Making friends in the park

The other day ,as I entered the park gate for my morning walk I
noticed that I had unconsciously turned left to make the usual rounds
in the track .I wondered why I unconsciously chose to walk clockwise
in the oval shaped jogging track.I found everybody else did the same
thing. I therefore made a conscious decision that I would change my
routine for a day and walk counterclockwise.

The result was interesting.Till now I had never seen the faces of my
fellow-walkers .I was merely walking along with them barely conscious
of the footsteps of the other walkers behind me. I was amazed to find
at least 10 to 15 people with whom I could make eye contact . Eye
contacts mean that so many people have come out of anonymity to join
the circle of people who could turn out to be my acquaintances.

Anyway the point is not about making friends in the park .A change of
habit or moving away from the way you are hard-wired to behave may
bring unexpected dividends or open up vistas of new knowledge .I often
feel that I am not carrying within myself a running awareness of my
activities which enables me to pause and take a look at the
alternative possibilities .If I carry such an awareness within me as I
go about my daily business I can explore the alternative possibilities
which enrich my life. One way to ensure that you always carry the
awareness is to be constantly making a running commentary within
yourself on everything that you think and do so that you have the
opportunity to evaluate the various options available to you on an
ongoing basis.

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Despair

We were talking about despair ,a situation of darkness and fog
.Actually I find it to be one of lack of a long term framework within
which to hope and to continue to exist. To hope to continue to exist
is what sustains us and every time we face life we build for ourselves
a long term framework,an open-ended framework which leaves closure a
vague possibility. When we grow old the framework becomes less and
less long term.When you are sixty it rarely spans beyond say 10 years
making it seem as though nothing that you will do really matters
.Closure becomes a near possibility ,always looming before you.That is
the fog and darkness of despair.

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Time-space


We are loosely using the concept of “time-space” and I thought I might define it for myself .Defining for oneself might sound funny to others but to me it has a meaning. Because I use language as a substitute for thought and it is sometimes the language which directs thought and controls it .Here ,I define the concept of time-space for myself so as not to be confused each time the concept floats in my mind and thereby I give a fixity of meaning to it.

By time-space I mean the space that encloses a thing ,an idea or a being in a fixed physical space tied to a single block of time. Thus ,while I am typing this I am enclosed in a physical space tied to the current time. Space has three dimensions and exists in a fourth dimension and has objects which exist in space. They also exist ,besides in space, in time linked to that particular space. That sounds very abstract and difficult to imagine .To make it simpler I have thought about another related concept-the relationship between time and space.

Time and space are basically two different spaces- space standing for the horizontal physical space while time stands for the vertical space enclosing each of the physical spaces. Let us imagine Time as Space in order to make things simpler. Thus there are two spaces -the limitless horizontal space on which we exist intersected by another vertical space -the space of Time .Each moment in our life and the world exists at a different point of intersection ,which is a unique point .As a point on the plane of time that intersects the plane of space our existence is a fixture at that point although we may not exist in space .Thus aren't we immortal ?

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Dance is an effort to extend human existence into the infinity of space

The human mind has this constant need to conform because it is otherwise free beyond any limitations that define structures governing human  activity.There is this need to be like everybody .The moment we are free we feel lost and disoriented in the vast wild wastes of logical possibility. Hence the defining structures.We always try to devise newer structures because we are afraid of being sucked into the uncertainty of the infinity,the kind of borderless existence that fills us with fear.Human existence is a matter of so much enclosed space with a dream which refuses to acknowledge contours. Art is a uniquely human endeavour to break down structures ,to demolish contours and become part of space which is not defined by any outlines. The only way such a thing is possible when the body disappears . Art is a death-like experience when the individual attempts to burst out of enclosed spaces.

Dance is an effort to extend  human existence into the infinity of space.When the dancer throws her limbs in space in her dance movements she extends the frontiers of her own enclosed space. The abstract artist demolishes the outlines of physical objects and abolishes form and structure in order to experience freedom. That is the only way one invents  freedom,the freedom which is hiding behind form and symmetry.When we dream on the side of our pillow we experience scary freedom ,when we disappear in the vastness of space . We have invented our God , a finite God with arms akimbo ,enclosed in the claustrophobic space of a human-like form because we are scared of an infinite God who is not enclosed in finite space.
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Subjective vs.objective reality





Do you exist if I do not believe you exist-is the question. Of course one is not sure.An objective reality cannot exist without somebody perceiving it.If you believe it still exists independent of your perception,you may do so but that is only a belief and hence is subjective. It is therefore safe to presume that nothing exists without our perceiving that it exists. The question that arises is whether a reality has necessarily to exist if we believe it exists.By way of example ,I believe ghosts and gnomes exist and does that mean they exist as an objective reality ? No.Additional conditions apply .Verifiability of the evidence suggesting their existence should possibly be one of the conditions. Of course one would ask what we mean by verifiability.Suppose there is a mountain near the horizon and everybody’s perception and everything else points to the possibility of its existing. Which means the sensory impressions of all the people with respect to the object tally in all respects. We may therefore conclude the mountain exists. The  question is whether several assessments tallying with one other and based upon “physical verifiability” make the mountain an objective reality . Since we cannot separate our consciousness from what we perceive outside of ourselves the only way of verifying the existence of the objective reality is to cease to be the experiencer and become a part of the experienced.
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Corners


The intersection of two or three surfaces or planes is interesting material for photography because of its intrinsic light. The light here is gentle and subdued and is a comforting blend of light reflected from two or three surfaces. As children playing hide and seek we all sought corners as though they were refuges from the harsh light of the world. Of course the most amazing corner that makes the best photographic representation is the horizon, the line of intersection between the earth and the sky or the sea and the sky.


Some of my favorite corners are:

An abandoned well with overgrown vegetation and stagnant water
At the back of the house where the house springs from the earth
Where the compound wall rises from the earth
Corners enclosed by a cave
Corners hiding behind a door(a child’s favorite hiding place )
Corners created by an awning
Corners created by the parapet wall on a balcony


The  poem goes thus :


Corners

Those days we felt every corner
Light poured through them
A gentle breeze blew over them
The jasmines whispered in the corners
Through soft jellied moonlight
Their fragrance held us in thrall.
Our old tiled house had its corners
Soft and purring like our family kitten
They cast such fine shadows
Dusky, deep and mysterious
We looked into our abandoned well
To fathom the depth of its corners
The water there was a mere shadow
The shadow of a reality that once was.
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What brings meaning to our life

Somebody has said that a toaster has a meaning to its life which is derived from its function i.e. toasting. If that is so , the meaning to our life comes from the function it performs . Only the question is meaning for whom ? If the meaning is derived from its role in some grand design by being a part of some Big Picture, it makes some sense .But one is not sure if such a Grand Design exists and even if it exists whether our life has any role in it. if that is the case , the meaning can perhaps be derived from the function it performs for itself .In such a case ,human life has a purpose in all it does which may perhaps have to do with the perpetuation of the human existence.Alternatively ,human life may ,for some inexplicable reasons,be interested to achieve its full potential .In the achievement of the full potential lies the motivating factor for the individual to strive towards perfection and therein lies the meaning to its existence. All that is no doubt a lot of speculation. One is not really sure if the individual really strives to bring some meaning to his existence.Does it really matter to human life whether there is some meaning to it? The theory that our actions flow from the script of some unknown cosmic drama that is unfolding without our knowledge is tempting indeed.

Surely it panders to our egos to believe that we are at least a bit player on the Big Stage.

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Writer's block

The writer’s block happens because the pool of the inner experiences which form the inspiration for writing has temporarily dried and it will be a while before it re-fills with fresh ones .The best thing will be to wait till this happens as otherwise you will be producing stuff which appears forced and without conviction.

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"A thing is either true or false " may not always hold good

"A thing is either true or false" may not apply in the same space but could belong to two different points in time.

If we aggregate everything-or rather look at reality as the past ,present events together with what will happen in future then there is a possibility of today's one leg of the transaction forming a pair or the opposite leg with a future transaction .If that is so ,the normal human logic which says things are either true or false may not hold good all the time because today's truth or falsity may pair with a future event which will not be a "reasonable" answer-reasonable in the sense it is according to normally accepted logical proposition.

To imagine such a thing happening I would take the help of double entry book-keeping principle :For every debit there is an equal and corresponding credit lying somewhere in the haystack of the day's transactions and if the correspondence is not identified on the same day, a suspense entry arises and will remain in the day's aggregate but will only be reversed on a future date- what is of space goes into a tail-spin in time.

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Is God all-knowing?



An interesting question raised here is if God is all-knowing He must be surely knowing that I am going to sneeze in the next five seconds and if I control my sneeze ,I have just changed the future.It means that He is not all-knowing.


The funny thing is that this argument does not jell. Even within the limitations of the human logic we can easily demolish this argument because when we say God is all-knowing we mean He is really all-knowing.That is , He not only knows you are going to sneeze but also that you are going to control the sneeze and change the original course of events that would have happened if you had not controlled the sneeze.


http://rajanigandha.wordpress.com

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About

My interests are poetry writing and photography