self-doubt

If I can get the fact that I haven’t posted anything on this page for a long time out of the way, maybe I can ignore the difficulty I’m facing right now, in writing after a protracted hiatus.

During this hibernation, gushing emotions have been checked, their course altered, their energy redirected, distributed among everyday doings. The huge village fire around which the entire community gathered has given way to small earthen lamps that light selfish households. Now, evenings aren’t spent together anymore; shared drives and a common fate have been supplanted by favourite sitcoms and cheap promos—lures accompanying newly acquired wealth.

There is a certain unmistakable despair in the dispersal of a platoon. Especially when that platoon is you and the soldiers pushing for victory thus far, who have now ceased to fight for a cause worth living for, are aspects of your self: conviction, confidence, esteem, faith. And particularly so when it is a war of choice. The exhortations have lost their capacity, replaced with mutterings of “I do not want to fight anymore.” The commander is at a loss for words that can turn rising tides. Before he conjures a summons though, gathering their forces around his diminishing authority, are swarms of self-doubt—buzzing and alive.

Self-doubt is seldom given due importance, partly because a commander isn’t supposed to entertain it or he doesn’t believe strongly enough to perceive a diminution in his creed. Self-doubt is indubitable, inevitable, and, if not limited by a strong embankment, inexorable.

I’m the wobbly commander. Sometimes, he, who has been tongue-tied, finds a loudspeaker to shout into. After the initial amplitude demanding attention, my platoon hears the anguish. Stabs, stings, aches, throbs.

I feel it in moments I revel in professional success or among social friends, A set of eyes, a pair of ears, a nose for banter, hands to drive home points, and a body draped in acceptable clothing—all seemingly indicating participation. With mind in knots, gallivanting, galloping to distant lands, sketching, tending to imagination.

Yet, I have to make a living as much as I have to live. Finding meaning in existence is a digression from an understanding of the cost of living and the means required to pay for it. Decades and years are apt spans to judge lives; for the meaning of existence, every hour is a yardstick long enough.

chinatown

A couple of months ago, I did something really stupid, or so I was told. I voiced my reservations not through a carefully worded mail, nor via polite requests or practical suggestions that smacked of an implicit acceptance of the status quo, but by speaking my mind. With incisive humor. On the company intranet.

And very soon, judging from the reaction, of which there was a flood, I came across roughly 3 kinds of employees: (1) absolute suckers/dumb duds/enemies of reason and logic/those who don’t know they are being taken for a ride; (2) those who want change but are afraid to speak up; and (3) those who belong to the happily-aloof-as-long-as-I-have-my-paycheck category.

Of the first category, two quit almost immediately after singing paeans of praise for their employer. Several members of the second type conveyed their support, but only through online chats or in person. The third species probably didn’t know that something was on until they overheard office gossip and then were mostly like “Dude, that was really stupid!”

The last year and a half have been a learning experience. Not because of the career progression that I’ve made but because of how closely I’ve observed the “corporate culture.” And I’ve realized, totally internalized, the fact that the only shade that will always be in vogue is grey.

I do not know why exactly Stanley Kubrick was a misanthrope but I can vouch on my epitaph that had he worked in the services industry, he would’ve surely had a very valid reason.

In this age when everything sells, why isn’t integrity being put up on shop windows? How do I explain to all these people that it is not I who needs a reality check. It is them. It is they who put their sugarcoated words on company newsletters; it is they who learn the company’s “mission statement” by rote; it is they who, in full knowledge of their actions, compromise on their work and on the manner in which they let themselves work.

And here I spend my time trying to scrub off the filth that sticks to my skin every day.

It is now that I fully understand Jerry Macguire. That there’s a big difference between what we think and what we say or do. And were we to be unafraid to do the right thing, or try to, we would be driven to despair. And fired.

I’m not taking the moral high ground here. I’m ranting because of a very selfish reason. I cannot imagine how I can survive selling myself like this. I can only see very lonely hours. I may speak to you, crack a few smart jokes and impress you, but I will find it difficult to bring myself to respect you.

In the twilight of life, should you choose to look back, remember these words: Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough. And this is exactly how some of you will have earned respect too.

P.S.: The quote in italics is from Chinatown (1974).

poetry

Freedom arrived
With heavy wings
Where I wanted to soar
Only flitted low
And did not bite the dust

Joy in self-acceptance
Left a trail of unpaid debts
Swarms plagued nights, turned slayers of mirth
Doused sunshine and blurred days

Love arrived
Accompanying clauses and conditions
Fine print and punitive damages
Where I wanted to live
Could only breathe
A little easy, just a little

Consumed by wants
Convince, cajole, coax
Choices make up identity; let me make mine
And live them
Listen to me! Trust me! Believe, please!

Revelation in self-deception
Glory, acclaim—pleased as punch
A naked solitary man, before mirror
Skin peeling off: ugly, ugly, ugly!

Now: Reconnoitring lands for satisfying truth
Saddled, though, with an unabridged version
Leaf pages, jot points, make notes

anagramloverfriendshipimaginationhope: haikus

Anagram

slipshod letters of
incomprehensible life,
arranged: fragmented

Lover

a touch for a look
while spent by lover’s brook
cymbals—best when paired

Friendship

hiss, burnt lips: common
shared junk, dutch fares: together
moving images

Imagination

on sick bed, wasted
in dreams distant, yet vivid
runs free, wind in hair

Hope

night crescent broken,
small pieces cached for weeks
like treasured toy

Delightful coincidence

Free will and imagination are entities that I’ll always hold dear. During my formative years, I rebelled against, in various measures, efforts at oppressing me. And through such experiences, I realized that I can be threatened through multifarious channels and that the adversary is a shape-shifting thing. Coercion can occur in subtle ways, through effective blackmail, via open subjugation, or by fomenting a sense of guilt. It can happen in daily conversations, by regular conditioning, courtesy public rebukes, or by demands of love’s labor. Sometimes, the perpetrators are well-meaning people—family, for example—who seem to know what’s good for you. You become an agent, a medium, that is driven to act toward goals you may not cherish. It’s not black and white. That is, you can’t distinguish between the forces acting upon you as entirely positive or entirely negative. The magnitude and time for which such forces act determine their impact on you.

When you choose your actions, you accept total responsibility for their consequences. And that in turn makes you work harder and better. Thereafter, what you’re guilty of is not some half-baked effort but a full-blooded charge. Everything else falls into line. Your priorities are arranged in a perfect hierarchy. Free will and imagination—two life-sustaining forces—act on you then. Without the influence of these forces, however, life starts to decay. You’re cut off from the wellspring of eros.

Self-preservation is the greatest gift you can bestow upon yourself. It’s the most timeless quality; yet, it is the most difficult to cultivate. People corrupt themselves all the time, everywhere. What is the average man capable of? And what does he come up with? And then he still has someone to blame for his bungling. I do not want to have lived a life that respected elders, served as a model citizen, obeyed the law, cared for family, helped friends only because it was expected to, and was commanded to. I want to choose to do any of these moral deeds or not commit any of these crimes, depending on what I hold true. No one should dispute this right to me.

From what I’ve written, it may appear as if I’m an extremely difficult person to deal with. Like I abide by a straitjacketed, claustrophobic code. Should give the impression as if I suffer people and those who stick with me merely succeed in surviving me. But that’s not quite true, at least not apparently. I’ve got plenty of friends, if I may say so myself, and my family loves me. I may not call my mother as frequently as she would like me to, but she still doesn’t think that she has lost me, or worse that I don’t deserve to be loved. And for the said intangible possessions, I haven’t had to lie or be anyone but myself. I’ve just done what I’ve felt to be right and have tried to live by it. In the life that I await, I see myself doing the same and not bothering about anything else. It’s not my business to make the most number of people happy; it’s my moral obligation to be true to myself. And free will and imagination are tools that’ll always come in handy. That they’ll also lend an exalted quality to life shall be a delightful coincidence.

I'll live like a hack

I feel like a hack—is one who exploits his creative potential to come up with dull, repetitive, menial work, for money. I don’t get that much money, and may be my professional work isn’t so trite after all. But that doesn’t make me any less of a hack. I’ve come to realize that talent means next to nothing. See me, for example. Things I have been for a living: software professional, editor. Things I can be: film critic, copywriter, scriptwriter, travel writer, teacher, columnist, cricket commentator, and may be mechanical engineer. Except engineering and scriptwriting, I’m sure I can be on the job with immediate effect. So, what should I make of it? Nothing. I only need enough money to do what I want to do. But for the money, I have to do something that incidentally files my core, making it fit snugly like a dovetail joint. May be then, I should decide on how much of a hack I’m prepared to be and how much money would fill my pockets.

One evening, about a year and a half ago—one of those evenings when my professional life was in limbo, those days of joblessness yet sheer ebullience at having given expression to thoughts simple and deep, at having distilled life into words that carried me to the threshold of a magnificent portal, that dressed up in the wardrobe of ideas and looked askance for my approval like a child up to antics for a share of his mother’s attention—on one of such days, I remember listening to Baba O’Riley for the longest time ever. And while the piano and the violin were played for me, I discovered my mojo, as if saying, “If you can make something brilliant, so can I.” And I wrote this as a part of something else.

Life in its myriad forms came forth and claimed territory. Dominions were disrespected. Fat, croaking frogs laid siege to unseen corners of houses and paid no rent. Lazy creepy crawlies stood their ground. When poked, and asked to move out, they coiled with insouciance and pretended to nap. Gregarious crickets carried on noisy conversations with aplomb. Bees hummed, guiding their brethren towards teeming hives in fusty garages. Butterflies floated from petal to petal, like promiscuous bodies, drinking from many bowls. Colonies of ants marched along damp walls in a single file like medieval infantries. Bugs formed clubs and societies and congregated with needless regularity to discuss trivial issues. Spiders roamed about intrepidly with open mandibles. House lizards preyed walls and chomped careless flies like hungry horses chomping oats. Greedy-gutted caterpillars gorged on leafy branches.

Maybe I should just fuck the money. Let everyone else take my share, if ever there was anything for me. I could not, should not, care less. You go fuck your money and lead your fucking mediocre lives. I’ll live like a hack one half of each day, and go home to create something brilliant.

I walk on bubble toes

I sit cross-legged, twiddling thumbs and dusting off
Yesteday’s scurf
Choosing whole seasons to efface
That spring of apathy, there goes the summer of skeletons

I turn with a swish, and shoot off a thinking man’s look
Asking “what is that?”
A mirror or a photograph of my best self?
Am I the one who clings or lets go?
Is that the one who spills beans in a drunken stupor, or
Then who do I lie to?

Before the winter too there was cold
Yet hope was there
Hope only stayed faithful to young years
Crossed-out calendars hence, they live apart and fragile

Time has been stripped off, shred
And all that is left now is a want
Without history or chronology
I may say more, or less
But all that will come out is a version of that want

I lie here in the sink
A crusted, burnt pan
Dumped under a column of running water
Waiting to be wiped shiny clean
Then put on the stove to stew flavors