Magnificent Tree!!!

I know I always continue to say in all of my posts that it was extremely difficult to write one, similarly I shall save you the trouble of reading it again. But this time my inspiration for this blog was derived from my walk in the hallways of my university. Four years I walked those hallways every day, and believe you me it’s a long time for someone to realize what the painting was trying to convey. That painting hangs where we enter the university leading towards our classes. I remember seeing it the first time, and I laughed at it because it clearly looked like it was hanging upside down. Then after looking at it for a couple of more minutes it intrigued me, and then I concluded that it was abstract modern art trying to convey something useless that I have no time to think about. 

After approximately two years post-graduation I was visiting my university, and as usually I glances at it and walked passed it. But this time around I found myself looking back and turning around towards the painting. I wasn't consciously doing so until I once again stood in front of it starring at its face. Blankly looking at it while a rush of students, old and new passed by me and probably getting irritated that I was blocking their way from quickly trying to reach their classes. This time around I truly understood why that painting hangs in the entrance of the university, I truly (well at least I think)  know that meaning of that painting in our lives.  The painting is a huge leafless tree and a house in the background, but the interesting part of painting is that it’s upside down. The trunks of the tree are at the top and the branches at the bottom. 

Its seems like a simple portrait of a tree, it’s the simplicity of this painting is what makes its so magnificent. To begin with the tree’s roots are at the top and branches at the bottom. This in general is indicative of how we learn throughout our lives. We learn the simply rules, basics of life at first. The superficial knowledge is as fragile as branches, it seems beautifully simple as leaves, but as you grow older and go more in-depth of the field the true sources subside. You learn depths (roots) of the topic. Which is usually very uninteresting and dry, just like the roots of a tree, but we all know without it there will be no tree. But most importantly what is interesting about this painting is, that doesn’t matter how hard I tried looking at the painting with a straight head, I always ended up tilting my head to look at the tree in the upright position.  This is the exact replication of life. Until our heads are a little tilted, until we strain our necks, until we look at the view from a different perspective we never see the true solution to the problems that we face.

So after a long journey through university, I truly realized that the purpose of an University is to teach us how to look a the same problem that we have been facing from a while in a different perspective. So don’t be afraid to strain you necks a little if the fruit is finding the solution you have been looking for.


The Magnificent tree !! 

Your's truly,

Skeptical Self 

A PEN IT IS

This is my third attempt of writing the blog for this month. I just don’t seem to get around writing something that is intriguing and I believe then came my “eureka” moment. I was scribbling with my pen and then I made a mistake and tried to scratch it as much as I can so it was no longer visible. The harder I tried to scratch it out the more indenting it got and started ripping through the paper. I suppose you may know where I might be going with this analogy.

Back tracking my story to when I was a wee little kid extremely excited to learn how to inscribe words beautifully with an ink pen I didn’t think that there were going to be ramification of me being able to use this beautiful thing. I was just learning how to use the instrument so the importance of holding it never occurred to me. When I had a pencil my life seemed dull, black and white while the ones who held a pen, colourful and vibrant. But now that I am all grown up I understand that as kids why we are not allowed to use pen (it could be that kids put everything in their mouth and might get intoxicated by the ink). It’s because a pencil always comes with an eraser.  Eraser means that no matter what mistake you make in life you are able to track back and restart. This privilege no longer prevails when you use a pen. Yes it’s beautiful, and Yes it looks vibrant, but once you make a mistake with a pen it’s there forever.  You may scratch it, you may try the so called ink erasers ( and let me tell you those erasers are crap !), but still the mark will always remain. Children, as they say in psychology are table a rasa (a clean slate). They are still learning our world’s way, they need that privilege to erase their mistake and learn new things while when we start growing up such opportunities no longer exist. We are held liable to what we do and we are expected to learn from our mistakes, and more importantly NEVER to repeat the same ones.

This is exactly where the negative trait of a pen comes in handy. If one uses a pencil to write and makes a mistake you are able to erase it this can easily forget the mistake that was initially made and very easily repeat it. But with a pen you can merely scratch it out or make is foggy, but you are always able to look back and remind yourself that you are never to repeat the same mistake twice.  This serves a purpose in our lives, it lets us save time, and it helps us always stay grounded and reminds us how far we came since we started.  Trying to scratch your mistakes won’t help, anyone who has used a pen must know that scratching rips the paper.  Similarly trying extremely hard to undo your mistake harms you, drags you in your past, thus not letting you move forward and achieve things.

So use your pen wisely, think before you inscribe, and if you make a mistake just cross it out and move forward but no matter what happens keep inscribing. One should only stop when they cease to exist.  It might seem like a big deal when it’s made, but in the grand scheme of your life it will just seem like a little mark that defines your long and beautifully vibrant journey.

“Life is like those cool multicoloured pens, in one click you are sad, then angry, and then beautifully green.” – Jaini

A pleasant experience

For this month I had so much to share, it was a battle between the experiences this summer and a strangely pleasant experience I had yesterday while walking home. So I ended up choosing my rather pleasant experience.

Yesterday after an exhausting day at work, and by exhausting I mean running after 8 clients who have various developmental challenges. It was straining and draining. I decided that doesn’t matter how tired I am, it’s Friday and I need to be happy. So when I got out of the bus I had my headphones on and I spotted a pinecone. It was half broken and swooshed yet something about it intrigued me. I decided to play little soccer game with it and started tossing it forward and back with my foot while I walked. Initially it kept me entertained but there came a point where I wanted to abandon the pinecone and just walk straight home. But I took it as a challenge to take this piece of pine cone directly to my house. Doing so meant that my travel will take twice its time because it was really hard to maneuver such a small piece of object with my feet.  So I kicked and kicked, it got frustrating and tiring, people passing by stared at me strangely, a few laughed, and believe it or not a few even stopped pointed and laughed. At the stop light when I picked up the pine cone crossed the road and threw it on the side walk and once again started kicking, people started peeping out of their cars to stare at what was so important to me that I picked up and then laughed when they saw what it really was. Through this journey with my pine cone I realized that life is a resemblance of this one single experience of mine.  That piece of pine cone, no matter how small and worthless it looked it was still something I aspired for so it was my goal/dream. To others it was worthless, stupid and a sense of mockery. So when we walk the path of life with our own dreams with a vision of our finish line we will meet a lot of people in our lives that will laugh at us for having such a goal, might even intimidate us to stop our paths and change our ways but we must keep on moving. Because the way we saw our end goal, the way we envisioned our lives is not the way they see it. Our dreams are our own creation, and there will come a point where it will become close to impossible for you to continue any longer, you will start questioning your choices. In no ways is it bad to analyze and refurbish your dreams but never change its coarse because you think it’s taking too long or it’s something you cannot and should not aspire. Believe me a small goal like getting the pine cone home made me the happiest girl in the block. It was so uplifting because I finished what I had started.

From this extremely strange yet uplifting experience I have learned that life is about patience, it’s about believing in your dreams and it’s about moving forward no matter what the obstacle.

“Dream like you have forever to achieve it, strive for it like you have today”

Hope you enjoy it !!..If you like it that is :)

Skeptical Self :)

Our past

I didn't know that when I was committing to write a new blog every month I was going to have such a hard time trying to come up with a topic. Its not that I don't have things to talk about, believe me there is a LOT of things. But its difficult to put into a coherent thought format and make it sound interesting.
Since it is the last day of the month I have no choice but to squeeze in this piece of writing today.


“The past is never where you think you left it.” 

― Katherine Anne Porter

Learning history in school, for the most of us was a dreaded task. All it felt like was memorizing dates and names of people that we think made no significant impact to our lives. What history pretty much boils downs to in schools is, a point of view through which the teacher wants us to see our past. The way its presented to us makes it interesting or something completely worthless to learn about. In general though, however much all of us might want to deny the fact that knowing our past is useful, it can be determined that without knowing where we began , our end is uncertain & undetermined.
Our past battles define us, the scars and the bruises are a reminder of what we actually fought for and what was important for us to fight for. History doesn't only teach us about our fights but studying the characters of history teaches us about human behavioural patterns, our communicative methods, our thresholds for knowledge and webs of interactions and empathy for others. There is so much to learn from the people who have left us with a treasure of knowledge.  Knowledge isn't considered important when it teaches you how to do things, but also the mistakes that were made by our predecessor also teaches us how not to do things. History saves our future some trouble of re-discovering everything. That is why a person who learns from their mistakes is called smart, a person who repeats his own mistake a fool, BUT a person who learns from other's mistake WISE. As humans who have the organ called brain, must use it, take advantage of what our past and other's past have taught us and imply it.
By doing this, it does not mean that you stop using your own brain. it definitely does not mean that what did not work in the past will never work. It will boil down to looking at the probability of the effectiveness of the method and decipher your step. Use it as a guide, a navigational system, which can lead you to a path that is better, but does not stop you from discovering your own.
For example.
Gandhi taught us patience for our battles, but also taught us not to make emotional decisions.

This was rather a tedious post, scattered thoughts it may seem, but at the end of the day this post will become my past and I shall learn from it :P:P

" Our past battles scar us, and sometimes they may seem worthless, but there will come a point in life when you will look back and see that you walked on a morbid path yet you came out alive" Skeptical self

Hope you like it !!


Skeptical Self  :)

"When the mind is constantly trying to survive, the heart has no time to feel"

As I start my day off by travelling to the core, downtown of my city everyday all I do is mindlessly walk on the same routes to reach my workplace. Every day its the same routine at the same time. Looking at life at this moment  it  can be truly said that my life is controlled completely by the fate of time. But on one odd day even though I was walking on the same route at the same time, I looked up. I managed to glance at the path, my surrounding and the people. It was close to impossible to believe the amount of people I saw that were walking faced down, just rushing to get to their end spot where they will be for the rest of the day. I realized that we fail to notice the familiarity that surrounds us. I remember my parents telling me that they have met the best of people while their travel to work. My dad met his pen pal for years to come through his daily visits to work in the same route, same time. Its because back in his day there was no one and nothing stopping them from looking up and noticing the faces around them .Nowadays the sole ruling power is technology. Either people are texting, talking or watching stuff on their tablets. And the few off us are sleeping because we were too busy the night before using the same device. It seems like we fear to face people but ironically we are fantasizing and building tactics to fight the zombie apocalypse. In fact the apocalypse is already here and we clearly are failing to beat it.  More than anything its the time when we decide to look up and notice what's happening in our surroundings. The day we notice what's happening around us is the day we will decide to take actions to fix what's broken, to mend what is bend. At this moment us looking down is hindering our sight, our vision and we are all following each other's foot steps in crossing the road, not knowing if the leader is taking us to the right place or walking into a collision.

So for this very messy post of mine, I would like to propose that all of us even if not all the time, occasionally look up to see what needs to be seen. The day we interact with real human emotions, feel the compassion is the day we will thrive as humans. There is so much more to life than just mindlessly texting and playing games.

Don't just love life ...live the life that you will love


To a very confusing sets of thought,

Skeptical self

Hope you understood something i wrote above..hahaha :):)

As the famous saying "The only thing in life that is certain is its uncertainty" - 

As I graduated approximately a year ago I knew it was not going to be easy to deal with the change. But as I graduated and stood on that podium to accept my degree I had set goals in life, what I wanted to achieve and by what time I wanted to do it. I was also aware that goals are never achieved in the time frame you decide them to be achieved at, because no matter how much you deny it destiny will play a role in your life. As I mentioned before that I am at a stage of my life where a lot of major changes are due; personal, career, and physical. Each change is important in its own way and it’s the peak time where it needs to happen. Knowing these facts its stresses one, and so does it for me. I am stressed that when and how am I going to rise above in my career when the jobs are so scarce to find, the opportunity for me to meet someone interesting is close to eliminated, and my body from now on will only be weaker as the day passes. The last one I sound like I am in my mid 30’s but in this day and age of the kind of food and stress, the new mid 30’s are the mid 20’s.

While all these issues were going on in my mind, my bday was approaching and like every year this year it was no different. Every year I get extremely depressed around the week of my bday because I start reminiscing the past year and what I have achieved and as a new grad from university sitting at home from almost 9 months this year was at its lowest. I was going to turn 23 and I had achieved close to nothing or at least taken the step to achieve what I wanted to. But then one day while sitting on the bus it occurred to me that we all get so busy in life thinking about the end goals in life that we miss out all the little things that we always wanted to do. So I sought out for the little things that I always wanted to do, in fact always talk about yet never manage to achieve them.

This is when I wrote the 25 things in life that I really want to do before I turn 25, one of the things including writing a blog every month till I turn 25. So here is the first one. Every time I check off one of the things on the list I shall mention it at the end of the blog,

Coming back to the point I was trying to make was, fretting over the big things in life that take long times to achieve will only get you further away from your goals. Because the more stressing you do the less time you give yourself in strategy making for your goals. Also by achieving the little things you are giving yourself an ego boost from self achievement and fulfillment, and the bonus is you most likely are going to enjoy doing it. Another thing is sharing these goals with friends only makes them permanent, gives them validity. Since someone else knows what you want to achieve it drives you to achieve it faster to prove not only to yourself but to the one’s that know.

Goal achieved – Go clubbing once!! (it sounds like a silly one, but hey I went to it once and now I know why I shall never be excited to go again. But as I said friends help achieve it and this one goes out to my friends who took me out for clubbing ...and made sure I didn’t run out of the place ....hahaha).

“Goals are what you make of them, you can either have them or you can achieve them. There is no middle ground” – Jaini  

Emotions

An emotion is suggested and demolished in one glance by certain words. 


I usually write when i am in my philosophical mood but for once i am writing because i am extremely emotional lately. I believe that i am pretty strong minded person and will not tear up easily. But then i realized that the things that affect me is not personal things but rather things that affect my surroundings. I know that makes no sense and i am confusing you. What i mean is that i cry when someone says that i hurt their feelings, i cry when my country gets attacked by terrorist and i cry when an old people get mistreated by there children, i cry when young girls get sexually harassed and i cry when i see malnutrition kids in the world when the richie rich waste food everyday. I know it probably seems like i am trying to boast myself up but it truly gets to me. Come to think of it, its probably because these incidences shine upon the fact that I am so powerless. I am not able to help enough, I don't hold the power to make any significant changes in anyone's life. It reminds me daily that I am blessed in so many ways, yet I do not make the effort to ever get out and do something that will be helpful to end a lot of supposed "evil" out there. It could be many reasons for example I think of my well being before others, I feel like I wont be able to make any difference, or simply I am just a thinker and not someone who takes action. I don't know what the reason is but this feeling always recurs in my mind and depresses me. 

This is a poem that I wrote many years back and it might do justice to what I am trying to say at the moment a little better!!

What My Heart Desires 

What my heart desires,
is my own reflection
I have lost myself in the clutter of life
I exist but, I cease to live
What my heart desires 
is the art of music
the art of writing,
the art in me.
I have lost myself in the darkness of the night.
In the night that never ends,
in the starts that never shine,
in the moons never glows,
The night that never inspires.
I have lost my muse.
What my heart desires is the feeling of self-fulfillment
something is incomplete, 
I am incomplete. 
I am lost in the ocean of sadness,
the sadness of illiteracy,
the sadness of helplessness, 
the sadness that I am disabled more than any
I am incomplete,
What my heart desires is to be Complete!!!! 

Enjoy ...if u like it that is 

Skeptical self :)