However disgusting a person's habits may be, every now and then he or she does feel the obligation to clean up and organise his or her surroundings. For a change, not to trip over boxes or books lying on the floor, not to have a landslide after opening a cupboard, and not to sit on clothes that should be in the laundry.
My gift to myself on an unfortunate Tuesday evening was to clean up my room- and I realised how much inconvenience cleanliness actually causes. A mess is a very personalised thing- a mess is not a mess, it is like a resume- it speaks about you, who you are and what you have been doing. A mess is a beautiful thing that has evolved because of your unique personality and your way of living life. Therefore, a mess is actually the most ideal and convenient thing in your room. Things are not where they should be, things are where you want them to be, and this keeps life running smoothly.
Case in point- try searching for something before you clean you room and after. It takes less time to find something when things are in a mess, because your instinct guides you to where it is. When things are organised, you are in an unknown environment, and a search is a lost cause. True, with a mess there is a chance that you might actually lose something forever- just take it as a sign that it was never meant to exist in your life anyway. I was looking for scratch paper about ten minutes after "cleaning up", and I actually had to walk over to the other room to get paper. In my natural state, there would have been plenty of scratch lying on desk.
Moral of the story: never mess with a mess.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
The Game
The potter looked at the ground,
some heaps of mud he found.
Eyes lit up, blood rushed through his veins,
a pretty form the mud soon became.
The painter looked at the ground,
pretty forms of mud he found.
Many colours, nimble fingers he used,
Something into the forms he infused.
They were not like mud anymore.
The clouds looked at the ground,
brilliant, reaching forms they found.
But when the last drop had fallen,
the forms were left bare and solemn.
And when the gardener came with his spade,
Into the mud the forms were laid.
They were not like forms anymore.
The emperor looked at them all,
no tear from his eye did fall.
"I played all I wanted to play,
from where you came, you shall stay.
From the dark mud did I make you,
where did your foolishness hope to take you?"
some heaps of mud he found.
Eyes lit up, blood rushed through his veins,
a pretty form the mud soon became.
The painter looked at the ground,
pretty forms of mud he found.
Many colours, nimble fingers he used,
Something into the forms he infused.
They were not like mud anymore.
The clouds looked at the ground,
brilliant, reaching forms they found.
But when the last drop had fallen,
the forms were left bare and solemn.
And when the gardener came with his spade,
Into the mud the forms were laid.
They were not like forms anymore.
The emperor looked at them all,
no tear from his eye did fall.
"I played all I wanted to play,
from where you came, you shall stay.
From the dark mud did I make you,
where did your foolishness hope to take you?"
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Daily Bread
Prelude : I try not to sound depressing when I speak or write. Even if I am feeling something negative, I try to put a colourful wrapper of humour around it, which disguises the negativity. I haven't quite struck humour here, so this paragraph serves as a "wrapper"- what follows is more of an observation than an outpuring. :)
The more I see of it, the more I believe that Life lacks Beauty. Our existence has too many chains, conditons and compromises. I have always held rules, duty and responsibility in decently high regard. I have always believed in order and routine, sometimes even found satisfaction in routine. Slowly but surely, I have lost my admiration for these things. Now there is the need for "beauty" in some form or another- something that can take us "high". All this is ambiguous- let me try and explain what I mean. By "high" I mean the feeling of appreciating something truly for what it is, not because there is a reason attached to it. By beauty I mean something that means so much to us, but whose place in our life we cannot explain purely by reason or logic, almost on the verge of being "mad": the "buzz" when you listen to brilliant music, a piece of writing or art that you love, sunset over the ocean, solving a problem not because you have to, but because you want to; falling in love with somone- it is all very personalized.
And there should be more of it. Beauty almost seems too fragile, there is always a point when a beautiful thing vanishes and somethign pulls us back into non-beautiful again. There are always the chains which don't let us pause as long as we want.
There is beauty in people too- which gives us friendship, gives us romance and love. But there are no fairytales- relationships sometimes seem to be a compromise, there is nothing perfect or indestructible about them. It takes what feels like a lifetime to keep them alive, and yet they can go up in flames any moment.
I don't really think we had a choice when it came to being put on this earth, among this drudgery and life that sometimes feels pointless. Now that we're here, we may as well make the most of it, and snatch as many moments of beauty as we are allowed. Each of us needs our own beautiful things to go back to- a favourite song, poetry, dance, art, physics, fast cars, maybe our sense of humour...
I wouldn't mind calling these things our own "escape" route. Given what a large scale mess this world is, an escape route to beauty is just what we need- something like tiramisu, different from daily bread.
The more I see of it, the more I believe that Life lacks Beauty. Our existence has too many chains, conditons and compromises. I have always held rules, duty and responsibility in decently high regard. I have always believed in order and routine, sometimes even found satisfaction in routine. Slowly but surely, I have lost my admiration for these things. Now there is the need for "beauty" in some form or another- something that can take us "high". All this is ambiguous- let me try and explain what I mean. By "high" I mean the feeling of appreciating something truly for what it is, not because there is a reason attached to it. By beauty I mean something that means so much to us, but whose place in our life we cannot explain purely by reason or logic, almost on the verge of being "mad": the "buzz" when you listen to brilliant music, a piece of writing or art that you love, sunset over the ocean, solving a problem not because you have to, but because you want to; falling in love with somone- it is all very personalized.
And there should be more of it. Beauty almost seems too fragile, there is always a point when a beautiful thing vanishes and somethign pulls us back into non-beautiful again. There are always the chains which don't let us pause as long as we want.
There is beauty in people too- which gives us friendship, gives us romance and love. But there are no fairytales- relationships sometimes seem to be a compromise, there is nothing perfect or indestructible about them. It takes what feels like a lifetime to keep them alive, and yet they can go up in flames any moment.
I don't really think we had a choice when it came to being put on this earth, among this drudgery and life that sometimes feels pointless. Now that we're here, we may as well make the most of it, and snatch as many moments of beauty as we are allowed. Each of us needs our own beautiful things to go back to- a favourite song, poetry, dance, art, physics, fast cars, maybe our sense of humour...
I wouldn't mind calling these things our own "escape" route. Given what a large scale mess this world is, an escape route to beauty is just what we need- something like tiramisu, different from daily bread.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
