Happiness
Wealth and
Power
Are innate
They cannot be acquired from the world.
They are hidden in three capacities
Within you:
Dedication
Sacrifice and
Service.
Read Between The Lines
Read between the lines
To know that every story
Is a tale of love or loss or achievement;
And like with everything
That is told or expressed
There is feeling…hope…intention
And a desire to be heard
And understood.
Sustenance for the individual
Depends on validation
And a pronouncement of self
In a world that can be cruel
In its ignorance of that
Which can’t be seen, heard or felt
Even if it occupies the same vastness
In which love and loss
Hope and despair
Everything and nothing
Coexist.
The story you must remember,
Is only that which you can at present-
Understand.
Be Discreet
Be discreet
About your feelings
Not everyone is connected with you.
Be discreet
About your opinions
They may belittle someone’s cherished values.
Be discreet
About sharing your joys
Not everyone has the heart-space to accommodate them.
Be discreet
About your wins
They may make someone feel like a loser.
Be discreet
About your losses.
They may allow someone to exploit your vulnerabilities.
Be discreet
About your power
Its potency is lost on exposure.
Be discreet
About your world…
Because you don’t live in it; it lives within you.
#Ten Year Challenge
It’s never too late…
Nor too early
To review your actions
And set them on a course
Of a meaningful life
Meaningfulness…
Is conscious and purposeful living
Where your actions
Are a Systematic Investment Plan
That will yield a freedom
That is whole, independent
Fearless and courageous
Full of faith and confident
Cheerful and kind.
It’s a Zero-sum Game
Celebrate gain if you must
But remember that
It’s but a shadow…
An indication
Of a loss coming.
Partiality is man’s hope from cleverness
But existence is always whole
Intelligence will get you what you want
But your wisdom will reveal
That it was never your need.
What an amazing thing to learn from life…
That neither gain nor loss
Can be a measure of your worth
Because they are two sides
Of the same coin.
They don’t add up
They don’t take away…
Their fifty-fifty chances
Are nothing more than
A zero-sum game.
The Ritual
Our everyday has become
A joyous never-ceasing
Repetition of the same pattern.
We wake up
At different timings
Me before you
And in the strange assurance of that
I’ve noticed
You sleep even more soundly.
That makes me smile
I tread over the cold floors of our room
Softly, so as not to disturb your snooze.
You sleep through
My repeated opening and shutting of doors
Of packing my bags…
And then sleepily
Grip my hand
And give me your cheek
For that seal of a kiss
Knowing well that even as I’m leaving the house
I’m not leaving us…
That’s the great thing about patterns
They work in sync, symphony
And revel in simple predictability.
Irony
Life is a mystery…
And that is the cliché
I use to describe
My confounding experience of it.
That’s the irony
Of life
That I depend on the dead
To help me understand the living…
What if I gave up this strife…?
Would my not-knowing
Be any less
Than it is now?
I’m beginning to see
How acceptance
Is moral and complete
And how it immediately harmonizes…
Perhaps there’s wisdom and beauty
In dwelling in the silence
And not soliciting the overused
To speak about it.
When things can be said
How much more eloquent
Would it be
To not say them.
A Drawing in Still Waters
What is a poem
If not a reflection
Of the mystery of my being
How can I claim authorship
Or even meaningful intent
When my own existence is
Like a drawing in still waters.
Knowledge is Faith
The only thing I know for certain
Is that I’m a partial being.
I fly with one wing
And yet a higher knowledge
Tells me that
Such a thing is impossible…
Then why can’t I see or feel
My other wing?
What else
Does this higher knowledge know?
How do I come to know
What it knows?
Why am I numb
To its existence?
I contemplate this Higher Knowledge
And I come to see Silence…
Words lose their voice
Their sounds dim into the distance.
I stand detached, dismembered
From the thoughts that were my breath
I now understand
That it’s their charm
I must reject
And their stories I must exit
I must do this knowingly
In the faith that I have another wing…
I will continue to fly.
The Elite
I live in a mental asylum
With shadows for company
So powerful are my shadow-friends
That they’ve erected the walls
Of my asylum
For their existence
In its confinement
I yearn for friendship and company
Even if it is of the Unreal
The shadows beckon me to listen
Their amorphous forms speak in booming voices
That echo and resonate.
Their thoughts agree with my thoughts
That’s why we are friends…
We jog together in 10000-word dissertations
Or tickle each other with 140-character tweets
And I feel accomplished
That I now have friends in high places…
I now speak their slang
And their concerns
Are my concerns
Their outrage is my outrage
Happiness lies in the camaraderie
Between one bubble and another.
When you burst my bubble
I stand vacant
Alone in my madness…
And with this painful awareness
That I can’t see, or hear, or feel anyone
Outside of the thick walls
Of my mental asylum.
I have been shut in
To be protected from any contact with the breathing…
My walls are thick, impenetrable and safe
My shadow-friends erected them so that they could play
And oh yes, my walls have names
Please meet: Ideology. Fear. Pain. Self-loathing.
Wit. Wisdom. Wonder... 