Organised chaos

I stopped at the traffic lights and was waiting for the signal to cross the street. I saw a fleet of cars waiting for the lights to turn green. There were several rows of cars waiting. I looked at the drivers. I felt they were the slaves to the red and green lights. I felt I am enjoying a lot more freedom with my feet rather than sitting behind the wheel. I just found it funny to see the cars obeying the rules and could not help laughing silently.

Raindrops

http://www.flickr.com/photos/christinawelsh/ /  
CC BY-ND 2.0

Sound of raindrops on a quiet night
Knocking on the doorsteps of my mind

I am awake and contemplating
My mind heavy with thoughts
Scared, anxious and paranoid

Raindrops an instant soothing remedy
Looking forward to them
Every night

Life in a suitcase

How would it feel living inside a box? I mean, only carrying a bare minimum to live your life... fit everything that you need in a suitcase... and walk around carrying your suitcase... take your life with you wherever you go...

I am not interested in accumulating unnecessary belongings. I sometimes think I would consider myself successful if I can fit my life in a suitcase. It really bothers me to own a lot of things and having to carry them with me when I move places. Everything a person really needs to survive is food, clothes, a place to live and a small company of good people. If I can fit food, clothes and few other things in a suitcase, I could consider myself lucky...

The caveman within me

Everyday we conform to things around us such as etiquettes, social norms and laws. These have become quite essential for functioning in a modern society. I feel the downside is, they have made our lives more complicated and artificial. It seems like we have to think twice before speaking with someone. We are called uncivilised if we do not know the table manners. There are ways to dress-up while attending job interviews and to present yourself. You have to pretend to be confident even when you are not.

I am not trying to despise all this. I wish I could but this is part of our time. We just have to accept it or at least try to lower the impact of it.

Does time exist everywhere?

Time is a measure of gradual change from the past to the present to the future. Past, present and future exist where there is someone or something to physically observe the events. Hence the existence of time truly makes sense where there is an observer.

In our physical universe, we can easily conclude that time exists. (Obviously, I am not talking about the hours, minutes and seconds that a clock represents. That is something totally different- a man-made system to measure time.) We are constantly observing the flow of events from our past to our present to our future. We analyse, become judgemental and make predictions.

Change and being "me"

Change is inevitable. You like it or not, you end up changing. You can't stay without changing. Change is simply a part of life. But you can certainly control the frequency and amount of change you want to bring. Sometimes you may need to moderate the prospective change to prevent it from interfering your being who you are.

I don't prevent changes to occur in my life. I am liberal enough to allow changes to occur but only to a certain extent. A change may help to improve our situations and lifestyles in better ways. If the changes start twisting your reality and force you to become somebody else, then you may need to think twice before accepting the changes. A change might cause you to lose your uniqueness and make you just another ordinary being who blindly follows the worldly rules.

I am

"All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else."

- Buddha

I am the earth where I stand.
I am the air that I breathe.
I am the cloud that brings rain.
I am the water that I drink.
I am the tree that shelters me.
I am you, a stranger to me.
I am everything regardless of everything.

A quick death and a sudden revival

I think I was fully awake. I was lying on my bed and had my eyes shut for a few seconds. I noticed a rapid movement of my tongue and heard a faint racheting sound just above my tongue. I saw rapid flickering of narrow horizontal black and white stripes that turned diagonal and turned off like a television screen. Then a few milliseconds of absolute darkness and no movement. I then suddenly opened my eyes without moving other parts of my body and was staring blankly in front of me wondering what had happened to me.

Did China truly celebrate 60 years of communism?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gadgetdan/ / CC BY 2.0

I was watching news on television about China's grand celebration to mark 60 years of communism. They have proudly displayed their military might and they celebrated their progress in science and technology, sports, education and economy. On a sour note, most Chinese were not allowed to go out and participate in the celebrations. They had to watch the festivities on television. Even the kites were banned to prevent aerial hazards- whatever that is supposed to mean.

I am your shadow

You are showered by the bright light
I lie beneath you
Expecting you to share the light with me

You run with your feet high
I enjoy your playfulness
Wishing to touch the sky with you

I am your shadow
My fate is to be grounded
Your bright light the cause of my bitter existence
Darkness my saviour, my demise, my relief

Wife vs Computer

My wife has an utter dislike towards my computer. I must admit I spend hours on computer every day. She has even personified the computer as my "second wife" but is yet to give it a name. She takes my computer as her mortal enemy. She claims it is always between me and her.

Whenever my computer slows down or has problems, I see a glow in my wife's face. She looks very happy and sometimes she starts clapping and says in a total relief, "Good it's not working. I feel so happy. I hope it doesn't work anymore."

I never thought a computer could cause so much stir in my life. When I sleep, I have my computer on my side-table next to the bed. I leave it on all night. If I happen to wake up at night, I quickly turn it on and start browsing the net. No wonder my wife hates it. She sometimes wakes up and forcefully turns it off. Perhaps I am a real computer addict.

Is computer taking over your life? Is computer affecting your relationship?

Small things that make you happy

Washing rice
You touch hunger

Returning home
You sense freedom

Patting your pet
You feel submission

Friday night dinner
You make love to food

Lovers' hug
You become one

Hard earned money
You see strength

Bare feet on grass
You smell your roots

Help someone
You love yourself

Deep contemplation
You hear silence

Drink somebody's tears
You feed them hope

Working for yourself
You play your job

Turtle's slowness
You taste life

The meaning of life

When we say "meaning of life", it seems to me that we are talking about goal-setting and achieving something fixed- a fixed destination or a fixed target or even a sense of certainty. But things keep changing in life, everything around us changes all the time. Even everything within us, for instance, our feelings and thoughts keep changing all the time. When everything keeps changing, how can we ever achieve something fixed in life?

I am beginning to think that "meaning of life" is a misleading statement, an overrated topic. Birth and death are inevitable. What is in between birth and death is our karma, something we have total control of. There is good karma and bad karma and we know what we have to choose. The only meaning of life is to simply live and do our karma. Most people may not accept that as a meaning of life because they will be satisfied only if they get a concrete answer which talks about reaching a target or a goal. I think reaching a goal is just a product of our karma.

If living and doing our karma sounds too obvious to be accepted as a meaning of life, then there is nothing wrong in saying "life has no meaning". I don't feel it's really necessary to find the meaning of life. Everyday I do what I have/want to do. Just like everyone else, sometimes I am happy and sometimes I get depressed. Living is acceptance- accepting what time presents you. I just have to live until I die regardless of the meaning of life.

Hypnotic Dream

Colourful sparks blinking in quick succession…

I had a dream last night of colourful sparks, mostly yellow and red colours, blinking in and out very fast…

I was totally captivated and after a while, my hands and body were totally stable… I couldn’t move… my speech frozen.. I tried to call my wife who was asleep next to me. I thought I was calling her aloud but she couldn’t hear a thing…

I was totally hypnotized by the sparks. I was fully aware I was in a dream… staring blankly on the sparks, unable to move and speak…

Perhaps it was just another dream. Perhaps it was an experience of death that I could not accept, or was unaware of my own death… My soul must have left me for a while…

I died for a few minutes.

Perceptions

If you understand, things are just as they are;
if you do not understand, things are just as they are.  

- Zen proverb

Lost the job... What should you do next?

We are experiencing global financial crisis. Most of us, in one way or  the other, are affected by this crisis. If you have been lucky, you may not have been directly affected by the crisis but there is always a risk of losing job- you never know.

Employers have found a good excuse to cut down on unwanted staff. If that's going to happen to you during the financial crisis, what will you do? If you have a bit of a saving in your bank, that's a bit of a consolation. If you don't have enough savings, you may be eligible for the umemployment benefit from the government but that's not going to be enough. Obviously the government never gives you enough, otherwise why should we work, right? To make things worse, if you are married and have kids to look after, then you sure need to find a way for some money.

Is there indeed a creator? Are we making less effort to know the truth?

I used to think there is no creator who created mankind and life. Now I’ve started looking at things in a different way.

How come our bodies are symmetrical? How come we have complicated thought processes? etc etc…

Can such an ingenious creation happen by itself? Who is the grand designer? Is it possible that we were created by a team of super geniuses instead of one? Or has the designer(s) been perished and long gone? If they are still around, why aren’t they seen or heard of? Are we making ourselves detached from our own creators? Are we becoming more self-centred and as a consequence we are unknowingly detaching ourselves from the ultimate truth?

We are becoming more materialistic and are becoming more and more interested in money, careers, status, power, luxury, etc. We are spending less time knowing our roots and the life-changing knowledge that it reveals to us.

Succumbing to falsehood as truth

I don’t think a person would succumb to falsehood as truth but s/he may just accept the falsehood for the sake of coexisting in society, retaining a job, being loved by people around them and other reasons.

The tolerance level varies from person to person. There may be a corelation between tolerance and vulnerability. Chances are that the lesser the level of tolerance within a person, the more the vulnerable s/he becomes. It also depends on how important certain things in life are to a person, his/her priorities in life and his/her values in life. Generally, if someone doesn’t have enough money to pay rent or to buy food, they tend to become more vulnerable. The more vulnerable a person is, there is a likelihood of succumbing to falsehood at least for the sake of survival.

I am lost

Lately I've lost confidence and not sure what I want to do with life. Not sure where I am heading. I am currently working and have been looking for work for the last 3 months for a change and I am not able to find one... well I found one but that's a short-term contract for a couple of weeks. The more I don't find job, the more I lose my confidence. Maybe it's the global recession or is it just a sweet excuse? I want to boost my confidence but it's not easy.

I am an introvert. So showing confidence doesn't come naturally to me. I prefer working alone and do I own things. That's where I excel but in order to make a living, exceling in your own ways do not suffice.

Have you felt like this? How do you overcome this feeling? Share your views.

Cremation or burial?

I prefer cremation. I don't want to be put inside a box and buried. It looks like my spirit is locked inside a dark cell and is not given any chance of freedom after death. If my body is burned, I get transformed into smoke and lifted up into the air- a sense of freedom. I'd rather have my body face fire than being rotten inside a dark box.

After death, what's the use of preserving your body and occupying space on the burial ground? Burial seems like an attachment to your dead body. Once you are dead, your dead body has no significance. So just let it go.

Is technology wrongly redefining our reality?

We are living in a world where technological innovations are growing day-by-day. Technology has undoubtedly made our lives faster and has made a lot of things achievable for us but for a price. We are sacrificing our humanity for the sake of so-called "better lifestyle".

You get on a train or bus, you will see people with their new gadgets on display- iPhones, iPods, PSPs and what not. You buy a computer today and within a year (or even before that), a better ones are out on the market to make yours a thing of the past... and most of these things are simply redundant which we can totally live without but we feel we "need" them.

New hardwares and softwares are out on the market everyday claiming to do the same old things in "easier" and "better" ways. They focus on automation but do we really need that? ... and people just run after them saying "wow!".

Technology is fun but if it keeps growing in an uncontrolled pace, then it devalues the humanity. Where is the fun of manually controlling our every moment? Where is the fun of driving a manual car? Where is the fun of just having a landline phone and not having mobile phones to burden our pockets? Have you noticed there are more cars on the street than bicycles or people? All we see is machines around us.

It is sad that our lives are totally based on technology. Imagine a day without electricity in big cities. Everything will simply come to a halt. Children hardly go out and play. They are stuck to their computers and TV sets. People socialise more in the virtual world than in their real lives. We feel comfortable talking to people online.

Our reality is being redefined by the technological revolution. What we used to perceive as reality has become a history. Our reality now is viewed in terms of how well we are utilising and getting accustomed to the technology around us.

The amount of technology we decide use is really up to each individual or a business. We really need to rethink where we are heading. I am not advocating going back to the stone age. I believe we just need a bit of control on the level of technology we wish to introduce in our lives. We certainly need a balance.

Surviving the global financial crisis / how is it affecting you?

I am lucky I am still working but only part-time. My full time working hours are reduced by about 10 hours per week and I can't complain. What's your current situation at work? If the crisis hasn't hit you yet, consider yourself lucky but be prepared to face the hard time. It can strike you anytime without warning.

Some tips to help you sail through the crisis:

• Be thrifty.
• Don't buy lunch. Take lunch from home.
• Think about renting your spare room at your home/ unit.
• Reduce eating out for few more months.
• Look for items on sale when you go shopping.
• Be mentally prepared to quit your current job (in case you are fired). Being prepared in advanced will cause you less stress when it happens.
  
• If you feel your job is insecure, start looking for another job (preferably a permanent role) but getting a new job is also very challenging at a time like this.
• For smokers- maybe a right time to quit.
• Nothing wrong trying your luck in lottery a few times. You never know.....