The Difficulty in being Simple

‘I want to live simply. To sit by the window when it rains and read books I’ll never be tested on. I want to paint because I want to, not because I have got something to prove. I want to listen to my body, fall asleep when the moon is high and wake up slowly with no place to rush off to. I want not to be governed by money or clocks or any of the artificial restraints that humanity imposes on itself. I just want to be, boundless and infinite.’

This is a Facebook post which seems to be popular these days because shares and likes it is garnering. Almost everyone who comments – and there are many – agrees that this is bliss; almost everyone who comments also agrees that it is something to aspire for, implying that their lives today are distant from it.

There are two ways we can lead our life; either living with the hope of living a dream life in the future, or living that dream life now. Every single day we live with the first option is one day less we will live with the second.

What really stops us from living that dream life, the paragraph so lucidly illustrates, today? What makes it sound so unattainable, at least in the foreseeable future?

Let us for a moment challenge this notion and believe that we could start living this life from now – if we want. Is it difficult?

How difficult is it to pick up a book that we have always wanted to read and sit down to read when we feel like it? Not at all. What prevents us is our own notion of how important my current task is? Of how things will be difficult if I am not there to do them – if I don’t reply to a mail or don’t respond to a whats-app message or don’t check for my facebook updates. It may be as much to do with my own sense of security – about how important I am – as much as how important the task is.

How difficult is it to follow a hobby simply because I want to and not to prove to the world? Not at all, provided I have a hobby. Blessed are the ones who know what they truly like for then they know what to do when they have time. The others will end up watching television or playing games on their mobiles or some such thing.

The more difficult thing is the desire to prove to the world. I struggle with it every day. And facebook and twitter make their millions because of this. Success is only of value when it is visible and we measure our success on how successful the world feels we are. And thus the need for pretense and demonstration and the huge amount of time and effort it takes to preserve it.

How much effort we spend making presentations to glorify what are otherwise regular tasks? Was that not effort and time that could have been better spent cultivating a habit, reading a book you have always wanted to read?

How difficult is it to not be in a hurry, to wake up slowly with no place to rush off to? This is difficult because we have expectations to meet – expectations set by society, by family and by our own measures of our success - and they are many; a house in a premium complex, a vacation at an exotic place, the latest digital device. And we are in a great hurry to meet them because it is archaic to work for ten years to afford a large house and out-dated to be seen with a phone that is not latest.

Is it surprising then that most of the front page newspapers advertisements are about residential properties and latest smart phones available with discount schemes that seek exorbitant money in the guise of easy installments and low up-front payments?

And when I have many such easy installments to pay for many years to come how can I not to be governed by money or clocks or any of the artificial restraints that humanity imposes on itself – for the truth is there are no restraints that humanity imposes, but the restraints I have imposed on myself because I measure my success on how the world views it rather than how I view it. Because probably I don’t even have a definition of individual success, only a definition of failure.

Hence I write to become a best-selling author and not just because I enjoy the creative process of providing an experience. And thus happiness to me will come only when I get published and feature in the top 10 on Amazon and not in that beautiful feeling of contentment when I write a sentence which I myself enjoy to read repeatedly.

I just want to be boundless and infinite. The fact is we are or we are designed by nature to be, because nature in itself is boundless and infinite. Somewhere in our pursuits we have allowed ourselves and society to put limitations on us.

Being boundless and infinite doesn’t mean being able to do whatever I want whenever I want. It means knowing what I truly want and having the belief that if I apply myself to it, it is possible to achieve, that nature will help me to achieve.

The important thing is knowing what I want, and for that it is important to listen to my body, because my body is telling me that all the time and I keep telling it that I will follow it once I finish this one task, meet this one deadline. In a technologically advanced age, it is easy to stay connected with the world. Yet it is equally, if not more important to connect with the self and for that you sometimes need to disconnect with the world.

It is not wrong to want a house in a premium complex or aspire to be a best-selling author, what goes wrong is when I make that as a condition for my success and happiness; while my inner core finds satisfaction in spending more time with family or expressing myself.

And thus ironically, in my striving for seeming happiness I sacrifice that which actually provides happiness to me.

‘I want to live simply.’

That is how the paragraph opens and it is not without a reason. For if one was to do that, everything that follows would follow. It is the essence of the entire passage, the foundation on which the other states are built.

And no one can decide that for yourself except you. It is that simple.

Difficult?

Belief and Knowledge

A speaker at a sermon I recently attended said “Knowledge without belief is not sufficient.” For a person with a desire to seek knowledge it was intriguing.

All religious texts emphasize unequivocally on the need to have faith. All books on spirituality and modern propagandists of the power of mind say that the mind can achieve whatever it believes and thus the need for unstinted belief.

Why is this need for faith or belief? Is knowledge, followed by action not enough to achieve what we desire to achieve?

The logical mind seeks to understand and this seeking for understanding leads to the thirst to know or knowledge. This knowledge coupled by a strong desire for achievement of goal or purpose or need for success leads us into action. And when we act with knowledge we succeed.

Where does belief and faith come in all of this?

There could be many answers to this, and each one of us can discover his own answer. That is a matter of faith. And that probably is also the shortest, and as with anything shortest, also the most complex answer.

Let us get a little simpler.

If I have to travel from Mumbai to Pune and I decide to take the train because my knowledge says it is the cheapest, reliable as well as comfortable mode of transport, I need to first find out which trains go to Pune. That is seeking knowledge. So I will act, i.e. visit the railway site, find out the trains using a query and then book a ticket on the train which suits my schedule.

However at the basis of all this is my fundamental faith in the railway website and the fact that if it says a train will go via Pune and halt at Pune then it will indeed halt at Pune.

Imagine my state of mind if I didn’t have that belief in the railway website or the railways as a system. There would be a constant fear throughout the journey on whether I will reach my destination or not, whether I will achieve my desired outcome.

Life though is not as certain as the Indian (or for that matter any) Railways. And thus even when we act with knowledge we live in doubt, in the constant fear of achieving outcome.

Whether I am making the right investments which will yield expected returns? Whether the returns would be good enough when they happen? Is my current job going to continue or will I become redundant?

The fact of life is that most of the time we do reach our destinations; that our investments are good enough to meet our needs, that less than 5% actually lose a job and even for those few, 90% of them find something or other to earn a living.

Yet without belief we live in constant doubt and though in the end (or somewhere in the middle) we reach our goal, the journey is fraught with fear and uncertainty. And due to this fear and uncertainty of the outcome we fail to enjoy the journey; notice the verdant greenery of the plains of Karjat, the thrill of overlooking the valley at Lonavala, the childish excitement of counting the tunnels or the beauty of the always full Indrayani river as it snakes along the railway track at Kamshet.

Because all the time we are worried whether we will reach Pune or not.

Belief takes away the fear of outcome. And without that fear, not only am I able to act with clarity and thus with greater chances of making the right decisions, I also enjoy the entire process.

Life, if one were to define it like a line, is a journey between two points – birth and death. Our ability to learn i.e. act with knowledge, retrospect, correct and act again determines the success during the journey. Belief ensures that we lead the journey with clarity and enjoy it without fear. And when I act with clarity and without fear success become that much more easy and guaranteed.

That was my discovery of the reason for belief. There would be many more and I am sure you may discover your own. Or you may believe otherwise – that would be your belief.

And there would be a similar argument for belief without knowledge and action. We will leave that for some other day.

Life and Meaning

How can one go away just like that? Disappear suddenly with no notice and no further possibility of talking or meeting again.

My LIC agent was visiting his ailing father in his native Kerala town. The evening he reached he had a sudden pain in the chest. While they were taking him to a hospital he suddenly collapsed and died on the spot. The whole event, his daughter recalled later, took about two minutes; two minutes’ notice before going away forever.

He was 53 years of age and had no previous cardiac history.

I was on the way to my car on the Friday afternoon after offering prayers at my father’s grave who had passed away two nights ago when I saw a call from my LIC agent on the mobile. His assistant was on the line and was talking about a death. I thought she had come to know about my father’s demise and had called up to offer sympathies. It took me a minute to realize she was talking instead of my LIC agent who had passed away.

He had shared a bitter-sweet relationship with my father, as any insurance agent is bound to. My father had provided him with new business but would not mince words when he expected service, and the LIC agent would politely offer all assistance possible. When something was not possible to fulfill, he would call me and entreat sincerely to mediate with my father.

On his first visit to our house when I offered him tea, he accepted it immediately. Later on he clarified that he never refused any beverages offered because that provided him some additional time to converse with his customers. His whole business was based on conversations.

Just a week ago, as my father lay critically ill, I had called him up to seek his and his staff’s forgiveness for anything hurtful my father would have ever said to them. He called me immediately the next morning saying he had done as conveyed and his staff had forgiven my father and wished him good health.

That was the last conversation we had.  And ironically it wasn’t about a new policy or a premium to be paid, it was about forgiveness.

As I drove down to my house from the graveyard, my ache was no longer for my father but for this soft gentleman who peddled his business almost like an apology, who till that moment had always seemed as if he would be there when required. And for the shock and grief of his wife and daughter who had suddenly lost the only man in their life.

How does one go away just like that with no warnings, no time for a proper farewell?

And I wondered about the meaning of life. Most of us will not die at 53, not so suddenly without a ‘handover.’ Yet there can be no doubt that life is finite, temporary and insulated – in the sense that nothing that is acquired here can be taken forward.

And yet most of our striving, and consequently most of our pain is for acquiring.

It didn’t take much time to realize the futility of trying to decipher the meaning of life – for there can be no definitive answers; everyone would have their own meaning. It was rather more important to add meaning to life.

And I realized that no matter what one chose to do, it was important for it to be meaningful. That was the only way to ensure a life well spent.