"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough. We
must do."
~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
I believe the time has come. It is time for me to begin my journey to acheiving my dream. Like i everyone else, i too have a dream to be able to accomplish the goals that i have set for myself.
I write this because i know that someone blogging by will hold me accountable and so will a few who know this blog exists.
My dream is to write. And to do that i want to hone those skills in a centre of learning. And to do that, i need to start scouting for the right universities, and the right environment.
Step One.
Feel free to leave any helpful links, insights or feedback which i can pick up on.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Monday, June 12, 2006
Expound and Expunge
My colleage handed me a few articles over the course of two weeks that expound very heartfelt 'isms'; reflecting deep into the matter that is human kind. The four writers are respected figureheads of their art - earning them the titles of intellectuals - people dedicated to expounding.
As a child i would sit and watch my father read books, utterly inspid to me at the time - devoid of colour or pictures - completely engrossed and thoughtfully pondering on the various thoughts and conclusions of many men and women who immortalised intellectualism in spheres of politics, philosophy, realism, compounded thought, motivation, science, religion and let's not forget the left way of thinking.
Dad wasn't much of leftist, he called himself a humanist - last time i checked there was a sphere by that name as well. Do i know the actual meaning or inner depth that each spehere holds, do i know the lasting implications it will have on my life? Quite honestly the reality of the impact is beyond comprehension.
I picked my way through the spines of these books, amused at first and then slightly piqued by what i saw on the jackets. Being a loner, books were my only companion, sharers of thought and givers of space to form your own. The beauty is that when you read Plato, for example, you may either agree, disagree, soak in or spit out what he has to say and then form your opinion, which could either be a mish mash of what Plato had to say and what you have to say as well and then you present your arugument or present stand to a welcoming audience of like-minded individuals who all have this new found knowledge that is coloured with their own experiences.
Mind you, everyone is dying to debut their thought - some in the hope of a mini movement, others in the hope of finally being able to expound their view and opinion (with a little or lot of help from the Masters).
Masters are those who continue into life setting trends that are either
a) hard acts to follow
b) impossible and therefore attractive
c) utopic in a herd mentality or
d) a flippant temporary occupation for many who lose their way and suddenly find an alternative route (most often than not, they tire of it half way through and only hang on to the brief but very intense courtship for mellow exchanges over drinks or a long walk in the woods).
One of the biggest questions i have never had answered straight is how intellectuals make their living. Some of the successful ones who visited our universities for good expound sessions have a house on the hills and either off-spring in an Ivy Leauge or internships with the World Bank. Ironically the biographies were passed around class when he/she was well on his way to the station or the airport.
I don't mean it as a snide rhetoric, i truly would like to know.
Being a full time, committed intellectual is not an easy task. To quote, read, write, imprint footnotes and state a point of view in a divided, fickle and highly charged politi-religio atmosphere is no mean task. We live in sea of intellectuals today - everyone wants to be 'wise'.
But there are a few who by worthy PR by their followers, contemporaries, invitations and sheer difference stand the test of endurance and continue true to their cause.
My father's books provided me with a starter kit into what i would go on to call a enlightening time in my life. Some of the people i have met, have without flinching told me how irrevocably negative i am in my approach to certain things in life, and how i get them thinking. As long as i'm achieving the latter, i really don't believe the approach is negative - it is frutiful. And therein lies the difference.
Sure, there will be times when i am made to succumb to the pressures of knowledge and my temperament (a lethal combination i assure you). But for the greater good of thought i don't mind.
Why i don't expound in good measure is because i am a hermit in comparison to my well travelled and connected influencers. I don't know whether i will be invited to a famed portal and asked to expound - but i do dream of it. I do aspire.
Arm chair theory spawned many movement, the occupant of the arm chair died, but the thought was already spun and it took flight into people who were deprived, used, abused and finally vindicated. Some of the life changing beliefs that we use as an impetus in our lives were birthed by individuals you wouldn't have recognised and were known by very few. their books grace very shelves, their spines thumbed over time by the same hands and few friends. The knowledge stewed, evolved and then was dipped into and inked into newer and adaptable situations and realities.
Knowledge isn't written in stone it is (re)volutionary. Evolves and revolves, twisting and turning and burning and never dying.
And so what i may know today will be something else tomorrow and so we never 'know' but are always learning.
These four articles my good friend handed me i would like to talk about, and i will in my next visit.
Good day.
As a child i would sit and watch my father read books, utterly inspid to me at the time - devoid of colour or pictures - completely engrossed and thoughtfully pondering on the various thoughts and conclusions of many men and women who immortalised intellectualism in spheres of politics, philosophy, realism, compounded thought, motivation, science, religion and let's not forget the left way of thinking.
Dad wasn't much of leftist, he called himself a humanist - last time i checked there was a sphere by that name as well. Do i know the actual meaning or inner depth that each spehere holds, do i know the lasting implications it will have on my life? Quite honestly the reality of the impact is beyond comprehension.
I picked my way through the spines of these books, amused at first and then slightly piqued by what i saw on the jackets. Being a loner, books were my only companion, sharers of thought and givers of space to form your own. The beauty is that when you read Plato, for example, you may either agree, disagree, soak in or spit out what he has to say and then form your opinion, which could either be a mish mash of what Plato had to say and what you have to say as well and then you present your arugument or present stand to a welcoming audience of like-minded individuals who all have this new found knowledge that is coloured with their own experiences.
Mind you, everyone is dying to debut their thought - some in the hope of a mini movement, others in the hope of finally being able to expound their view and opinion (with a little or lot of help from the Masters).
Masters are those who continue into life setting trends that are either
a) hard acts to follow
b) impossible and therefore attractive
c) utopic in a herd mentality or
d) a flippant temporary occupation for many who lose their way and suddenly find an alternative route (most often than not, they tire of it half way through and only hang on to the brief but very intense courtship for mellow exchanges over drinks or a long walk in the woods).
One of the biggest questions i have never had answered straight is how intellectuals make their living. Some of the successful ones who visited our universities for good expound sessions have a house on the hills and either off-spring in an Ivy Leauge or internships with the World Bank. Ironically the biographies were passed around class when he/she was well on his way to the station or the airport.
I don't mean it as a snide rhetoric, i truly would like to know.
Being a full time, committed intellectual is not an easy task. To quote, read, write, imprint footnotes and state a point of view in a divided, fickle and highly charged politi-religio atmosphere is no mean task. We live in sea of intellectuals today - everyone wants to be 'wise'.
But there are a few who by worthy PR by their followers, contemporaries, invitations and sheer difference stand the test of endurance and continue true to their cause.
My father's books provided me with a starter kit into what i would go on to call a enlightening time in my life. Some of the people i have met, have without flinching told me how irrevocably negative i am in my approach to certain things in life, and how i get them thinking. As long as i'm achieving the latter, i really don't believe the approach is negative - it is frutiful. And therein lies the difference.
Sure, there will be times when i am made to succumb to the pressures of knowledge and my temperament (a lethal combination i assure you). But for the greater good of thought i don't mind.
Why i don't expound in good measure is because i am a hermit in comparison to my well travelled and connected influencers. I don't know whether i will be invited to a famed portal and asked to expound - but i do dream of it. I do aspire.
Arm chair theory spawned many movement, the occupant of the arm chair died, but the thought was already spun and it took flight into people who were deprived, used, abused and finally vindicated. Some of the life changing beliefs that we use as an impetus in our lives were birthed by individuals you wouldn't have recognised and were known by very few. their books grace very shelves, their spines thumbed over time by the same hands and few friends. The knowledge stewed, evolved and then was dipped into and inked into newer and adaptable situations and realities.
Knowledge isn't written in stone it is (re)volutionary. Evolves and revolves, twisting and turning and burning and never dying.
And so what i may know today will be something else tomorrow and so we never 'know' but are always learning.
These four articles my good friend handed me i would like to talk about, and i will in my next visit.
Good day.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
What are the odds?
What are the odds of a mood swing in a day in the life of Megha Abraham?
I'd say a million to one. After flying to Dubai, i've come to a point in my life, where i need to battle my negativity, that has so easily made being a royal sore to myself. I've pretty much spent enough energy to light up a small town for a week, just being anal about the city and its lack of depth.
Apart from it being a fact, i am not choosing how i'm supposed to react to it. See, that's a choice i HAVE. And i'm not exercising it. Call me stupid and i'll concede (just this once...).
As i was driving to work this morning, the radio blared out a song that i've heard a million times before but never really paid attention. Wake Up.
Wake up it's a beautiful morning Tra la...remember?
Well, there is part in the song that tells you that it could be the last time you're looking at the sky and you'd never know it, so wake up and enjoy what you have...yada yada?
Well, it nevers struck a chord before, but it did today. I guess all the stars had aligned for the epiphany, so i went ahead had it. The epiphany.
So i relaxed my brow and looked up at the Dubai skyline on Sh. Zayed road and yeah...it was a pretty blue. And i do realise that we're all in this here place to learn and make the most of what we have, and so i might as well, get my plans in order and start focussing on how i can be in a better frame when i look at everything and wait my turn.
Yeah...i've gotta go write a press release and finish up an editorial calendar...not really spiffy stuff, but it pays the bills and allows me the dream of saving up for better.
The lonliness reminds me of what i had and let go of, it reminds me that we all have a reason for what we do, and although sometimes it hurts like crazy even now, we just walk on...knowing somewhere there is a reason and time for every purpose...yeah...under heaven.
Do i think little of everyone else? No i don't, in fact i think that those micro manage like the life beneath the duff, is an empire to conquer in itself. A world where details least noticed is the sealing factor to most successes. It is the armour in a large mass of fighting warriors without which no battle can be complete. It is the ranks, the form and the files that set an organised fighting body from a mean course and uncouth mass, where no discipline or carriage can cause a riot within one's own ranks and the enemy mocks at their hardly fought victory.
Such is the importance of detail. For it speaks volumes and yet is never noticed in the larger scheme of things. In hindsight it is recalled in appreciation and wonder. And although credit is not received when one expects it or wants it, it arrives in times you may never know or understand and set in motion wonderous cycles of gratitude that swamp you in pleasant surprise and confusion. And then a deep and very comfortable warmth that settles the uncertainity in your being, telling you how much of a difference that one extra gesture cost you then, but reaps richly now.
I'd say a million to one. After flying to Dubai, i've come to a point in my life, where i need to battle my negativity, that has so easily made being a royal sore to myself. I've pretty much spent enough energy to light up a small town for a week, just being anal about the city and its lack of depth.
Apart from it being a fact, i am not choosing how i'm supposed to react to it. See, that's a choice i HAVE. And i'm not exercising it. Call me stupid and i'll concede (just this once...).
As i was driving to work this morning, the radio blared out a song that i've heard a million times before but never really paid attention. Wake Up.
Wake up it's a beautiful morning
Well, there is part in the song that tells you that it could be the last time you're looking at the sky and you'd never know it, so wake up and enjoy what you have...yada yada?
Well, it nevers struck a chord before, but it did today. I guess all the stars had aligned for the epiphany, so i went ahead had it. The epiphany.
So i relaxed my brow and looked up at the Dubai skyline on Sh. Zayed road and yeah...it was a pretty blue. And i do realise that we're all in this here place to learn and make the most of what we have, and so i might as well, get my plans in order and start focussing on how i can be in a better frame when i look at everything and wait my turn.
Yeah...i've gotta go write a press release and finish up an editorial calendar...not really spiffy stuff, but it pays the bills and allows me the dream of saving up for better.
The lonliness reminds me of what i had and let go of, it reminds me that we all have a reason for what we do, and although sometimes it hurts like crazy even now, we just walk on...knowing somewhere there is a reason and time for every purpose...yeah...under heaven.
Do i think little of everyone else? No i don't, in fact i think that those micro manage like the life beneath the duff, is an empire to conquer in itself. A world where details least noticed is the sealing factor to most successes. It is the armour in a large mass of fighting warriors without which no battle can be complete. It is the ranks, the form and the files that set an organised fighting body from a mean course and uncouth mass, where no discipline or carriage can cause a riot within one's own ranks and the enemy mocks at their hardly fought victory.
Such is the importance of detail. For it speaks volumes and yet is never noticed in the larger scheme of things. In hindsight it is recalled in appreciation and wonder. And although credit is not received when one expects it or wants it, it arrives in times you may never know or understand and set in motion wonderous cycles of gratitude that swamp you in pleasant surprise and confusion. And then a deep and very comfortable warmth that settles the uncertainity in your being, telling you how much of a difference that one extra gesture cost you then, but reaps richly now.
Detours take time and pride!
{That's the picture of the loo door!}
What a day - it's been one long detour after the other. This was the first day i was to drop my brother off to his office - the route was simple enough but then you always, well i don't always but then i did today - took all the wrong turns AFTER - i dropped him off. And so i'm driving around with my bladder full, ready to pee. Every wrong turn i take and my bladder sloshes all the more and i'm going cross eyed to try and get a good look at the road signs.
Anyway, i finally reach and take the ill-fated decision to park in my usual spot (out of habit of course!) and i completely forget i'm an hour late - which makes the parking lot full! Sigh...work with me me on this one...
And then i park a mile away, speed walk to the lobby and then decide (smartly!) that i take the fast route to the ground floor loo (big mistake). I run in, push the swinging doors to find three men in front of a full length mirror adjusting crotches, and tucking in shirt respectively. I stumble half way in order to avoid any more embarrasment crying out profuse apologies.
And do a 360 for the door and push past and barely make it to the ladies loo, and go about the much delayed business. Relief...
I'm still late, yeah?
So, i'm quite releived and quite...releived at this point. And while i swing out to the elevators, from the corner of my eyes i see the same three guys waiting for elevators. I'm pondering the whole disaster of sharing the elevator all the way to the third floor with these boys when i see the glint in one of their eyes, and a low...very low whistle.
So, i walk on (absolutely no break in my stride) and i take the stair - i'm late!
And i reach office and i manage to start work, until my thoughts overwhelm me and i had to type.
And so now, before i venture out onto the roads again - this time to pick me brother up and then proceed home, i know now that some things planned to the T, make absolutly no sense and the diversions...well...the diversions...are Nature's way of telling you that you ain't in control babeee!
Sigh.
Post Afternoon
So here i am staring at a section of my desk post Thursday lunch. I decided i had to take a picture of it and share the view. Oh...me thoughts in general spill down below...
And so we've reached another fork in road, a road we all either dread, wait for or share an equal measure of both anticipation and reluctance to take.
My parents (God bless them both!) have reached that fork in the road where they will ride their mules back to India (they are officially back home as i type), whilst i take the road less travelled, knowing fully well that will make all the difference.
I'm not scared, but then what does one call this feeling at the pit of the stomach? Excitement?
I can hardly call this place a destination of dreams, unless i'm either white, have a passport to any of the ports in the western hemisphere or rightly have a platinum spoon glued to the inside my mouth for good measure.
No my daddio brought us up with the forthright outlook that was branded into each Abraham child by eartwhile P.S or GP as we nexgens knew him.
It was branded, i say it that way, because each sibling took it away and moulded it with their own streak of liberalism, rebeliousness or secret streak that makes each offspring that sprung later so amazingly different and yet bonded, that science, DNA or even logic remains stumped at the outcome.
Yes, and so i will foray into the world of living on my own again. Alebit almost a year too late. I guess being with the folks for a year after a 5 year run at independence only forged the fact further that they're amazing people and i love them dearly. But when it comes to personal space and time management and life in general, i have officially come to the conclusion that it is time, it is done on one's own.
Growing older is a bitch as is.
I'm not sure how things will turn out here really. I have all these maojr plans, and although conquering the world isn't one of them, i do know i would like to earn enough to buy a place of my own. Save enough so that i could make it to a cafe for coffee and write a book in peace without worrying about where my next meal would come from. If i were to do the math for just a piece of this plan, it would safely come upto around 5 years. And so, am i willing to waste it on something i know i'm not really happy doing?
Not sure really...
And so how will this dream be realised? Hmmm...
See these are the questions i hate, the one where the answers are as stable as fluff.
Sigh...
But then nothing is impossible.
And so the arguments or the battle of the positive and negative continue.
For now, one battle is won, i get to live on my own again, and it will be good. I know it will, for the simple reason that i have my space, my thinking zones and well i don't know the freedom to plan my day and my future!
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