I bid farewell to one of the few friends I had made since coming here. This has made me think about how people come into and go out of our lives. When I look back, I realise that having this friend helped me get through some of the toughest times in the past few years. It wasn't as if they did anything practically, but I had a listening ear and someone to talk to when I needed it the most. Those issues sorted to my advantage eventually, and by the time they did, the friend also went on their own life path. It almost seems like I had a friend when I needed one, and when they served their purpose in a way, they weren't in my life anymore. I see this as something of a pattern...as if people come into your life expressly to teach you something or nudge you to do something you can't find the courage or clarity to do or to be a source of comfort when things are proving difficult for you...and the moment you have passed over the bridge, they seem to disappear or drift off.

I find myself feeling slightly melancholy and nostalgic (what a surprise!) with this turn of thought. Also because, another thing strikes me, which didn't when I was much younger. A sense of the finality of things, of the never-to-be-again nature of events. I am conscious of how I will most likely never see this friend again in this lifetime. It's like Shakespeare’s stage where the actors move out after playing their respective parts and don't make an appearance again... in this case even in the final act or even to say goodbye one last time. The moment you see them for the last time is now…because life is finite, and it ends abruptly and sooner than one thinks. I will come across other actors in the journey forward who will serve their purposes and play their roles in my life story... but as it always happens I will not know the value of the part they will play in my life or cherish it in quite the same way...till it’s time to bid adieu. That time or moment becomes poignant not because you lose the person forever in a way, because they would have already played their part and drifted away, but because it becomes a moment in which you grieve all such moments gone by, and more so, all such moments still to come… You know you have to dig deep to muster all the strength you have… to go on… in spite of, despite,… because life goes on.

I am thinking about the words "opinionated" and "judgmental". Why are having an opinion or showing judgment made out to be bad things? Most people have no opinions, at least informed ones, and most people have no judgment, at least well-deliberated ones. So, instead of encouraging people to form opinions, to make critical evaluations, to cultivate themselves in a way in interaction with the world of ideas, why do we pull down those who show strong opinions or express strong judgments? Granted that just having an opinion or a judgment does not make it a right or a wise one but I would say these sort of people have at least made an effort to engage their mind in some way, they at least show an interest in committing to a point of view, they at least care in the broad sense of the term to know themselves or the world through themselves? I have sympathy for this type but the other type... that sits on the fence calmly while the world drifts by tilting neither this way nor that...they get my goat. No, actually, they don't get my anything ;)

Lately I have been reflecting quite a bit about rules. I was asked to become an admin of an FB humour group—if you find that funny, so did I...hehe...but that's because I am perhaps at my most serious and intense on this blog—but to get to the point...as the admin one of the things one has to do is accept or reject members into the group. Those requesting membership have to fill a few fields including check a box agreeing to the group rules. The rules are standard stuff like being respectful and all that. Now it turns out that a lot of membership requestors were not ticking this check box; the reason is unknown. About 7-8 of us admins and moderators had a discussion about this and almost everyone felt that people who didn't tick this box about the group rules should not be given access to the group.

I was the only one who felt differently and this made me delve into my head a bit more. It's not that I am in favour of people breaking the rules or being disrespectful or some such, obviously not, quite the contrary. However, given that this checkbox wasn't something like an official contract, breaking which you would be liable to be penalised, my logic was this: 1. When it comes to humour, tastes differ. So, even if a person agrees to abide by the rules and to not post something disrespectful or offensive, they still could if their tastes were different. 2. Since agreeing to the rules and then breaking them didn't come with a penalty, there was no reason they wouldn't still do it if they were the type of people who generally did. 3. If people didn't tick the checkbox because they intentionally wanted to reject the rules, that would show they were people with too much integrity to actually break basic rules like respect! In this sense I would consider not ticking the box an oversight rather than deliberate. 4. How many people read the rules before ticking the box to join an FB group, especially a humour group? So what does ticking even mean really in this scheme of things? Given these many reasons, and I could think of more, it was quite surprising to me that people thought it was better to reject members than accept them just because they didn't tick the box. Of course, one could ask why mention the rules at all at the time of joining then but I think it is quite alright to mention them to show we hold these values or expect them to be abided by but whether people abide by them or not should best be evaluated in their actions rather than as part of a tick box exercise.

I guess we are so used to living in the tyranny of rules that agreeing to the rules—no matter what the context—has become a rule above all. It seems something of a blasphemy to us that someone does not agree and we are not able to think beyond the crime of rule-breaking for the sake of it, not able to reason beyond the rule, not able to ask ourselves whether the rule itself serves a purpose or not able to take the entirety of the situation into account. We seem to hold the rule above the individual...and in this sense the group above the individual though the identity of the group itself is reduced to nothing but rule following.

I wish…

Sometimes little

And sometimes too much

Like a beggar

Who thinks

Even a little goes a long way

And then like a queen

For whom a feast must be a feast of record

I yoyo

Oscillate

In my head

And in my heart

Sometimes angry, stung

And then compliant, indulgent

I wish…

To be

Proud, haughty

Churlish even

But what are the chances

You’d notice?

My airs and graces

And then

I couldn’t bear

If you turned away

A risk

Not worth the taking…

~ Me

Validation. Why do we need it? Why do we want people to acknowledge our gestures, to make us feel like we matter, make us believe that they care, make us valuable in our own eyes in a sense? Why? Isn't it quite enough that I know, just know, that I do matter... not to a person or someone but that my existence is not a fluke, an accident, an aberration. It is determined, it is deliberate, it is designed, it mattered enough. It might seem like I am saying that I matter to God and maybe it boils down to it if you look at it this way, but my counterpoint is that if all this is untrue and I do not matter to God and thereby I am nothing and no one in the scheme of things, then, I do not matter at all. My mattering to another human being would not have much significance in this state of affairs either because we would be both meaningless in the grand design. Can one mouse validate another...? Well, nor could we validate each other if we were akin to mice...but if we are something much more, then I come validated into the world already and if I seek validation then my internal validation should be as good as any external one. It would after all be invested in me by a higher power.

I was wondering about why I have so little to share on my blog these days. I think it’s the lack of anything going on in one’s life with the way things are. You don’t expect anything out of the ordinary to occur in video meetings, you don’t really hang around anywhere waiting to catch any drippings of gossip, you don’t go to the office and bump into colleagues to exchange long drawn out complaints… it’s like life is at a standstill. I actually can’t believe it’s almost December because time seems to have stopped for the last many months. My dear readers are aware that this is the time I would be preparing to go home and starting to get moony-eyed by the thought of home… but it looks like this year I will be spending Christmas alone. The prospect makes me sad when I dwell on it… which is why I try not to…

I was working on something for the past few weeks that made me think a bit more deeply about how my gender and ethnicity influence the outcomes I achieve in my life, or in other words, how the cards are stacked against me in this regard. It’s not that I have never thought about this but it’s always been more at a subconscious level. For instance, when I first introduce myself as a tutor to a class I am extremely conscious of how I might be judged. I wonder how the students perceive me and a large part of this perception analysis draws from my racial and gender identity. I feel like I might be perceived as not good enough on first impression or that I need to prove myself or my worth against whatever impression they have of me… all because I am an Indian woman. I imagine that some identities do not experience this sense of being judged as someone with lower worth or face this challenge of having to prove their worth. It’s as if they are taken to be good enough at face value, and because they don’t have to really do anything to earn this good impression except be who they are, it’s not so difficult to sail through. However, for those of us who are not the receivers of such instant goodwill based on our ethnicity or gender or worse still both, there is a steep uphill climb.

Even though I am supremely confident about my abilities and the quality of my work in general, I have never been able to transfer this confidence in relation to the opportunities that come my way or the outcomes I achieve. I generally have, as you my readers know very well, put this lack of confidence down to my luck. The truth is though that luck is attached to one’s circumstances in life, to who one was born to, as what, where, and so on. It is not an abstract luck but a luck that is configured into the systems and structures of the real world and that either works in one’s favour or doesn’t… In spite of being conscious of the practical dynamics of how much of what we call luck operates I think of it in the abstract, as something mystical and universally ordained… in a way it is because we did not choose our circumstances…but in another way I tend to do so because it helps me focus my efforts on what is in my own control…rather than on something that I am powerless to fight against.