Infidelity

I don’t really know how to deal with infidelity.

If one really loves another, there is no room for infidelity. However, the other side of the coin is that if one really loves another, one must be able to forgive infidelity!

Sometimes just the thought that the person you love could be interested in some one else, evokes a pang in the heart. It is a preplexing feeling. The victim of another’s infidelity could be both murderous and suicidal. One would hope to elevate to a higher moral level and raise it above jealousy. Ofcourse, jealousy is the state of mind of the affected and infidelity is the act of an “affector”.

Whenever I think of infidelity, I connect it to Milan Kundera’s – The Unbearable Lightness of Being”. The protagonist simply couldn’t help being an infidel. His wife and partner died of it. Every day she woke with the nausea of knowing that her partner had been elsewhere. He could see her pain, he could see her nausea, her anguish, but was helpless against his senses.

It is something that evokes different reactions. Some react by throwing you out of their lives. Some would leave. Some would kill themselves and some would murder the aide.

Despite being in a monogamous relationship can one defend infidelity. Anyone who understands the absurdity that is of being infidel to the one you love, should be able to dismiss it and not think about it.

Ofcourse infidelity can be of varied natures and intensities. To one, it would have to mean ultimately sleeping with another. To another it could be simply thinking about it. Do we oscillate between one extreme and another? Of course we do.

The question is – at what point does the relationship snap? Like the woman in Milan Kundera’s novel, if you are unable to snap the relationship, you will snap yourself.

I cannot explain the why of infidelity but I surely can explain monogamy. Every truly monogamous relationship is based on a conscious rational choice. It is not that you cannot leave your partner, but it is that you choose not to.

Is there some one who can explain infidelity to me?

Coetzee – My favourite author of 2008

Of all that I have read and all the new authors that I had read in 2008, the one author who took me by surprise and affected me most was Coetzee.  The first book that I had occasion to read was “The Life and Times of Michael K.”

It seemed to me that the book was Michael K’s autobiography.  The book is a about a simple SouthAfrican/ African man and his attempts to live a life of freedom, choice and respect. Coetzee’s choice of words, the prefect description were the highlights of the book. Reading it was like walking on a stream of water. The reader is aware of the fluidity of the stream below him, yet the firmness of the surface allows him to tread over it. Over all it was a great experience.

Immediately, after “K” I picked up “Youth”.  I was amazed at the distinction in the language, descriptions of the setting and the people involved. This book is about a young man, a boy who has unfulfilled aspirations and in the end comes to terms with it. Coetzee suddenly transforms himself to an immigrant in London. I am not sure if any other author could have written a similar plot that would interest me.

After a break, I read, the “Master of Petersburg”.  The novel is of course based in Russia, Petersburg more specifically and Coetzee takes you to Russia with him. He spins a romantic story, that of a father and son. He builds a plot and as you watch in amazement, leads the protagonist to his fate. I am not sure whether the story is biographical. All I know is that it perfectly fits his mysterious hero – Fyodor Dostoevesky.

That the same person could write so beautifully three absolutely different novels in three unconnected settings is a display of his genius. I discovered a genius. I discovered creativity. I discovered all of this in 2008.

The Art of Relaxation

It is true that Experience is the greatest teacher of all. (Apologies for the cliche, but its true).  Having experienced the state of restlessness, frenzy and an unsettled mind, relaxation comes as a wave of relief. It is like walking through a fresh garden of lovely orchids in the morning dew and watching the sun rise.

However, in order to relax one needs to be in harmony with oneself.  Happiness, contentment and satisfaction are also essential elements.  When you hear all this talk about calming the mind, the Swamiji’s coming out to be help your mind relax, one wonders – Why does a human being need help to relax, to be at ease with himself?

It is only when one is at absolute ease, that the other frame of mind – the frenzied mind comes to light. One can only understand the difference in contrast.  We humans are like the ostriches. We like to believe nothing is wrong with us.  May be that is why, one never realizes that the mind is actually troubled. When one is relaxed and feels this rush of calm for the first time, it is not difficult to notice that the past was not even close.

Now, when I say – “Please relax!” to someone, I can truly understand what it means.

This is also linked in a way to loneliness.  When one us unable to be truly alone and feels lonely, a restlessness creeps in along with boredom. When one is truly relaxed, you will find that there is no trace of boredom, nor is there loneliness.

Beauty and Art

I have realised today that art is an expression in the pursuit of beauty.  What a common man can experience but cannot describe is expressed by the artist through his art form.

During my very recent trip to Rome, Florence and Venice, I for the first time time was engulfed by beauty and it had a physical force for me.  I was hijacked and enthralled.  You can say the beauty of the Sistine Chapel nearly encased me.  I was immobilised.

I realised also that beauty can be of varied forms.  I have experienced an unique feeling – the beauty of a child.  In Italy I experienced the beauty of art.  The expression itself being beautiful and when one dwells upon the content or context one can experience a different kind of beauty.

It was perfect timing that I watched a Bengali film called – AnourAnon (“harmony” – I was told).  The beauty of the relationship of the protagonist and his wife enthralls you as much as the beautiful weave of the storyline. I was choked in the end. The feeling is not of sadness or anguish but of understanding.  My trip to Italy has become a lovelier memory and life just seems perfect.

I guess there is a harmony now, in life with my partner and within me. The harmony is beautiful and I think this is the true pursuit of the artist.  I am on the other side of the fence. Not an artist but a lover of beauty. It is as satisfying.

THE AGE OF REASON

Mathieu was truly condemned to be free.  Freedom does not mean freedom from one government or another. Mathieu was living in an ultra-communist society.  However, that did not change the nature of his freedom.

Mathieu is an example of why ‘freedom’ is not really sacrosanct as some make it out to be. Why some? Most make it out to be sacrosanct. It is the ultimate gift! It is worth dying for! Really? Think again.  Sartre was most misunderstood as was his phrase – Man is condemned to be free.  I imagine him saying it with a smirk, a chuckle and a cigarette dangling from his lips standing in a crowded subway, the crowd oblivious to his presence – he is thinking in his head and shakes his head and laughs – Man is condemned to be free.

While I was reading the book, I wondered why I was reading it. I heard something about a stream of consciousness and how that was Sartre’s style.  I couldn’t buy it. I knew there was something treasured, like a pearl from the ocean, something tiny that would come out of the whole exercise of reading about one man’s futility.  And then there it was, that sentence, that said it all. If Sartre were alive, I would go up to him and say, ye I get ya! And I am sure we would burst out laughing.

I laugh because there are very few people who can handle the weight of freedom. Very few who know what they really want. I realised this is the success formula for marriage I have been looking for. Being from India, I have seen loads of arranged marriages, and they all lack just one thing. Being together because the couple wants to, not just because they have to or because daddy said so and he/she never said no, because they had to. A couple mus want to be together and every moment spent together should be a conscious choice of wanting to be together.

The WEIGHT that freedom is. It weighs upon your shoulder, waiting for you to command, to say action, to give direction. Most people use their freedom to do what they feel like, at an impulse, but the real freedom is the making the difficult choice. Job, marriage, kids, career, hobby, wife, chilling, travelling. The list is endless, the choices limitless and man is in fact CONDEMNED to be free.

I have often wondered, why I who so violently protects my freedom is giving it away today. Is it for love? Is it for happiness? No, its because I want to and I know now that no other reason can come close.

I think its the same of people who are passionate about their jobs. Some say its just a job and others go all the way. Going all the way is the choice you make. You are free to go in at 9 and leave at 5, but what you make of it is your freedom. Do I work because my boss expects me to or do I work because I want to? Most times its the latter, sometimes its the former.

I know most people would tell me this is a warped connection. But I can see how Ayn Rand defined her characters. Her strongest characters were people who made conscious choices, exercised their freedom and lived by it. She distinguished her weaker characters as those who acted for no reason at all and she lets you choose. You become a powerful reader with Rand. You get the freedom to choose.

Romanticist Empericism

“Freedom posits free will; that is self evident. But Will can only operate when there is first a motive. No motive, no willing.  But motive is a matter of belief; you would not want to do anything unless you believed it possible and meaningful.  And belief must be belief in the existence of something; that is to say it concerns what is real.  So ultimately, freedom depends upon the real.  The outsider’s sense of unreality cuts off his freedom from the root.  It is as impossible to exercise freedom at the root.  It is as impossible to exercise freedom in an unreal world as it is to jump while you are falling.” 

I read this in the “Outsider” by Colin Wilson, a self educated man with insight that no education can guarantee.  He, himself becomes the example of free thinking and free will which is unconditioned by modern education.

However, that is not the point I seek to make here.  The problem of free will is impossible to solve without first understanding what “will” is.  It is the classic Shakespearean phrase – “What would you?” which becomes the real question.  The human will is not known to man in its purest form, but is infact clouded and convoluted by conditioning of education, society and so on.  Therefore, real freedom cannot be achieved by ordinary mediocre mortals, for any amount of freedom in their unreal world is also tainted with unreality - just as felt by the protagonist of the Stranger (Camus). 

It is an interesting thought that I stumbled upon while looking at orchids.  Every orchid has a distinct colour and distinct smell which is meant to attract a particular kind of insect in order that pollination takes place.  This implies that for every flower, there is an insect and for every insect there is a flower.  Similarly for every animal there is a certain plant or other animal which completes what is known as the food chain and creates a sort of ecological balance.  Man however, is the only creature who has the power and ability to create i.e. the power to take material and make something out of it.  Therefore man is the only one who could be good, bad, better and best.  No other animal can acquire these adjectives and if at all it will be wiped out in accordance with the survival of the fittest concept.  Man is the only one who protects his weak.  Is this a virtue? This though an important question is not the discussion today.

Thus, man himself is a disturbance in nature as he does not have a perfect balance in it.  He exploits nature because his mind gives him the ideas and his mind can think as compared to the other animals and creatures who live in harmony with nature.  Thus, man’s highest goal should be the seeking and finding of harmony with nature, whether you call it “salvation” or “nirvana”.  Unfortunately, man is unable at his lowest level i.e. the mediocre man who shies from thinking – to be at such harmony.  The good news is that there are people who have achieved that and who teach it to the world.  Even Ouspensky explains that the persons who recognize this need a teacher who will first make them unlearn everything they have learnt and show them the path to harmony.

But, the predicament of the person in an unreal world who wishes to be free and experience reality is the same as a blind man seeing colours.  A blind man who has suddenly gained vision would trust you when you point to something and say it is green, because no matter how much he is educated, he has never seen and sight is a novelty.  Similarly, the person seeking emancipation must have faith in his teacher like a blind man for their predicaments are not greatly different.  This is my opinion is true faith which though most scorn as blind, cannot but be so.

From a father – with love

I have recently learnt the love of a father for his daughter and how it transcends all others.  The unconditional warmth bestowed, the unquestioning faith in the daughter’s convictions are important indicators of the same.

There is no love greater than that of a father for his daughter.

Is there a thing like too much sex in movies?

Sex in movies is interesting but to a point. It adds artistic value but to a point. Why is it that sexual perversity or the erotica takes over characterization in movies? I have a specific movie in mind – “Where the truth lies”. It has got the best actors – Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth. There was a murder, a journalist trying to uncover the truth behind it and loads of sex. A lot of it did not even add value to the plot and was irrelevant almost.

Depravity on television and in movies in some way makes us feel good about ourselves and helps us feel we are above something. I have always believed that people who watched horror movies associate tragedy/horror with their lives. But I can’t imagine why people with good plots would go all the way to unnecessarily eroticize. In this piece I am not trying to say anything – just wondering aloud.

I can’t get over the fact that the most beautiful, natural biological thing can be so degraded and made to look like an end in itself; like something that drives a persons life and all else revolves around sex. I don’t seem to understand this at all.

An Exercise in Excise

When I speak here, I speak as a layman and not as a member of the legal profession. I find it amusing that a State should tax manufacture. That’s what excise is all about.

I make goods – say shoes for instance. I am expected to shell out a percentage of the costs of making the shoes to the Government! Why should I do that? I already pay a percentage of my profits (income tax); I also pay for the same when sold (sales tax), why should I pay for manufacture?

For a society that wishes to promote the greatest good of the greatest number through increasing availability of goods and services – the State is not really helping to achieve that end. I find it absurd that while one gets income tax deductions etc. to help save profits for productive concerns – how is taxing the activity of manufacture of any use? Yes, it does add to the coffers of the Government– but at what cost?

I understand that it helps make exports more competitive, but why do we have to still have such high rates of excise – 16%. To this absurd philosophy of the State, all I can say is that excise should be phased out and no manufacturing unit should be taxed for being productive. But that is never going to happen.

The Face of Death

The vision one can never get over is the face of death.  We were in the middle of a river, high speed river in a canoe. I cannot swim and I did not have a life jacket on.  One mistake was made and Isaw the face of the navigator.  A quick, sharp glance at the oarsman.  But it was too late.  The water had already streamed in.  My boat turned upside down.  At that moment, I remembered my brothers words – “paddle, always paddle to reach the surface”.  I paddled.  There was the light.  I could see light!  Before I knew it I had climbed onto the back of the boat.

My mother was stuck underneath and we recovered her after 15 long minutes.  We had taken a trip to celebrate my birthday.  I thought I would never want to celebrate my birthday ever again.  But I remember the face of death and smile today, because I saw that it was not meant to happen.  I will have my second birthday since that day and I can finally celebrate life!  I have finally understood why a birthday is meant to be celebrated.  I now have the reason to have a ‘happy’ birthday.