Why does inspiration wear out

I just now went back to read my inspired posts on Atlas Shrugged. Only to realize I have already started to forget what I felt when I read that book.

I wonder why this happens. Am I the only person this happens to? I very much doubt that. But anyway I think reading this blog entry over, does bring me back some of my resolve. But I feel that the resolve is progressively weakening.

I am back in my world of fiction and fantasy. I seem to love that world though I know its just an illusion, one that helps pass time at best. Maybe I am delusional and always lost in a cloud. The kind that lives in a world half real and half unseeing. I don't know the exact words to use. Maybe I question reality. Maybe I am not completely sane. What is sane?

Still I should do things. I cannot always just live in some dream world. There are irrefutable realities. At least hunger is real. Cold is real. Heat is real. Smoke is real. Pure air is real. So there are things that are needed.

Now I guess I am doing things that do not have a purpose in the long term. I am spending time watching anime, cooking, spending time with my husband. They do keep me reasonably happy. But its a loop. One I will be weary of in some time. One that will not leave me with anything to fall back to. So I need to do something more.

The biggest problem I face is I still don't know what it is I want with my life. I need to do something. But is it programming? I don't think so. Sure, I can be a good programmer. Its not such a big deal. I got what it takes. But will it add to my life? Maybe it will add more money. But if I look at the bigger picture it isn't quite gonna cut, unless is something really different from the programming I am used to.

Well ... then what? I don't know. And that is my problem. Hope I find out what it is soon ... I feel like time is running out. I feel a frustration deep in my soul. I feel like I am tired of looking. I feel weary. I need to know.

My thoughts on the world

With my own thoughts continuously having questioning my understanding of this world, and Atlas Shrugged coming into picture, I suddenly find the world making sense to me. Now I understand why Ayn Rand says selfishness is a virtue as people may understand from her books. But to me it means a very positive and bright understanding.

Yes, selfishness is a virtue because we have to first and foremost consider our own values. What is of value to us. That is what matters. That makes the world seem right. Now from the world perspective I will explain what I feel the world sees as wrong with this. They see selfishness as keeping something from others, not giving. Ok, now they ask if you have in abundance you should give to those who do not. Now how does one have something in abundance - there could be three ways - through hard work, through inheritance and through looting.

Now if you are an honest person you would prefer to get everything you get through your own merit. Thats what always drove me. So what I get through my hard work I do not wish to give away, unless I see what I give as deserving. I feel that I m giving to someone something they have earned or will earn. If that is the case I do not keep tabs of what I give because its not charity, but something I feel they deserve. Or I give a loan based on faith that the person is honest enough to return because he is a sound investment.

Now I will club the inherited who doesnt work to earn a penny on their own and the looters into the same category, they have un earned money in their hands. They do not know the value of that money or expect money to come in the same means, through someone else's hard work. So they do not care giving it away in the name of charity to someone who may least deserve it. And they call that charity.

So now what you call selfishness is what is the life force of this world. The feeling that its your right to live and earn your right to live. Without this so called selfishness, human beings would have still never risen to anything of intellectual capacity except remain as savages. And funny enough its these so called selfish people who will support the selfless, unaware of it, while the selfless who are trying to not see this on purpose. So if you ask me, the selfish is right because he provides the livelihood for his own reason to live.

There is no helping the helpless. Excempting babies, children under the age of 5 and the senile and the mentally retarded, there are no helpless. Every other human being is capable of helping himself. So I say that you help those who work for it. If they dont earn according to their work, you take them away to work for you and pay more as deserving of their work. That is what you do which is right. Giving away money to a lazy beggar is not the right thing to do.

This is what I wish to follow as my principle too. Because if ever there comes a stage where a matter of survival comes into picture, only those who can help themselves will be saved. That, is a fact of life. Hence I feel from my sense of right and wrong, which I used to call human instinct, which in fact is not separate from my mind and my intellect, but a result of my understanding of this world, that if one does not recognise one's sense of self, then he has in fact given up on life. He is not living but is just trying to exist.

And living and existing are two very different things. Living is happiness.

What I found in Atlas Shrugged

I dont know if I will retain this feeling or if so if it will last long enough to be permenant. But I feel I need to understand the meaning of the word freedom.

Its because I read the book Atlas Shrugged.

It was there in the library in bangalore where I used to go. I kept seeing it and thinking next time and kept reading all the useless sci-fi and fantasy books. I guess I keep trying to escape into a world of fantasy and try not to see reality. And the more unhappy I became the more I tried to escape from real life, contrary to my expectations.

 

I expected the fantasy to be real even though I knew it was just wishful thinking. That was what was wrong with me. Because the truth was always there for me to see but I feared to acknowledge it because real life does not bring wishes to life, and my wishing does not create.

I now know that man is capable of creating. I want to create. In everything I do I will try to find life. Life is about living. Life has no gray areas except those that I choose to accept. Life is black and white. What you do is either good or bad. And I choose to do either.

When I choose bad and dont want to acknowledge it is when I try to hide behind the gray. That is when I become a coward. Thats when life moves away from me and I loose its meaning because I choose to ignore it. I have built a wall of gray around me that I need to tear down. Walls that I have built over how long a time I do not know yet.

Some of them might be white which I might have seen as black. Some of the white in my life might have been black and some of the black white. I have to tear down this wall on my own. Turn no stone unturned till I discover what are my true values and virtues. What I believe is right and wrong. Through what my intelligence and my understanding tells me.

I think its time I discovered what it is I want to do with my life. Set goals for myself. Do things I want to do. And not make a zero out of life, but move forward and make a difference for my own sake. Thats what I will continue doing from this moment onwards. 

 

And now I know why I never believed in god. Because god is what I see as that ultimate source for making wishes and believeing that I have no power. That route for punishing one's self for escaping the truth and creating a gray area by believing life is not in my hands. And thankfully that was the one thing my intellect saved me from and the one thing thats going to help me be truy enlightened and find peace and to be whole.

Now I have found the foundation from which I will find me. Because I know I exist and that I have my mind as a tool which I must learn to use. And how well I learn to use it is what will bring me meaning in life. Not wishes. And I am the only person I should serve. Because only that will bring me happiness. I am deluding myself if I believe that anyone else's happiness is above my own to me. Its a lie.

SELF, SELFISHNESS AND SELFLESSNESS

I once listened to a speech where it goes like this - "Every person is selfish, whether he admits it or not". I couldn't quite understand it at the time. I was like what the hell? How about all the famous people out there who sacrificed everything and were called the epitome of selflessness?

But today, as has been my case for quite a few days in fact, I was still trying to figure out my role. What people call path to realizing one's self or putting it simply - asking myself questions like "who am I?", "Why do I live?", "What's my purpose in life?", "Why do I exist?" etc ...questions that most people ask themselves at some point in their life. Being a female, and therefore prone to multitasking and unable to focus on just one problem, a hundred different thoughts kept flitting across my mind. Among these thoughts happen to be a realization of the truth in the the statement that every person is selfish.

Now I keep hitting jackpot on such questions in life every now and then. But unfortunately I also keep forgetting that I found an answer after a few days, the question itself disappearing from memory. The why of this phenomenon I do not know. But for what ever reason's I wanted to note down this new finding somewhere so it doesn't get lost.

Now dictionary meaning of selfish would be "devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others." And selfless would be "having little or no concern for oneself". Okay, now consider a person you feel is the epitome of selflessness, say he/she self sacrificed for the betterment of a lot of other people. Now what motivates such a person to do so? If they have absolutely no personal stake, this act is never gonna take place. 

There is always a sense of achievement for which any action is done. Be it survival or sacrifice. In this case it could be that the person's purpose in life to him/her was this. That person truly believed that this is what he/she was born to do and making a difference to the world because of his/her action was to them the ultimate purpose of life. So actually here the said person is achieving the best for himself by doing what he/she does, and that has in a way nothing to do with anyone else. If this was not so, he or she would never do what was done. 

Call me a cynic but this do make sense to me. Of course it does bring about a big impact on a lot of people's life and hence benefit a lot of people. But the person doing such an act definitely achieved something higher for himself according to his/her own sense of self and understanding which was why he/she chose to do so. 

Now this is not to say that I am belittling any act of kindness. Its just that for some people making a difference to this world speaks to their sense of self as achieving a higher purpose. And everyone wants to have a purpose in life. Its basic nature of any living thing.

Now a Psychopath just happens to have an opposite calling in life. For what ever reason's he/she feels a sense of achievement through acts of violence and hence follows that path. Unfortunately these are things in life that is beyond my understanding for the moment. But of course every action has a reaction, and psychopath's action causes negative feelings to those impacted, so he/she is seen as someone who needs to be removed from existence. 

Again to a smaller degree we find people who are happy when they see others happy. Also you see people who find happiness in other people's miseries. And you either help or hinder another person based on your natural tendencies of selfishness. Where you find motivation and happiness makes you choose your actions. 

Unfortunately I don't know what makes a person motivated by one thing and another person motivated by another. The why of it is beyond my understanding. But at least I have come to understand and accept that this is the way of the world. Everyone is unique. So unique kind of looses its meaning as a distinguishing factor. And mostly people make the mistake of thinking everyone is the same and what you believe in is what everyone should believe in. But if you can accept that people are different and factor that in with your expectations, I guess life will be a lot easier.

Understanding Instinct better ...

I have come to realize that doing what ever the heck I feel like doing isn't really called following my instinct.

Its just going where circumstances take me without caution, kind of opposite to what I should be doing ...

So I have decided not to apply my instinct on actions I take where infatuations and possible crushes are concerned. That is the wrong area to take up my instinct on. Definitely not going to help me in the present social scenario, since the instinct human beings have for this is to blunder right on and get on with the guy/girl you like. Not the right approach as I have learned the hard way.

So what would be the right places to apply instinct? When on the road, traveling, yes, stay on alert. When you need to trust someone - that seems to work fine with my instinct - so far.

I can go by my feeling when I make decisions in life. For example I can ask myself if something I decide makes me feel good - say should I study study next or continue working - which makes me happier next?

But when it comes to something involving a relationship and the opposite sex, I probably need everything I got - instinct to trust, a feel good factor and all the brain cells that's still working. Still I might not have much of a chance.

I should ideally also learn to play the games in today's twisted society. Unfortunately that leaves a bad taste in my mouth to even contemplate that. So I guess I will have to make do without that. But that's kind of like a handicap in the current world.

But I need to do whats right by me. I might do a lot of things that's right for me and not so right for the world. And funny enough in this case its the other way around.

How ever, a woman's got to do what she's got to do ...

This is my final learning after a lot of quiet and peace at home, once I managed a long vacation from work.

I guess vacation is just the thing for me to have half my gray areas falling into black or white. Or close enough for me to judge, without having to really put a conscious effort. Things are starting to fall in place - good for me :)

Every action counts - empathy is a powerful emotion

I get myself involved when I see or hear something. Even when I have to walk away, there is always this pull in me to do something - anything. Its difficult when I see some problem not to try to solve it. When I see someone needing help, not to do something about it.

Yet it is true that one cannot help the world, and there is only so much one person can do. One cannot help in every case you see. There are limits and I have realized that. But there is always the fact that every small action counts.

Like a seashore is made up of so many tiny particles of sand, Like a dam has so many bricks to stop the water and every brick counts, Like in a chore done by ten hands, every hand plays a part - so it is with every small action that you do towards helping someone.

Every small thing could make a difference. You may argue, that if I help one poor person, its not going to erradicate poverty. But do remember how ever small a help you give to one person, it will make a difference in that one persons life. And that matters.

So I follow the flow, help where I can. Try to help in such a way that what help I give may help someone help themselves further. Thats my goal, to help efficiently.

Flash mob and me ...

I have not had so much fun in quite some time. It was one of the most exciting things I have done in my life, though it was not in my "to do" list in life. Still I am someone who believes that when oppurtunity presents itself to make something out of yourself, you grab it.

Hence through sheer chance I have managed to take part in a flash mob. For one it was not in my itinerary to join a hip-hop or b-boying or rather b-girling class, but I saw the class and fell in love with it ... and now am trying my best to do as much as I can with it.

It is this dance class group that planned the flashmob and I got an oppurtunity to take part in it. It is not quite as wild as what you see on TV, nor is it illegal in India. Its just a bit unconventional, and I have a huge tendency towards the unconventional.

All said and done - it was fun, it was cool and I had the exhilarating feeling of a free bird flying in the sky, and with no worry for that few minutes while we performed the flash mob.

You can watch the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=b5XY0M_gV84

Enjoy!!!