A light in the darkness

When I wrote this topic today, everything talked about imperfection. This mental battle between perfectionism and imperfectionism made me understand that we are at the wrong end. Let me clarify what I really mean by this. When you go to school, does your teacher expect you to master everything on day one? The answer is no. For this reason only, assessments are towards the end of the term. I remember my brother and sister joining the drawing class. They are good artists because they have worked on it for ages, and I never did, so I am still imperfect in it.  I still remember the days when I went to do machine embroidery. My teacher first said to make straight, concentric circles without stopping. The first day was, oh! Nothing was going well. Not even one line was straight. This is where we all are. We begin with imperfection. We were three people there, learning. All were my senior madams, and I was the junior most. We all practiced every alternate day. After a few days, my circles w

When I thought of writing about the game of materialism that plays in our lives, I was immediately drawn to one of the English stories I read, ' The umbrella man ' by Roald Dhal. For all who have forgotten this story, I will give a quick recap. This story talks about a girl and her mother who visited a dentist. While they were returning, it was raining, and they were waiting for a cab when they were approached by an old man. This man asked for a favor by requesting $20 as a taxi fare in lieu of the silk umbrella he had. The mother was usually suspicious of strangers. So she used her first golden rule: "The nicer the man seems to be, the more suspicious you must become." This old man was really nice because he was polite, well-spoken, and well-dressed. He was really a gentle man. She knew this because her mother used her second golden rule to access it: "You can always spot a gentleman by the shoes he wears." (This is the reason I picked this story.) The stor

Why am I talking about masks and labels? I do not wear one.  Let us explore. Sociology studies man in his social environment. It says that man has many roles to play when he is inhabiting this earth. He acts like a father, son, husband, manager, leader, etc. He is not just one person but many in one. What is this?  Let me introduce you to Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and his take on the various roles we play. He says that we are not born as a blank slate where we can write anything. He introduced the concept of archetypes . Archetypes are a universal, inborn eidolon of a person, their behaviors and personalities that ultimately influence their behavior. In short, it is the innate human knowledge that is transferred from our ancestors. One such archetype is  "persona," which means mask. He elaborates, saying that persona is the way we present ourselves to the world, i.e., the innumerable social masks we don among various groups and situations. Over time, we get so stuck in th

We are all quite well versed in the benefits of information technology in our lives. Isn't it? So I will directly jump into how we hide from ourselves using information technology.  Planning to write about this topic drew me to one of the most famous practices I have heard: "When you get up in the morning, we should  see our palms first. " This had been our ritual for ages. Do you all remember this? I can hear a faint no.  Around fifteen years ago, when I had a dumb phone, my usual ritual was to get up, pray, meditate, reflect on the day, get energized, and begin the day. This practice has helped me a lot to keep myself calm and composed, and at the same time, it has always helped me to connect to myself. Without fail, I used to do this every day, but now my day begins with WhatsApp, Google, and Youtube. Even after checking messages, I do sit for prayer and meditation; my eyes are always on the phone, and just one popup and my heart beating, 'What's the message?&#

The fast-paced life we have chosen steals every quality that makes us whole. Peace is the first of them all. Under its shade, life is beautiful. In the whole of my life, I only heard people say, I have to do this, I have no time to rest, etc. No one ever mentions that I need to focus on my peace. Over time, I too became a jerk like that.  If you are in the right place, you have peace. If you are doing this right, you will have calmness. If you know what you have to do, you don't need to shout to get things executed; rather, you will patiently direct your subordinates so that the job is done successfully. Nowhere did you need to be arrogant. This clearly shows that we wear the mask of arrogance to hide something. Let us explore the hidden nature of arrogance. At this point, I would like to quote the words of an anonymous author:   "Arrogance requires advertisement. Confidence speaks for itself."   We are arrogant because we want people to see us as I have portrayed us

 Photo credit: Sub F Antony Fernandes, Ladakh WHO theme for World Mental Health Day 2023: "Mental health is a basic human right for all people." (10 Oct. 2023)   We are all aware of our human body system, in which so many organ systems work. Yes, all are essential but not vital. In our body, we have five vital organs: the heart, lungs, kidney, liver, and brain. Without these vital organs, our survival is impossible.   HEART: We all know about heart attacks. The moment our hearts stop pumping,                   everything  stands still. So, it is really vital. LUNGS: We all know its importance after COVID. A small infection of the respiratory                  track and we lost our control over our life giving breath. So, we need lungs in                     every form. KIDNEY: We all know about renal failure. People with nonfunctional kidneys fail to                   survive. We look for organ donors to extend our lives. LIVER: Another important organ that cleanses

Clear your vision; there is a lot to envision.   Let me carry you to the very first day of your life. You never knew where you would land. Who would be your father and mother? Or whether you will live or not live? Everything was suspenseful and surprising. Does the child have questions? No, she trusts the process and expects the best. She trusts the creator, and she knows whatever happens is going to bring only good. Our lives also present such surprises and suspense all the time. Isn't it? No. Come with me and meet Naina. She is a housewife. She gets up early and prepares meal for everybody. She packs bags and sends everyone to work. Then in the afternoon she goes to pickup her five-year-old lovely doll Natasha at the bus stop. They used to have a lot of fun thereafter until Samir came from work at six in the evening. Then she again occupies her kitchen territory. One such afternoon, when she went to pick up her 5-year-old kid, her foot struck the stone, and she started bleeding.

"The best way to make children good is to make them happy."                                                                                      Oscar Wilde We live our life in stages. There is a childhood stage, adolescence stage, adult stage, and old age stage. We live them all and try to make each stages as good as possible. In our life this childhood and adolescent stage is much influenced by our parents and their parenting. The famous psychologist Alfred Adler mentions that the way a parent interacts with their child has an impact on the child's future. His studies show that the parenting styles could contribute towards  inferiority complex  in children.  Exploring about parenting lead me to discover that the aggressiveness in children is associated with their unmet needs. Jan Hunt in her book "The Natural child- parenting from the heart" some of the silly mistakes which we do where upbringing our children. She mentions that we objectify our babies and mani

Nature is my hub to replenish my depleting energy. After a day’s long work or a week of hectic rush, I always love to lay in the arms of mother nature. She has a lot to give and I need a lot to plenish. This is where I communicate with her.   Every day of my life always has one or other problems.  There must never be a day when I do not have one. Hah! Now I feel they are my most loyal co-companions. So, instead of getting troubled and anxious of them, I juxtaposed them and started to understand them in a positive way and guess what? To my surprise they came to me with a purpose- with a purpose to build me, with a purpose to give me the threshold push I needed to mature and climb my new levels of success.  With this understanding, my life had a very different perspective. Now I was not getting depressed or saying words like, "this always happens to me. Why don't I have a peaceful time? What's wrong with me that troubles never leave me?" The answer is I have reprogramme

Our body has a unique mechanism to deal with things that are called foreign. If something like this happens to occupy a space, our body starts to battle like a worrier laying down all its valiant T-cells along. This becomes the yellowish-white exudate rising over the skin. This is known as the pus. So, is this pus our friend or foe? This pus is a sign that our body is having something unwanted and we need to attend it. The moment we see the pus we try remedies to remove it and relieve ourself from forthcoming toxic reactions and sepsis. That means we start attending to the needs of our own body. Within this body lives our soul. Does this soul to get attacked by foreign particles forming the pus? Yes, our soul to gets hurt when someone says something that attacks our inner world. Our soul also starts fighting against each allegations that have been fired to us filling us with negativity, fear, anger, anguish, rage etc. This makes us ache a lot.  Do you all also feel the same? Yes, this