The Art of Trivializing

The first time I came across the use of this great art of trivializing is when I was overawed by someone or the other's achievements and was waxing eloquent about it. And my friend comes out with, "So what? He also has to put on his trousers one leg at a time."

I mean, yeah, there was a moment there when I was nonplussed, wondering if the only achievement worth envying was the ability to hold the trousers and jump into it with both legs AND successfully. Sort of like being a gymnast-cum-contortionist trumps all your physicists and gurus and Mother Teresas and what not.

Then I thought, perhaps, he was saying that the chap was also an ordinary person like me and, if he could achieve it, I could aspire to do it as well. That was a wee bit uncomfortable, you know. I mean, it is much better to think that the other guy is some sort of avatar which is why he could do it. Making him out to be as ordinary as me...well, it sort of puts the onus on me, if you see what I mean, to be better or achieve what he has achieved or be as good as he is...not at all a pleasant feeling. Which is why, I suppose, people find it easier to acknowledge the achievements of someone they don't know than someone they do. It is much tougher to see someone as an avatar when you have seen him from the time he was peeing in his pants.

Then, I heaved a sigh of relief when the real meaning hit me. The chap was saying essentially that it is no big deal for that chap to achieve what he has done. He still has to put his trousers one leg at a time after all. Which, of course, is a great solace. So what if Zucky essentially runs the world along with Bezos and that lot? When it comes to trousers...

Come to think of it, this explains this latest trend in fantasy books. I mean, yeah, just because they are human, I'd have assumed that they have as much need of excretion as the rest of us. But, possibly to avoid setting those chaps up as role models, books now have them explicitly doing so. On the 'So what if he vanquishes dragons and puts his life on the line to save other people? He still needs to piss and shit' basis, to make them and their works seem ordinary. Otherwise, I see no reason why authors need to go into such great detail about the functioning of the bladder and the anus. It's not like people fantasize and drool over these details like they do over sex. Or, maybe they do, maybe I am behind the curve here or being a Boomer or some such. Maybe the latest thing in pornography is people squatting on their toilet seats grunting in ecstasy. (By the way, there is that thing, this 'Boomer' and all. Shows the importance of trivializing. Ever see such a proliferation of newer and newer words to build people up? It is always for being dismissive of people!)

So, all that I need in my life to rest in absolute contentment is the knowledge that Trump and Xi need to visit the toilet like us mango people! Then I can say, "So what if..." and go back to sleep.

Passing Time

Ever since I quit working, I have been faced with one question which I have been unable to even understand, leave alone answer. I keep getting asked how I manage to pass time.

Strangely, in my working days, I seem to have acquired a wholly undeserved reputation of being a workaholic. When that is the farthest from who I really was. It was just that I hated working so much that I used to want to finish it off as soon as possible so that I could get on with the more important activity of leaning back in my seat, closing my eyes and thinking deep thoughts, accompanied by a snore or two in the process. And, as it unfortunately happens in offices, the moment people hear your melodious snores they feel the irresistible need to helpfully push more work on you, assuming that you are bored of having nothing to do. Bored? Me?

Well, that comes from that queer notion that a man without anything to do will find it difficult to pass time. Me, I never felt the need. I mean, why did I have to do anything to make time pass? The minutes ticked and the seconds tocked without bothering about whether I was helping them along or no, so what was the problem? I allowed Time to go its way and I went mine, so there never really was a problem to pass time for me.

Like I have had reason to say before, when there is work to be done, Time just flew by. I start the day thinking I will get around to it soon and, before I know it, it is night and I feel that tomorrow is a better time to do it than today. And so it went. Perhaps that's what Einstein called relativity. Time seems to move faster when you have work than when you do not. Maybe that's the reason why people keep asking me "What do you do to pass time?" As a euphemistic question about what work I postpone.

Anyway, I do have my pastimes. Since childhood, I have been addicted to reading so I did not have to search for something to do when I had no convenient office to thrust things on me.

But, yes, I never thought of it as Time hanging heavy on my hands and waiting for me to give it a push by reading. If I had, then reading would probably have palled on me. It is only as long as it was something that I wanted to do that it was fun.

After all, if you start feeling that you HAVE to do something, it starts seeming like work!

The need for ladders

You know, there is this strange problem with everything that we are told is priceless. Especially those things which you are supposed to aspire for. It is all fine to say you should try to be good, to be loving etc etc and that a content happiness is the goal worth achieving. But, drat it, the bleeding things are all so nebulous.

I mean, ever traveled in a featureless plain to a destination? You keep motoring on, with no sign whether you are actually progressing towards where you are heading of traveling around in circles or, like on a treadmill, running to stay in the same place. (Or, like me, huffing and puffing up the mountain trail asking the guide plaintively every fifteen minutes "How much farther?" Yes)

It would be nice to see a signpost every now and then saying "30 miles to Happiness", say, and then when the next one says "29 miles to Happiness" you know you are on your way. But whether you are chasing an improvement in empathy or in affection or, indeed, happiness, no such signposts seems to show up. And, whatever you think are signs of progress, you seem to be slipping down three steps for every one you take.

So, is it a wonder that you try to break down this quest for happiness into things that are measurable? Where you can actually work out if you are progressing? Like, say, money in the bank, ascent up the corporate ladder yada yada? Then you can say, "Ah! I was two steps up last year. I am three steps up now."

Feedback...that's the word I want. You need to perpetually get positive feedback about your progress, so that you keep at it. And ladders provide them. So, essentially, you shift over from a quest for happiness to a quest for success, and climb up the corporate ladder, a social ladder and what have you. Maybe the Armanis and Guccis provide pleasure of their own. Even if not, what they do is provide you tangible assurance about how far up the ladder you are...and, more importantly, enable you to show to others how far up you are without having to work it into your conversation.

Being good? Well, that's what gets broken down to rituals and modes of behavior. Have I visited the temple or church this often? Have I prayed or not every day? Do I eat this, drink that...I mean, easily measurable things, right? Being good or, even, just being is such a nebulous thing to measure. Easier by far to measure and control actions than thoughts and emotions. Not bad, as it goes, Karma Yoga and all (though that, incidentally, is more about how you mentally approach your life than just what you do), till it reaches a point where you decide that what you should measure your goodness by is in how many other people you have influenced or coerced into following your way.

Anyway, climb ladders if you will if that is what you think leads to happiness. And pray you never reach the end of it for as long as you live!

Paired opposites?

Having trained all my life, since birth (My mom used to say I was too lazy to cry, even as a baby, and did even that as little as possible), to idle and having honed my skills to procrastinate since then, I expected to take to the life of a retired person like a fish to water. When I actually quit, though, there was some savor missing in life. To my total surprise, I discovered that work was necessary to really enjoy the joys of idleness.

I mean, yes, I really love the idea of procrastination. The problem, though, is that you need to have something to procrastinate about. If you have nothing to do, then what exactly will you be putting off doing? The tang of idleness, I realized, is the thought that there is some work around which you are not doing.

I could have been one of those who enjoyed idling because others are working and I am not. But, still, you see, idleness has to be juxtaposed with work in order for you to savor it.

That set me off on an unexpected  activity - thinking! And I find that almost nothing in life seems worth having unless there is the opposite sticking around like a Siamese twin. Like you feel the flavor of success only if you have tasted failure before or because you compare yourself with others around you who have failed. (The gamblers by nature are one step worse. They want to be toying with the danger of failing all the time.)

Take pleasure or happiness, for example. You feel the pleasure of the views and the weather of a Hill Station. Do the locals seem to be enjoying them? It takes the heat and concrete jungles of your Delhi, say, to make you feel the savor of the beauty and cool weather of a Manali. Without the one, the other is not worth it.

Which is what are called 'pairs of opposites', I suppose. Pleasure-Pain, Joy-Sorrow, Success-Failure and so on. The one is not merely the opposite of the other but actually the other face of the coin. You need both to get the full experience.

You know, somehow, this idea of constantly looking at others, to check if they are worse off than you, so that you can feel happy about yourself is...yucky. Sort of sadistic, if sadism is taking pleasure in other people's misfortunes. Yeah, you are not exactly happy that they are unhappy but you certainly are happy that you are better than them, right?

So, I did what I do best. Postpone my own work. So what if it is only paying the electricity bill or buying vegetables etc which get postponed to the last possible day. Procrastination IS procrastination, regardless!