Commitment coming clean

Hi.
My name is Commitment.
I am here to come clean.

I don’t consider myself to be a negative word.
It is quite frustrating how I have, since forever, almost always been associated with negative actions
- Committing suicide, committing a crime, committing a mistake... But even in all this darkness I always had one beacon of hope – the role I played in a relationship.

But of late some people are taking this away from me.
I know I haven’t been the best of words.
I know I have been misused by many.
I know how I have unintentionally caused pain to many.
But I consider myself to bring forth promise into people’s lives, not terror.
I bring the promise of a new life.

I really don’t know when commitment and committing transformed to a word to be phobic about from being a word to cherish, a word to look forward to.
I was supposed to bring stability.
I was supposed to be the word of obligation, of trust, of not looking back because what I bring is only hope for the future.

Somehow something went wrong somewhere.
People all over the world are terrified of me.
They are terrified of using me in their sentences, terrified I might make an appearance in their conversations, terrified I might be their future.
What is it about me that people hate?
Is it the lack of change I bring forth in their mundane lives?
Is it the fear of looking back and missing freedom?

I have been used in so many negative aspects it is so easy for me to hate myself. But I love myself only because of how I bring people in love together forever.
And some people are out to ruin me.
These bunch of fools know they are in love but hate me because they don’t understand the happiness I can be capable of.
Here I am trying to come clean before you pin all the blame on me.

I am not responsible for pain and sorrow – you bring that upon yourself.
The lack of me in your lives will make you lonely, if not today then tomorrow.
Someday you will wish you had me earlier when you found the right person and had used me then instead of losing love because of your irrational fear of happiness.
This is me coming clean –
I am awesome only because of my role in bringing people together in happiness eternally.
The pessimists might think I am lying and that my thorns prick their balloons of artificial bliss.
The optimists look for rosy bushes all the way.
But the realists are the ones who understand me, the ones who know that without the thorns the roses are just not for real.
The realists know that I am for real – the raw deal.
I am what life is all about; I am why life is worth living; I am the hope for a tomorrow worth waking up to.

I wish somebody would stand up for who I am.
I wish somebody would tell these fools what I could bring into their lives.

I wish somebody would help stop this terror so that I might not be driven to ‘committing’ suicide.

This is me, Commitment, coming clean.
Now you know my side of the story.

Sinful fun

I have missed this.
I have terribly missed puking out my thoughts here.
But of late there just have been too many random thoughts zo0ming in and out that I am just not able to pick on any of them to actually puke!
And for a brief period I did consider the idea that I might not be too good at this – thanks to some people.
What matters is – I think I’m back! Just give me a few posts to warm up though.

I visited Europe!
Yes. It happened.
I went to Paris, Rome and mainly moved around in Netherlands.
Well, there isn’t much to discuss about my vacation except that it was awesome while I was there.
But now that I am back each and every moment there seems like a dream or maybe even a farce.
Lesson learnt: when something is too good to be true – it isn’t true!
If you can’t understand – don’t try, it is one of those random thoughts zooming by.

I thought I’d type out a few lines on one of my thoughts in Europe – a non-descript person did ask me if I would blog on it, but that has nothing to do with me blogging on it. If I were to follow the opinions of certain people my blog and I would have absolutely no self respect. And yes, my blog does have more self respect than many people in the world.

I am not very enlightened in the case of religions and their teachings. So if anybody out there knows more about this please do comment and share the enlightenment. Anyway, while I was in Europe we went to innumerable churches and places of worship. We also had lots of fun – lots of it. During one such fun day I was wondering if the fun I am having is actually sinful in the eyes of the Big Guy. Well I must say my thoughts weren’t clear but I clearly remember voicing my thoughts – big mistake.

So I was wondering why most religions consider activities of recreation, that people my age might succumb to, sinful. And I was thinking so hard I couldn’t come up with any other conclusion than – maybe the Big Guy just doesn’t like us having fun.
But then that seemed mighty wrong.
He would never do such a thing – would he?
Maybe it is because he wants to teach us about self control.
Well, that seemed very plausible.
But I don’t understand the whole self control prison. Most of the time, we just confine ourselves in these little boxes not even letting our best thoughts break out wondering if it might be morally correct.
Some religions are more confining than others; does this mean that some people have more self control because of the religion they practice? Does this mean that they have more trouble expressing their inner most primitive being because of the fear of sinning?

This post, honestly, is not my piece of cake. I really dislike the idea of blogging on this. Bu it happened to be one of the clearer thoughts I have been having – and yes I am trying hard to get my brain to work more, I think not blogging has made me an easy target for making a fool out of for the last few months – if that is possible!

Anyway continuing my line of thought – moral obligations keeping us from committing a crime are ones that I totally understand. But somehow, somewhere I think the Big Guy just went overboard while trying to make us good people. Now we are, in a way, suppressed people.
And suppressed people are ticking bombs.

Another thought that hit me was that maybe these ‘sins’ are fun because they are sins!
Humans, disgusting creatures as they are, tend to have a rush when they do something they’re not supposed to do. I honestly think men have this rush more than women considering the number of cheating husbands and boyfriends. But that is beside the point. Maybe it is because of this rush that some sins have become fun.
And if that is the case I have a wonderful idea.
We should make things like being generous, helping those in need, being truthful, sins. Every time a person wants to have fun (which basically always) they’ll commit sins and since these sins are actually not sins we will actually be doing something great for the society.
I know we have a long way to go.
But keep an open mind and actually think about it – it might work.

I think it is time I stop typing, before I commit blasphemy – or did I, already?

Spellbound

I read Les miserables when I was a child. I always thought it was mesmerising - one among the unconquered beauties of literature.
I came across this song very recently though - the lyrics have literally blown me over.
I couldn't have expressed my thoughts in a better way.

I'll blog soon. Sorry to keep all of you waiting.
My excuse - I just got back from my Europe trip!

I DREAMED A DREAM - Les miserables

There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving

Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hopes apart
As they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came

And still I dream he'll come to me
And we'll live our lives together
But there are dreams that cannot be!
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

*SIGH*

Nothing short of brilliant

I stumbled across this about a year back. Somehow it slipped my mind then. I came across it again today and I decided to share it. I think it is plain brilliant.

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it?
It makes you so vulnerable.
It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that
someone can get inside you and mess you up.
You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor,
so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different
from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...
You give them a piece of you.
They didn't ask for it.
They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and
then your life isn't your own anymore.
Love takes hostages.
It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the
darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends'
turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart.
It hurts.
Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind.
It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain.
I hate love."

- Neil Geiman

Critical criticism

This post is about a new theory I am formulating. So in case you did not like my post on my theory about conquering depression ‘Happily sad’ I shall save your precious time and ask you to read no further.
On second thought, since you are the ones indirectly responsible for me formulating this theory, I would prefer it if you read on.

I have not been blogging regularly for a long time now. The last time I did consider blogging a part of my daily routine was probably a year back. But the number of followers that I still have makes me believe I am still not too bad at it.
One of my recent posts was one in which I had put much thought into. It is very rarely that I can actually control my thought process to derive a conclusion. This particular post was a result of one of such rare phenomenon. Hence it was only human to actually believe that my post was nothing short of incredible. And much to my content many of my friends and followers thought so too. It was after a long time I was actually satisfied with something that I had blogged about. And then someone whose opinion matters a lot to me mentioned how it was quite obviously a terrible post. This is precisely when my theory took birth.

Humans unlike what most people consider do not yearn for praise. On the contrary, I am of the opinion that they yearn for criticism. Until recently I was of the opinion that all man wanted was acceptance into society. But put some thought into it and you will see this could not be further from the truth.

No matter how much praise or lauding a person may acquire a single word of criticism can make him wonder hard about what went wrong. And this, unfortunately, for a perfectionist like me can consume every thought. It does not matter that hundreds of people love what you have created or accomplished, it does not matter that people look up at you, what matters is – one person thought it was nothing short of shit. If criticism was so critical, doesn’t it make one wonder if praise and acceptance are critical at all?

You might argue that without the right amount of praise and positive encouragement eventually a person might give up. But I think without criticism a person will definitely give up trying to do better. Now, addressing the issue about ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ criticism – I am of the opinion that all criticism is clearly positive. It merely depends on how the person in question handles it.

The criticism I received from one person about my post could have been ignored but most people I know would wonder more about it more than about the praise. It is as if we are waiting to be criticized. I could have given up blogging thanks to that person’s point of view – but that is my choice. What course of action I choose to follow is solely my choice. I can either try to get better at what I do or I can give up concluding I cannot outdo myself anymore. The point is criticism is neither ‘positive’ nor ‘negative’. It is the person’s outlook and action that makes it ‘positive’ or ‘negative’.

In conclusion, I would like to state my theory: Humans crave for criticism more than praise because it decides their next step of action. And criticism is neither positive nor negative – it is just a realistic statement that forces one to crash down to reality and wonder which course to take – to try again or to give up.

In short, the critical nature of criticism is often forgotten. It is possibly the most underrated thought evoking form of communication that has ever existed.

My weapon

This post is especially dedicated as a warning to the person who told me my last post ‘sucked like all the rest of them’. I would also like to dedicate it to any frustrated overbearing moron who tries to irritate me in the future.

I am armed and dangerous.

Three days ago I was posted for evening duty. I hate evening duty. It makes me cranky the whole day. The torture of waiting for non existent patients for two whole hours, putting my social life on hold for sitting in a dinghy health centre, walking back to hostel to find all your friends have already made plans excluding you and most of all waiting the whole day for evening posting to begin so that it can come to an end – I really have my reasons for hating evening duty. The day in question was similar. I was cranky the whole day and when my friend offered me a ride back to hostel I thought something was going right – finally. Well, I couldn’t have been more mistaken.

Due to unforeseen circumstances he had to drop me off at a junction which was a five minute walk away from my hostel. I cursed myself for my brilliant decision but decided it isn’t that big a deal since my day had been terrible so far anyway. I decide to call my ‘support system’ for company and Voila! My phone battery is dead. One minute in to the walk and all the streetlamps go off – power cut. So here I am, after an exhaustingly terrible day standing alone in the middle of a ‘notorious’ street in the dark with no phone to call anyone in case of emergency.

As any other person in my shoes would have done I started cursing out loud. I was unsure whether to continue on the walk or to stay put. But a weird idea similar to ‘A rolling stone gathers no moss’ made me decide to walk on with the help of occasional light cast by the headlights of cars zooming by.

Two minutes into the walk and I see the silhouette of a guy walking towards me – very unsteadily. And then I hear him speaking aloud to himself – A drunkard.
When God decides to have fun and enjoy putting you through shit, He makes sure He goes all the way!
I can’t cross the street because suddenly the cars seem to be zooming by faster and the drunkard had very obviously noticed me. That is precisely when my brain started working in amazing ways. I put my hand into my bag and fished out the closest thing to a weapon that I had – My stethoscope.

I start swinging my stethoscope rowdily – and I somehow felt wildly similar to a cowgirl with a lasso. The drunkard in all his stupor must have felt the same because my current ‘avatar’ had made him stop in his tracks. He looked like a mouse cornered. He started looking around for a way out while I was charging in his direction with my stethoscope swinging wildly! With no other choice but death he crosses the busy street clumsily, horns blaring from ever car on the street and I just couldn’t help but laugh.

I had scared a guy using my stethoscope. Whoever would have thought of the stethoscope being such a fearsome weapon? The point is that necessity is the mother of invention.

Now, I always have my stethoscope with me – even when I go to the mall!

Happily sad

I just figured out what is wrong with the world!

Well, there are quite a few things wrong with the world, like females being females and incapable of reproducing without the help of males who are shamefully categorised into the same species as us but… – I sincerely apologize for that burst of emotion. I do not know where that came from. As far as I know myself, I am not a feminist; I hate all sexes alike (for those wondering: male, female and the in-betweens).
I guess today is just one of those ‘anti-men’ day.
Getting back to the point of the post and putting an end to my pointless banter – I figured out what is wrong with the world.

What is wonderful about me figuring out what is wrong with the world is that I also know how to solve the problem! I know you know I am a genius but this time I have really outdone myself. In case you have not figured it out already the root cause of all the problems in the world is in one way or another related to depression. When a person is depressed he not only harms himself, he decreases his productivity and more often than not harms others as well – maybe unintentionally, maybe not.
So this, in short, is what is wrong with the world.
Everybody knows what it is like to be depressed and everybody in their own selfish little way have caused harm to the world thanks to their depression. Figuring out this problem, however, does not need a genius to rack his brains. The real problem lies in solving the problem and not discovering its existence.

Being a doctor (Wow… I love saying that) you would expect me to prescribe a solution as simple as anti depressants to every human in the world. But anti depressants are a sham – they just make the brain squeeze out happy juices so that we tend to mask our depression. But masking depression leads to being depressed about being depressed, hence forming a vicious cycle.
The real solution, however, lies in being happy about being depressed!

I know it may sound weird but put those narrow minds at rest and broaden the horizons of your thoughts. Last night I was talking to a friend and I realized I have been in and out of depression for so long I am no longer depressed about being depressed. And that is when I decided from now on I am going to be happy about being depressed. The power of the mind is so often underestimated. For a determined person, set to solve the most disturbing problem in the world anything is possible.

Hence, at this very moment, I proudly proclaim that I am, indeed, happily depressed.

Being depressed is nothing to be depressed about. It is a part of life – one that makes the world stink. Try and enjoy it because when you do it disappears. So I hereby free you from all those depressing thoughts about depression. Live it, savour it, treat it with the same amount of fervour as you would treat passion and you will learn depression is just a way of life. It has been perceived in the wrong manner for so long that nobody now knows how to deal with it anymore.

So you enlightened few needn’t ever be depressed about being depressed. Go on and be happily sad because there isn’t any better feeling in the world than kicking depression’s ass!

P.S.: My ‘happily sad’ state has moved onto euphoria. Please forgive the nonsense.

My new prefix

It has been four long and happening months.
And that is exactly what this post is about.

December: I went home to study. I sort of tried to study and that is what matters. The month flew by. It is funny how you take small comforts such as homemade food on the table right on time and being woken up by a person rather than a jarring alarm for granted. I attended a wedding too. In short it was like a vacation, the only “tiny” difference being that it was actually my study holidays – but that isn’t much of a difference anyway.

January: I returned to my hostel a couple of days before my Final MBBS universities began – to settle in. I settled in pretty well – me and my friends went shopping and took extremely long coffee breaks.
The exams: It just kept getting worse. And the first exam was just average for me – meaning the details of the last exam is not worth typing down (not to mention how it put me into a never ending state of depression!).
Of all the exams one in particular changed my life – Surgery Practicals. Not only did I call up my sister during the noon break and tell her I am not planning on giving the afternoon session (Thank God I don’t put all my thoughts into action!), I also changed my idea of a dream job. I always wanted to be a plastic surgeon but this exam changed it all – now I have no idea what I want to do in life, again (Applause please!) – I am working on it though, sort of.
The only thing that kept me going during the torture period was the thought of having that much revered prefix to my name in less than a month.

February: I tried my best not to think about the upcoming results and I succeeded quite well. Home was fun, fun and lots of fun. Shopping with my sister for Valentine’s, disasters in the kitchen, getting sloshed with my sister and her husband, late night karaoke sessions made life beautiful again!
During this beautiful period I decided to boost my ego a little bit by taking the TOEFL. And it certainly did. Yours truly managed a score of 118/120 after sleeping through half of the listening section. I don’t mean to brag (*false modest look*) buy how many people do you know who can manage that? So, now I have a brand new reason for you to continue reading my awesome blog – it might help your language skills!!
Results: As always I was late in figuring out that the results were out (even after most of my friends changed their FB statuses to include the newly attached prefix). My results were better than expected (since I expected not to pass!). Anyway, the point is I passed with flying colours and I am, finally, after four and a half years of laziness, procrastination, fun and frolic a DOCTOR (Standing ovation please!)

March: My first month as a doctor was fantabulous. I was posted in a little heard of rural area with nine colleagues and we had a blast. Work was fun and avoiding work was even more fun. Late night walks, bonfires, barbeques and life threatening rock climbing – it was adrenaline all the way. At the end of the month all I could wish for was more of the same.

April: I am back in hostel for my last month in this city. I will be transferring home next month to complete my internship living with my currently lonely, soon to be engaged sister. As of now, work is scarce and boredom rules. I am trying to manage an anorexic look but being a glutton doesn’t really help. Also considering a trip to Amsterdam in the near future and continuing my further education in the U.S. – but that is still being analysed and re-analysed in my ‘Ideas that can change my life for better/worse’ workshop.
That is all that’s happening in my happening life. And with that I come to an end with banter – buckle your seatbelts because I have a few enlightening posts coming up!

Sinner or not

I have a splitting headache.
I am pretty sure it is because of my incurable insomnia (again).
My insomnia is not helping my studies either.
So I am going to try and keep this post short.
More importantly I am going to put my thoughts across – but honestly, from past experience, I do not have any hope whatsoever of doing so.

Today I was giving some thought to the seven deadly sins while I was waiting for God Morpheus to come and bless me with slumber.
This is not the first time I have thought in depth about the seven deadly sins. I have done so quite often ever since the movie Se7en released. But until today it was about why there are seven and what else could be appropriately added on to the list. Today, I wonder what doesn’t fit.

BREAK

Ha! Guess what? This post was supposed to be finished and posted more than four months back. Until some no-respect-for-literary-geniuses-at-work-morons conveniently interrupted my thought process.
Now I shall try and complete this post – the key word in this sentence being ‘try’.

I still have a splitting headache, I still suffer from insomnia and but I do not have any more exams round the corner (posting about that soon!). So I guess the circumstances have not altered much. For those of you who do not know what the seven deadly sins are, the list is as follows:
Sloth
Envy
Pride
Lust
Wrath
Greed
Gluttony

Now this list disturbs me.
And what disturbs me most about this list is (as expected) ‘gluttony’.
I am a glutton.
I love food. And I love food more when I am the one eating it. And like any other glutton more often than always I end up over eating. But this post, unfortunately, is not about my voracious eating habits. Out of the seven sins there are two which make a person happy. And I think these two do not deserve to be among the seven deadly sins.

Sloth leads to unhappiness because you don’t bother to live life and find happiness.
Envy makes one unhappy because you are too busy dwelling in others' happiness.
Pride makes a person, sooner or later, unhappy when demoralising reality strikes.
Wrath is unhappiness directed in a channel of anger and hatred.
Greed is unhappiness because you forget to enjoy the joy in the world and always want more to achieve happiness.

But, gluttony makes a person happy because food is a form of pleasure to a glutton and it never disappoints or destroys his happiness.
And, lust makes a person happy because (no matter what you may deduce about me from this) sex as an act has never caused unhappiness to those who enjoy it.
This is deduced taking into consideration that high cholesterol, hypertension, heart disease and sexually transmitted diseases are preventable with proper measures (ahem!)

I have given much thought to this and I cannot reason out why something that provides pleasure (even if overdone) can be a deadly sin! Gluttony and Lust may be considered a form of greed by many but I vehemently oppose this notion because a greedy person is never ever happy but a glutton is happy while eating even if momentarily and lust too provides pleasure at specific ‘heated’ moments. Even if these “sinners” crave for more it is only because they have experienced true happiness! And since when did the search for happiness in a place where you have already experienced it become a sin?

Hopefully I haven’t gone ahead of myself this time and have typed out my thoughts in an understandable manner. In short, as a glutton, I personally take it upon myself to oppose the inclusion of gluttony in the seven deadly sins (Lust just got a free ride).

Maybe this is just my being in denial about being a sinner!