Finally, something positive...

A write-up by Samyak Shah

To mean so much to somebody is a different feeling in itself. That position is something that can't exactly be put into words because it's an experience that is riveting and liberating in its own. To be on either of the ends is equally special and applaud worthy. Such an exchange where the giving hand and the receiving hand are at the same level and everything seems to be balanced in a way that it should be.

A bond which gives out and resonates with hopefulness, and everyone unanimously agrees that hope paves way for a stronger and a more positive emotional exchange & dialogue. A concrete path paved from one heart to another, which we all crave more than anything in the world.

Bringing in this exchange requires guts because to be able to withstand damage, especially emotional is not everybody's forte and also, it is the resilience that develops over time with our sensibility and understanding about vulnerability and acceptance of our failures so that our growth extends beyond these events. Believe the experienced when they say that this path is going to take a lot of time because this journey is spread out over a lifetime between two people who wholeheartedly attract positivity for each other.       

I've heard this a lot that 'If you plant positive thoughts, the fruits you shall bore will be positive and if you plant negative thoughts, the fruits shall be negative' and this makes sense in terms of thoughts, not just for ourselves but also for other people and especially the other person.

Don't we all just want peace of mind and harmony?

Joy & F*cks

A post by Samyak Shah

"To be able to not give a f*ck, it doesn't have to be about who respects you; but about whether you respect yourself enough or not" 

Quite frankly, we all know and think that I'm going to go on a long rant about putting yourself first and being happy and what not, right?

Wrong!

Upping the ante, I've dedicated this post to the literal meanings of the two terms in the title: 

JOY and F*CKS

Joy: the feeling of great pleasure and long-term happiness

F*ck: noun/verb used in various phrases to express annoyance, contempt or impatience

What you may/may not know is that joy and f*ck are related even at the level of definition, combine them with our general attitude towards life and we've got ourselves a serious philosophical lesson to learn.

Joy is an elongated period of happiness because if happiness is experience of short bursts of feeling amazing, then joy is nothing but a longer duration of experiencing bursts of feeling amazing. Many of us have a lot of trouble in being and then staying happy to be able to experience joy at its fullest because we feel and think that all good things come to an end and so will this period, which may not be completely false, but that doesn't point out that you can't be experiencing several periods of happiness everyday if not one complete joyous experience (although, it is really up to every individual to decide how elongated does happiness has to be to be able to call it joy)

"Familiarity breeds contempt" - Geoffrey Chaucer 

F*ck has been used too often in the negative manner, which is why it has led to becoming a word that is hated and shoved disgust upon whenever someone uses it. Why? Because people don't always associate with the thing in question, but more with the perception of the thing in question. Then, what's going to happen if we start to think negatively about something? Exactly! It is going to create a negative image in our brains about it.

Joy is long term happiness and Fuck is when we express annoyance, now if we get used to being happy for so long, aren't we going to tip our balance and start getting annoyed because life is going to be sorted enough that we'd not be having any major troubles to overcome, wouldn't that get boring?

Inability

A poem by Samyak Shah

Maybe I can't seem to support
Maybe I'm not the best at being there
Maybe it's a 'take all' attitude
Maybe I wouldn't want to show what all I've got
Maybe that's insecurity
or...
Maybe that's an inability

Probably not good at predicting
Probably not quick to understand
Probably the dimmest despite being the smart one
Probably escaping at the first minute
Probably an instinct
or...
Probably that's an inability

Possibly the worst at showing what's inside
Possibly the best at jumping to conclusions
Possibly bad at managing things in life
Possibly thinking of deserving the worst
Possibly a mental health hazard
or...
Possibly that's an inability

Believing to become better
Believing to be toxic selectively
Believing that sadism is okay
Believing in two different worlds
Believing might just be giving away empty hope
or....
Believing that's an inability 

Better soch na

A write up by Samyak Shah

It's that time of the (new) year again where everyone's going to be excited about 'changing their lives', when their external motivation is going to be reaching new highs and the adrenaline inside them will charge them up for seeing their future self as a better version of their present self. But.... 5 days later, many will be back to their same old routine.

'Kyu roshni tu bahar talaashe, teri mashaale hai andar tere' - Besabriyaan, M.S. Dhoni - The Untold Story (2016)

The lines roughly translate to: Why are you trying to find the light outside, when you have a torch gleaming inside you

So, here are my top 5 common resolutions that need nothing but a new perspective, and people will be able to see better of it and follow it if they'd want to:

1. "I am going to go to the gym every single day this year"

- Listen, nobody cares if you go to the gym every single day, because if you go the gym and at the same time have no control over your eating habits, shit's going to stay the same: the calories you shed off, you'll gain back by eating. Also, the reason why gyming became popular is because it's a place to stay healthy and have some active hours, so strive to become healthier and more active than previous years. You may not move mountains from Day 1, start off with a few bricks at a time first.

2. "I will stop caring what people think about me"

- Well, I'm happy that people have understood that people's actions can't be stopped, so we have to stop or change our reactions. But what new trend is this? I understand that things when said out loud have a better impact, but that doesn't mean it should be dumbed down to this level. How about if we stop expecting the fact that we have to not care about people? We've heard that expectations are painful, so what if we stop expecting ourselves to be ignorant of other people's BS. As counterintuitive as it sounds, it makes sense to let the thing go over your head rather than trying to stop it from going inside your head.

3. "Iss saal toh phhod daalunga" (I will crush it this year) (no double meanings here)

- The people who start off at a high saying they're going to crush their goals and what not is good, actually more than good, but what one needs to see is what exactly is pushing them to achieve something, because if it's some external gain, the person is surely to lose interest in their work once they've gained the tangible result. Strive to become better at what you're doing and ask yourself whether it is something that you truly want to do, or whether it's something that you absolutely need to do (there's a clear difference of ideology here, just saying)

4. "I will quit (insert habit) this year"

- Said it out loud? Great! Truly mean it? Even better! So, I'll rather support this resolution and make it stronger by adding in the fact that this one requires improvements and changes in the daily routine of the individual and a strong self-control, and more often than not, the person will be able to succeed in quitting whatsoever habit that they want to

5. "I will stop procrastinating"

- Fun fact: Procrastination in itself is not bad, but if you don't have the kahones to catch up with the remaining work you'll be much better off by scheduling, planning and prioritizing your activities. Don't cut out relaxation, because relaxing in itself is not bad, it's bad when it begins to interfere with your daily routine and makes you lazier because of something or the other.

Here's hoping for better dreams and better efforts! 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

FAIR-WEATHER FRIEND

A write-up by Samyak Shah

Fair-weather friend (adj.) A person who changes loyalty based on whether or not something is succeeding; often used to describe change of stances to go with the current popular sentiment or someone who wavers on their opinions.

"What we often forget is that all that we know is not all that there is"

The world exists outside the world of black and white because the categorizations are the extremes in a world that is majoring in averages. Talking about 'grey' brings forth the highlight that is 'living in the era of easy access and scrutiny' where the pressure of maintaining one particular stance is paramount because everybody assumes that what one says is what they'll keep saying forever, which is far from the truth, but because 'reputation' is to be taken care of, many fall into the trap of following their words sometimes just for the sake of it. 

Collectively, it seems that we have forgotten to differentiate between something that is wrong and something that is bottomline unacceptable. There seems to be a decline in the existence of the concept of 'grey area' with its position being snatched away by a seemingly negative-impressioned 'hypocrisy'. 

What if I told you that it's okay to take back your words and still be considered as a responsible individual in the eyes of others, and more importantly, in your own eyes? What? Sounds unreal to you? Why? Ah! I see; where's that validation, sympathy and most importantly the fear of getting bashed publicly and backlash for going back on your words. It seems that the binary ideology took you too far in your over-thinking, with additional credits to mob justice and approval stamp for 'stepping back' being \considered a crime of some sort now. You're neither fully guilty, nor fully innocent, you're somewhere in the middle because you screwed up and so did others; it's just that not everyone has the kahones to admit 'I believe that I no longer support what I previously used to, so I'm taking the words back. No harsh feelings' and why would anyone have the kahones, when despite actions being louder than words, your words are twisted into a trap for you. 

What if I told you that it's okay to be believing and supporting both sides of the arguments equally and being that fair-weather friend, there's nothing obviously wrong in it since everyone would love to be on the winning side, and also because it saves you the pain of explaining why you might be opposing something. Convenient, right? Almost! That's because fair-weather friends aren't exactly respected (for obvious reasons but) majorly because they seem to be unreliable as they switch sides at the drop of the hat, but in a time where the lines between extremes is getting blurred, what's the harm if a person believes in the ideology of both sides and chooses to stay where (s)he finds it better? NO! Not permissible because what's a person that doesn't face the consequences of their actions, right? Most certainly, and that is what brings it to a point where one needs to ask: What if one doesn't take a significant action? Reaction is what makes consequences and a reaction is in response to the action, so what if action itself is not taken, keeping in mind that consequences may/may not be favourable? Escapist much? 

There's always more than meets the eye, but what if there's a refusal to see what's hidden? 

"Curiosity killed the cat or probably just lack of interest and attention did, who's to know? Accept what you feel is right, everyone's truth is different" 

      

Working for love

A post by Samyak Shah

Since the time we were young, more or less, we've been made to work for every single thing that we have in life. No, there's nothing wrong with it because it is in a sense teaching us that many things in life are supposed to be 'earned' as they're either in scarcity or are just too damn expensive to be given just like that as a reward for a small activity/chore.

What they actually mean is: The world is not generous every single time and many a times, you'll have to toil day in and day out to get something that you want.

However, because a huge majority doesn't 'want to hurt others by telling them the truth in a harsh manner or getting the true intentions of providing something out in the open', they resort to reading between the lines and objective & reward based techniques to pass on information or impart knowledge which, though not completely wrong but, is most certainly a mindf*ck.

My point is: Love is something that every individual desires, it is something that every individual needs, it is sometimes essential and most importantly, it needs to be given and it is needed to be felt by everyone.

There shouldn't be this gap between receiving and giving which needs to be filled with work because if we're saying that one needs to work to get love that they desire, they have to do something that they don't want to but have to because we want them to and because we possess the one thing that they require, and that's only fair going by the standard logic of demand and supply.

Beginning from the childhood itself, parents have been conditioning children to behave the way they want them to by bribing and manipulating them with something or the other that they know the kid loves, and they're made to sometimes do things they would not otherwise do because they want the reward without always realizing that they're being manipulated and the cycle is settling in their brains that to give someone the love they want, they have to do something that you want them to.

Sometimes, I agree that, manipulation is needed to make sure the child does something that is seemingly essential for them, but luring them with something they love to make them do something is not always the way to go and it has to be understood irrespective of the general logic of demand and supply.

A person cannot and should not be stripped off of something so vital and essential for one's mental and physical well-being because a person devoid of love, or someone who is set in the cycle that in order for them to get the love they want they have to do things the giver wants them to do, might just become a machine in the figurative and borderline literal sense.

The reward-punishment system that is set in place for conditioning still works fine if done with a purpose of well-being, and destroying someone psychologically so that they obey one's orders without question is not a purpose to tomtom.

To everyone out there working so that you get a reward and that reward earns you someone's love, it's not love. That's a transaction. You're providing an investment and they're providing a service for your investment.

Creepiness

A post by Samyak Shah

---------
As much as we'd like to talk to one another and form what we presume to be a 'harmonious' human chain of communication and affection, there seems to be one trouble that a lot of us go through and put others through as well. 

What's that you ask? 

Creepiness 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not the one to judge anybody on a creepiness scale because I (unlike a few idiots) know that everybody's perception of what's normal is different which is what everybody should be realising and accepting consciously and not just superficially. 

Let me tell you what my overthinking brain sprung up with when I began to think about what exactly categorizing someone as a 'creep' meant: Every person's creepy bar is set by their own selves based on the experiences they've had and the one's they've heard which forms (or conditions, scientifically speaking) what is called an impression or an image of what exactly something is like, which more or less influences how we're going to perceive it as! 

Put in simpler words: One thing/person is creepy for an individual and is not for another, and that's completely reliant on how the person has been brought up and what sort of perspectives are fed/how perspectives are manipulated in his/her life

Food for thought: There's a difference between someone feeling creepy for personal reasons as opposed to feeling creepy for the sake of not ruining your impression in a social setting because more often than not, creepiness is caused faster when a social setting is kept in mind as opposed to seeing somebody as an individual just like us...

मर्दाना

A poem by Samyak Shah

नहीं आती करनी लड़ाई

और ना है मेरे इस डर का ठिकाना

तोह

लोगों के लिए, मैं नहीं हूँ मर्दाना

नहीं बदल सकता गाड़ी के टायर

ना आता है हर बात पे सख्ती दिखाना

तभी शायद

लोगों के लिए, मैं नहीं हूँ मर्दाना

आता है कई बातों पर रोना

पर खुल के रो भी नहीं सकता 

क्यूंकि क्या कहेगा ज़माना

की 

मैं नहीं हूँ मर्दाना

ना है 16 का डोला 

ना है 56 की छाती

पर क्योंकि नहीं चाहता घर के बर्तनों को खड़काना

लोगों ने कहा, मैं नहीं हूँ मर्दाना

समय को हम बदल दिए

तौर-तरीके भी बदल दिए

पर सोच को हमने बदला ना

तभी कह रहे है
लोगों के लिए, मैं नहीं हूँ मर्दाना

लोगों के लिए, मैं नहीं हूँ मर्दाना