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
Saturday, September 28, 2019
 
These days there are a lot of arguments for and against bringing more children into a world that is already overburdened and not exactly a hospitable place. The nature of life itself being what it is isn't something one would want to wish on anyone. In spite of the 'against' arguments though there doesn't seem to be any slowdown in the rate of increase of the human population; perhaps this increase happens to be higher in parts of the world where these considerations don't hold as much water as traditional or religious ones. Of course, in the final analysis it isn't any of these kinds of considerations but biological imperatives that get the upper hand one would imagine.

While that may be the case, purely as an intellectual exercise let’s consider this question in two ways: one way is that by giving birth to a human in this world we actually ‘create’ the human. Now if we as in human beings produce a human by plain biological processes then that reduces all of us to plain biological organisms. In other words, until we bring this person into the world the essence of this person does not exist; similar to what we would say for a cow or a bird. It makes sense that we would want to create this individual after our own likeness so to speak but it only serves to fulfil an egoistic necessity and has no higher meaning. It's just a living fact as all other living facts and cannot claim any ‘value’ status of itself. The second way to consider this question is theological where we believe that in a larger sense we don't produce this human at all in that we don't produce the essence or the soul but merely an earthly body in which this essence or soul is conveyed to earth. The soul pre-exists its birth; you merely deliver this soul into an earthly existence. It is not the same as giving birth to a cow or a bird because this human is not just a biological organism but a transcendental entity couched in an earthly frame. When it dies only its earthly frame returns to dust but the soul lives on. If this is the case, which seems like a more logical case from a religious point of view, then not bringing a new life to bear on earth should not make any material difference at all because the essence of this life that you would have given birth to exists independently anyway and all you would be doing is not creating an earthly cover for it which is not something one imagines a soul would be coveting anyway! Even though you do not get to know this ‘unborn soul’ whom you could have potentially loved more than anyone else in the world you are in a way acting in its own interest or for its own benefit by making it possible for it to skip earthly suffering. Instead of making sacrifices for it in life, you are making the biggest sacrifice possible by not giving it a life that it must then endure for better or worse until it again becomes a soul.

Looked at in these two ways, biologically and theologically, the arguments seem to favour the position that it is better to not proliferate the world with more humans. Yet we do. Most likely because our instincts are bigger than us... or perhaps it's just that misery loves company ;)

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 3:36 am 0 comments
Sunday, September 22, 2019
 
In the olden days the enlightened ones figured out that the source of all suffering and pain was attachment. Attachment to worldly goods, to worldly relations, everything material in essence I would think. They gave up everything and went and sat in the mountains. Over the centuries there seems to have been a gradual but sure move back to the plains or the world of attachments so much so that now the holy mantra is to maximise attachments as much as possible be it goods or relationships. How did we go from one extreme to the other? From enlightenment to enrichment?

This idea of attachments bringing pain and detachment bringing peace never really resonated with me before. To me it seemed that, yes, attachments do bring pain—I can't deny that I am mad at my mother a lot of times—but they bring a lot of pleasure too. What else is there if one gives up on attachments? What did the rishis or sanyasis or sages really do on the top of the mountains?

Well, I think I am a bit more sympathetic to their worldview or position now after having gained life experience I guess. I feel that pursuing knowledge for its own sake gives me more pleasure than many relationships because these inevitably lead to disappointment and despair. There is a dynamic in attachments in the worldly sense where pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin; if you take one you take the other. But certain other pursuits though they don’t bring pleasure in the same way they bring peace or calm or contentment or internal harmony without the pain. I wonder if meditation does this but I have no experience of it so can't really comment.

In today's world of hyper consumption and hyper connections (fuelled by online media) there is an even greater urge and push to hoard things and people. This desire to amass more and more feeds on itself never quite achieving satiety eventually leading to disappointment and despair. Also, the more one is oriented to attachments in the external world the more one loses a grounding in the self…maybe why paradoxically the more we accumulate, the less we seem to attain at least in terms of net happiness.

I wonder though if it's possible to nurture detachment in the thick of worldly living ...to find one's internal mountain so to speak from whose peak we are not lured by the prospect of attachment to persons or things? Quite doubtful that the wise sages of yesteryears missed a trick or two…

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 3:21 am 0 comments
Thursday, September 19, 2019
 
Do not go gentle into that good night

Rage, rage against the dying of the light
~ Dylan Thomas

Seldom have two lines had the power to evoke such powerful emotion in my opinion. Even though there is no mention of 'death' or 'dying' the aura is unmistakable... one feels a sense of pain, imminent loss, mourning, beseeching, sorrow, spiritual turmoil...all at once...

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 7:32 pm 0 comments
Monday, September 16, 2019
 
So, dear readers… if you followed my last post you will understand when I say that I write from a new abode… yes, I have shifted… bag, baggage and soul… and I have to say that I have done more physical exertion in the last two days than I have done in the last two months… I am pretty lazy when it comes to physical labour… or rather I simply focus on exerting myself in areas where my strengths lie ;) …I feel a heavy sense of relief now because the anticipation of physical exertion, the change, the mess, the chaos of disorganised stuff, the newness and things not to my liking… well, suffice to say that I feel like I have been moving in my head for at least a month though the actual shifting occurred in the space of two days…

I did mention I would have new flatmates but luckily they will arrive a week or more from now… I am quite glad that that is the case because it gives me time to do the all-important familiarisation and routinisation in my own way… I imagine I will have to adapt a bit differently when other people enter the equation but I think it gives me the much needed edge of feeling at home which would have been difficult to do if I was the new one… in a way I have had this rather weird feeling like I am one of the ‘housemates’ in the Big Boss’ (like Big Brother in the UK) house... I am the first member to arrive, and like me, everyone would be curious about who the other housemates are…what I am going to hate the most is ‘small talk’… it’s a strange feeling but guess as usual I am overthinking…

The other rather not-so-happy thing for me is that all this mental and physical uncertainty is not good for my work focus… I know myself well so knew it would be so and was expecting a slow down if not a shut down for a few days… even so I can’t help feel the anxiety of not having done as much as I think I should have… trying to stay positive with the thought that at last now I have opened up a Word doc (even if to write a blog ;)) so it means I am going to be on track pretty soon… It also means that the conditions for ‘work’ have been set up in this home… so guess there is reason to hope that all may be well yet…

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 3:52 am 0 comments
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
 

I have mentioned quite often in the past few months how I am starting to relish my solitude. When I thought more about it I realised that I have actually always lived more inside my head than outside it. Childhood onwards be it school or college or work, my interactions with my family were limited to lunches/dinners on weekdays and a few more occasions on weekends. I would generally be ensconced in the bedroom with a book (we didn't have a separate bedroom for each kid but I imagine if we did I would have been practically invisible!) and ventured outside only for nourishment be it food or general conversation. I was never interested in the television especially in those days and my brother who was pretty much the master of the decision of what to watch preferred loud action movies which are the thing I wouldn’t watch if they were the only thing to watch on earth; other times Saas-Bahu (mother-in-law/daughter-in-law) sagas would go on for the benefit of my mom and I am not sure between action movies and Saas-Bahu soaps if I really could decide which was worse. Be that as it may, I enjoyed my books too much and I never experienced it as 'alone time'. I guess it wasn't in the typical sense of the word because I was conscious of being surrounded by family except that mentally I existed in a different world… it was perhaps like being in the best of both worlds at the same time.
I started integrating more within the everyday life of the family only in recent years... maybe the realisation crept up on me that I wouldn't have the emotional experience of living with my family for too long and I should enjoy it to the fullest extent while I can. The advent of Netflix also helped because my brother and I had more options that we could watch in common or more accurately knowing my distaste for action he was open to exploring other genres that might interest both him and I. Mystery for example is something I enjoy and it's something of an intellectual action movie so to speak (!) so he enjoys it too. 
Well, looking back now I feel that my whole life I have veered toward solitude rather than crowds and even when I enjoy being with people it’s perhaps selective people and in intermittent doses. It's rather difficult to explain to people who love being around people all the time how one can enjoy being solitary... but the truth is it never feels like being on one’s own because you are too busy with things or thoughts. I am constantly processing ideas inside my brain for my research… trying to make connections and find patterns and grab them in some written form before they go poof! … It is not that different from when I was a child mentally living in the world of books though I won’t deny that I miss having family around. There is an emotional strength one derives from the mere presence of loving people (who are mindful of not getting on your nerves ;)) and it’s something I very much miss.
Coming to my news, things are about to change for the worse. For reasons that are too many to get into here, I will start living in a shared accommodation space in a week or so. I am already feeling a little apprehensive about it as I am apprehensive about any change from my normal routine and this is a big change to put it mildly; apart from missing my solitude I am afraid of not being able to do many things the way I like doing them. The only positive thing one could say about this development is that it might offer me some diversion in the form of human conversation but whether that's welcome or not will really depend on the form it takes (conversation is something that I love having with the right kind of people but the ‘right kind’ is a very ‘rare kind’). I am hoping for the best but not holding my breath... and neither should you, dear reader!
What follows is a tongue-in-cheek take... :)


Ode to Solitude

Farewell, solitude
Here we part
Or shall I say
I do depart
Not out of choice
For nothing pleases me
More than you
But because I must
At this juncture
Find better pastures
To live and hope and dream
But fear thee not
‘tis temporary
Unlike capricious lovers
My word’s my bond
And once I have declared
Sweet allegiance
Never shall it be broken
Not now, not tomorrow
But for this little relapse
Whose cause is not my will
I might have gone your way
Yet I shall meet you still
Not quite tomorrow
But another day
Let your sweetness dull not till then
For I care for no company but you
Perverse luck pulls me away 
But we shall meet again
Soon


~Me

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 9:18 pm 0 comments
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
 

We might be alone
In this pale yellow light
Where many voices speak
Arguments are born
Decisions are made
Errors noted and undone
But all that matters
Occurs secretly
In the space of the heart
Where forbidden emotion breathes
Soft though it is
But rising above the din
Louder than all
Babbling mouths
Urging no reasons
And yet
So convincing
Only to be heard
By the one other heart
Which cannot remain oblivious
To its damning influence
Though it tries hard! 

~Me

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 3:57 am 0 comments
Sunday, September 08, 2019
 
Today is the Nativity feast or the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It happens to be one of the very few times that I am not at home celebrating it with everyone. I believe I have posted before about the rather traditional celebration that we have on this day, sort of doubling up as a harvest feast... the main items on the agenda are church, sweets, traditional meal (vegetarian).
 
I happened to speak to a relative today and her not-so-surprising question was, "Did you go to church?" I said, "No". Next question, "Are you going in the evening?" "No". "Why?" I debated whether to give the short answer which would be a false one or the long answer which could become a philosophical-theological one-sided argument but also like playing music to deaf ears so I settled for the short false one. 
I sensed myself feeling a bit exasperated after the phone call as I usually do when I am put in a position where I have to state something false because the other party is too closed-minded. I still think I couldn't have said anything otherwise but that irritates me even more. I recently mentioned how the Indian way of asking questions with lack of sensitivity to a different point of view puts me in a difficult corner because of my own sympathetic attitude to the questioner's ignorance on the one hand and distaste for diplomacy on the other. 
I thought about this person a bit more to see things from their worldview and realised that this person had seen so very little of the world outside their own cocoon bound up and entangled in relationships and their coercive demands that they could perhaps not envision someone doing whatever they pleased on a day or days that manifestly bring out these coercions and entanglements in the form of social rituals. The outer significance of these rituals is to bond together as a family or extended family and collectively thank God for past blessings and ask for more but the inner workings of it require you to subject yourself to the dominance of tradition or the ones who dominate in the name of tradition. There is simply no possibility of not going to church or one does not even imagine such acts as possibilities because in these setups one becomes a 'group' and what is impossible to the group ceases to be a possibility for an individual. It is only an individual who can question a tradition or choose not to follow one or customise it to suit themselves but in this monolith group all move in the same direction and a person's individuality or identity ceases to exist apart from the group. When I thought about it from this point of view I realised that this person was asking me a very genuine question. They couldn't even imagine how I was doing something that just did not fit in the scheme of this monolith group operation. And I guess my response was appropriate in that sense because it was made to be processed by someone within this group conformity scheme of things rather than a scheme where each person may do whatever they wish to without being subjected to a group will.
The more I think about it the more I marvel at the fact that had my life taken a few different turns I might have been swallowed up into this group institution. It's not at all to say that people are unhappy as a group because once you are in it you don’t even realise there's an alternative way to be, but being outside of it now I feel enormously glad that my life has turned out differently. That life wasn’t for me. Not because my life is a happier one but it certainly is one that I feel is truer to who I am. And that's what I am most thankful to Mother Mary for today… for leading me to a life where I am so much more freer to be myself (submitting to God’s will and no other man’s—at least to the extent that one can in this social world!).

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 10:27 pm 0 comments
Saturday, September 07, 2019
 
I have been toying with the idea of deleting the ‘Haunts’ and ‘Bloggers’ section on the left panel for quite a while now. Those blogs have been extinct for more than a decade and most of the haunts are no longer haunted by me. I always hesitate to make even the tiniest changes to this blog; if someone from those early days were to visit this blog now they would probably feel like they were doing a time travel or something! Neither the template has changed nor the description—I am inclined to remove the ‘hmmm’ and one of the extra exclamation marks from the description too because while it seemed appropriate to the really young person I was then, it seems a bit childish and immature at this time in my life. And yet I won’t want to change the description entirely because for one it is still quite accurate, and two, it would be too dramatic a change. So I guess I will at least do these minor toying-arounds…

The other thing that’s been on my mind a bit is that my blog used to be a completely separate aspect of my identity in my corporate work days. Separate in the sense that whatever I said on my blog could be compartmentalised very easily as forming my personal views and whatever I did in the corporate world was fully in accordance with the organisational views or policies or whatever so that my personal stance or views had nothing to do with my work or decisions. Since entering the academic world and preparing for (hopefully) an academic career, I realise more and more that in this instance the professional and personal where worldview, topics of interest, ideas, attitudes, stances, philosophies etc. are concerned are not really that separate. The entire reason that I moved into academia is perhaps to do what I loved doing so far only on the side—study and analyse the topics I found of interest—all the time. So whatever I say on this blog in terms of how I think about something is not ‘personal’ in the sense that I would not have a completely different way of thinking about the same thing from an academic point of view, because my academic point of view unlike in the corporate context would be my own and not that of my employer. I guess what that means and what I’m trying to say is that I sometimes sense a rather higher degree of self-consciousness about what I’m saying on this blog these days than I did before because in a way I could be seen to be committing myself to a position in more contexts than purely this blog. Of course, human that I am it doesn’t and shouldn’t mean that I can’t change my stance or rethink my position, but somehow I sometimes catch myself feeling the weight of the added consideration.

After some pondering though I have reached the conclusion that I will continue to think of this blog as a purely personal space where I am able to “experiment” with my thoughts and moon about my feelings without being too fettered… or without too many reservations or inhibitions; because it is in the process of experimenting and mooning that I have many a times been struck with clarity and I don’t want to exchange precious doubt that may eventually lead to clarity for pretentious certainty that doesn’t go too far, even if it means risking being proved wrong. I don’t have very many hobbies but this blog is the space where I exercise them freely such as they are… and it shall hopefully always remain so! J

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 1:04 am 0 comments
Wednesday, September 04, 2019
 

Recently I came across this post about how a good boss was someone who cared. Might sound cheesy or self-evident but when I read through the post it dawned on me that it was neither. 
I started thinking about all the bosses I had had in my career whom I admired, looked up to, revered, respected, was still in touch with, and I realised that all of them were very different in terms of their intelligence, knowledge, working style, personality, approach, goals and so on but the one thing that stood out to me as a common thread was that, yes, they cared. They cared about me as a human being rather than an employee, they cared about me as a person and an individual, they showed by various gestures and words that I mattered to them in the scheme of things, that if I disappeared the next day I would not be eminently replaceable, that I wasn't just one of the cogs in the wheel, that they were genuinely interested in my progress for my own sake, that they appreciated me not just as a member of the workplace but as someone who held an important space in their professional life. There was a high level of trust between us which did not come about overnight but once it was established they let me be my own boss, or in other words, their equal. I guess that was their way of showing me that they cared about my development and understood how I worked best...and yet they were always there for me if I needed a shoulder to cry on (which I did often!)
I guess I have been very lucky to have the best of bosses. Even when I had the not-so-good ones they luckily didn't last long, and they taught me to appreciate the good ones even more. Seems to me that underneath our suits and power dresses we are all just human and what we crave for the most is not leadership or inspiration or motivation or empowerment or engagement or any other old- and new-fangled management doses... we simply crave to work for those who truly care (no wonder it is said that people don’t leave organisations; they leave bosses!).

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 3:39 am 0 comments
Monday, September 02, 2019
 

Homo Scientificus
 
Making propositions
Testing hypotheses
Capturing human nature
In a dull thesis
 
Planning surveys
Drafting instruments
Fitting into circles
Square accoutrements
 
The material world lends
To fixities and predictions
The ambitious man proceeds
To unlock his own essence
 
Rats in a lab
He observes man and portends
Not struck by the irony
Of experimenter becoming experiment
 
As objects in the world
To deconstruct and derive
Humanity to its very core
Is his ongoing strife
Yet one would question
Assumptions of this kind
That attempt to unlock consciousness
With itself -- the conscious mind


~Me


posted by Sylvia D'souza at 6:32 pm 0 comments
Sunday, September 01, 2019
 

Those in the field of social science usually come up against this insinuation in academic as well as lay contexts that those engaged in natural science or the hard sciences are somehow engaged in a superior enterprise. Social science, according to these people, is not a ‘science’ at all but quackery passing off as a ‘science’. I believe the sense of superiority comes from the notion of ‘objectivity’ or in other words accuracy, reliability, validity which are all seen as must-have attributes of anything that aspires to call itself science—what you see is what you get, in simplistic terms.
The ‘pure sciences’ as they’re sometimes called endeavour to ‘discover’ what is ‘out there’ or ‘explain’ how what is ‘out there’ works as it does. This could be anything, how the human body functions, why rain happens, what makes the earth go round, why animal species go extinct, so on and so forth. The scientific method (observation, experimentation, measurement etc.) is used to make these discoveries or come up with explanations, building our storehouse of knowledge in the process. Science also reserves the possibility of refuting its own explanations and putting up new ones in their place or modifying the explanations given earlier or extending them, as new evidence arises, but whatever it does, it is committed to the agenda of pushing forward the limits of our current knowledge of the stuff of the world (or maybe our world as we with our senses may know it). The more knowledge it discovers or uncovers the more it is able to put it to use for humanity’s benefit (sometimes inadvertently perhaps collective harm).
I have to admit at this juncture that I am not trying to put down science or to diminish its many marvellous achievements but simply trying to present it as a field of enquiry as any other with a purpose that can be construed to be as lofty or less than any other depending on what questions one considers worth asking or what knowledge one considers worth pursuing. While science does a good job of discovering or explaining what is ‘out there’, it cannot tell us much about why what is ‘out there’ is there or why what is ‘out there’ is there the way it is or affects us the way it does, from a larger perspective rather than by referencing the other things that are out there. It can tell us for example that the universe operates according to fixed laws that are mathematically precise and by discovering those fixed laws it can predict events with mathematical precision—but it cannot tell us why the universe operates according to these laws in the first place or what makes it stick to these laws on which our very existence (or at least the order in it) depends. Our scientific ability to discover, control or predict the workings of nature is completely dependent on the fact that nature has this inbuilt unity and coherence in its structure. Science is engrossed in discovering these unities and patterns and laws which is very useful in a way because the more we know about it the more we are able to harness it to our benefit but it cannot tell us anything outside this material scheme of events. And one must see that it is the nature of the universe itself that allows for the possibility of ‘science’ so to speak, rather than science taming nature.
Now, for those who are interested in seeking answers to questions that go beyond the material world or that relate to our inner world, interested in going beyond simply noting the many unities in nature to interrogating the causes of those unities, interested less in the practical implications of those unities and more in the abstract principles from which these unities arise, interested in the nature of the very apparatus we have or the limitations of this apparatus to gain knowledge that transcends the material world… for such forms of enquiry this science or rather its methods would not be amenable indeed. Whether we consider these questions to be less worthy of pursuit simply because we’d rather have accurate, definite, valid answers or whether we consider the exploration or investigation of these questions a worthy endeavour in its own right perhaps depends as much on what we intrinsically value as the value of the questions themselves.

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 3:53 am 0 comments
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