Observing people is more amusing than observing animals.. If you thought that observing animals are more fun…I ll say they are almost predictable compared to us..
We are shrewd enough to behave weird and irrationally and are inherently manipulative.. The “special” quality called intelligence make sure that our lives are rarely preset.. Strangely our life revolves very much about measuring up other people.... We interpret people.. …Our friends are people who subscribe to our point of view…On a broader level my life is simply defined by how I think and how I want it be..
When I was a kid I never bothered about things like my aim in life.. my objectives.. my ethos.. n stuff.. Growing up demanded me to think….I began to observe..
I have seen death at close quarters. I have seen someone dying in the most absurd manner as someone die after falling off a escalator…I have introspected those times how our life is so fragile…It is so much like glass that could break any moment..
I began thinking of life and its flip side called death…Death is a word that sounds like Shift+delete ..the finality of beingness..It is an event people are curious but afraid and skeptic to think about.. After all we are trained to think positively.
But death is very much a part of our life. Our life is valuable because we will all die one day…We are not necessarily worried about death but about what happens after death.. That air of undefined mysticism.
I have many a time pondered over how much life is to death and the other way around.... When I was kid someone who died was a person who went on a long voyage never to come back.. Then they taught in the church that death is just a stop-over on the way to heaven…Then I read somewhere that death is the finality of existence…Now I was confused..
And the confusion taught me one simple lesson. that no matter what happens after our death there is one thing you can be absolutely sure of is, how we lived till that moment!!
The haze is getting clear …
I have a life which could cease any moment..
We have power to control our life.. We have power to define our thoughts.. We have the power to die satisfied of what we did when alive…
Life till now was a spectrum of human emotions..grudge..pain..anger..villainy..love..kindness.
benovlence..thrill..jealousy.. the various offshoots of the original two..the good and the bad..
I was living a life where I was thinking deep.. where I measured up people all the time.. where I thought I had a right to get angry at someone if it deserved it.. where I thought I could ignore people who could be counted unworthy of attention.. where I though helping someone without expecting anything in return didn’t make sense.. and the “where” list kept going on and on…
We most of the time underestimate how bad we are and overestimate our goodness..
It wasn’t worth all that…It feels so good to think good.. It feels so good to have reasons to smile about ourselves.. Cut down all that hate emotions.. stop gauging others.. start loving others without expecting anything in return.. start smiling at people without expecting a smile back… it doesn’t pay much to do all these..
The moment you die there aint anything you can be really sure off.. you could assume that you will be besides GOD or you could assume that you are another dead battery drained out..
But that very moment you can be absolutely sure of one thing!
How you measured up…!!
15 years ago
26 comments:
well said :)
I guess we can never be prepared for death. Maybe we can come to terms with it. Strangely in last two months atleast six ppl i know, have died in real freak accidents. At one point it got too much. I was not so much worried about death but the freakishness of it.
Guten Morgen, Mathew!
Thanks for you work and have a good weekend.
"stop gauging others.. start loving" The first part I agree, the second part I would reword as "tolerate and agree to disagree" with others".
I agree that in the end all that matters is how we measured up and how people remember us.
Mathew why the philosophical turn. Did you ate something you cooked?
Just kidding. I don't agree with the philosophy of stop gauging and start loving.
If you gauge or assess a person before having a relationship, then you can save a lot of troubles. There are a lot of people whose ideas, actions and intentions are not compatible with ours. So it is better to gauge, because you will end up hurt, angry, frustrated, cheated, and so on depending on how the other person's actions affected you. But one definitely can refrain from judging people.
Regarding loving and unconditional love, it is nice to say, I find it impractical. How do you love a person who have cheated you? Or taken advantage of you? Or physically harmed another just because the victim is not in a position to defend himself/herself? Or how do you love people who murder people for money? or people who rape, torture and kill even kids? I think these people should be punished and punished without mercy.
Just a different point of view. Also we should be more worried how we measure up on our standard and what do one think about oneself. How people remember us is not very important. Even if you do a lot of good things, there will always be people who will malign us. So live according to one's own value systems and standards.
@neihal
yeah..we can never be prepared but be ensure we have nothin to regret..
@Anjali
yeah..it sounds good..but how many people can agree to disagree..it asks for a compromise from both sides..I dont insist in making my side clear and convincing the other side..it always turns out to be a fight between my "right" and your "right"!! neverthless it hard to practise but worth a try..
@Alexis
hehehe..alla..it was just the boredom making me think!!
I agree it is against human instincts to love our enemies or feel affectionate to tormentors..but my question is that are all this grudge and negative emotions worth it??Isnt it all a temporary relief or`a kind of our own pain killer...I do hate people when i get pissed off..but carrying those grudges life-long aint worth it..
I might be wrong coz i was never subjected to a really bad abuse..but i am sure of one thing that life is a lot easier without those negative thoughts...
thanks for the insights..
hmm........I came here looking for some satirical humor and here you re in a philosophical mood !! :))
Shn
hmm..the last bit really follows wat i sincerely believe in...What only matters would be that everyday i did the best i cud to b the best person i cud be...i guess then it doesnt really matter when we die.We often over-estimate our importance in the world.Life will stil go on....
Philosophy turns up in the most unlikly places...
:-)
" overvalue our goodness .. and undermine our 'beastlyness' "
hmm .. and to think that u said u are an arrogant brat .. wow ... :)
I agree with silverine .. in the end all that matters is what and how we are remembered . and more importantly how you want to be remembered !
Mathew , What happened to you ? everything was all right and we used to get good humor till you returned from Germany :) . But to come out of this philiosophical mood you need to do whatever you have written in thr first line "Observing people is more amusing than observing animals." You need to observe people in the most unlikely places where they know that they are being observed and you will surely come back with that humor nerve that we used to enjoy :). On a serious note , Mathew I agree with you on "stop gauging others.. start loving others without expecting anything in return.. start smiling at people without expecting a smile back…" . But very few people can do all this :(
You know Mathew, your blog never ceases to surprise. Every time one is here, one finds a new side to you. Now funny, now serious, now very intelligent, and then.. also philosophical. I have always suspected that you have the philosophical-and-dreamy infection, but this one still surprises very pleasantly.
Admittedly, that was a very good post. Death is something that we all think about at least once in our lives. And though I like the comfort of believing in a life after death, there really is no way to verify that -- until, of course, experiencing death itself. However, it is true what you said that regardless what lays out there in the field of the unknown, what we can control right now is how we live. Why dwell on something we are not sure of... when we can focus on something we are sure of?
@mishmaash
eh..oh.yeah i think i ll get back in groove soon!! ;-P
@divs
bingo..summed up very well..
@vidya
Lol!!oh yeah.got mood swings for me too!!
@Raghav
mm..yeah..quite contradictory.. :-P
I got to be more realistic..
@NC
lol!!am still in deutschland..
yeah..it is a tough call but worth tryin..aint it,,
At the end, I want to leave a void and a presence.
@how do we know
thanks a lot..that was a generous compliment... :-)
@Princess banter
exactly..u have summed up the gist of the post..we simply resign to the fact that it isnt worth tryin to live good..
so true! its mostly near-death that ppl really THINK abt what they have done and understand what Life should really be. Sad isnt it.
Keshi.
I agree with you.. death or near-death experience often gives a whole new perspective on things, on life itself!Thats the reality!
Awesome post...Its all so true and yet we never think this way...
Wow!! lovely words...
very true about on ething..at last the only thing that counts is how we measured up ourselves...
Take care...
I think we are all afraid to die, maybe of not knowing what happens. But in the end I do agree what matters is the life you lead on this earth.If all of us lived our lives and each day as best we could, then this world would be a much better place.
Mat: Is everything ok at ur side??
Death- hmm never think about it and I know it will take me oneday and why think too much about it.
But when u taste the death experience and come back, you change the way you see the world as you are here to live and do something better than what you did beore.
Mathew,
:) You said it.
* rubs eyes *
* decides that mathews blog is taken over aliens and exits *
Tee hee. Just kidding.
i swear i left my comemnts here yesterday... a looooong one..and now its gone! :P
just like the finitenes sof being.
who ate my comment? was that you mathew? :)
and it was so philosphical and enlightening too.
A superb post!! Death ends all...and we still run after worldly pleasures...n on thinking this way...all seem so meaningless and our life a void...
A superb post!! Death ends all...and we still run after worldly pleasures...n on thinking this way...all seem so meaningless and our life a void...
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