What sort of people are best wired to be happy in life? I'm not sure what it even means to be perpetually happy but I wonder if people who simply take what they get and go along with it tend to be happier? People who are not worried about identity or potential or meaning or justice but just live life because life is about living or something like that—which I obviously know nothing about—are perhaps better off? Even while writing this I draw a blank on what such a state means. If I see injustice but don't bat an eyelid or if I know I deserve something better but don't work towards it or if I just play the role society has ordained for me instead of finding my own role... how does that count for happiness? What is life outside of these strifes and struggles be it for identity or meaning or movement towards something or anything that I determine? What is happiness constituted by is a mystery to me... maybe I am not wired to find joy without substance. I mean I can get pleasure out of looking at nature or hearing a piece of music of course but those too inhere in my capacity to feel something which also mean being hurt or offended or saddened by the not so beautiful things I encounter. I don't understand happiness in a vacuum or in turning one’s face away from disharmonious conditions...

Sometimes we lose a sense of perspective in our bubble I think. Or at least I do. The micro of hurts become very macro in my mind until I realise how micro my problem really is in the context of someone else's situation. Obviously what happens to us is felt way more keenly because it is us, and we can't be unruffled simply because there are many in the world who might be suffering more. I suppose one can be grateful that one is not having it worse and yet feel a little disheartened by the micro things that befall one?

I sure wish I could have the greater context of the world firmly in my head so I don't take the minor hits too badly. The problem is it's only much later that a sense of perspective sets in... after I have been through a bit of the drama queen phase ;) Maybe that's natural... it's a bit like when fire touches you, you are going to feel the burn for a moment and forget everything else. You aren't going to be able to ignore the minor burn because it could have been a more severe calamity or others have faced more severe burns...after a while you might feel grateful it wasn't worse but not when you are actually hurting. Maybe one just has to accept one's humanness :)

I have nothing much to say on my special day except that I am very hopeful about this year and very grateful for everything that came my way last year. I feel like I am on a cusp of a year of sorts and which direction it goes from here will define my life for quite some time to come. So here’s to another year of living (fingers crossed ;)) and blogging!

“To be nobody but yourself

in a world

which is doing its best day and night

to make you like everybody else

means to fight the hardest battle

which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”

~ E.E. Cummings

I remember reflecting about growing older at various milestones apart from birthdays. Come to think of it we are almost on birthday week ;) Like when I was finishing school I wondered how it would be being an older college-going person. When I was finishing what we call college at 20 I remember wondering if I was old, now that I would be working. I remember in one of the postgrad courses I did a bit later, probably I was 22ish, there was a 30-year old girl in it. I don't remember my exact thinking then but I remember sort of being shocked at how old she was... the 30-year old! I am starting to think young people at that age including myself—though I was quite reflective in general—have something of an arrogance that is perhaps the privilege of youth. It seems like an obvious fact now but it didn't seem then that we are all marching towards old age and eventual decay. It's a hard cold brute fact. One would think if we are all in it together in a way that we are not in together for anything else... it's our basic shared mortality or materiality in a sense... then this is something we should find some communion in instead of being a reason for division or arrogance. And yet the attitude I seemed to have then is the general attitude of youth, and I sometimes feel amused thinking that some day they may also look back the way I am doing now and wonder what the fuss was about. We are all going to catch up with each other sooner than later... there's no stalling it.

The first time you see a grey hair is probably when you well and truly come to confronting the hard brute fact of life; it was for me and might be different things for others. Unlike when I was moving from school to college or college to work, this is not a social construct in mine or people’s heads. It is a real sign. It makes you realize the naiveté of thinking you were anywhere near old in your early 20s... Like someone said, youth is wasted on the young....! :)

Maybe because I’m nearing my birthday or maybe it's just a part of the reflections that come more often as you grow more and more older... I am thinking of how we associate so much of ourselves with our bodies, the way we look, the way we present... and I wonder how much of who I am is invested in or conveyed by my body. When I really think about it I realise it’s not much really. We all anchor our identity to different concepts or parts of ourselves, and I suppose my identity is rooted in my mind than my body. Of course this is not to deny that my mind has linkages to my body in terms of overall health but I’d like to think my identity or who I am comes from my mind, what I think, how I think, how I engage with the world, what values I hold, what attitudes I have and what not. Not in how I look or how I present myself to the outside world as a plain or pure bodily figure. I suppose what it means for me is that growing older must mean a positive in the terms with which I associate my identity. I am not the person I was ten years ago and in a very good way. I have grown and my body in its weather-beaten condition probably cannot attest to the positive aspect of the growth, but when we project ourselves into the world, we project more than what we look like as a body, we project the whole person. And it is a matter of pride if the whole person does have much to show for growth. Probably it is this whole person or the way we have travelled to become this whole person and the long way left to us to become even more of the person we want to become is what we need to focus on.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” ~ Shakespeare

I remember finding one advertisement quite intriguing as a kid. Which is why I still remember it. It was for a car, and it said something like: "If you find a better car, buy it". I thought that was clever and though I didn't know the exact terminology then, it's a good use of reverse psychology. It also reeks of confidence, that I am so good that if you find something better, you should certainly buy it. I guess it also means that if you lose out to a worthy opponent, there is a joy even in losing. But if you lose out to mediocrity, that's a shame. But it's a shame for whom? For the car because someone bought one that was nowhere its equal... or for the buyer who did not judge value correctly? Ultimately it's the buyer who has to live with a bad car and with their decision? Though it seems to me that buyers and cars perhaps find their match. It's no loss to the buyer either in that sense because they got what meets their standard. Perhaps the better car is also not at a loss because it might as well be purchased by someone who genuinely recognises its worth. It's hard for the car temporarily because who likes to be passed over for the mediocre...? But maybe one needs to remind oneself that quality or virtue must finally be its own reward. Not because it commands a value or appreciation or a buyer in the market.