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Life, Lost In Living - by Sundar Srinivasan

By - 6:47 AM Monday 26 December 2005

A friend was recently sharing a tragic observation he had made. During his college days, he used to love music and he scrimped and saved to get a walkman for about 1000 bucks .

But he cherished his moments with Madan Mohan and others through that chotta dabba.Life has seen him scale great heights in his career and he is on the very high side of the personal networth charts.Between him and his wife there are few things that they cannot afford. He actually has some of the best audio systems at various locations across the city and abroad that he has managed to acquire for himself.
But, something inside him which used to respond to Madan Mohan et al is not ticking anymore..
Sad but true....a very high price has been paid by him ......in preparing to live some day, he has lost the moment....

Similarly, the head of a family plans a long overdue holiday...appropriate brochures collected..bookings made....the family heads for Kanyakumari. The brochure talks of the lovely sunrise that can be seen from there.The hotel staff wakes up the family for the celestial appointment.
The sun does not disappoint..it arrives on schedule...but where is that moment of awe....dryness within..death of the capacity to enjoy the sun's majestic rise....However, the pretenses have to be kept up..the brochure says it has to be enjoyed....so everyone talks about it....it is the social protocol...

In the same way, love-making and its nuances are not an activity that intrinsically contain the seeds of joy within them.The capacity to enjoy lies within.It does not matter whether one is fat or thin, young or old...Needs may vary at different stages in life,they are also very person specific.What one finds attractive is purely a matter of perspective...

The key lies in acceptance of ourselves as we are and to operate from there; to be cetred there.When we are aware, we do not mechanically "react" we learn to "respond".When we are comfortable with being ourselves, with our fears , our hatreds, our resentments, our lack of feeling within and so on, we are able to evolve.When we reject ourselves, we inhibit our growths, our flowering.

We have to see that most of us hate ourselves.

And therein lies the key to a million locks within ourselves.We need not do anything, infact, i feel we cannot do anything about the people we are deep down.We may pretend to be otherwise, wear our masks."Seeing" ourselves as we are is critical. It demands integrity.
It can be painful, but it is also priceless...It is the platform of evolution.

Where is the life we have lost in living?

Posted By - 6:47 AM Monday 26 December 2005

Comments

Good Morning Sundar
An 'aha' post to wake up to. Indeed you have summed it all quite simply and concisely. Without being able to live the moment we collect a hundred years of trudging, dragging, whining days and years always in wait for when it will all come together for us. And indeed as numerous masters have repeated ad nauseum, time has only any meaning in the moment lived completely. And for that one needs to be with oneself completely. And you are so right that the only thing that stands between us and our sex appeal, us and our ecstasy, us and our creativity is the fear and self-loathing we carry like an ever-growing burden. And without addressing that truly all is lost that should be called 'living'

Thank You for your precious insights

Posted by

Jasjit

on December 26, 2005 07:55 AM

Dear Sundar,

How wonderfully put! It is always the "first" or the nascant state of anything that makes it the most pure, innocent and beautiful. The first kiss, the first time one experiences sexual pleasures, the first boyfriend/girlfriend, so on and so forth ... for it is then that one enjoys the experience for what it is, without any judgements and fears. As you talked about your friend who lost those moments of sheer joy when he listened to the music of Madan Mohan, in the same way, we lose the sheer joy of all sexual activities as life moves on and becomes mechanical. Sex also then just becomes a mere act, a biological need or may be even just a social standard to live upto!

In my view, the reason why this whole degeneration happens, could be due to the fact that somewhere in our preparation to live someday (as you so rightly said), we lose the "child" within us, who knew what made HIM happy, irrespective of what the world outside thinks of him. I have friends who are married and each one of them (without a single exception) has expressed this to me that they would give anything to go back to the college days or school days. Life has stagnated for some, while for others, it has the pace of a cheetah. But, whatever the case, the bottomline remains that they are all unhappy about the helplessness they feel in the situation. The frustration that creeps up every now and then and says, "Is this really the life that I wanted to live?".

Well, I guess its tough to maintain the rhythm of life just the way we want to. But is it really a mission impossible?

Posted by

Shubhosree

on December 26, 2005 10:17 AM

"In the same way, love-making and its nuances are not an activity that intrinsically contain the seeds of joy within them".

Beautifully said Sundar. I think there is a general conception that sex in and of itself is the solution to all kinds of things....stress, frustration, anger, intimacy, love....and that is so not true. The quality of sex is what matters the most and i think that once you bring quality into sex you are most likely to transcend sex altogether or atleast not pursue it as the end all and be all. I guess if we all could live in teh moment we would have no time to worry about the future or be lost in dreams of the past.
Thank you for this piece.

Posted by

kranti

on December 26, 2005 11:51 AM

Very well said Sundar.

Posted by

Anusheh

on December 26, 2005 03:33 PM

Life, Lost In Living - by Sundar Srinivasan

By - 6:47 AM Monday 26 December 2005

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