Break Down 'Job'

Let’s examine the term ‘job’. After hearing this generic term, if your excitement has dipped to a level lower than the sea level of the Dead Sea, I won’t blame you. We live in a world where a plethora of things are vying to get our attention simultaneously and so we have created ready-made opinions to get us out of the chaos.

So what is a job? I would say job is a way by which people reach the fourth level in the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, namely ‘Esteem’.

In other words, it is a way by which people who don’t have a fixed purpose in life, make others believe that they are making significant progress in their lives. And this make-believe is important because it gives meaning to their lives, if any. Who wants to die a quiet life without honor, right? And accumulation of modern equipment is the signaling mechanism that there’s growth (no wonder the number of e-commerce sites is skyrocketing!).

Does this mean that people with a fixed purpose in life (like those pursuing music /business/ /sports) are better? No, as long as they too are concerned about the amassing of wealth. Some people won’t agree that accumulation of money is a bad thing which I’ll discuss in another article. But as far as people with a purpose are concerned, often passion sucks the emptiness out of their lives and gives meaning to it. Money then takes a back seat. Take any example and you will know what I mean.

For majority, job does opposite to what is conveyed by the quote by Carl Gustav Jung, “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become”.

The irony is, when everyone around is so lost, it doesn't feel wrong to be lost anymore.  

Where did you go, true happiness?

Happiness that is pure, comes directly from within and doesn’t depend on anything. Where is that? I have lost track of it. But now as I think, perhaps I have never experienced i. Even as a child, I derived joy from buying sweet cigarettes or riding bikes. That’s how I grew up; always dependent on something for happiness.

“If you are among the top three rankers in class, you will a cricket set” was what motivated me to wake up at 4 am on cold winter mornings and mug up long answers. I got the cricket set, danced in the new found ecstasy, then tossed the cricket set in the store room and focused on the next give-and-take deal that my parents had come up with. And this game continues till today. Getting into engineering to get a job, slogging through MBA to get a hike in salary, working late nights in office to get a promotion, getting promotion to pay the education loan and then planning for marriage and a house. You know how the story goes. And when this journey of running after that elusive happiness which is never fully attained, comes to an end, we say “that’s how life is, my son!”

I’m 27. And I am fed up of this game where I am always tied in invisible fetters. I can’t believe that this is all that there is to life. I can’t believe that the intelligence that created the incomprehensible universes and everything in it, has nothing more profound than this. Was the enlightenment thing just a hoax? Since I have never really experienced pure joy (which I assume wouldn’t depend on anything), I imagine the best version I can come up with: I am lying on green grass in soothing sunlight on a mountain. I can see colorful birds soaring in the sky. My beautiful hut is nearby where I have ample food and water. Above all, I am completely satisfied in the present moment, wanting nothing, simply acknowledging the gifts given to me by nature. I feel gratitude and true joy in my heart.

This might have been the reality few thousands of years ago but not today. And the people of those times would be puzzled to see that despite having so many things for a happy life, we are anything but happy.  So what is happening? Let’s see. 

1.       1. We are born in a world where almost everything has a price.

There is a giant machinery in place that feeds on money and thus you have to earn money even for basic necessities. Today, people spend their entire lives ensuring food, shelter and clothing for themselves (home loans and so on). Not hard to imagine that if water has a price today, the increasingly rare unpolluted air can have a price in future too, considering the pollution levels.

2.       2. The business world promotes consumerism for its profit motive.  

 Long ago, mobile phones were important because they served a valuable purpose. Today, most companies have crossed the line of working for that need and have instead become profit making machines and their agenda is to sell. Period. Why do you think Samsung comes up with an upgrade every two months?

This has another side to it. The present technology we have is imperfect. The cars and ACs we use cause pollution. Thus, greater their consumption, greater is the damage to the environment (a consequence of which is global warming).

But even after that, it works in the opposite direction. According to a TED speaker Barry Schwartz, more the choices we have, greater is the dissatisfaction we experience. Strange?

3.     3. The reference point to measure how happy we are, is situated outside of us. It is continuously            changing and not in our control.

“If only I had a black BMW like that one”, “If only I became as famous as Sachin”, “I have to have that new smart phone”. This is what the marketing arm of business feeds on. Comparison to others is our default setting, thanks to our senses and our minds. And since everyone else is doing the same, it gives us authority. Nobody is even aware that there could exist a better, more controlled state of mind.

Some great men such as Buddha tried to teach us “Peace comes from within, don’t seek it without” or “let go of desires” but it seems too philosophical. Plus nobody trusts anything anymore.

Seeing all this, my heart feels heavy and intuitively tells me that there is little hope to save the planet given our increasing selfish attitudes which could culminate in environmental disaster or a mindless nuclear war between countries.  

But in the core of my being, I also see a ray of hope; the existence of an alternate version of world where everyone shifts from mindless ownership of material things to actually finding true happiness. And that happens when each one of us deliberately work to change our default mode from selfishness to generosity.

Attention Please....

Do you think you navigate your own life in whichever direction you want?
That you are the sole controller of your own life?
As obvious as it may seem, it’s not true. Let me prove it to you. Now, you are reading this thing so surely you are alive and being live means that your life is temporary, prone to end someday. And that implies that you have fixed time in your hands, fixed number of breaths that you take. And you see, right now, right here I am eating away your time; those breaths that you are using from the limited collection that you have, have my name on it. And sadly, you will never have them back. Had I not thought of writing this, you would have some extra time in your life. So, I am one reason that’s independent of you and yet I am changing your life, even in a minute way.
But that’s not where my story ends. This is the most basic: me eating up your time (in a good or bad way). But suppose I post a link here that interests you and you click on it that directs you somewhere and so on, or maybe I use a wor
d that appeals to you such that you search it or, I write something that turns you on, or maybe kills your mood. In any case, I will be responsible for the thing that ensues although you won’t notice it. One thing leads to another and the process goes on. Tell me that it’s impossible to happen? Is it?
So the bottom-line is that I am a part of your life, although the tiniest part, and if I can have such influence think about what other bigger causes can do to you or in other words, take your breath away :)

I write

I write to live deliberately, to syringe the fluid of feelings into the empty holes of my heart. Not emotions; emotions are evil, but feelings. Feelings help me to remember that I am still alive, still a focus of unbound energy, still capable of running a futile run.
I write to be stronger; to let flow my body and mind through a chimney and come out clean and light, able to be blown away. Yes, I want to be blown away; too tired now for a wild goose chase. Blown away higher and higher till height becomes a cliché and where only roses shine and suns bloom. I write to feel that moment, not momentarily but like moments attached to the tips of infinite pins ingrained into my body.
I write to give a name to the past, to tell her that you are not forgotten sweetheart; you can never be because you are present in the spaces of my body where there are no spaces. You are in the blood flowing through my veins and in the air that I breathe. Writing makes my past, thorns of mistakes and my future, petals of blessed opportunities.
Yes, I write to make myself feel better, to satiate my obsession of seeing myself in good light. I help my brother and obey my parents because I am selfish, that way I score points with God, by doing good deeds. I don’t want to be the last one in line to heaven. And for that I have to be the nastiest self-centered brat you can ever find and precisely for that, I write.
 

I feel

I feel.
That’s all I do, ever.
I feel the million atoms of air that flow in and out of my body; I see them like dust, like an army of zealous children vying to come first in the race.
I feel calm. Silence; with an omnipotent engine running in the background somewhere, emanating energy continuously, creating life-sustaining motion in the air.
I am not pure.
I have had my share of sins. But right now, in this moment which is losing me every fleeting second, I feel the power to be pure, to be without disagreements with myself.
I have some unanswered questions, few broken relationships, some lost battles. But today, I have desires to be better, climb higher, fight harder. I am a human being after all.
But my mind says to me that it doesn’t understand the point of it all. Like a little kid watching the magic show for the first time, it is confused. It takes the extremes to convince me; he says there were people like Einstein and Hitler who did herculean tasks; made the world resonate with them and then there are people like me who breathe, exist for a while and then vanish into the unknown. Still the earth’s cycle goes on uninterrupted, people still take birth and die, and they still embrace happiness and fight gloom. It asks me: What’s the point of it all? What’s the point of growing and dying? What is there to live for when nothing’s eternal? Where’s the everlasting self?
I am speechless and clueless. I feel weak and want to cry, to surrender to the almighty, if He’s there. My heart is heavy with emotions, with love and dejection. But there’s a quiet corner somewhere in my heart that refuses to quit; it disagrees with me, it makes me feel that ‘God’ doesn’t want to see me surrender; he wants to see me burn in the flaring fires of hard work, to break all odds, to crush every tornado in the arduous path to find my answers. I close my eyes and see an unbounded and melting form of human in my imagination, challenging me to come to Him.
I want to laugh at myself, at the virtual world I live in; creating God of human form and believing in it, with utmost faith. But then a disturbing thought makes me stop: Isn’t that what the whole world preaches?
God ought to be more than that; my little corner of heart tells me that. Laughter breaks the spell though. And I can again feel my body, my fingers, face. I am again a part of the cycle. That means I can listen to music or play or do what I do best: I feel.