pondering-clam

[pondering-clam]

me.

i mentioned in my last blog, that i don't show my friends that i am quite philosophical, and wanted to elaborate on that. that's why i named this blog "me". i went in this rabbit hole of self improvement, knowing oneself, shadow (which i will discuss in future) because i wanted to know me. the last 17 years i have spent were wasted catching up with others. in a community you are expected to think of what others would think before you act, that's why you tend to suppress your inherent personality traits, and try to create new ones.

you try to appear as a quite, studious kid, because that's what the society accepts, or expects from you, meanwhile you hide yourself inside, kid who likes to play with others, who wants to socialize, who wants to get better. i was always the shortest kid, that meant that i used to stand out the most (not literally), and people were not ignoring this fact. i was called a lot of names, bullied several times. but i took those as a challenge, i wanted to prove them, that being short didn't mean i couldn't win. i won multiple contests, became a studious kid, who scored consistently good grades. but that meant, i had to hide myself, or recreate myself. 

fortunately i was blessed with really good parents. who supported me from day one. my mum comforted me after every fall. even when it was all going downhill, since the last 5-6 years, she was always there to say, a slingshot stretches back, before it shoots in front. my dad always wanted me to chill. but he was also there whenever i needed motivation. "everybody wants heaven, but no one wants to die". a quote he repeated several times to me. every time someone called me something, bullied me, my mum and dad were there to support me. but i was a bad kid. i hid when i was bullied from my mom, because i wanted to take it personal. and after all these years, she thinks it's her fault. it's not mom.

i wasn't blessed with really good friends until recently. all the people i called "best friends" were just huge snakes, ready to take me out, as soon as they got the chance. many of my "friends" are the cause of my low self esteem, and low self confidence, because whenever i tried something new, they were the first to punch me down.

but i was also given good friends, who helped me through tough times, who stayed after all these years, and that's all that matters. and when i look back now, sitting in my hostel room, alone. i have always tried to create a face for myself. a mask. to hide myself. to not show myself. maybe because i was afraid that if i show who i am, society won't accept me. my parents ofc wouldn't mind. but that's why i have been trying to find myself. who i was. who i am deep within.

i want to reach out in that dark ocean, and pull that motherfucker back. but i may have been too scared of the ocean. i won't anymore. 

carl jung, has a concept of shadow. tim s grover calls it the dark side in his book "relentless". these are basically your desires, your traits that you suppress. without knowing them, without acknowledging them, and assimilating them within yourself, you won't be whole. i have been trying to piece myself together you know. it feels like in a big puzzle. i am only a quarter of the solution. rest is somewhere within me lost. but i won't lose. i will find it. that's my promise.

[pondering-clam]

love

what is love? living in university, seeing so many couples, made me raise this question. i am not that much of a philosophical guy in front of my friends, but i asked one about it. he said that love is a feeling you get by knowing a person. and i replied with so basically you are attracted by the other person's ideology, personality, and behavior, so at its core, it is attraction. he then denied and said that it's more than just attraction, it's a deep feeling. so that means it's a deep attraction. my argument might be childish, but that's what i said.

i think the modern definition of love is quite selfish. i think love is not what you can have for only one person. why can't you or i treat all people around us with the same care and love, we give to that one special person. i think the difference between kindness and niceness explains this. being kind means to be genuinely kind from the heart, being indiscriminate and treating everyone with the same level of kindness. type of kindness varies from person to person. meanwhile niceness, is just the appearance, when you appear to be doing some kind work, but you aren't genuinely doing it.

i don't know anything about love, but i have seen my mum loving me. i have seen my love for my family. i have felt my dad's tough love for all of us. and that's unconditional. my mum will still love me, even if i do some really bad shit. my dad's going to scold me and then support me if i do something wrong. they don't judge me for the person i am. they just love me. and i think, that's what love is.

love is the unconditional caring and treating people with respect with no benefits in mind. and we all as humans, should be able to love the strangers we meet in our life, the birds that are flying, the winds that breeze, everything.

but maybe, because of all the cunningness of today's generation, we have become somewhat skeptical. people try to know as much as possible about the next person, before making a decision of being friends or not. when you treat the people you know right, that's niceness. when you treat strangers right, that's kindness. and we should all be strive to become kind first. from deep within heart.

going off topic, when i am the most relaxed, when i feel the best, i imagine the scenario, that i am in a lush green park, beneath a tree, the sun is warm, and the breezes are cold. and i am just lying in the shadow of the tree, enjoying life. and that feeling is what i love. so, i promise, from today, i will be treating everyone with love and kindness. be that warm sun for everybody.

[pondering-clam]

i have been waiting for this moment for a long time. i will become 18 in a few days. but as the date comes closer, i am dreading what is waiting for me. but why though? why am i feared of the future if i don't what it is? maybe i am afraid that i don't have any knowledge about it. humans are known to be comfortable when they know what's out there. we are scared of deep oceans, because we don't know what's out there. we're scared of the void known as space, because we don't know what's out there waiting for us.

but that is what excites us well. being void of knowledge about the universe is what excites us humans to find out more. i wouldn't be typing this blog, if we as humans wouldn't figure out, how to turn silicon, which is sand, into bits and pixels. 

maybe i am excited about my future as well. i don't know what it holds for me. will everything be okay? will my family be healthy? will my friends be together? i don't know. but hoping for the best is what i can do right now.

being a 17 year old in india has given me a reality check. there are a lot of people more talented, more hardworking than me. but at the end, none of them is me, except me. maybe that's what makes each of us "individuals". not the genetics, not the body. rather the experiences we gather. all throughout life, each of us would experience different kinds of successes, different types of heartbreaks, different kinds of hurdles and problems as well. maybe at the end, we humans are just a collection of other's experiences.

your favorite song, is written and sung by some other person, who probably experienced something, because of someone. by this logic, none of your likes and dislikes are personal. rather, just what you experience from others.

but, doesn't that mean, we are more connected to outside, than ourselves. maybe all this, maybe the detachment, the pressure we feel today is because we are not tuned with ourselves. when's the last time you sat with yourself, thought about yourself, and your decisions? why when you make decisions, you regret them later? not because you didn't think, but because you don't know what you want? maybe the lack of a goal in person's life is what pulls us to an eternal rut. 

there are qualities in you, that you suppress since childhood, because you think that they are not acceptable by the society. carl jung called this "the shadow", tim s grover in his book relentless refers this multiple times as "the dark side". and both came to the same judgement that you are whole if you are connected with your shadow per say.

that means, we are so connected to the internet, we are not connected to ourselves. maybe the solution to your sadness, your problems, is in you. you just need to find it. but what do i know, i am just a 17 year old, undergrad.

this is my first blog post, i don't know this will be consistent or not, but i will be posting here. i thought about my first a lot, but decided to go with what i am thinking nowadays.