Leisure by W. H. Davies

I read this poem and thought of sharing it!!

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Thought Control

I have been grumbling since ages that I need to learn the art of controlling my thoughts that I want to be the master of my thoughts that I do not want them to go astray and that I want them to go in a direction I want. That means even if I am sad or I have been hurt by some one, I want my mind to think what I want and not to be pinned-down by the saddening events and vice-versa, that is, if I am overjoyed by some event, I do not want my thoughts to go into an utopian world, rather I want them to stick to their roots.

So, Here are some viewpoints, I have gathered from internet about the art of ‘Thought Control’.

Thought control refers to the control of our thoughts while traveling through the different seasons of life. What is life? The first stage is ‘Cry’. It starts with a newborn baby craving for his mother’s milk. The baby has a subconscious mind. He cries for a simple reason. At this stage one has no control on thoughts. It’s a beautiful world out there.

The next stage is ‘Play’. As a kid one lives in the moment enjoying everything that one come across with true spontaneity. The mind is pristine. There is no need of thought control at this stage. However, as one grows older, life takes its turn and we have the next stages, School-> First love-> First date-> First Kiss-> First touch-> Ego-> Break up-> Regret. This is when one spends an inordinate amount of time either regretting something in the past or worrying about the future and spoils a perfectly lovely present.

We do not realize that what is past is over and we should move on. This type of activity is a waste and does not serve any purpose.

The key here is to control our thoughts so that we do not waste our mental breath on either things that have happened and cannot be changed or by worrying about events that may happen in the future. Rather we should spend the time in learning from the past or in planning for a brighter future.

Our minds come to each one of us with a fatigue limit. Our minds can handle only so much of worrying, regretting, hoping, anxiety etc. After that we are just exhausted and do not have energy to focus on issues or opportunities in the present.

Sometimes certain words or actions of others hurt us and tends to rankle in our minds. What happens after that is we spend our time reliving the situation and keep getting angrier by the moment. It is very essential that we break out of this cyclical thought process and move on in life. As difficult as it is, it definitely makes more sense to step back and look at the whole incident objectively and learn from it.

We then have to learn to consciously just “let go”. The ideal way to progress in life is to conserve our mental energies and focus fully on the task at hand. Our performance and the results will be far greater when we do not fritter away our energies on regrets, worries, and hatred and mind games.

This is the true secret of success. We need to be aware of the workings of our mind and manage it intelligently so that our energies are always channelized to opportunities that require our whole hearted attention.

We have to conserve our energy and follow the dictum, ‘When eating eat and when sleeping sleep’. We should neither be too overjoyed at good news nor feel down in the dumps when something bad happens.

All these sap our mental forces and there is no energy when it is most needed. This active thought control requires us to put our heart and soul into what we do by conserving our mental energies in order for us to succeed. Finally as one of my favorite physicist Sean Carroll of California Institute of Technology puts it “The past has happened and the future is up for grabs".

Finding Inner Peace

Someone once rightly said,” The Art of Peace begins with you”. Question is how many of us actually try to find peace within our self amidst the entire hullabaloo surrounding us. Have you ever felt that eternal peace within yourself, that feeling of being totally free, that feeling of not being accountable to any one, that feeling of not fearing losing someone, that feeling of running naked on a highway? The answer is ‘Nope’. None of us has ever felt like that and neither had Rudy, the rat.

Have your daily chores ever been overwhelming? Have you ever pole-vaulted out of the bed looking forward to your day and yelling,” Today is gonna be a good day”? If the answer is an affirmative, then do not read further, this piece of text is not for you.

A rat’s routine consists of trudging out of the bed in the morning, running through the morning ablutions without paying much heed to the fact that poop has to go in the toilet and mouthwash into the mouth. The rat somehow manages to put on his morning face and to get ready, though in a slipshod manner. It is followed by a dash to his workplace, completely ignoring the importance of a good breakfast that could have kept his machine running till he will get to eat the musty food of his office’s cafeteria. The tasks in office are no more different, the rat is constantly under pressure from his peers and his Boss to meet the deadlines and moreover, the previous day’s work is still pending and to add to that, the rat has to manage his time for a tete-a-tete with his girlfriend, Suzy, the armadillo. He has to listen to her for time immemorial, to all her complaints such as not devoting enough time to her, not paying attention to what she says and all that shit.

But our rat does not complain as stoicism runs in his generations. No one has ever dared to complain. The day saunters and finally the rat returns home carrying a baggage full of anxieties and conundrums. Alas! He can not hang it on the tree in his porch; he will have to sleep with it. A sleepless night again! And the vicious circle will continue tomorrow.

Rat’s physical and mental health has started dilapidating. Rat’s 2 year relationship with Suzy, the armadillo, is on the verge of a breakup. Rat’s performance at work has jettisoned. Rat has lost his peace, which he never actually possessed and moreover, he does not know what went wrong.

Life was a race for Rudy, like one of those races in kindergarten where one has to run with a marble in a spoon kept in one’s mouth, only he did not know that if the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Rudy did not know that the marble in his life was his eternal peace and not the material possessions that lured him from the finish line. Rudy achieved the success by finishing the race, but lost the marble and with that the spark, the feeling of being excited and alive. Rudy is dead now.

Men Do Cry!

Recently I ran into a tête-à-tête with an old and dear friend and the topic of it was ‘Men do cry’. Because it already says that ‘Men do Cry’, so I am not going to debate on it, rather I will try to broach the topic with acceptance of the fact that Men do cry( I know it sounds sissy) and how our conversation went.

We do agree that Men are physically different from Women, but have we ever fueled our thoughts to think whether this difference has got any other dimension. Well, in my opinion, Men differ from Women in terms of mental and emotional quotient as well. While I will not discuss how they differ mentally (may be I will write one more post on it), I will definitely talk about the latter. A well defined definition of EQ I got over internet says,” Emotional Intelligence (EI) describes the ability, capacity, skill or, in the case of the trait EI model, a self-perceived ability, to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one's self, of others, and of groups”. So, it all comes down to managing and controlling one’s emotion and that is where Men differ from women.

Why do Men cry? Do they cry when their podgy Boss shouts on them? NO!! Do they cry when an impudent lout makes fun of them? NO!! Did they cry when they were fresh into their alma-mater and were bullied by their sophomores? NO!! Did they cry when chided by their mothers when they entered their adolescence? No!! Did they cry when caned by burly teachers for not completing the home assignment? No!! I reckon, if we interchange Men with Women in above sentences, the answer to all the above questions will be an affirmative. So, when do Men cry? They cry when someone endearing, someone they care for the most, someone without whom life appears incomplete and without any reason, someone they have planned their future with hurts them. Its not infliction of a physical pain, rather it is ardent passion, melodrama, sentiments or whatever you want to term it.

But why are Men evasive about expressing their deep sentiments in public. This is actually where we two differed in opinion. While he thinks that Men hide their crying because that is what we have been taught since childhood, my opinion here is that Men conceal their tears because it leaves imprints of their feebleness, it challenges their masculinity, it makes them vulnerable. What do you think? Why do Men cry and should they hide it? Also, Women, on the other hand are too expressive. Why? Go!