For once is enough

For many a times,
I have heard my friends weep,
They would like love to burn them twice,
It is but weary to hear such a thing,
For me love happens,
And leaves you changed,
Fulfilled, peaceful,
A new human being,
With love enough for a life time,
Or maybe forever;

And if it weren't so,
It's not love I may say,
Yes, I do not sound pleasing to grieving souls,
But then it is mine,
The perspective,
And that said once, "I love you"
And if really felt,
I believe you are loved for a lifetime;

Nothing can take it away from you,
Nothing can make it change,
If loved once, you are loved forever;

And once is all it takes

The Chanel Bottle & Shortcuts

Jenny's life was a little pressure cooker. It was full of A+, hard work, homework and everything that would lead her to Oxford. And she was good at it. And it the moments she stole from her parents, she listened to french music and got lost in her fantasies.

Suddenly, she got easy access to all the riches and fun evenings. A man who added the exact amount of fun that made her seemingly boring life fun. She got drifted apart from the Oxford goal.....this seemed so much fun. Easy gifts, Chanel perfumes, Paris visits......suddenly Oxford was not interesting enough and it was so much hard work.

A little girl she was but completely capable of choosing. The thing about our choices is, it generally stays the same when the nature of the problem is similar. There is no escape, we face our devils when convenience hits us. This man was not lavishly spending his well earned money. He did this and that. He visited homes and stole stuff that could fetch him a higher price. That he did and to that Jenny could decide. She was almost leaving when the man sweety said how it was merely liberating the old valuables as they had no value in the homes of their owners. He wasn't as smart as Jenny, so he was smart in this and that's how he afforded such Paris trips and lavish dinners. It was interesting and fun after all. Jenny made her choice, she stayed. This kind of fun and luxury never hit her before, neither did it hit her parents. They were afloat on the dream Jenny was having and it sure was so easy and tempting, it was hard to let go.

Jenny's grades started declining. She was a brilliant student and her teachers were concerned. They tried to advice her but her fanciful life seemed too much fun. She questioned for the first time why she wanted Oxford ? And surprisingly her parents thought a rich marriage was just as great. This is the shattering truth. It was sad to know, her parents hadn't had better plans for their daughter, all they wanted was the stable money. They choose the common man's tool of education. The girl drops out of school.

Her brilliance in a moment was worth nothing because she hadn't consciously decided on Oxford, it was what was decided for her. So she never truly realised what it meant to her. The shiny quick money was tempting but the source couldn't have bothered her was a clear lack of value. She compromised and forgot to realise the things we choose to do has a lot to do with who we are. A bargained rich man was not all, he was a fraudulent in profession and person. It clearly reflects when she figures out he is married and escapes when he had to face her parents. Note, there were multiple instances where he lied to her parents and convinced them falsely. It did the trick but the man never owed up to the truth, once again that is ironically him. She gets back to education and gets through Oxford by chance fortunately. However, we hope her choice is this time more well placed and comes from a will to learn instead of just treat it as a mean to settle money.

Yes, she had not seen Chanel bottles before and now she could gift some away too. But was it bigger than the depth of love she felt for her Cello, for her love for literature ?

The shortcuts are gorgeous but their life is just as short. The real deal comes the hard way.


-inspired by 'An education' Trailer below

New Age Love - pros & cons of the algorithms for 'best option' vs 'old working out'

In the last few years, I've read over some stuff and come across various people and their idea of love. It's true we as individuals have our perceptions about 'friendships' and the cliche narrows down when it comes down to 'romance'. I am plain old school, I've been in the grey and confused areas too but emerged with crystal clear views on mine thankfully. On mapping the thought process, I have noticed some commonalities and some logical flaws from them. I intend to discuss on these. This article is opinionated and conclusive in nature - which is mine. You may choose to keep just the patterns.

Older System

-Limited options. Lifestyle standardized. Moderate ambitions. Marriages (love or not) generally limited to restricted communities, if not, that took some effort in convincing. Love was a one-way street - marriage (life long commitment). Women mostly compromised a little more and spoke out a little less. Women were a little less ambitious and outspoken. Communication and expression needed more effort

Implication - We are agitated with the restrain in freedom of choice. However, concentrate on working things out.



Newer System

-Lots of options. Average exposure of an individual increased. Easily connected through social media. Marriages/Live in/Casual much more acceptable. Love is not a one-way street, it can be perceived differently and there's a lot of confusion here, a lot of the people do not know what they are looking for. Women emerged to be more demanding in terms of relationships and ambitions. Communication has become extremely convenient through texts

Implication - Dilemma of choice, reduced tenacity. Concentrate on convenience.


In an ideal situation, one should have the freedom of choice and the 'newer system' definitely gives one that and it is great. However, like all things, this too comes with its pros and cons. It can become a situation where the flights passengers debate on how to fly the plane instead of the pilot. What I mean is, just because the flight is carrying the passengers, it doesn't mean they are the best people to fly it. Similarly, just because the life choice is mine, it doesn't mean I am skilled to make the optimal decision. I want to retain my rights, however there is a major skill gap on the educational front. We glide through academics more easily than we do in personal lives when it comes to relationships. Notice the gap of learning. Our decision making is purely based on our past experiences - which will result in random choices and extremely bad ones. This is particularly true when various studies (conducted in Harvard) have studied most successful couples and figured out the major reasons of they working out was 'the working out mindset' and 'friendship'. Here comes the shift in mindset.

With increased choices, romance has increasingly become a mode of 'the better physically satisfying partner' or 'compatibility'. This is in contradiction to the major solid foundations of a long term partnership. If you notice the best couples around you aren't as much alike one another, they may be total opposites but they still work extremely well. The concept of compatibility can be a fancy giving a convenient excuse for things to not work. The point of 'love' is very contradictory to the nature of 'convenience'.

'Love' (monogamous) demands commitment, grows with trust, friendship, partnership and takes time to grow into anything solid. It is more of a mental decision where the effort is on working things out. Under situations of extreme chemistry and quick random acts could lead to a bad choice and end in extreme incompatibility. Signs of lust/attraction were mistook for love. Love takes time, always. Magic takes time - wake up! Ideally, there's no love that wouldn't work, as in love you accept the value (with good and bad) and choose to work on it.

'Convenience' on the other hand works on never settling and looking the best value from the other side. This is eased with ever growing dating sites, options etc. It's convenient to get married.....why would we put in the effort of actually dating anybody now? Here's the flaw, right here. The convenient mind set can only give you the best option, it is still an option. The real deal is winning someone over, knowing them and loving them for who they are. It also involves yourself receiving love as you are. Not impression, just the real you. It doesn't matter if you've dated 200 girls/boys, you got some quick first impression tricks - great! What next? The rest is based on a boring journey of getting to genuinely know someone and winning each other over, the serious stuff and the real deal. Through this comes emotional security. Our convenient lifestyles have already taken from us the skills of developing relations. We are obsessed with how ones looks, charms etc. The brownie points are in some real life skills like cooking, accounts, home aids, managing life. Outside food will end you up with cholesterol.....some boring things are important. The good news - learn it the unconventional way.

So, I believe, we are not using the 'love letters', the natural triggers, the calls (way more personal), putting in effort and working things out. There are times where one feels 'casual' is what one wants. That's your decision to make.....thing of the pros and cons. I don't see any investment in love worth it unless it chooses to stay for you, no matter how flawed you are. Love comes with a promise to stay, what else does it offer anyway.

This one's my perspective. The intention is educational, however a lot of this will be my perspective, so it may sound opinionated. Read to understand my philosophy.....doesn't harm, does it? Just to be clear, it may also seem like I am proclaiming pure traditional beliefs and supporting social hypocritics. I am not a rebel without cause, I am not dead against culture and tradition, infact I enjoy the intermingling, I only object to any differentiation in its basis. Otherwise, there's a lot to learn from each.


Reference
- I have put together a lot of this from studies I read over past 2 years.

Is 'Addictive Technology' really making us healthier, social & more ?

We wake up to our alarms, check our health meters on our smart watches, live in smart homes, socialize on the internet and we are a new breed of humans completely different from the humans a few years before. This vast difference in the 'breed' is due to the rapid growth of technology and its impact and availability in our lives.

Your neighbour's kid probably lives on smart devices much more than you and you much more than your parents. That's atleast a generation gap, in general, you can notice patterns of difference in kids within a few years. So, how is it affecting us ?

We are covering here, the aspects of how we've got attached to our devices so much more than our own wives (just saying-it should have been the other way). Technology's biggest argue is to be able to work more efficiently, thus save us time for things that matter - family, friends, relations, leisure etc.

Most people spend between 1 to 4 hours on their phones each day. On an average lifetime, it amounts to 11 years ..... note '11 years' of your life will be wasted checking mails, texting, gaming etc. We are robbed of time.....and yet more, we are 'addicted' to it.

Addiction dating back to history

A great way of studying how addiction works goes back to drug addiction. Go back to how heroine hit, why people kept going back, patterns suggest behavioural patterns which help us understand the idea behind it. Obsession is a thought one cannot keep out of mind. Addiction is an obsession with an immediate reward.

[A small piece of advice to some people who believe experimenting anything is always a good idea. In general, that would be good but you may not want to try that with things like 'heroine', earlier considered to have medicinal properties have ended lives of some great scientists because they were just trying it out (without the knowledge) and late couldn't resist. ]



How Addiction Works

'Septum', an area in our mid brain is known as the 'Pleasure centre' of the brain. It releases 'dopamine', the happy hormone which makes us feel a surge of happiness and excitement. The drug stimulates the release of dopamine and the after effect is what causes one of go back to the drug each time - addiction. The problem with drugs is a certain quantity of drug can cause a certain amount of dopamine stimulation and that reduces with time. Which means over time, one needs to increase the amount of drug ingested to feel the same amount of 'happiness surge'.

Addiction can have some triggers which cause regaining of addictive behaviours
-the old environment during addiction (including old peers, house, neighbourhood etc.)



Behavioural Addiction

Our pineal gland produces a hormone 'melatonin' which induces sleep. This is stimulated by red light and its opposite happens when it sees blue light. Our smart phone screens emit the 'blue light'. So while you go to bed checking your screen, you end up telling your brain to prepare for the day.....ending up with some useless screen scrolling.

Our screen addictions lead to 2 benefits -

• Dopamine secreation
• Emotional relief

Technology gives us behavioural addiction vs drug addiction. Drug addiction is more dangerous because its ability to stimulate the happiness centre is more intense. Both have similar dopamine spike patterns and result in relief from psychological distress.



The New Health Goals

Our smart apps have caused us to set new health goals and there are plenty success stories of weight loss, healthier humans and they are the good side of the story. There's a little catch. You may not have noticed, each day you spend a few hours obsessing about the steps you've taken and the self-goals you beat. Most of the time they are unconscious and driven by your smart watch. Most probably, you also donot spend valuable time on celebrating the success you get through the hard work. We overlook our own biological clocks, it was designed pretty well indeed.

Here's a case. A person said, "My fitbit thinks I can do better" with a prosthetic leg.

These goals pile up and they fuel addictive pursuits that bring failure or perhaps worse, repeated success that spawns one new ambitious goal after another.


Your life of odd 60 average years looks like this-

-20 years (education you were barely thinking)
-11 years (screen scrolling)
-rest clumped with minor milestones of 'monitored health goals', 'social influence goals' etc.

Where's the main stuff ? Weren't you dreaming of helping out the poor kids in Africa? Weren't you going to find a cure to cancer ? Weren't you going to make a dent on the universe? Weren't you going to fly to the moon? Now those are goals! That's what you regret not doing on things like 'death beds'.


P.S. These are a set of facts i've read recently. It is purely for educational purpose and to help you take better decisions. I have not set a conclusion here. I started reading this for a friend addicted to smoking and it made me curious to understand the triggers behind it. That however never helped my friend but I ended up learning great stuff ! I will put up more detailed blogs once I read more of the book


Reference - Inspired by the book 'Irresistible - by Adam Alter'

The real deal

Oh love,
You're the magic I never knew existed,
And you taught me,
Oh there was the fleeting passion,
We'd love to feel everyday,
Like a drug we'd gladly be addicted to;

And then we noticed its fleeting nature,
The to and fro tires us,
We slowly learn to live without love,
It's numbing and we grow used to it,
Functioning in a way and living with what's left of us;

And then again,
Sometimes when love does come around,
We're playing it cold, clinging to ourselves,
We prevent love,
We cannot risk and burn again;

The real deal is so much more,
The connect is so real,
Where you see each other's dreams,
Feel their passion,
Feel their vulnerabilities,
And we see mutual best interest,
There's trust, security, freedom,
Selfless and to be.....

There's security in love,
Not because one says so,
Because it is just so special,
Real love is a new avenue,
Where yes, you're still scared of the commitment,
But glad because the journey is with your best friend!

And that my friend is the real deal. That is all serious relationships are about. That is all we are looking for. Only sometimes we are scared to ask. That is all we ever want (well that's me at least)

I know that might sound old school, a bit too serious.....well it is. It's just worth it if you ask me. The rest will never be for me :) I guess some of us are just that way.....we know what we really want.

I hope she comes someday

It wasn't the first time I saw it in your eyes,
You had defied love,
Once and again,
And yet you would never say so,
You were scared,
And you needed someone to believe in you,
To hold your hand in spite of how scared you were,
I hope someone does it,
It ain't me, no it ain't me,
I wish I could wait,
Maybe I could and yet I didn't,
For we are the same,
Scared as hell,
Unable to say;

And I hope someone more sees through you,
I hope someone stays back,
Even when you ask them to leave,
Even when you got nothing to give,
I hope they understand it will take a lot,
And it will be a huge risk,
And believe in the end you will make it through,
You will see the light,
And you will fall in love one more time,
And it will confuse you,
Because you loved the first time,
And this time it will be to forget the first,
And the taste won't be sweet like number one,
It will be bitter,
And you will grow a taste for you,
A taste for her;

For that someone you gave nothing to,
Stayed,
And she knew your worth,
All too well,
But waited for you to turn into a new leaf,
Just for you,
For humans do that,
They can do so much more,
And then maybe you'll stay,
Or you'll want to explore with the new found you,
In any which ways you'll come to one same thing,
It ain't gonna be that good ever,
For she stayed without a reason,
And that my friend is selfless love,
One of a kind,
Maybe you learnt it,
Maybe you didn't,
But it'll always be the best,
The best you ever had the second time over,
And that's the irony with you,
You never learnt,
Maybe you'll leave her too,
You ain't gonna treat someone better than you do yourself,
I hope she finds her second then too,
And if I meet her,
I will thank her for saving you,
And I will hold her tight,
For things very few could dare to do,
And I will tell her about the last few times,
And I hope she can love herself again,
And she finds her second too,
For she deserves so much more;

The Run

It was my dose of adrenaline, every moment in life was a Run for me, it had become such an inseparable part of me, I barely had any existence without it. Sometimes a few moments in life such just the way you were made and it settles into our soul, it becomes our whole being and we define ourselves through it. That is what the run was for me.

I once found true love, the best of all kinds, no games, no falsehood, just plain love. I didn’t believe in it but then things happen, this happened too. It hit me hard in the face when I realized how much someone now meant to me. It was like finding a lost part of my soul in the world. She was an artist of various forms, free and creative. She could make art out of plain colors just like that and I could see it. Words stringed together to me beautiful pieces of poetry, each of them bearing such deep resemblance to the greys of life. She believed in soulmates, in flowers and rocks and gardens and dreams. I had long learned life was more mundane than that, more real and nothing of that was coming our way, we needed to feed ourselves. But she didn’t care. She kept her dreams in a little box and kept believing in them. So I visited them sometimes and soon enough, I was addicted to it, the hope. She was that friend of mine I could share anything with. The friend who was more……maybe the missing part of my soul. And yet, I didn’t believe in soulmates….did I ?

So, I let her go when the time had come. I owed love nothing, a man like me never did. My ties with human things were reduced to a nil. Cold and real I was. She asked me sometimes before she left what I’d think of the times we spent. My heart beat hard with the hope of her staying and my mind kept pounding with the dread of my dependence. So I let her go, telling myself it was the best thing to do. No wait, no sacrifice, no vulnerability. And the run began……run from myself. I have never let my conscience ever speak again for I don’t like what it tries to say.

I always run fast enough to keep my soul in my body but slow enough for the two to merge. We maintain a distance, the exact one and that’s what makes the run so special, it is the run, I run from myself.