Have been feeling low, down and out for several days. When I look at how I feel, there are several so called reasons for it, feeling unloved, undesired, low on confidence, lack of hope, lack of direction, lack of purpose and the whole host of it.
After moping for several days i am feeling more enraged and irritated towards myself. One thought that keeps coming to me is that if I were to face a person who was like who I am at the present moment, what would I have felt towards him or her? one single answer that comes is : "CONTEMPT" in capital letters.
I would have felt contemptuous, helpless, angry, tired and irritable. This constant whining would have got at me faster than it is hitting others. I think A has been quite patient and sweet with me, he is coping with whatever i am dishing out to him with grit and hidden resignation and may be even a little bit of despair.
Who would want to love a woman like me, this way? If i am whining about feeling low on self worth, etc, what is the other person supposed to do? At best the other person can try and help, be a problem solver. but basically apart from just listening, what else can any one do?
I hardly ever smile, I am sulking most of the time as though the whole world owes me big time and they have not paid their dues. what the fuck!
I am more and more getting convinced that this deeply entrenched sense of "low self worth" (behind that a very firm belief that I AM COMPLETELY UNLOVABLE) can not go, until I start gazing inward, but not in an analytical way. I have done that way too many times. By now I know every cause, every 'why's of every 'how's. that does not help. in fact what that does, in a way, is to strengthen this whining that 'oh such a bad thing happen to me, therefore, what else will i be, but this, that and the other".
my internal gaze would have to be more spiritual, more meditative. I am not sure I alone can do it. when i try to do it, there is tremendous resistance to it. I feel very restless, my mind races off and i feel like running away. It can be quite distressing at times.
but I also know that meditative practice is a discipline and not something that happens in a day. I am hoping that one of these days, very soon, I will be able to settle with that discipline within myself.
meanwhile can I experiment with smiling? not just a physical mouth open teeth showing smile; i mean, can i smile at myself and smile inwards?
As i am writing this, one of those restless, disbelieving and laughing voices in my head is saying "what the fuck are you writing, you stupid idiot, do you even know what the f*** does that mean"?
and it is right. I have no clue about what i am saying, but I am hoping, that instead of knowing, I can experience it somehow, soon.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Aparajito by Ray
just finished watching Aparajito by Satyajit Ray. It is the 2nd part of a trilogy by him, from a novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay. Felt very moved while watching. It is a simple story of a small family of a husband, wife and a son.
The story is told in a non judgemental way from the point of view of the little boy under the age of ten. He grows up amidst fondness and love of his parents who are surrounded by deprivation, illness, uncertainty, death and hardship. Surprisingly the boy's curiosity and innocence remain refreshingly intact. As he grows up and moves away from home, his apparent lack of any close emotional ties with his surviving and slowly ailing mother or with anyone does feel like a very natural flow emanating from a character like that.
while i was watching the movie, i was also thinking that although the storyline is based almost eighty or ninety years ago, it still seems very contemporary. The theme of moving away from home is very alive today, in fact even more so today.
the movie has a background of deprivation and poverty and yet the boy finds his wherewithal to go out to a bigger city and study. In today's time, most city dwelling middle class parents would want their children to go out and study so that they do well in life and they do provide for all such necessity. However, the tie that gets loosened between the child and home as it has been shown in the movie, has not probably changed.
Moving away from mother's close watchful eyes to a larger world full of freedom, opportunity and new wonders. Home seems like a distant past where nothing moves and time stands still. Very aptly, the hero of this film says, "I don't feel like going back to my village, i only feel sleepy there". I thought that comment was a signifier of what home perhaps mean today to most. It is probably a place that provides continuity and safety but does not provide any stimulation. May be that is the nature of home.
I wonder, however, is the essentially in the nature of home or is this what we have made it out to be? Has home become only a refuge of those who stay back, waiting only for those who may or may not return?
The story is told in a non judgemental way from the point of view of the little boy under the age of ten. He grows up amidst fondness and love of his parents who are surrounded by deprivation, illness, uncertainty, death and hardship. Surprisingly the boy's curiosity and innocence remain refreshingly intact. As he grows up and moves away from home, his apparent lack of any close emotional ties with his surviving and slowly ailing mother or with anyone does feel like a very natural flow emanating from a character like that.
while i was watching the movie, i was also thinking that although the storyline is based almost eighty or ninety years ago, it still seems very contemporary. The theme of moving away from home is very alive today, in fact even more so today.
the movie has a background of deprivation and poverty and yet the boy finds his wherewithal to go out to a bigger city and study. In today's time, most city dwelling middle class parents would want their children to go out and study so that they do well in life and they do provide for all such necessity. However, the tie that gets loosened between the child and home as it has been shown in the movie, has not probably changed.
Moving away from mother's close watchful eyes to a larger world full of freedom, opportunity and new wonders. Home seems like a distant past where nothing moves and time stands still. Very aptly, the hero of this film says, "I don't feel like going back to my village, i only feel sleepy there". I thought that comment was a signifier of what home perhaps mean today to most. It is probably a place that provides continuity and safety but does not provide any stimulation. May be that is the nature of home.
I wonder, however, is the essentially in the nature of home or is this what we have made it out to be? Has home become only a refuge of those who stay back, waiting only for those who may or may not return?
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
reading Ken Wilber
Have been reading "Grace & Grit" by Ken Wilber. The book is about his life spent with Treya, his wife, who is no more. She suffered from breast cancer almost from the beginning of their marriage and passed away after five years.
what i find compelling about this book is the bear bone honesty with which it has been written, This has entries from Treya's journal and Ken's writing about their life, their journey together, their love, their dark sides, their neuroses, their struggle and fight with the disease and their acceptance(or lack of it) of self, of each other, life, love, hatred, and all the junk that lie around in our persona. and of course, their meditation.
i felt hopeful reading this book. It is giving me back hope and faith. i feel drawn towards meditation and forgiveness practice.
what i also got in touch is that life and living is a discipline - it is not a hard cruel "if you don't abide by, then you will die" kind of discipline, but is more like having a gentle, loving and yet firm mother around kind of a discipline. life needs some order to be lived, to ground itself; so that it can give us the space to do other things after feeling alive.
Right now going through a lab with twenty five managers. A is also with me. we are feeling so loving towards one another, so gently and yet so deeply.
The lab is going on alright ... at times i have to fight hard with myself to stop judging the participants .... judging is so easy, compassion and sincere joining in is so hard.
As the personal life stories of some of them are unfolding in the lab space, I am awe struck, amazed, saddened, touched, resonated .....
I am also in touch with the "me ness" and it is like a light shadow at this point of time. i can most times feel it but can not distinguish. Only at times, i can see it clearly. Those times are special, i have a feeling of floating. when i am separate from my "me ness" i feel lighter, happier, broader, expansive. and at times, when the "me ness" envelopes me like a fog, i sometimes forget to breath, i feel agitated, reactive, snappy.
but i am finding it easier to talk to me now a day. :-)
what i find compelling about this book is the bear bone honesty with which it has been written, This has entries from Treya's journal and Ken's writing about their life, their journey together, their love, their dark sides, their neuroses, their struggle and fight with the disease and their acceptance(or lack of it) of self, of each other, life, love, hatred, and all the junk that lie around in our persona. and of course, their meditation.
i felt hopeful reading this book. It is giving me back hope and faith. i feel drawn towards meditation and forgiveness practice.
what i also got in touch is that life and living is a discipline - it is not a hard cruel "if you don't abide by, then you will die" kind of discipline, but is more like having a gentle, loving and yet firm mother around kind of a discipline. life needs some order to be lived, to ground itself; so that it can give us the space to do other things after feeling alive.
Right now going through a lab with twenty five managers. A is also with me. we are feeling so loving towards one another, so gently and yet so deeply.
The lab is going on alright ... at times i have to fight hard with myself to stop judging the participants .... judging is so easy, compassion and sincere joining in is so hard.
As the personal life stories of some of them are unfolding in the lab space, I am awe struck, amazed, saddened, touched, resonated .....
I am also in touch with the "me ness" and it is like a light shadow at this point of time. i can most times feel it but can not distinguish. Only at times, i can see it clearly. Those times are special, i have a feeling of floating. when i am separate from my "me ness" i feel lighter, happier, broader, expansive. and at times, when the "me ness" envelopes me like a fog, i sometimes forget to breath, i feel agitated, reactive, snappy.
but i am finding it easier to talk to me now a day. :-)
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