I wonder again...

As we grow and time passes...I am forced to wonder and ponder over this one thing. What is morality? What are ethics? What is right and what is wrong? What is natural and what is unnatural?
Yes, these may be questions that plagued many a philosophers and thinkers. It bothers me too. I wonder about these questions as they come into play on a daily bases in my life and of all that I know.
I was told by one person homosexuality was wrong. I asked "Why do you think that?" The answer, though I do not know why it surprised me, was , "Its unnatural. Nature made man and woman for specific reasons and thus to mate in any other equation is against nature."
I was pained by this view. Yes, it is that person's view point. Yet the narrow thinking pained me. How does one grow older and never evolves? I did try to explain to the best of my ability and yet it fell short and the person turned away, clasping tightly to their archaic view point.
So I think who has placed these views in people? How does one come to the conclusion that one act is right and one is wrong? Who gives them the authority to judge an action, a thought a feeling?
If a married woman/man felt an innate need is not being met , they seize an opportunity if it arose, to fulfill it, will they be considered immoral? Most people are conditioned to believe that society functions in absolutes! Yet, is it? Wrong or immoral I mean? Can a person not love one and yet find a need fulfilled somewhere else? I bet the people who are members of Ashley Maddison might back me up on this! Yet thats what got me thinking on this train of thought. Why is it considered cheating or betrayal? Where does it say by nature we are to be monogamous? Yes, it says so in the the holy books of certain religions. But them who wrote those books? Men! Then it is thinking of certain men that decide what we should think is right or wrong not our own sense of judgement.
Here is what I think, we are born once. We have no idea of what came before or what is to come after. We have been given an individual brain for a reason or else we would have been part of a collective like the Borge. We are meant to take decisions pertaining to our lives, individually. Morality, ethics, right, wrong, natural and unnatural are all relative terms and we have to weigh our options based on personal opinion instead of something handed down by a faceless people centuries ago which hold no sense of propriety in today's time and age. It may have been good for the society at their time as it needed the structure and guidlines as it was evolving. Now we are past that and as evolution continues we need to stop with the collective thinking and really apply our own sense to the matter. Society will not disintegrate unlike the popular belief. Now I know some one will argue, then that should we let people do what ever they want like rob, rape and cheat others. NO! That is not what I am saying and if this thought has crossed your mind after reading the above, you should stop reading!
As long as it does not do harm to any other being, its not fatal to anyone, our decisions have to be our own, in matters that pertain only to self and has nothing to do with opion of others is where I am coming from. I am not asking to dessimate society completely.I am saying it is possible to maintain one's inviduality also in a social setting.Matters pertaining to the heart. Marraige, job, friendship, fashion, your own life. Do not be the sheep following the herd!
 We cannot view the world by the standards set by someone centuries ago. We must not judge at all. We have to take it as a part of evolution and learn to grow individually as well as appreciate the growth and changes around us. 

Do you know life is too short to keep up pretense?

Now here is what I ponder today...

Do we love for the sake of love or we hold on in fear...

Now I am not just talking about a romantic relationship...it can be any relationship is what concerns me....

We hold on to redundant friendships and relations...knowing full well that they do not serve their purpose any more. They may have started out as strong solid relations but as time goes by...they fade into a habit of a relationship. 

You go through the motions of talking, making the same jokes and aching about the same aches...then you part ways and wonder what you talked about. Why did you not feel the same exhilaration or catharsis you always felt? The rush of joy you felt when the other understood you in the minimal use of language. 

That is when I start thinking ..is the relationship still alive. Am I just holding on due to history and nostalgia or does it still mean as much to me as it did before?

As I metamorphosize so does the other individual and thus we grow in different directions and what once seemed funny and amusing is just sad and redundant now. 

Is it time to let go of the fear of being alone...without the familiarity? Is the sense of familiarity that important?
There is of course another question that then takes birth from these swirling dark clouds of questions of existence...can the love be salvaged?
That is a big question to follow the already pebble ridden path that we were strolling down already. The pebbly questions poke the soft skin of the under foot and the grit hurts to the point where we are forced to stop and take stalk. We are forced to rethink our path and think carefully how to avoid the gritty path.
Love is a powerful yet overused and tired word. What is love really? Is it being fond of someone to the point where you do not see yourself without the other? Is it the irrational chemical and physical reaction to a person or thing? Can we love without fear? Can we be brave to let go and more still are we brave enough to realize that the love is gone?
It may not be fleeting but it surely can fade. If there is a residue of comfort to the level that is acceptable and nothing else gives...then maybe we hold on. But not out of fear of loss. Not out of the dread of the gaping hole that may occur as the sudden vacuum created by the fading and subsequent removal of this.
I know most of us ...including I think...why should I let go? Why not let it be? Its not like its killing me? Well that may be true. It could be a something that exists in your life, just because you have it. Like that ugly totem you bought on a trip to the islands and now it does not go with your life but it is still there because you bought it and have fond memories connected to it. My only problem with that would be...the totem does not take away from your life but this kind of relations that are no more gratifying..they eat away at you. You will have to keep up the Charade and pretenses and the only question then remains it...
Do you know life is too short to keep up pretense? 

My hush...

What bothers me is the hush...
The silence...
Like we were just talking and in mid sentence you stopped...just stopped and I was left holding my breath...wondering...what you were going to say...if you were going to say what I hope you were going to say...
Then the space between us is filled with this uneasy quite that makes me sad....
I feel a feeling of gloom settle over me..I frown and my eyes mist up...
I want us to talk forever..with you...about everything....
Your loves, your passions, your beliefs, your disappointments, your desires, your ambitions...your quirks...I want to learn every wrinkle and every nuance of yours for the rest of my life.
Idealist you call me? Utopian? A die hard romantic? Yes...maybe...but this is me...the me inside wants to say hello to the inside of you...
I do not care what you show to be to the world out there...but with me...peel off that mask...that layer of grime you cast on your beautiful face to hide yourself from the hurt around you...
Yes...I see you...all of you...and what I can't see...I want to see desperately...
only do not let the hush get so long that it blankets every other sense of mine and fill me with the gossamer of doubts....
In the silence of the night ...when the world turns their face to the dark and their eyes clasp the sheer dark curtains of sleep...I wait....I wait for you to fill my silence.... the quite roars in my ears and I wait for you to whisper your thoughts and your smile I feel through your words and voice....
I want to reach over and touch the corner of your voice.... the sound that takes every single fear from me and casts it aside... sets me free of myself and gives me the courage to face my tomorrows...

Loneliness

Loneliness is not just a state of mind as some people claim. I think it is a physical condition. Not all suffer from it constantly and yet all of us feel it in some form or another at some point or another in our lives. Whether you are single, married, kids, gay, straight, poor or rich. This is a condition that happens to creep up on us when we are least expecting it and punches us in the gut.

It is not the domain of the depressed or unhappy. Though they might feel it more strongly then others.
When your friends forsake you for their pleasure. When your spouse does not understand why you think something or want something or feel a certain way. You feel isolated, alone...misunderstood...
When a parent looks at you with confusion wondering why you said that. When you are in the middle of a crowded room and there is chatter all around you...yet no one seems to be talking your language.
You feel alone and thus lonely.

The worse is of course when you are all by yourself and all your loved ones or whom you think are your near and dear ones are too busy to spend some time with you. You might be brave enough to reach out timidly, afraid of being rejected or ridiculed.If there is a lack of empathy it drives you further inside and the shame of being needy just compounds the loneliness. Thus you put on a brave face and soldier on all the time feeling the dull ache of the growing hole of loneliness eating you from the inside out.

There are people who say they are happy to be alone. I wonder, is it all the time that they are happy. Don't they miss a human voice, a kind touch, a warm embrace or just a loving look? I am betting they do and they sweep the feeling away, telling themselves that feeling lonely is for the weak. Isn't that then just their ego telling them they are not lonely? In fact are they not just suppressing the reality? Some people fondly call it manning up!

To achieve great things people have been known to say they are faster alone. If you are a runner I guess you are. But in all other things...I believe no one person can succeed, there is always another nudging them along or making the path easier. It could be a parent , a friend, a sibling, a spouse and in some cases your employees. "No man is an island" said John Donne.

'No Man is an Island'

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 

MEDITATION XVII
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
John Donne 

Explained-  Donne returns to his idea that 

“no man is an island,” indicating that 
everyone is connected to every other human being in some way. 

 Just as dirt and sand clods are part of the European continent, 

so too is each man part of the entire human race; 

the removal of a clod diminishes the 
continent,

 and the removal of a human life diminishes mankind. 

 Since every death diminishes the rest of mankind in some way,

 when the bell tolls for a funeral 

it tolls in a sense for everyone.

Am I a feminist

So recently I was asked if I had feminist views. That got me thinking...do I? Honestly I never thought in those terms. The fact that whether I am a feminist or not. I do believe in equality, gender equality. I do think we all whether male of female have the right to scio-economic, political equality. But does that make me a feminist?
A famous person (Emma Watson) recently said this quite well and I paraphrase that feminism by definition means gender equality but lately it has become synonymous with man-hating. That just won't do. I definitely know I do not believe in that.
I do think sometimes all the power and attention that has been endorsed to this issue has tipped the balance in a way. Women are striving to attain equality and yet are misguided in thinking it will only be possible by demeaning or degrading the masculine gender. Is that fair? To paint the whole gender in the same color?
I don't think so.
If equality is to be attained then a balance needs to be struck. The women have to rise and the men have to let go of their egos. It is like in any aspect of nature. Yin and Yang. Until there is a balance of genders, harmony does not seem likely.
I do not say this lightly. All my life I have met resistance and have been judged and ridiculed and under estimated just because of my gender. I have struggled with those odds but at the same time kept in sight that it was a male member of the world that actually gave me my wings to fly.
We just have to break the cycle of entitlement is what it is. Men are not born privileged or with the knowledge that they are (mistakenly) the superior gender. It is the parents or society as far as early education goes, who give them the values and thoughts that they are special or different and that blue is for boys and only cars and trucks are to be played with.The retailers propagate this as well.
  This gender defining activities are what sets the two genders apart since childhood and as they grow older the abyss grows and so does the gender definitions. Same goes with the girls of the world. They do not have to wear pink all the time, learn ballet and cook and play with dolls. If  there is a conscious dilution of the rigid roles and definitions, it will by itself  dissolve a huge part of the stark differences.
So the question still remains....am I a feminist?  

I am beautiful...you are beautiful...we are all beautiful!!

Yes, I am. It took me a very very long time to say that....and much longer to believe it. When someone calls you names and points out a physical uniqueness, it hurts. Just like you call someone fat, deaf, retard, gay, brown, shortie, skinny, blind, darkie, paki, etcetra...ahh...did you hear something that has been said to you? It hurts doesn't it?
Am I sensitive...you betcha I am. So would anyone else be who has feelings. Yes its called being decent, respectful and civilized. Now I am not asking anyone to be hypocritical. One can say what one thinks. Just be mindful of people's feelings is what I ask.
This is a much bigger issue than one would perceive. For one these are labels people give to people to make fun of them and some in the misguided opinion that they are doing them a favor by being blunt. Well, honestly these labels and name calling hurts. Don't we tell children not to call their peers names? Do we not tell them to be respectful and polite? Why? If you are going to go around calling people names? You think your child will hear what you are saying or ape what you are doing? Then what? They grow up and replicate a rude and insensitive society and continue to propagate such behavior.
It is not only a over weight person or any other physical short coming person that feels hurt. Have you thought of a beautiful girl. When you tell her she is gorgeous she feels good. But then any body randomly calling her Hotty, Sexy, Babe.... and cat calling and whistling. Does it not hurt her? Did she ask to be attractive. Most women will tell you they are shy and cringe at such attention. Now some people might say  boo hoo, poor little attractive girl. Yet, she is being labeled as well. My beef is not with just calling people names but also understand that people have feelings and those feelings get hurt.
Do not defend such people by saying its their culture, they are old timers, its endearing. Where will it stop then? Educate them. It might fall on deaf ears. It might be like banging your head on a brick wall, but in the end you have to TRY. By throwing your hands up and saying what can we do? Ignore such people. You are also passively encouraging such behavior. Break the cycle. Say no. Push back. Don't be aggressive or rude...by all means be civil. But find a way to let such people know that it is not okay to call people names even if they thought it was funny. It is not. It is annoying.
We want to leave this world a better place not worse.
When we look at a coming of age movie or read a book we usually clap and talk incessantly about how brave the protagonist was and fought for their identity and earned our respect. Well, why can you not take it one step further and bring the respect home? Recognize your flaws and at least try to work on them. Stop others from indulging in that kind of behavior.

There is an Indian saying by a poet Kabir-

"बड़ा हुआ तो क्या हुआ , जैसे पेड खजूर !
पंथी को छाया नहीं, फल लगे अति दूर !!"

Translation- It doesn't matter how big you get, just like a date/palm tree. 
                   Until you do not provide a weary traveler any shade or fruit ,
                                       you are of no consequence! 

Change...the only constant

We change is all that I know....
We must....we have to...
there is no other way....
we cannot stop it....
as we grow older....
we learn new things...we experience different emotions...
they all change us...
like the ebb and flow of tide...
our lives flow on and on....
but we are different ever flow.

What was once the all important ...life changing event...
in long time to come...becomes ridiculously miniscule and insignificant.

The only constant life that truly remains before it ends....is change.