Creative Mind has it’s own seduction. Everybody wants to tame it for his or her own vehicle.

This is a strange thought, but that’s what one feels in the creative endevour while working in a system. While the system is enabling the net needed to launch the endevour in the first place, but when it comes to people it is about control and responsibility. So the idea instead of being a celebration of working together in a team to see the impact, instead turns into the dynamics of who is incharge and who gets the credit.

The creativity is a strange and curious engagement, solo genius is the world desires but in computer software and hardware development the collaborative nature of skills brings out the idea to a shape where it can be developed and delivered. A thing of beauty!

But the system also opens up opportunities for people to exercise and tune the collaborative process to individual agenda. It may then lead the to idea traveling around in wilderness, and the creativity mind becomes the means to act as a canon. Yes a canon for shooting, not In a literal sense but to further the agenda.

I always felt somewhere this paradox and desire to not seek positions since all of them come with the expectation of becoming another shell in the armour. At the end with creative and intellect one tends to create ones moral universe (Woody Allen wrote in Bullets over Broadway) and that’s the conflict in seeking the satisfaction to create what is right for ones taste or doing what is right for growing up in the system.

I like to choose to be right in my moral universe of taste, but practical responsibilities enfore the reality of a reconciliation. It takes one through troughs of depression when becoming a pawn to excilileration of being able to create simple solutions to complex problems. To some degree that conflict is about being emotion or being rational about how one choose to love, but that’s an another post for another day.

Think about it…

Whats the point? That’s the eternal question. All the great writes from Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus and Jean Paul Satre have all asked this question and wondered the value of life being lived. Western world’s Rational Thought resonates with Indian Philosophy of following one’s Dharma. But at the end it leaves out core aspect of being human, emotions. Flow of emotions is a difficult conundrum, the direction it takes is hard to comprehend or predict and their tryst with life is what known or remember as experiences.

Yet, at the end, life will continue moving on, forward or backward is the perspective. As Dylan famously said, “That he not busy being born is busy dying” , but the more interesting of the lines in few paragraphs before “To understand you know too soon, There is no sense in trying”.

One believes in having control of ones action and than one can control one’s life. But life is strange, throwing one in situations where control is out and beyond. One wonders, when that happens are one’s actions right or wrong. Control gives the power to do whats right, lack of it leaves open spaces of being lead and then wonder whats this is all about.

But at the end, rationalists and dharma leave it all aside to focus on job at hand. Doing it right, is all that matter. Sometimes it is ok, other times it is not. Balancing that is extremely hard.

People change, one changes, loved ones changes. How many observe it and notice it? Acknowledging it may make the loved unloved, ignoring it is living a facade. Whats better and better still, whats the point of love at all.

This line may end up questioning everything cherished, better not go there. Again whats the point. A thinker is hard to find, better yet, some who articulates even more. Who am I to think and articulate, may be its ones that do.

Cynical the thought and writing sounds, had a great week ending on a high.

Conversation can be beautiful, is unique and be appreciated.

Smartness though is underrated, even the beauty is confused.

The Eyes indicate the antiquity of the soul, and is young and bold.

Future shines within them, bringing the freshness life demand.

It sounds like a conflicting view of perfect life with no conflict, no dilemmas, no upheavals. What one thinks or seeks is ones own problem and world around or environment is not responsible for its fulfillment and hence cannot be judged for its contribution.If one must take responsibility, then one must take the onus to accept the environment and people around as they are. One cannot judge them by the beliefs and thoughts of ones own. The idea of judging with the lens of ones own world view, will lead to conclusions of us versus them. The environment is neither the enabler nor the hindrance, it is what life has offered to one. We will always strive to have it changed and be the enabler, but not everyone is created to be equal and cannot be judged by the values of another. We may tend to categorize thinking as an advanced way of living and feeling as a primitive way. Thats the rationality of a thinker that looks down upon an un-understood being, going with motions of life with inane sense of feeling rather than thinking. That’s shear bigotry of the thinker.

I wanted to write about the reasons for Zindagi Na Mile Dobara not having a sequel. But the What If thought is exactly the dilemma characters go through in front of our eyes and for a change they embrace it instead of judging it. 

Zindagi Na Mile Dobara will not have a sequel. Yes, one can believe about the notion of meeting Kabir, Imran and Roshan again once they are further into their lives, considering only one of them got married and a road-trip can always be refresher and reminder of the time spent together. I was wrong, Zindagi is not about Desires as I wrote the other day, it is in fact also not even about being innocent. Though I do not have a name for it now it is definitely not about acting mature but yet about maturity. Kabir, Imran and Roshan even if are three individuals, Zindagi is about us or me or you, about a person. We may be in different phases of our lives and develop our notion of logical sense and what it takes to be a rational being.

Zindagi is about heart and emotions. One cannot call the emotions experienced by heart and the soul as desires. It will be like calling the diving experience as “Nasha” by Arjun (Hrithik), just too negative word to describe the experience and rightly corrected by Laila (Katrina). Desires too bring the negative connotation or feel as they seem like something one wants and indulgences in. Hindu Mythology gave the term of Kama and gave a space of it in ones life. Mythology believes in its notion of living by actions and uses the three goals of life as practicing Dharma, seeking Artha and managing Kama. But Dharma, Artha and Kama are again all notions of the logical being to slot ones actions. Where does that leave space for soul as amalgamation of emotions experienced in ones life. May be it is written about in some Vedic texts, as I have a limited knowledge on it. Reading interpretation of Mahabharata definitely does not make me an expert.

Zindagi in an essence reminds us of what it feels like feeling emotions. The feeling of joy, feeling of being happy, feeling of sadness, feeling an heart ache, feeling of being afraid, feeling of scared, feeling of concern, feeling of love, feeling of insecurity, feeling of regret, feeling of jealousy, feeling of passion, feeling of anger, feeling of hate and feeling of excitement and exhilaration.

Zindagi has the road-trip and all its characters intertwined into a good script that can be enjoyed on its own. Than it has layers of philosophy on living ones own life. Yes there are layers, you can peel each of them and discover the wonder what creativity can achieve. Making the viewer appreciate the obvious and then feel the layer within to go deeper, thats what Zindagi is about. Each of the characters represent a state ones life may be in, Kabir (risk free naturally moving from one state to another), Roshan (having a plan and focussed on it), Imran (carefree but troubled), Natasha (seeking a dream but wanting a companion) and Laila (leading life by what it offers).

Think about your own life for a second, is it not one of the life states you have been once before or even today. At least for me at this age it is definitely true. It matches to the age of the characters since growing older may bring new life state not yet found for me and even for Zoya and Reema the writers. But then when being in those life states what we do matters. We see reason and some how or the other, land on the three goals of kama, artha and dharma.Zindagi tells you that there is another goal in life, the goal to feel and experience the emotions. It also tries to show a way to understand, enjoy and handle the experience, but that may definitely differ for you and me. The result of our actions is what we end up judging oneself by and thats where Zindagi gives us hope and belief not to do that.

One may not know or think where life can lead one to, one cannot even fully plan it, but having the openness and uneasiness to keep exploring will lead to experiencing of emotions. What happens to responsibilities and desires and how they find space in one’s life, even Zindagi does not answer that, but it offers the idea of emotional living while still thinking.

I will write more about the characters and how each of them, yes even Natasha offered us a view of handling the life state we are at, purely going by emotions. In some ways it also highlights the cliche of the idea that Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus since living by emotions comes easy for Natasha and Laila while Kabir, Arjun and Imran are still delving in depths of what life has to offer.

The emotion of love has been the most written about emotion, what now can one add new to the dialog of man’s attempt at trying to understand. Yes, we are still trying, haven’t found those vocabulary to describe the emotions, what it stands for and what it expects from oneself. It remains till today one of the strangest, misunderstood emotion. May be it is the limitation of the language that gives words and meanings to what a human feels, yet being short of actually describing it a way that emotions can be transferred from one to another.

Love is initiated per se as desire of senses. Desires as the most naive and core of the emotions a human has, fulfilling them creates an utmost passion and drive. Senses at the medium via which a human intakes all the input given to it by the environment around. They are the organs of human body whose sole purpose is to respond to external stimuli by conveying them as signals to the brain.

Dictionary meaning of Senses states a sensory faculty, feeling, sensation, perception; and then outlines the five types of senses humans are stimulated by i.e. sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell. Love is the feeling that cajoles and creates the utmost desires in those senses. The desire to see the loved all the time and that too happy and smiling; desire to hear the voice of loved all the time and that too cheerful and passionate; desire to touch each and every ounces of loved through every stimulating organ of ours fingers, nose, lips, face;desire to taste with bite and smooches showered on the loved; desire to smell the body odor and any smell that may arise from loved.

It is all those desires of senses that one seeks as the feeling of being in love. Once in love, the desires are on full control of ones action, driving passion towards expression and indulgence of sense in any which manner. Love of this form is as pure as it can be, one who has experienced it lucky enough to do so. One must enjoy it while it lasts, as it does not last long. Most often it is the responsibilities that were there, always there, yet forgotten and back-benched among all the thought mind could give time to. Desires have a tendency to lead to addiction as too much of anything seems not enough to satisfy. Love as a desire of senses, can never satisfy, the act of stimulation can be only be fulfilled by being stimulated over and over again. Thus when the responsibilities come forth, one has to take stock of where these desires stand with respect to ones own responsibility to self, of the life dreamt for and ones responsibilities to people around and society in general, of the life duty bound to be lead. Sometimes these come together in a plan that works out the best for everyone around. This is when most love marriages happen. One may argue that it may be too early but it is never to early or late, it’s just when life works it way out.

Love marriage is not a culmination but beginning of ability to fulfill desires whenever and wherever, but acknowledgement of ones new joint responsibilities of being recognized as a couple, the responsibilities to each other, of giving enough space to each other to find and perform them while supporting one another as much as possible and the responsibilities of people around and society.

I believe this negotiation of desires and responsibilities leads to the path of transcending  love from desires of senses to understanding of souls. Understanding the person as a whole means requires looking away from self desires and seeing the loved as another human with may be similar or different desires and responsibilities. This transition is where love becomes eternal and sustains itself across the ups and downs of love.

It is not necessary for the transition to happen after love marriage, but chances that being able to truly spend time with loved, free from obligations of society is something will take time within Indian Society. For western world, this is common and almost a un-written law that people will live together for years to wait for this re-affirmation that the loved is really the life partner. But we will focus on indian society for now, as a comment on western society and its ups and downs will require a separate and interesting post in future. I will only say that life is not so rosy and cosy on the western front.

The transition requires time and space to spent together, only then one will see the loved outside the sphere created by the desire of senses. Time when senses are not sensory enough, yet responsibilities must be dealt with. Time when the loved will think and manage loved’s own responsibilities. Time when one will seek a space of responsibilities to one’s own self. Time when society and people loved will need attention and effort. All those moments will happen, chances are will lead to conflicts, and requires utmost patiences to begin the understanding of soul of the loved.

LalaLand is the way I believe one can live ones life. It is most serene and calm place of living, where life has no or minimal responsibilities and time is only for indulgence on desires. One may wonder if ever there is this utopian land, but it is not a place but state of mind and heart to be lived through while being alive. It is in Lalaland that love as desires of senses is found. Ones state of being in Lalaland.

It is difficult to come out of Lalaland, one can lead ones entire life in it, adjusting the state to keep a balance, performing the minimal to ensure the existence. Then there are those who are thrust out of it by force of nature and there are those who grow out of it when they start acting mature. One may think, being innocent, is living in Lalaland, but it is not the same. Lalaland is the way of living while being innocent or acting mature are momentary actions performed on specific events. Though living in Lalaland, one will have the tendency to being innocent, yet they may still act mature in specific circumstances when required.

Where I am today, is difficult for me to judge. I love the thought of Lalaland, wish to live there if possible, yet once one acts mature in more than certain occasions, Lalaland looses its shine. The satisfaction of fulfilling responsibilities to one’s self, ones loved ones and society, creates stronger sense of purpose of life and helps to understand what life is about. I believe life is like this only, it is not a Lalaland. Pain and sorrow are part of it, so are joys and happiness. Does that make one more important then another, definitely not. Dealing with desires and satisfying responsibilities are essential functions of life.

One may wonder what happens, when love starts from understanding with a little stimulus of desires. It does happen with age, one may end up encountering loved not with desires but with understanding at first. In those cases, the loved will still need the stimulus of desires of senses even though the Lalaland is left behind. It may not happen for the Loved, but it will happen.

That is the paradox of love, desire it only will not make it last, understand it first will make its desire wither away.

Love can only go so far, transcending to understanding from senses is a must, it is a way of breaking out of Lalaland, to seeing the world clear enough to begin understanding the loved. If not then Love will wither away as senses stimulated far too many begins to numb them needing deeper and harder simulation. Numbing of senses will happen, it gets transitioned to the love of understanding, love of acknowledging, love of communicating, love of respect.

Respect and love are never talked about in the same breath but as love becomes understanding of soul, it requires one to respect the loved more than desire the loved.

Is it too much to think about love, ask people loved to desire but also understand? Sanity is not statistical but when world around believes you to be too much of a thinker, time comes to make a call, be a thinker or a jester. Sometimes, life makes choices for you that are not in your control.

At this crossroads I think about the fakir who said to himself in a moment of emotional despair:

“I will not love again, I will not understand. Welcome to Lalaland!!!”

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, he said:

“Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.

And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future;

he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Yesterday writing about desires and responsibility, talked about having a balance for both. It was clear the blog was written by acting mature trying to explain the need to balance by being innocent. But it did ended up rationalizing desire to a feeling to be organized.

Desires are our most native and humane feelings, core of core, what makes us the person we are. Can we truly organize them? or are we fooling ourselves in trying to organize them and balancing them with our responsibilities?

Yesterday, while watching “Into the Wild” I realized, what I had missed out on. He had issues to sort out, parents who lied to him, making him question his own existence. Hitchhiking and running to the wild was intended to find himself among the truest of surroundings, the nature. He did all of it, and then while reading a book, rekindled the desire to return. Sadly he could not, and he ended by dying in the wild. Sad, very sad, but not what you will think that where desires and urges will take you. Or is it? Wikipedia tells us that it is a true story of Christopher McCandleless. He is criticized for not being practical enough to carry a map or compass equivalent to committing suicide. But that’s the point, he was being innocent, letting is desires explore the realms of his capabilities and he was not exercising his responsibility to himself. All the rules of common sense demand adhering to principles of outdoor survival but a guy driven by his desire to find himself cannot be made responsible.

That’s the point at the end, is that where we have to be always, explore desires but stay responsible. Does that even satisfy the desire in the first place, or create a mirage of satisfaction? I have no answer to this question, but I do ask myself this.

But there is a new challenge, which comes I guess with age, that may have lead to the answer. It is the realization and then a trigger to visualize your life at a certain age, further down at age of 35, 40, 50. Those years are not far as they seem to be considering how far one has come from 20. This visualization forces one to reconsider about regrets that may happen at that age. Those regrets will never be reconciled with or will be too hard to. What one may have done till one reaches a certain age, what are the desires for one’s life and its potential? Such a visualization on one side can renew one’s vigor to fulfill desires, but it definitely re-enforces the responsibilities to oneself, to loved ones and to society. I am not sure at that age, having fulfilled the desires will be what I will personally feel comfortable about. What about the responsibilities to myself and those unrealized potential.

Rationalizing desires sounds self-defeating in first place, but at the end life is a journey, a marathon not a 100 meter sprint and you want to be happy and satisfied when you reach the finish line. So go on, fulfill your desires but focus and work hard on your responsibilities to one’s self, loved ones and society. You may know everything yet know nothing, live with a frame of responsibilities while indulging in desires and make traveling through life worthwhile.

It is a strange combination but one’s life resolves around the two so much that it needs to be given a thought on. Sometimes they in unison and sometimes they are conflict. But what are these desires and responsibilities and why is it that life can resolve just around them.

Lets see what responsibilities are, yes I know desires are great to talk about but life is about accepting both, so starting with the harder part first. Responsibilities are what life expects from you. Your responsibility to one’s own self, making sure you are healthy physically and mentally, learning, growing while striving towards ones own potential. This is may seem like a desire but no, this is a responsibility where one has to take care of one’s own self with one’s own actions. Any action that requires some one else to act on it, is a desire not a responsibility. Then responsibility towards one’s loved ones, people who are in the circle of myself around you namely your life partner, child, parents with few chosen relatives and friends.The key to this responsibility is to help them in fulfilling their own responsibilities to themselves. Love, spending time, taking care and all that is fine, but the key is to help them, let them know you are there and they are not alone in facing the life responsibilities. Lastly the responsibilities towards the external world, managing finances, bills, office, school, university everything that makes one’s life an active contributor to society one is living in. This is routine and regime of life, one has to stay responsible and not to fall off the cliff.

Oh, that sounds a lot, where does that leave any room for desires. Dictionary meaning of Desire are A wish or longing; The object of longing; Sexual appetite; passion. Desires is essential on ones own well being and do not follow the circles of life. Desires are personal and your own, indulgences you want, guilt free satisfaction you need, all of it. Desires evoke passion and longing and once fulfilled a satisfaction and achievement. They aim for a similar result as one’s responsibilities to oneself, but reasons are different. You may go to gym because you have to be responsible for your health or you may go to gym because you desire to look good. Different reasons, similar result.

That brings out the paradox of life, when desires and responsibilities are striving for your time and effort, the limiting factor. Through out your life, I believe you will sway between these constantly, in fact the phases in life, in a life year, in a month, in a week, in a day and in fact in an hour also, when one is focused on responsibilities and when one is indulging in the desires. Yes, I know even within an hour, I call that swaying between being Innocent and acting Mature.

Innocence is great, one can live the world being at peace of not knowing, desiring and then fulfilling. Children are like that mostly, though parents strive for them to become responsible. But even adults are like, why do you think, we have so much addiction of all kinds, simply desires let loose and shell of innocence never opened. Maturity requires recognizing the responsibilities, understanding the need to focus and work towards them. By acting mature, you can focus on reaching your own personal potential, acting towards responsibilities to your own self, love and care for the people dearest to you and fulfilling the duties of being a social animal. Adults are like that mostly, though children want their parents to become innocent and discover the wonders of the world with them. But then there are those Adults who get too engrossed in to these responsibilities and duties, that innocence is lost and never regained. Going through live as if living in a box. (Hrithik said that to Katrina in ZNMD). ZNMD is in essence is about this paradox of being innocent and having the wonderment towards life in contrast to acting mature and fulfilling the obligations of society.

Though ZNMD may sway a little towards innocence, but the key to happiness is having a balance. Let me give an example, it may sound trivial but that’s what life is about being innocent and acting mature even within an hour. Last night everything was hectic, finally when dinner was done, I could sit and watch a movie to un-wind, “Shall we dance“, sipping wine and enjoying Richard Gere’s predicament of desiring while being responsible. Even with dishes to clean and kitchen to swipe, first 30 minutes of an hour was spent watching the movie, that was my desire to put leg up and unwind. But then movie was paused and last 30 minutes of the hour was spent cleaning as it had to be done before 10:00. Finally ending the night with water in the eye, on seeing the guilt Richard Gere had on indulging in his desire of dancing. He could not face his wife and the fact that he was not happy sometimes with his life and this was his escape. That scene when he admits it, was a tearjerker for me. Then there is DevD, which challenged how far and how long one can stay innocent, and Kalki making Abhay Deol realize the need to get responsible not for others but for yourself.

Two movies made in different points in time talk about not getting to caught up in acting mature and rediscovering the wonder of being innocent to keep the sanity. Another movie showing the depths of indulgence one can get to in letting desires loose and the part of being innocent, and at the end acknowledging the potential of one’s life to start acting mature again to keep the sanity.

Sometimes it may be difficult to judge, what is a responsibility and what is a desire. Is writing my desire or my responsibility to myself to be creative. It may start with a desire, but as I wrote about the Question one has to get responsible and write every day judiciously to see something fruitful. Once you start doing that, does it stay desirable anymore, may be not. Have I figured this all out and balanced my life. No definitely not, I go over a cliff when my desires to create and responsibilities to myself make me forget the duties of everyday life. There is no correct answer, only one’s own method to manage this paradox, after all sanity is definitely NOT statistical. That’s what life is all about and what makes it worth living.

It’s odd to come back to this space after a while, read the state of mind as expressed and yet I strangely feel disconnected from the person who has written them. It is all me after all, but does not feel like it.

It is mid 2011, almost a year since the intelligence is understood and yet not understood enough to stop. Hopefully I have learnt the lesson and focus on being where I want to be. I do not know actually where I am today, makes it harder to imagine the place one could be. But it is now time to come back and re-focus on writing.

There is this inane desire to create, not be idle, let the moment and time not pass by. And then this chatter inside which cannot find a direction or avenue to come out. Oh God! where shall I be if not here, then where. Given a business challenge the direction to the creative angel comes about and the flows and ebbs lead to a good result. The result then needs carving with fine chisel, painstakingly over hours to become a thing of beauty. Ira Glass said it so rightly on having good taste initiates the process of creating and one’s taste stays as the benchmark for over coming mediocrity.

Ira Glass emphasizes on doing it continuously even though it may take a while but one has to fight through it. That hard work at work can happen once in while, leading to intellectual property claiming ownership for the idea while transferring it to the system at the same time. Rest of the work otherwise is simply meanderings of a regime.

Then there are phases of wilderness. No challenge, no direction, emptiness with uneasiness. Emptiness for not knowing where I am heading to and uneasiness on not doing something about it. It can be silenced or dumbed down with information overload, reading, reading and more reading. All this though ends up giving more dots to join and create from. What is it that I want to create? the next big business challenge and the million dollar idea or the satisfaction of having created something appreciable. Validation is necessary energy source for creative genius, what is that one wants the validation for is the question? validation of having successfully created or created at all in the first place?

It is in those moments that people, characters, stories and poetries happen. The disciple to listen to them and give them a space to be expressed is needed. The joy of writing down the thoughts, ideas and stories of people as told to me by my angel. Elizabeth Gilbert in her talk at TED said it so eloquently.

I do not know if I can write as good as she can but the least I can do is to write and nurture the guardian angel who definitely visits me at odd times. I will now try to listen to it going forward and write it down as if passing through me to the words on this blog.

But there is one more thing.

As Jesse Schell points out in the book “art of game design” spot on about keeping the house in order. Otherwise the normal ness of life takes over, shakes you out of limbo, spiraling down the un-controlled catching up on things to be done. It leads to panic and depressions of a different kind, one that comes from realization of ones own limitations due to environment one is living and its responsibilities. It does re-inforce the expectation and other type of validation, that requires one to have a social standing, to provide a life well lived to loved ones and to be among ones peers. But these depressions can shatter and question ones abilities to live a creative life, thus avoiding those becomes more important then those that occur from not being able to create. How far will one go to avoid them all together, too far and one may knowingly numb the urge, the one to create.

One cannot judge what is better or normal in real sense, the routines of life and orderliness led with a things to do or wilderness of seeking challenges and depths of diving in resolutions.

So thats my friend at the end, the question of life, the universe and everything (ode to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). Do you have an answer or shall I create a new world around sun to find it?