Semusing #3 - The Duel

It is cool to be someone that despises routine and is devoted to randomness. But having a routine is always more productive than being guided by the mood and flow, though the latter is definitely more pleasurable. Once in a while, I do succumb to the allure of a routine as it makes me productive and gives me the thrill of realizing how well I function under pressure and commitment. This undertaking to muse all month is one such venture. But the problem with the likes of me is that once they have a thing they need to do, all they can think of is about how to complete that thing before anything else -  so in a way, I realized I become less productive when I have a routine as I spend most of the time in my mind, being less present in the moment while I do other things in the given day. Which brings me to the point of ponder - The Duality duel.

When I was a teen, a teacher of mine, who was a huge influence, introduced me to the works of Dale Carnegie among other writers he admired. I read two of Carnegie's books during that time which were his 'How to' Series and I was taking my baby steps into to the wonderful world of non fiction. In his book 'How to stop worrying and start living' Carnegie talks about living in 'day tight compartments' - a jugaad he suggests to win over worrying in a loop. At that age, I was just breaking into the habit of thinking over and over and when he had put the 'day tight compartment' thought in my head, I was more charmed by his play of words than his advocacy behind them. Talk about misplaced comprehension. A couple of years down the lane, when I was still a teen, a family friend of ours, who caught me reading another of those 'self help' non fictions made a snide remark about how it is lowly to read books to learn how to live. "Why do we need books to tell us how to live? Don't we have it in us to do it ourselves?" was his argument. Though I wasn't a very outspoken, argumentative teen, I was a very independent one. I dismissed his remarks in my head and continued to read all the books I could lay my hands upon, including the utterly cheesy tabloid and women magazines that my aunt used to carry with her every time she visited us. No book was useless and I had so few of them in reach anyway. 

Lately, I realized, that I had pretty much spent most of my reading time in non fiction, though the genre kept changing depending on what I could get my hands on, until I discovered  subjects I wanted to delve deeper into - Spirituality and Philosophy. I realize, most of the thoughts of all philosophers and mystics are very similar. They all seem to lead to the same destination while taking different roads and they all seem to focus much on the dissolution of mind and the ego - and by ego, they do not mean the "Ego" but the identity human beings have to their physical realms such as their body and material possessions. It is funny how, I find dots that connect almost all information I gathered through my reading escapades and I don't know if the books have a destiny, like everything else that I believe is orchestrated to reach us just at the right moment. If they have a road map of their own, if they choose the reader and the time they want to be read. I have some books that are in their shrink wrap for a good couple years and books that I grab from a friend's coffee table and take off reading through half way in one go, without planning it. 

Before I digress, which I am an expert at doing,  I'll get back to the duality principle.

So, this commitment to write all month is a thought that takes form and then there is this urge to skip it. The mind goes in a loop "What do you have to muse about today? It sounds too egotistic anyway, just put the laptop away and do something else" - Now I recognize that every thought we have has a duality that challenges it and pulls it down. And as if that isn't a distraction enough, there is a body that keeps asking you to give in to its comforts. "Nap for a while" it keeps egging you - while another side gently lingers around in the brain as a good intention that says "Take a walk in nature" It might inspire your next musing while keeping your body and mind aligned. This, I gather, happens as a constant in every human life, with every human thought that takes place. This probably is the battle of the conscious and the subconscious - the conscience or lack thereof. It is empowering to know and recognize the several voices, thanks to all the wisdom that is dispensed to me by the great philosophers and thinkers in those dozens of books that surround me as we speak. 

I sometimes get a little miffed at the maze of this existence and this illusion that pulls us in two different directions. What purpose do these serve? Are they those litmus tests, those loops of fire we need to jump through as mortals to realize the ultimate purpose of our existence? Are these the energies that let us sort out for ourselves the priorities in the process of our evolution? I let out a toned down expletive and choose what I perceive as the right thing to do at that given juncture - although, it helps to admit, that I drag myself to do it at times. I experience major gratification on minor wins in my day to day life when I know I am choosing right among the duality presented to me. For now, the win is this ponder. I know I ace at sounding abstract. I know because I was told (Grin) But for today, abstraction is the name of the game. It is the win I claim over that seductive little tone that kept wooing me to skip this and call it a day. So, I wrap it up with a sense of achievement - a little win in this unfathomable human existence - and I cannot thank enough, all those books that presented themselves to me over the course of maneuvering through this earthly visit.

Senseless Semusing hashtag 3 - It is a wrap!