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, August 29, 2020
 
These days I feel like I have two selves: the acting self and the observing self. This observing self is always looking on, tut tutting at my actions, showing me the mirror of my true motivations, questioning and criticising me, and in the process also shaping the arc of my future actions. The acting self seems to be far more spontaneous (relatively speaking since my dear readers know I am anything but spontaneous) but I mean spontaneous in the sense of being driven by something more instinctual and subconscious. I might say something boastful in the throes of a conversation for instance but later my observing self may chide me about my egoistic need for praise. Something like that happened today when my observing self asked me about the motivation for some of my actions. I thought I was doing them to be genuinely helpful but when these actions weren't acknowledged I felt a bit sad. My observing self asked me why I felt sad if all I wanted was to help? Perhaps I also wanted to be seen or acknowledged as helpful or wanted recognition for it but when it wasn't forthcoming my emotions sort of gave away my inner desire. My acting self wasn’t conscious of this desire but my observing self, looking upon my actions, made me conscious of them. That's what I meant by showing me the mirror to what is inside me. 

I wish to depend less on external rewards/reinforcements for my actions, act less for perception sake and more for authentic expression so it bothers me when that does not seem to be the case. I guess it's not that I am not acting authentically—not at all—helping people in the way I do is my authentic expression but what I can't get rid of is the expectation of acknowledgement. When the acknowledgement doesn't come it's not that I am sad because I failed to create a perception but it's more about…was this action meaningful at all to anyone? Was it even needed... or appreciated? Again, point is it shouldn't matter to me if it was needed or appreciated if it's driven by my internal desire to do what I believe needs doing or what I feel I must do... that is where I get stuck. To act and leave it at that seems difficult. As they say in Hindi "Naiki kar darya mein daal" or "do good and cast it in the river"...I wish it was easy.

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 6:54 am 0 comments
Sunday, August 23, 2020
 
“Yet even as I was suffocating, I did not fail to find peace in cheerful and brave reflections. “ What is this?” said I. “Does death make trial of me so many times? Let it—I have made trial of it as well,” long ago. “When?” you ask. Before I was born. Death is just nonexistence. I know already what that is like: what will exist after me is the same as existed before me. If there is any torment in this thing, then there must have been torment also before we saw the light of day. Yet we did not feel any discomfort at that time.

I ask you this: wouldn’t you say a person was quite stupid if he thought that a lamp was worse off after it was extinguished than before it was lighted? We too are extinguished; we too are lighted. Betweentimes there is something that we feel; on either side is complete lack of concern. Unless I am wrong, dear Lucilius, our mistake is that we think death comes after; in fact, it comes both before and after. Whatever was before us is death. What difference is there between ending and simply not beginning? Both have the same result: nonexistence.”
~ Seneca
-----

I found this passage quite profound. It’s strange that even the most simple and familiar ideas when looked at from a different perspective can provide so much illumination. We know we did not exist before being born but rarely do we think that what we will experience after death, that is nonexistence, is the same as what we experienced before being born, that is, nonexistence. What it is to experience nonexistence after death we do not know but we also do not know what it was like before we were born. Did the moment of birth initiate our existence? If so, then since we have already experienced the state of not existing it shouldn’t be too difficult to do it again. And what if the moment of birth didn’t really initiate our existence but only transferred our essence to physical existence? Well, then that means that the state of death will transfer it back to where it came from.

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 4:32 am 0 comments
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
 

Tout vient a qui sait attendre

All hoped-for things will come to you
Who have the strength to watch and wait,
Our longings spur the steeds of Fate,
This has been said by one who knew.

‘Ah, all things come to those who wait,’
(I say these words to make me glad),
But something answers soft and sad,
‘They come, but often come too late.’

 ~ Violet Fane

Unlike the poem, I wouldn't say they come too late. They come when their time is due or ripe, and if it seems late, it is perhaps because we are not aware of the whole plan. I sound a bit more positive than my last few posts right? :) That's because some good things I have been praying for materialised! They keep me very busy which is why I have been slightly silent on the blog...but it's a good busy. You're always on my mind though, my lovely readers!
Lately I dream a lot about Mumbai. I think it’s because it’s slightly more than two years since I was there. I did go to India a year ago but was only able to visit Mangalore. I dream of moments, rather mundane ones, I shared with people at home, places that seem very exciting now seen from the perspective of my quite surroundings, events that didn't have much significance then but now fill me with nostalgia simply because I can never experience them again...simple routines like having breakfast with mom in the morning or watching TV together. Everything seems far away, like in a different time or world, out of grasp...maybe I have this feeling because the covid situation makes me feel like I can't just run home if I want to...
As usual, it didn't take much for positive me to jump to nostalgic me... there's a reason this blog is named nostalgica, as you all know! ;)

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 3:04 am 0 comments
Saturday, August 08, 2020
 
I have been reading bits and pieces of Stoic philosophy recently. There is much that resonates with me and some that doesn't. In the following quote for example, I relate to the idea of standing one's ground against misfortune rather than allowing it to break one—which in modern parlance indicates grit, perseverance, determination and other such attributes. What I don’t get, and it might be because I need to understand it better, is the idea that virtues are natural to man’s nature or that virtue realises man’s true nature… I mean in a sense I agree that virtues are all that is noble in man’s nature but in some sense the nobility to me comes from defying more natural by which I mean animalistic elements rather than it coming naturally. But my confusion might come from a lack of understanding or agreement on definitions of key concepts…rather than a disagreement in principle.

 
"Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.
Unhappy am I, because this has happened to me—Not so, but Happy am I, though this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future. For such a thing as this might have happened to every man; but every man would not have continued free from pain on such an occasion. Why then is that rather a misfortune than this a good fortune? And dost thou in all cases call that a man’s misfortune, which is not a deviation from man’s nature? And does a thing seem to thee to be a deviation from man’s nature, when it is not contrary to the will of man’s nature? Well, thou knowest the will of nature. Will then this which has happened prevent thee from being just, magnanimous, temperate, prudent, secure against inconsiderate opinions and falsehood; will it prevent thee from having modesty, freedom, and everything else, by the presence of which man’s nature obtains all that is its own? Remember too on every occasion which leads thee to vexation to apply this principle: that this is not a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune."
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4:49

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 10:29 pm 0 comments
Wednesday, August 05, 2020
 
Be steady, be calm

But ready

To take on

What is coming

Good or bad

Time will tell

What spell

Destiny weaves

Not yours to guess

But to work

Steadily, determinedly

At your goal

Resist all thoughts

Of things

You can't control

But toil, slog

Knead and mould

The pure dough

Of effort, toil, sweat

What is in your hands

Is yours alone

Make it your best

And hope

T'will be blest...

 

~Me

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 8:03 pm 0 comments
Monday, August 03, 2020
 
Do you ever realise that there is only one person in the whole world who loves you unconditionally... who is invested in you in a way no one else is or can be...and whose investment doesn't demand any return? I am referring to mother. I am not in a position to know if one would feel the same way about one's child; that seems the closest relationship that replicates the bond one could have with one's mother. I do think I am invested in my mother like I am in no other but perhaps it's not as unconditional... I do have expectations from her...even her emotional investment in me that I am taking for granted is an expectation. I am not saying that there are no other equally strong relationships in one's life, if one is lucky that is, but it's just that there is something about a mother and child bond that seems to be unique. It might be too dramatic but for want of a better analogy it's like the love you expect an ideal God to have for you... you might not be worthy of love and might do everything to forfeit it but you don't expect God to love you any less because God is God. It's not like mortal loves that are fickle, changeable, fluid, temperamental, lacking depth, so on... Of course, I don't mean to say mothers are perfect beings who love perfectly, far from it. But just that the quality of their love for their own children is far more natural and fixed because it inheres in the fact that you are her child and nothing else whatever. And nothing you do can make you less of or not her child.

These thoughts actually come to my mind when I think of how one's world would be if one did not have a mother. It's perhaps even worse than a world in which one did not believe there was a God because one might never have felt God's presence so may not notice his absence but to feel and know and live in the shade of a mother's love...and then to not have that shade anymore... how must it feel? I'd rather not think about it... life is full of suffering for those who think or feel deeply...but some forms of suffering seem too much for any human to bear.

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 9:09 pm 0 comments
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