The Sticky B

Beliefs.

Beliefs are the most intangible parts of our selves that have the most tangible effect on our lives. At any given point of time, if someone asks me, "What are your beliefs?", I'd be caught up in a thought-loop. It really is an unfair question. And very personal too. Plus, a little difficult to put our fingers on.

If you care to think about it, what ARE your beliefs and what are the ones instilled by your parents, environment, media and the world? We could say that the only beliefs we can call our own are the ones we develop by life experience. But, is not life experience a mere amalgamanti0n of all those factors we just rejected like our upbringing, societal conditioning etc. ?

This is just mental masturbation :)

Whatever they are, Beliefs are damn important. They are the clay of your life. And even the best potter will not be able to make a half-decent vessel if the clay is ridden with holes and doubts.

The only good beliefs are the ones that make you happy.

I do not blame my parents. They were programmed too. (ZOMGESHWARA! Who is pulling the strings? Aieeeeeeeeeeee!)

Let us look at some limiting beliefs.

1. Money is the root of all evil. (Scarcity)

2. Be desireless, and thus happy. (Craving)

3. Work HARD, really hard and you will achieve your goals. (Struggle)

4. If you want something, you should give up something. (Sacrifice)

5. Do not be selfish. (Altruism)

6. Orgasms last only for 7 seconds.

I'll devote a post each for these limiting beliefs.

Open Heart, Wide Open Wings

I started writing this blog post about a month into my Fall semester. I was writing this every day in my head. In this post, I talked about how I lifted my game and got an A grade in each course I took this semester.

This semester has been GOLDEN for me. I have grown - as a man and as a boy. The man in me has found purpose. The boy in me found wonder.

These five months of ever worsening Syracuse weather have borne deepening friendships, debilitating heartbreaks, emotional turmoil, unbreakable self-belief, a clarion call of my true calling, and yet through this rapid pace of Life - a sense of peace and calm and satisfaction.

I was depressed during the summer at my bad performance during the Spring 2008 semester. I knew - in that moment - there was only one thing that would provide happiness to me. It is a very fortuitous thing to know what you want, to know the path to your happiness. I was lucky that way.

And thus, there was only one thing in my mind: The look of pride in my Dad's eyes when I return home this Christmas.

My own focus alienated me at times, like I was taken over by a stranger - a foreigner in my own head. I bought books on how to do better in college, and though I was embarrassed about that initially, I let it all go. These few months has been a dogfight with my Ego. He's cool in his own way, but sometimes he needs a good kick up the ass. And he did get his butt red this sem.

I lost my job which hurt me, rather pricked me from time to time. Money flows in my life. What I mean by that is as it comes in, it goes out. I am not too up-to-date on the latest nifty savings plan. Money buys stuff, so get stuff! Well, without a job, I had to curtail my splurging which distressed me. I rode through that though. A nice little lesson learnt, I suppose.

I also started writing again. Which is fuckin fantastic, because it helps me a lot. I had quite a bit of distractions this semester, and I enjoyed all of them. I also joined ToastMasters while dabbling with 4 subjects, which is just the sort of thing I'd do.

Today, I called my Dad and told him I have 2 As and one A- on this sem's subjects. He said he was proud of me.

The heart speaks as the soul seeks...

I have never been much of a reader of books. I'm a writer though. Any ideas that I have are normally my subconscious pushing information it picked in passing. Like, something someone said, or one small passage in some book read while bored, a great movie or simply from my own intelligence.

All that is not important. What is important is I have consistently been able to cope.

Acceptance is important. The only way I could get through my turmoil is by accepting it fully and WELCOMING it. Most of the pain that comes during these times is caused by running away from the Truth.

Finding ways to make yourself "happy". Distracting yourself. What happens then is the depression becomes a brooding one. Like a heavy blanket, and not a cozy one.

Which is why I did not try to escape. I let this whole week go by without getting any work done. Sure, I feel guilty. But, I have no regrets. I knew if I did try to work, I'd have been uber-inefficient.

But, it works for some people. Drowning yourself in your work. Which is why always follow your own personal Truth. I did not learn the idea of acceptance and appreciation from anyone as a "strategy". I "felt" it was what I needed to do.

I have never been embarassed about my own emotions. I do cry when I'm alone and use it as a healing tool. I cry, not just for heartbreak. I cry when I'm overstressed. I cry when I procrastinate too much and have a crapload of work to get done in the last minute. I cry, sometimes while watching a movie.

For guys, all this intense emotions you are feeling, however unwelcome, they are YOURS, and yours alone. I APPRECIATED them.

But, having said all that, I am a positive thinker in the sense that I do not expect to die today but do not tempt fate by jumping off a cliff.

It's not to "stay positive" no matter what happens. It's to accept and appreciate every experience as it comes.

Life has it's ups and downs. Wild successes and spectacular failures. You can appreciate every experience as it is, or you can struggle to get to the highs, struggle to keep it and struggle when it leaves - Which actually leaves you in a state of suffering through the whole experience - Or you can treat every experience, every moment as an equally valid and rich life experience.

Take a breakup for example. If you're holding on to just wanting the high, you'll suffer and struggle to get the relationship back, the girl back, those feelings back. You're suffering, it hurts, you're resisting.

Alternatively, you can view the entire experience as valid and true ... The waves of sadness, the learning experience, the whole works. You can feel a deep appreciation for having experienced what you've experienced. The sadness doesn't actually disappear, but rather than resisting it and suffering from it, you are now appreciating it.

And whenever life beats you down, let it. But remain open to it. Accept it's a transitory state and it's gonna pass, but don't crave for it to pass. Accept that it's gonna serve you by opening into it more. And it WILL deepen you if you're able to do that. So that the next wave won't tackle you down and destroy all hope. I'll get harsher and say "Behead your hope". If you're completely open, you won't need "hope" to help you get through something. You'll be completely in it and totally submerged in it, and more able to act from a deeper place of stillness the next time it happens.

I guess what I'm saying is, don't try to "hold on" to a high. Just experience your life as fully as you can, every experience in every moment. The high from living life this way isn't an ecstatic "YAY!" type of high, but more of a deep satisfaction of life.

The Treasure Hunt for Tuning Forks

Life is passing me by.

There are days when I feel radar-less, without direction drifting away with the winds of time. Feelings. Man, they are so... intangible. Sometimes, I wake up a warrior and then other days, I'm just a lowly, neglected pathetic serf.

While all that could be explained away by the position of my head in relation to my body while I sleep and all that mumbo-jumbo, it really irritates me when I cannot make my heart do what my brain wants to. Waking up feeling good or bad is trivial. But, what do I do when I'm haunted by my own emotions?

It is all very easily said to understand life as it happens to you and "move on" in a logical plane.

However, bringing that understanding down to my emotional core is something that is beyond me at this point. It is this netherworld that is ridden with so many mirages, that keeps me struggling and surviving but never really quenches my heart.

This is the place where the ego pulls tricks that would humble the Devil.

Geniuses and catastrophic failures share the same characteristics: Determination, Passion, never giving up and a disregard for conventional wisdom.

When do beliefs become delusions?


I always depended on myself to guide me through emotional turmoil. I turn into myself for solace. And maybe that is where I make the mistake. How much ever strong I may be, I still need a semblance of understanding, a nod of assurance, a pat on the back from outside of myself. Acceptance. I'm no different. We are all like this. This is integral. Intimacy. Love. Hope. Peace.


It takes a lot of effort to bridge the gap between the brain and heart. Actually, I'm not even sure if it is possible. Maybe it is the other way around. Maybe R. A. Heinlein absolutely hit the nail on the head when he said, "Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal."

It is the emotion that happens first, and then the neocortex finds ways to justify it.


So, what am I looking for? What are we all looking for? We are all emotional junkies.

Happiness, Love. Despair, Agony. They all come down to Emotional Resonance and Emotional Dissonance.

I'm here, as you all are, running in our own heartlands. Searching, foraging, looking at the horizon and the wild promises it brings. Just searching for that one thing that "clicks".

That just feels "right". That one tuning fork that resonates with what we are at our core. That one belief, one frequency, one harmony that drives us. Emotional resonance.

This is our purpose. Finding our wavelength. Finding our true colour.

Most of us spend our whole lives grabbing different things that would make us "feel good".That career, that person, that gadget.

Some of us find it. Some of us don't. Some find it but can't have it.

This hitch that I trip on, this rabbit-hole that I slip into, this stupid playlist of emotions put in endless loop.

For all my analysis and all my introspection, this is beyond me. I give up. I accept.

As days flit by on the treadmill of ordinaryness, only this feels real to me. This feeling. This constipation of the heart.

The Charmed Stuff

I write here uncharmed without my muse. But, sometimes my muse comes back and takes me for a ride in her own special way. For seeing all the things she does to me, go here:

While She Plays

You'll find that most of them are romantic. What can I say... my muse... she is like that only!

Cheers and I hope you enjoy them.

Be your own personal god

Today, I got fired from the job that pays for my food. I can't cook, so I depend on the money, to keep emaciation at bay.

I am angry and pissed at myself. I'm also calm and accept complete responsibility for what happened. I do not blame anyone else.

Although, I must note that the last week has been very very weird, like someone put a voodoo on me to somehow terminate this job. I consider myself a model employee, and have always been very punctual and perfect on all counts and do my job excellently.

But, in the last week, I have been unnaturally late (15 minutes!), made mistakes with my paperwork, forgot some important things to bring to work and finally did not turn up for work and did not notify. I overslept. Stupid and insufferable.

That said, I accept complete responsibility. This is a freedom that cannot be expressed in tangible terms. It is an elusive, fuzzy conviction in the nature of reality itself. I am the master of my own life. Whatever reasons I'm happy is because I made myself happy. And, however strangely convoluted life has become, it is a conundrum of my own genius.

No regrets. It is important to learn the lessons that life teaches you, even though you didn't sign up for the damn course. But, no point in mulling over what has happened.

I may starve in the days to come. And I look forward to how I'll deal with that. Nothing can take away this experience from me. I own it completely.

In this moment, I could be feeling hunted. I have been treated unfairly. How could this happen to me?

I could subscribe to false hope (the bane of all existence, in my opinion) and rationalize my actions, absolve blame, write it all off and paint myself as a victim of circumstance.

I choose happiness. I accept responsibility. I decide.

Of course, I also choose to not choose guilt for exploiting the immense feeling of satisfaction I get when I look at my very mature response to the situation I'm in. :D

Everything happens for our own good. Nothing is cliché when it happens to you. :)

Cheap Stuff

OK, I thought I'd post something light.

Here are some excerpts of chats I had with my sis, cheapy:

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My GoogleTalk headline says: "Nothing is cliche when it happens to you"

cheapy: wat hapended?

me: lol

cheapy: happy second saturday!

me: "money doesn't grow on trees"
thats the cliche

cheapy: hahaaha
dumass

me: and cheapy I just saw ur orkut profile. when did u get so cool? I'm the coolest one!

cheapy: killi is a 2 ps

me: don't get too cool. u'll have boys stalking you, and it's a real pain when everyone looks at me to jump in and fight. I'm a pacifist.

cheapy: but ure my BIG brother!

me: we're not even related! not fair!

cheapy: i'm havin dejavu's dejavu

me: meh, deja vu is old school.
lucid dreaming is the cool school!

cheapy: diet kola is on a diet!!
hahha
:P

me: thats my line stup
and ya, its funny :D
"has a non-evil twin" damn this cracks me up. you must have hacked my mind when I was asleep.

cheapy: i did

me: ha! that's my cheapy. you have learnt well. accept an insult to deflect it.

cheapy: killi :)

me: poopchicle :)

cheapy: wen did u tell me tat?

me: loooooooong back
u forgot it consciously, but it went direct to ur subconscious :)

cheapy: oooh yeah i had the skool the next day..n we talked till 12.30
hehe

me: lol
wats teh candies and baloons. some arcane judy blume reference?

cheapy: its an inside joke killi..i dint expect u to noe
:)

me: ah... thats why its not funny :P

cheapy: its funny only to me :)

me: touche. bah. ur unusually strong today.
u have been dabbling in the Dark Arts?
damn Voldy poking his nose where it doth not belong

cheapy: m a second sat morn person :P
yeah i am :P
i have mojo

me: :D
not for long *evil laugh .... not for long |)

cheapy: ure not evil cheapy's evil smile
hey pink men's salon is not legal in india :(

me: :'(
is it official now?

cheapy: no..not yet
ther waitin for diet koola's opinion

me: :P
now I kinda feel sorry for srinidhi

cheapy: jaja
killi u learnin espanol?

me: um....
gulp
tengo diet kola!

cheapy: no tengo diet kola

cheapy: diet kola's on diet!
OMG that is soooo cool!

me: hahahhahahha
grrrr..... again, thats MY LINE!

cheapy: nah..u you must have hacked my mind when I was asleep.
lol

me: hahahahaah

cheapy: mummy n tata laugh too :D

me: actually.... that WAS really clever :)

cheapy: shut up..kola came up with it
he talks to ppl only in his sleep.

me: omg! disqualifying praise. all my lessons are bearing fruits!

cheapy: tats another one?

me: haha, yea. ur inner mind is feeding you.

cheapy: killi u suck

me: I have HACKED you.
i suck me too :)

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