Identity crisis,,,

In the quest of self, I ponder upon who am I. This question precedes the question of what I am, so to reach there, we have to answer first the "who" part. Am I just a thinking being, who reduces the existence to the mere process of thinking and to reach on this conclusion I have to make an assumption, that there is some being which will never deceive me. 

Or I am a chaotic being hidden beneath this exterior which gives me the illusion of composition, tranquility and integrity.  But then this poses the duality of  ever changing and agitated "imaginary" self under the reflection of my body.

Or I am someone who can process the continuous stream of consciousness, which boil downs to a subject perceiving an objects. 

Or I am the impure manifestation of the immutable and somewhat "heavenly" form shadowed in me,,,

You are, therefore you work

Historians have been dividing the world history in many epochs, mostly follow triad framework; for Toffler it is Agricultural, Industrial and then age of Information. For Yuval divided the history in Cognitive, Agricultural and then Scientific revolutions. I am not concerned with the division or how they work, but each epoch brings an existential crisis within. The urge of people to give some "meaning" to their life is always there. Since we are living in the world where everyone knows everyone, a new "collective self" has emerged, which could be considered as the essence of the time we are living in. "Collective self" could be a doctrine, standards, moral code or whatever imposes certain expectations on a person. This creates a drift between what society wants you to be and what you want to be yourself. The most of today's anxiety is sprouting from this drift. We can clearly say this is the era where, "You are, therefore you work". The humans have been reduced to mere "utility" to the society, where you are evaluated by professions. 

This epiphany came to me when my niece of just 6 summers told me that she wanna be someone when she grows up. I realized instantly the drift she is feeling and wants to give some meaning to her live by choosing a profession. Naive as is she, started off with becoming a scientist. Within a week from a scientist she decided to be an artist, then a ballerina and ended up to work at McDonald's. I have nothing against working any honest day job, but my advice on her career's choice (clearly the "collective self"), convinced her to work as a teacher when she grows up.

It takes two to recognize one,,,

If bear with me, do a cognitive exercise, imagine you are thrown in this world, alone, all alone. Just imagine there is no one. In this situation a dilemma of existential nature will arise. Even if we have required epistemology like categories, quantities and awareness of time and space, we wouldn't be able to ascertain, who we are. We would be needing at least one other living conscious entity to recognize oneself (the self here is of mere psychological nature). According to me this is the very reason that human beings are the most "attention hungry" creature. The acceptance or approval of other conscious beings is an integral diet of one's psychic. So it takes two to recognize one, maybe one's true self is just a hello away.

"Some become wise and some become fools for the rest of their life",,,

Within all the living things, humans have this tremendous ability to thrive and sustain their existence. Over the ages, human beings cease to extinct. This overwhelming urge to live is due to the fact that we are the most adaptable species. We can withstand the harshness of the climate, lack of food and none conducive environment. But these all are pertinent to our physical attributes, and we are beyond physical; and contrary to our ability to adapt our selves according to our environment, meta physically we have done the quite opposite. Instead of molding our selves to the meta physical ideas, we mold the ideas in a shape that fits us. The meta physical ideas that I am talking here about are absolute or pseudo absolute ones, more like Platonic forms. For example God, we can only idealize the existence of One, who is creator and sustainer, but this idea doesn't sell so well. We have mold it to such a degree that we have killed the true idea. Now mostly he is a punitive and judgmental being who we seek only when we need material things and not the His true will. We have done the same with the idea of love; the eagerness to learn reality of things, to be wisest of all, we have cast love just to present our needs. For me this is the defense mechanism of ours, hidden in our collective unconsciousness, where the social structure has pushed us to find "acceptance" in others rather than accepting our selves first. It is desperate to tell someone that you need them, so we have fabricated the concept of love, maybe to palliate the pain or make it more acceptable in society. With these changes, "some become wise and some become fools for the rest of their life".

Ones Lost,,,

Well most of the relations we have that are not imposed on us, are created out of emotions and feelings rather than rationale. Now I won't start the debate about the nature of the emotions, whether they are innate or acquired but I do state that we are conditioned to comprehend emotions in binary or extremes. This can be due to the incapacity of the language to associate more words with the feelings, or it is due to the fact that we can not express everything we feel. Sometimes feelings are lost in the translation. The whole idea of discussing this is to highlight the phenomenological aspect of emotions. A person can potentially be everything that is possible. We have to wear veils,guises and layers to hide all the unacceptable possibilities so that we can be accepted in a group,friends or a society.This is due to the reason I feel,that our existence is reflected not in our mind but in the consciousness of others. Then for them we become phenomena, they can only know us from what they already know and not actually what we are. That's why in the world which is growing out of proportion, where almost everyone knows everyone, this makes a person "acceptance hungry". So every new relation we make somehow starts with a bit of killing of ones true self.

Beyond time,,,

There was a time when all the experiences were pure and direct, without passing through the cognition. It was the time when I saw without eyes, listened without ears and spoke without language. I remember vaguely, wandering around in serenity, It came to me, all laden with black cloak, with grimly grin, offered me some fruit, a piece of cloak and then It walked with me for a while. When I acquiescently accepted Its gift, I was stabbed with scythe and the next thing I knew I was thrown into this world, entrapped within a body. Now all I experience is slave to my mind, truth is poisoned with relevance and perception. I realize the fruit It gave me was for perpetual hunger, the yearning for more, the cloak was not to fashion the clothing, but was to veil my perversion, to hide the beast I have inside me , but worst of all the stabbing of scythe in my heart, was for the lingering of other's acceptance,,,

Plan B ,,,

Well the gist of life is its spontaneity, its utter uncertainty. We plan and plan, but mostly our plans are returned in vain when ricocheted with reality. So it is must to have a plan B in life. My life is the biggest example of 'Plan B', it is running more or less in Plan B at least since I left the school. There are some things you can't plan, they strike you as lightening, some are shattered by it, some become more confident, more strong. In reality, instead of accepting our frailty and flow with the tide.We are afraid of the future, in our present where in the end, when this future will be our present, our present and past will be just glint in our eyes, they will be either regrets or rejoice, so I guess only way to live is to make our present better and joyful.   

You are beautiful,,,

Well been rational beings, we all ought to analyze things according to our innate and gained knowledge. But sometimes, over analyzing things kill the joy and beauty they possess. I believe somethings are just beautiful at the surface, like a rainbow projected on the clouds, the ripple on the water, the tide that is ebbing, sun's reflection on the smooth flowing Rhine. These things are beautiful on their surfaces. I believe everything with some exceptions, holds a general beauty. "The beauty lies in the eyes of beholder", subjectifies the beauty thus disparaging the generic beauty we all share. I guess at sometimes, some places we all were, are and will be beautiful. 

Every moment you live, you die.

Life came to me as nothing but an incarceration, imprisonment is imprisonment though its for one’s own benefit. In incarceration it doesn't matter what they have taken away from one but what have been given. It’s all about maintaining the comfort zone, I can remember the first time when someone took me away from my comfort zone. It was my mom’s gynecologist who thought he is better out than in, I contradict that. Free food, free place to stay, no bills to be paid, no promises to be made. I was happy, but then the doctor took me out and I cried all over her face, but she threw me in this world. After so many springs, my comfort zone was destroyed once again, oh those 13 horrendous days, when I was imprisoned. They said its for the good of society and me. In prison, one have nothing but time, and in my contemplation, I had an awakening, all those 28 years ago, I wasn't crying for being disturbed but I knew then that I have breathe first, I have to die last. The only unchangeable, inevitable truth. Pity every child knows that, that’s why they cry their lungs out, but the illusion of life, dusts the truth. Sometimes I can hear the cheeky grin of the reaper, laughing out on me. He is saying, every moment you live, you die.

Sky of Lahore,,,

Well what goes around comes around, there is no backing off from one’s doing. Nature has a way of giving us the precursors for future, and I realized it when I beamed my vision over the skies of once my beautiful homeland. A beautiful clear sky with a wide stretched golden haze, flossing clouds, and a lot of birds swirling around, their serenading chirps echoing the bliss in one's ears, but this time my sight was in vain to capture and reminiscent those beauty days of my yore. I didn’t know when this transition happened, its funny how one gets really imbued in enslaved schedule and misses the subtle priceless things. But what I saw this time was a sky filled with smoke and scavengers floating all over it. I haven’t seen such a number of death eaters before, they really jolted me to my soul. But again what we are doing on the ground is reflected on the skies. On the ground we are feasting on the carcass of a dead nation, in the skies kites and crows are savoring the helpless birds. The whole ecological system has changed, now I wasn’t able to find nightingales,doves,swifts and other precious birds that used to add beauty to Lahore. Even the number of wild pigeons have reduced alarmingly, once in abundance, now only can be seen near PU’s old campus or at Darbar. I wish one day the hopes and birds will be back again, but it seems most unlikely.

Living in fantasies,,,

We are living in the times where truth is swaddled in the cloak of lies and conspiracies,making it too complex to comprehend. So sometimes, I find my sanctuary in figments of my wishful mind, I have to inject a dose of fantasies to maintain my sanity. I know there is no 'Vena Amoris' in my left hand's finger, but still I love to believe it. I know there ain't no Zeus and he didn't make us in pairs and then performed the segregation, but I like to quote 'Zeus's Split' quite often. I know embarked lines on my palms have nothing to do with my fate, but sometimes reading them give me satisfaction. I guess in the world where truth is grotesquely webbed for presenting the  false narratives, it's better to believe in fantasies.

Bonn Voyage : Living the Moment

Reminiscing that horrid day still gives me jitters, when one of my closest friend called me and told me he is diagnosed with a schwannoma in his trigeminal nerve. Since the tumor was so big that doctors have to perform an open brain surgery. This is the biggest surgery one can get nowadays. Terrified to my bones, and apart from my procrastination and apathy, I went to see him. Just before a night from the operation, we all were sitting in the waiting area, making fun, playing “who can throw the paper ball in the bin”, and stuff. There wasn't any glint of apprehension in his eyes. He took it so well, in fact anyone would easily be deceived with his attitude that he is having an appendix removal or hernia operation instead of an open brain surgery. With all his wits, he showed me a piece of paper, where the repercussions of the surgery were mentioned. Among death , paralysis , loss of vision etc , the most troublesome was “personality disorder”. I guess that troubled him the most because everything else was evident and self explanatory, only “personality disorder” was a vague term.

But, I know exactly what was going through his mind then. The surgery didn't affect him physically that much as it did mentally. I haven’t seen such a lively person, always enjoying the life to its fullest. But surgery has shattered his confidence, his liveliness. Life consists of many finite little moments, in struggle of making our future lustrous , we forget to live these precious moments. In the end we end up with regrets for past and unfulfilled expectations for future. But some people live in the moment, my friend belongs to that group, he has this wonderful , “happy go lucky,fuck the world” attitude which I always envied. I wish soon he starts to live the moments again.

Bonn Voyage : Ignorance is not a bliss

Bigotry, self righteousness are the traits common in most of the people, but setting national pride aside, I have noticed we are specially gifted in these. Argumentation and debate arises when we try to judge others in the mirror of ourselves. We lack the ability of letting our self go, and for once try to understand the phenomena without involving any “me” in it. Finding one whose reflection is same as yours is nearly impossible. But the thing that saddens me most is that we allow our preconceived notions to block any access of new ideas, its not that one should accept them out rightly, but we even don’t bother to invest any time to find out whether they hold any water or not. This habit of procrastinating has made us in an ignorant nation, where I am proponent of the premise that “reasons can’t stand for feelings”, but for us it’s true in every wrong way.  

Bonn Voyage: Close Encounter,,,

It’s been more than 60 years since the fall of Third Reich, more than 20 since unification; no doubt that Deutschland has resurrected itself from mere ashes. But in the process, instead of eliminating the racism and hatred, it has suppressed it. I am a skilled professional, doing my masters in one of the most prestigious universities of Germany. Whose legacy holds 7 Nobel laureates, including the only German economist to win one. Not only that I am working at one of the biggest research institute of Europe. I am writing this not in brag but in the context of personal humiliation and utter mental distress. Well today, coming back from a friend’s place, I was encountered by a typical German teenager. I guess he hasn’t seen the door of a university ever, or hasn’t heard the last movement of Beethoven’s Choral, where he orchestrated the finest words advocating fraternity and brotherhood. “Alle Menschen werden Bruder”, just remain words for me now, as the bantering and racist remarks bestowed on me, murders the gist of these beautiful words.

Bonn Voyage : Acceptance

One thing that I have learned is that the basic impetus of human behavior is “acceptance”. We all as conscious beings, thrive for gaining the acceptance of others. In a sense we all live in the consciousness of others, with all our idiosyncrasies, we give ourselves to others for judgment, for their approval and acceptance. This acceptance makes us complete, and fail to gain one, makes us sullen. The emptiness prevails in the failure of gaining other’s acceptance. For this we guise in sweetness, or wear the cloak which suites others. And this morbid fascination grows, molding our behaviors and personalities. But the thing which is most common in the people I met here, and no shame of accepting it myself, the acceptance of opposite gender is most satisfying. I have seen egos succumbing, self proclaimed rules defying, and people kneeling down just for been accepted. Well once I was lingering for that too, but now ain't gonna listen to song of sirens. As I have concluded first one should seek acceptance within.