Existential meanderings:On transitions and equanimity
It was an undeniably hot afternoon.I was lying in bed,tossing around restlessly both from the heat and insomnia. I reach under my pillow, blindly groping for the odd book that's inevitably going to be there. Tagore's short stories. I start reading, and soon enough,I'm lost in the world of more than a century ago. But there's something about these stories that get under my skin. The very characters make me feel uneasy--it's not something I can place my finger upon.It's really hard to articulate, but something about it all haunts me. The characters are too layered to be two-dimensional, too flawed to be anything but real and put in circumstances that exposed all facets of their nature. Reading Tagore wasn't pleasant for me.It was more of a brutal exposure to truth and sorrow and beauty and the realization that sometimes they are the same. A world that I did not want to see, but had to because it once existed.
In one such story, I came across the following lines:
These lines made me pause and think.Are the transitions in our life ever clear as they happen? Some of them are gradual, some are abrupt and sudden. Yet, in both cases, we are oblivious to them. One day we look back, and then we realize with a jolt, that this is an altogether new phase of life. Sometimes we go back to the places of the past, and wonder why it all feels different. We sigh, and say Ah,the good old days! with the puzzled albeit sure epiphany that things are not the same.More often than not, it's because we ourselves have changed.The context has also changed, and no matter how desperately we try, we just cannot go back to where we once were.
On days where you are disenchanted, you might even look at everything in life and say This is also momentary! It shall also be gone someday. There is no reality that you can clutch on to,knowing that it'll last you an entire lifetime. In Einstein's words, "Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
You are essentially right in thinking so. Life is a series of state changes--an FSM if you so wish to call it. Ironically, this is also the good thing about life. If you're stuck in a really bad situation, what's the one thing you can find solace in? This too shall pass. Similarly, although we don't care to acknowledge it, too much of a good thing is also detrimental, and that too is avoided by change.
Live in the moment is one of the most popular governing philosophies of life. But can you really be happy about something, when you know deep down that it is transient? Can you really be sad about something under the same conditions? No. Not exactly. There is a detachment about everything in the emotional spectrum when you start thinking this way. That, my friend, is equanimity. Quoting from a really well-written article:
"Life is constantly throwing new things at you. To deal with them, you could take one of three approaches. You could stand your ground, like a rocky crag in the ocean, resisting and striving to fight against the barrage. However, ultimately, resistance is futile. The ocean of life is stronger than you, and it will break you down if your only response is resistance. Alternatively, you could try floating on the surface, like a cork, just going with the flow. Although this approach seems safe, as a piece of flotsam you risk being dashed against the rocks or thrown upon the shore. The third approach is the middle way, a buoy that is tethered to the ocean flow, allowed to rise and fall with the waves, but not to get thrown around. The buoy exhibits a kind of equanimity, a centered resilience that allows it to survive in any kind of weather."
Although I'm writing as if I am a master of equanimity,I assure you that I am nowhere close to it:P. I still react to all the turbulence in life--I sometimes fight back,I sometimes accept, but the turbulence outside echoes within me internally. Equanimity is something I've always craved, and I aspire to get there one day. :)
P.S: I started writing this on Monday, and look when I actually finished it. Sigh! Adulting is hard.:P
In one such story, I came across the following lines:
She did not know that even on that last night,the earlier portion of her life,to which she had clung,had changed its aspect before she knew it.Now she could easily shake off her past associations as the tree sheds its dead leaves.She did not understand that destiny had struck the blow and severed her youth from her childhood,with its magic blade,in such a subtle manner that they kept together even after the stroke;but directly she moved and one half of her life fell from the other.
On days where you are disenchanted, you might even look at everything in life and say This is also momentary! It shall also be gone someday. There is no reality that you can clutch on to,knowing that it'll last you an entire lifetime. In Einstein's words, "Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
You are essentially right in thinking so. Life is a series of state changes--an FSM if you so wish to call it. Ironically, this is also the good thing about life. If you're stuck in a really bad situation, what's the one thing you can find solace in? This too shall pass. Similarly, although we don't care to acknowledge it, too much of a good thing is also detrimental, and that too is avoided by change.
Live in the moment is one of the most popular governing philosophies of life. But can you really be happy about something, when you know deep down that it is transient? Can you really be sad about something under the same conditions? No. Not exactly. There is a detachment about everything in the emotional spectrum when you start thinking this way. That, my friend, is equanimity. Quoting from a really well-written article:
"Life is constantly throwing new things at you. To deal with them, you could take one of three approaches. You could stand your ground, like a rocky crag in the ocean, resisting and striving to fight against the barrage. However, ultimately, resistance is futile. The ocean of life is stronger than you, and it will break you down if your only response is resistance. Alternatively, you could try floating on the surface, like a cork, just going with the flow. Although this approach seems safe, as a piece of flotsam you risk being dashed against the rocks or thrown upon the shore. The third approach is the middle way, a buoy that is tethered to the ocean flow, allowed to rise and fall with the waves, but not to get thrown around. The buoy exhibits a kind of equanimity, a centered resilience that allows it to survive in any kind of weather."
Although I'm writing as if I am a master of equanimity,I assure you that I am nowhere close to it:P. I still react to all the turbulence in life--I sometimes fight back,I sometimes accept, but the turbulence outside echoes within me internally. Equanimity is something I've always craved, and I aspire to get there one day. :)
P.S: I started writing this on Monday, and look when I actually finished it. Sigh! Adulting is hard.:P
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