own best lives… in the shape of hope that a better life awaits them if only they remained patient and good. But, if it helps them make their lives practically bearable, why should we disabuse them of this notion? I also don’t think that this way of thinking should necessarily lead them to live a less engaged life; in fact, it might make them live life with some joy too because they are hopeful instead of bitter and may also have come to terms with their current condition in the “larger” scheme of things.
I agree with the author in the ideal that we need to be able to maximise our free time or have freedom over our own time and how we utilise it. However, we no longer simply read or walk or have conversations or contemplate nature or ideas in our free time… instead we shop, eat out, travel, and so on. In this sense, how would breaking down the capitalist system help us maximise our free time or allow us to enjoy it the way we want to if our very definition of free time or enjoyment of free time in modern times hinges on the smooth functioning of a well-oiled capitalistic engine. Wouldn’t that amount to wanting to have our cake and eat it too?
 

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 10:46 pm 2 comments
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
 
I am a sucker for kindness. Attempted to capture the sentiment…
 
Why must you tug at my heartstrings,
With your warmth, graciousness, and kindness?
Be rude, be mean, be stern,
I will meet you equally,
But against your generosity and concern—
I have no defences…
And must admit defeat.
 
Why must you look upon me so gently,
When harsh words would also serve?
Chide me, scold me, vex me,
I will meet with harshness or coldness,
As long-standing companions,
But against your gentleness and sweetness—
I am defenceless…
And conquered.
 
~Me

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 7:11 pm 0 comments
Friday, May 24, 2019
 

It’s not every day that I say this…but I feel immensely happy today after something transpired that I did not hope for but has made all the difference to my state of mind. I have always believed that having the same intellectual wavelength is important in any kind of relationship, personal or professional. However, I did not understand well enough until I was placed in a rather difficult position how little intellectual wavelength matters when the values-orientation is not similar or the opposite. I realise now that for there to be some sort of affinity of spirit with a person the values-orientation matters probably much more than intellectual orientation, but then again, to have a certain sophisticated sense of values you do need a certain sophistication of mind as well. So maybe what I am really saying is that intellectual compatibility is a necessary but not sufficient condition for affinity but the right values-orientation means that there is both. This is an interesting thing to think about to say the least…
 
We generally hear that Emotional Intelligence or Quotient is as important or more important than Intelligence Quotient. Though Emotional Intelligence seems to cover some of the stuff that may be understood as values such as say empathy, I don’t think it is quite the same thing. For example, it doesn’t cover one’s ethical views. I would think something like a Values Quotient—though I would not use the word ‘quotient’ except that in this instance it conveys what I am aiming at—is more important for me than IQ or EQ because to have a VQ would mean that one has a certain type of IQ and a certain type of EQ as well. It might seem odd that I assume a VQ includes an IQ but the values-orientation I am talking about here is not a blind ‘rules of behaviour’ but deliberate reasoning or critical/analytical application in terms of what one must do or what is the right thing to do in a particular situation. To do this well you certainly need wisdom (which is why I say it is a type of IQ which goes beyond say numerical proficiency) and you also need an emotional sense (which probably again gets covered in the type of wisdom I am referring to).
 
So coming back to why I am happy… not going into specifics suffice to say that I feel good when I get to be around people with compatible VQ :) … this is a topic that I will keep coming back to am sure as you shall see…

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 3:38 pm 2 comments
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
 

I was attending a conference recently where Professor Dame Sue Black narrated an anecdote. She shared that her PhD supervisor, who at that time was supervising one other student besides herself, told her that she was not as clever as the other student but she made up for it with hard work. She said that these words had a big impact on her confidence and it took her a while to regain it.
Many a times people don’t seem to have the same high opinion of us as we have of ourselves or they don’t seem to see our worth the way we would like them to. At these times it’s easy to convince ourselves that maybe they’re right because they would know or should know better; maybe we think too highly of ourselves or of the product of our labours and it’s probably not good enough. At these times it is very difficult not to be dejected or not to give up or not to lose the motivation to immerse ourselves in our work. Obviously the solution can’t be to be so arrogant and up in the clouds that no feedback reaches us and we refuse to learn or grow. But, how do we balance humility and openness to points of view with strong inner confidence? How do we receive negative or lukewarm feedback and still continue believing in the power of our ideas? I’m not sure… but clearly the ability to do so is what differentiates success from failure. That is the lesson I took away from the anecdote.

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 4:03 am 0 comments
Saturday, May 18, 2019
 
I incidentally had a conversation today with this lady who works in a general administration-coordination type role. We were on the subject of career choices and she happened to tell me that she had always wanted to be a teacher but she was glad that she didn’t finally walk down that path. Many of her friends were teachers and looking at their hectic lives and schedules and work-packed weekends and rare holidays, she felt that she had taken the right decision. Then she mentioned that even nurses have it very bad. My take was that people who got into these jobs must love their jobs enough to want to pursue them in spite of these severe challenges. She agreed and said that maybe she didn’t want it badly enough. It appeared that one had to choose a trade-off between having a mind-numbing or tedious or meaningless job or a job one didn’t enjoy but which granted enough time and money to enjoy life outside work, or alternatively, enjoying your job and finding meaning and fulfilment within it but not having the luxury of time or money to enjoy life outside work.
This conversation surfaced some thoughts that have been brewing inside my head for a while now…specifically in the context of the shift I made in my career at a crucial juncture into a field that is extremely difficult to find one’s feet in, and having found one’s feet, extremely difficult to keep head above water. It’s not that I didn’t expect it to be a tough course to embark upon but now that I know it is a hundred times more challenging than I imagined it would be, a hundred times more demanding of my time and energies, a hundred times more difficult to make my way through the competitive maze to survive let alone thrive, the question I ask myself off and on is whether I made the right decision or whether I was right mad! The answer strangely is always the same, that I couldn’t have made a better decision. I only wish I could have made this decision much earlier in life but when I consider how my life began (maybe I will talk about it some day on this blog)…when I consider my beginnings, I feel a mixture of shock and pride that I got here at all.
I never really thought about what is “ideal” work when I was working in the corporate world. Now that I reflect about it I realise “ideal” work must be something that you love doing “for its own sake” rather than for the sake of other ends be it pay or promotion or prestige or benefits or any of these things. When you find the ideal it won’t matter how demanding it is or exhausting it is or thankless it is…guess that explains why people become nurses or artists or even entrepreneurs… not everybody forges their own path or consciously chooses work that touches their mind, heart or soul in a higher sense but those who do likely experience moments of joy that those in far more comfortable roles struggle to find… and I would be so bold as to say that not having as much time or money for enjoyment outside of work doesn’t bother them as much maybe or not enough to regret their choices… because they find meaning and fulfilment in the work itself… why would they want to swap this for soulless work whose only attraction is the opportunities it presents to enjoy life outside of it?

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 1:45 am 0 comments
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
 

Be quiet, beating heart
Do not be afraid
The world is a frightening place
And you shall never learn its ways
Steady your shaken nerves
Soothe them, calm them
But you shall never arm them
Against the onslaughts
Of everyday injustices and well-meaning slurs
Hide your sensitivities and delicacies
They make you seem weak
Don’t speak out
Let your voice find solace within you
Protect you in private moments
Sing you to sleep
Let it not advocate for you
Or justify your actions
Don’t you know?
You’re always wrong
But you must not be lost
Must not get thrown out
Must not be hurled under the bus
For being too weak or too strong
So be obscure, be plain, be a dreary inconspicuous Jane
Let no one notice you or confront you
At least, till you’ve found your own
Two feet
Steady on the ground
And then, and then…
Show yourself, stand up
Raise your voice
For the underdog, for the meek, for the bullied
For the diffidently strong
Be by them
Lest they too
Hide away and seek corners
And never come out of the shadows
Unlike you
Who did.
 
~Me

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 10:37 pm 2 comments
Friday, May 10, 2019
 

I feel a bit disturbed though the reason for my disturbance or a gnawing mental discomfort is not apparent to even myself at the moment. I realise that I usually get drawn to writing a blog when I am in this sort of state…I guess I have since childhood resorted to ‘writing’ when I wanted to work out my inner conflicts and this is my way of teasing out what is really bothering me, if not of actually reaching a sort of calm for having let it all out.
In the last 2-3 days, a few incidents occurred which were quite minor in themselves but put together have made me question not so much the incidents but my own way of dealing with them or more specifically my tendencies to get ‘emotionally agitated’ for such type of minor things. Among these tendencies, one relates to the fact that I don’t feel ‘good’ at all if I have to refuse to do a favour for someone, or to distil this even further, I don’t feel good at all if I have to disappoint someone. The reason I say ‘I have to’ is because given my tendency to ‘not feel good’ when I disappoint someone (the disappointment would be higher the more I care about the person but it would be significant even if the person was just known to me in a positive way), I generally try ‘not to disappoint’ in the sense that if there is a favour or help asked of me from a known person, I will usually oblige if it’s within my remit. If ‘I have to’ refuse or deny the request it would have to be a strong enough reason for me. Sometimes or many a times I have gone out of my way to do favours or help people even at a great cost to myself but now I try to take more of a balanced view and consider myself and my constraints a bit more. I also consider if the request is a reasonable one in the sense that I am ‘helping’ someone and not ‘doing the job’ that they should be doing themselves. While all these considerations are reasonable and I can’t fault myself at all when I am in a position where I ‘have to’ disappoint someone, I’m not sure how to deal with the ‘aftereffects’ of it… where instead of happily going about my life I launch into brooding about the whole thing, feeling guilty, and wondering if I should have done something after all. It defeats the whole purpose of taking a stand if I can’t seem to be convinced that it was the right thing to do. I have also noticed that I make much more of the disappointment of the other party in my own head than they themselves do in reality! They might forget about it or go about their business (and accept my reasons at face value with no hard feelings) but I seem to not be able to stop thinking about their problem.
I feel that even if it’s a nice attitude to want to help people or not disappoint them if I can help it, it essentially needs to be ‘managed’ such that I don’t feel ‘personally responsible’ for other people’s problems or solutions. I think my inability to mentally and emotionally extricate myself from the situation shows that I seem to take some sort of personal responsibility for the problem and its resolution even though I have nothing to do with it except that I have been approached for help. Needless to say, this type of involvement can’t be good for me.
I wonder if what really worries me is the thought that people would like me less for not doing something for them…which I guess is a rather skewed way of thinking because if people were attached to me because of what I did or did not do for them (rather than for who I am) then such attachment would be quite precarious and not worth sustaining anyway. I also wonder if our sense of personal goodness pivots a bit around how others might perceive us and we want to maintain this external perception at any cost to maintain our own internal perception of who we are which again seems like an illogical thing to do… I guess the more internally rooted our sense of goodness is and the less we need external certification for its validity, the more we would be able to assert our goodness objectively or choose actions because they are the right ones and not because they make people happy or disappoint them. Easier said than done?
 

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 2:10 am 0 comments
Wednesday, May 08, 2019
 
Been working hard and long the past few weeks… I work in my living room reclining on the sofa facing a French window… it’s so stunning outside sometimes or rather most times… and given the vagaries of the English weather it almost seems like a different view everyday… sometimes the sun breaking out… sometimes the wind howling…sometimes the rain falling on the patch of green melting into the mountains…sometimes the sky is blue… sometimes pink… sometimes the ducks and other birds flit around… sometimes there is a medley of colours and weather and creatures… made me doodle some random lines…
 
How weary the mind grows
 
Contemplating dull work
 
Outside my French window
 
Sweet little birds chirp
 
 
The warm sunny rays
 
Fall flat upon my face
 
As I tilt my head a little
 
And let my eyes wondrously settle
 
 
Am I awake or could I be dreaming?
 
Surely heaven couldn’t be streaming
 
The scene before my eyes
 
 
While I all oblivious
 
Focus on things trivial
 
Type and frown and cut and paste
 
Make haste, turn hours to waste
 
 
When but a moment in nature’s lovely glare
 
Would be enough to capture eternity and spare
 
 
Why then do we spend all day watching a bleak computer screen?
 
Time’s running out and when it does…what would our lives mean?


~Me




 

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 4:39 am 0 comments
Saturday, May 04, 2019
 
I have written about my explorations on the question of the existence of God but never really explored in analytical terms the question of religion. I do know that I have believed for a long time now that religion is distinct from ‘God’ and ‘man-made’ to use a crude term in the sense that religion was created by people and it was not ‘created’ by God even if people say that their religion is the only means to the one God. That being my position I never really ‘believed’ in religion at all or rather that religion is the means to the one God (if he exists) even though I do call myself a Catholic simply because I was born in a family professing the faith and it’s something of an inherited identity for me (with some practices that go with it) rather than a suggestion that I ‘believe’ that that’s the only route to ‘God’.

Now, in the course of my research (yes, dear reader, everything seems to flow from my research these days ;)), I was going through what ‘Hinduism’ is all about and the question of ‘what is religion’ came up in the context of why or how ‘Hinduism’ came to be characterised as a religion. I admit that even though I had sort of subconsciously worked out that religion is ‘man-made’, I never really thought about how it came to be ‘made’ and what the implications of this ‘making’ were in a historical or worldview sense. What I understand now is that rather than Christianity or other religions being fitted into a broad category called Religion, it was Christianity itself that gave birth to this category of Religion, and from then on, based on the features of Christianity, the category Religion developed its general features which evolved over a period of time. And this broad category based on specific features was then applied to other ‘almost similar’ phenomena and brought within the ambit of that category. Sometimes the phenomena themselves were diverse and fragmented and loose such that they were brought together under a common label such as in the case of Hinduism to be placed under the category of Religion—as that was a western way of making sense of an eastern phenomena that did not fit into any other classification within their cultural view. This also meant that the eastern ‘religions’ not having the same features as the western ones could be considered outlandish by western standards even though they were outlandish by the very same standards that they had adopted in the first place to classify what should come under ‘religion’!  

This makes me think: what purpose does this category Religion really serve? One obvious purpose from a historical point of view seems to be—specifically from the point of view of western or what are called Abrahamic religions including Islam—to delineate which path leads to God and who is the one true God. Which is why these religions since inception have had a stake in proving their superiority over other religions if not to actually delegitimise other religions because the very foundation of a religion would be threatened if it were to accept that there was another way of reaching God or that God himself could be affiliated to a different religious order. If there was a different path to reaching God and not this one, then why should I follow this path could be a natural question. The wars and bloodshed that have occurred in the name of religion (and arguably still occur today) make sense when one notes that this question of superiority or legitimacy is not really a theoretical question but crucially and profoundly affects one’s very existence, not just on earth but ‘beyond’. Additionally, whoever holds the key to the one true religion and through it to the one true God, naturally also holds a position of immense power...and one could probably think of these struggles not so much as a struggle to establish the one true God but the struggle to establish oneself and one’s own interest group in the position of ultimate power… because no other form of power comes even close to one that reaches beyond death.

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 2:51 am 0 comments
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