Keeping Busy...

Busy....

Funny how this word creeps up every time one needs to give an excuse. Seems like the whole world is busy. Obviously everyone is doing something or the other even if the something is "Nothing". But does that suggest that all are busy?

The dictionary is certainly in favor of this view, it just says that someone is busy if he is engaged full time in some work. Everything seems to be in order and still there are times you begin itching when someone excuses himself proclaiming busy.

The problem is i have never been busy. I have always been doing one thing or the other... reading, working, playing, watching TV... I have always been doing something, but i have never been busy. Guess that is what makes me itch when i hear the word busy. and this also makes me want to redefine the word.

The dictionary be damned, two people are doing almost the same thing under the same conditions and only one of them is busy. it has to do, not with the meaning of the word then, but the mental orientation of the person doing it.

So that is it. i know it is such a simple reasoning and yet it took me all the words to work that out.

So now i know that, when someone tells me he is too busy to write a mail across or too busy to call... he means, he thinks the work he is doing is more important than the act of mailing or calling. Fair enough, and that often is so .. after all work is completely objective, it sees only success or failure and does not understand the intricacies of the mind, while a person is subjective meaning he would be willing to understand. So one always has to give priority to work.

But then again, how long does one work? certainly not 24 hours.. and well, forget even that.. how long does one spend doing something productive(let that include, eating, sleeping etc)... say 23 hours... certainly not more than that.. and even if, not everyday is going to be like that.....

So how about the one hour... how goes that...

I know it is wrong to talk about that hour.. after all, the gruelling hours of work do push a man to a corner where he wants to relax in solitude.... so i guess that is how one gets to remain busy all day.. the 12 -13 hours a day work and the remaining hours 11-12 hours preparing for the next day.

I am now very clear how the time goes by and one has no time.

And nope, i am not going to ask myself the value of friendship, the time needed to maintain one such relationship and etc.... After all a friendship is subjective.... and given such a daily routine where i am to get only an hour for myself really free.. i too would not be interested in entertaining anyone....

So people actually do get busy.. hmmm... I may not but people do get busy and it is only based on priorities.

Sounds logical... and yet ...

This is what i hate with a didactic approach to a topic... takes you through a cumbersome path and then finally leaves you saying... yet....

Yet... does one on getting "I am busy".. let go of the pursuit?... say a friend is forever a busy, do you say okay.. lets leave him?... would that not kill the friendship... and would that not make friendship objective?

Hmmm.. needs some more thinking....

(Guess all my topics end with the same line.. hope to find the solution to all one day and erase the yet.....)

Perceptions

The first thing that hits me when I think of perceptions is the "Doors of Perceptions" - by Aldus Huxley. A wonderful description of the voyage by a man under the influence of Psychedelics. What is more interesting is the title - "Doors of perceptions".
A drug is mentioned as the door to the world of perceptions. This term 'perception' then necessarily means the identity of worlds that differ by - how do you say that - worlds apart?
hmmm..

A serial killer perceives his act more often than not as art and tries to excel by becoming More and more gruesome. How correct is that statement? 'Coz gruesome is the worlds perception of his acts and is worlds apart from what he perceives - art?.

Thus the quintessential truth for him is a morbid affair for the rest of the world and yet, when a court gives a verdict he is only put in an asylum and not in the gallows.Had another man killed for the sake of killing with the perception being to kill, he will go to the gallows, but when another kills with a perception of cleansing himself or such fantasies, he is sent to the asylum.

Shows how much of a value our society gives the word 'perception'.

And, how could it be otherwise, to us men of the practical world, the truth is only what we perceive it as and no man can be punished for pursuing the truth. This is also the reason why when a man handles a delicate matter in a crowd, he quickly weighs the effect of his action from others perspective and decides on the act that would be perceived to be the least harmful, or even better beneficial.

These bring us to a very interesting question - If perceptions differ, and differ big, and if the perceptions is the truth that a man knows, how many truths exist in this world? If there exists many truths and often contradictory in nature, then how is it the truth? If that is not the truth, then why do people give it the respect due to truth? Or do we all know nothing about the truth and just continue living life the way we perceive it with no care for the concepts of absolute truth? Does the above statement sound stupid?.....

hmmm a Lot more analysis seems required....

Grief

It was a scenario where the mind was not to wander about. a sonorous moment where you mourn for the dead. Yet, a distant relative she was and it was difficult to keep a mournful face. Every moment grew heavier and i was itching to get away. Social manner alone prevented me from doing so.

She was a grand old lady, who had lived her life (hope i could say that - though it ought to be her decision). Wealth of people all around her and even in death surrounded by servants to fulfill her every needs. her husband stood by in a corner in the house, his aging shoulders sagging. She had dies and he was feeling the pain. The sons and daughter in laws were present, tears trickling.
She was in a glass box on ice, preserved for her sister to come for the final rites. The mood was gloomy and even kids who barely understood the scene were quiet and brooding.

I wondered for how long, how long was this silence going to be maintained. After all she was dead and there was no changing that. The pain of the departing certainly present still, the silence was overbearing. Suddenly there was a shriek and her sister came in beating at her breasts and wailing aloud. a kid in the corner shrieked in terror while another slightly older laughed in sheer surprise. The kids mother cautioned them against such behavior and told that, people of the old age grieved so. she also told them that though that sounded funny and unnatural, one ought to forgive them.

And my boredom relaxed lightly, and i wondered - "was that true? did older generation always cry like that? if so was it a custom or was it really their grief coming out that way? i always thought that people of older generation bonded better and the pain of departing was greater and so their cry very vocal?"

Then again I remembered, the same aunty who had cautioned the children - she had wailed louder than any i could remember when my grandpa has passed away. she came running into my house then crying aloud. according to me she had over reacted then and according to her the dead person's sister was overreacting today.
guess hypocrisy apart, when a dear one dies one never knows how one expresses pain and when the same person watches another, it feels unnatural.

I understand that there are no generation gaps when it comes to grieving.
and though some come out of the grief pretty quickly and abruptly (like the girl who stood their crying in silence suddenly became bubbly once the body was taken away), i understood it is wrong to judge a grief from the actions they exhibit.

I have never been good with emotions - but i decide today that i shall not judge other by the way they exhibit theirs.

Vulture's Dilemma

With wings spread wide
Yet the feet planted astride
I scan the ground beneath
Vulture I'am, to prey on dead
Is my job indeed.

Yet i dare not - today
Sweep down the carcass fresh
It smells of man - in evil
He must have had lust.
Such is he - lying alone
Amidst a world of men
Yet shy away from him all
How then shall i alone fly?
Sold he his soul to women's lore
Tryst with theives he made
Killed he friendships many -
A traitor of very bad taste.

After thoughts of a hungry mind
My wings beat in rhythm
I shall die of hunger maybe
And yet better for my life,