Doubts...

The joke...has been a long standing one at that. Is it getting stale or is it getting a little too serious for me to handle?! I am confused. I have to confront the facts soon...At least before it bursts on my face and becomes embarrassing for me and everyone else involved. Dont know if I will though!

My almost ruthless logic and reason says it can't and shouldnt happen to, of all people, me. But something else in me says otherwise!! Not able to reconcile between the two. I am realizing, not for the first time, why objectivity and emotion are mutually exclusive; one is lost in the presence of the other. Taking it a little further, one thrives in the absence of the other.

The bigger picture: Objectivity is my final frontier. But something just stops me from shaking away this feeling inspite of the warnings the sane mind of mine is giving me. One thing is for sure. I will soon have to wretch one of them out of my system or its just a matter of time before it will return to bite me in the ass.

Time, with its ever-present and all-knowing wisdom, I think will help me sort it out....hopefully....

A beautiful day today was

Its raining in the mountains. I can see it. I can see the dark clouds on top of the mountains. I can see the dark moving yet unmoving haze in in the space between the clouds and the mountains. I can also see the rays of sunshine penetrating through the parting in the clouds. The green of the trees atop the mountains shows in the light. Its cold and warm at the same time. The warmth of this pleasurable chill gets through to me. Inspite of all my fears and insecurities in life, I cant help but enjoy the scene thats painted for me.

I walk on....the black tar roads embroidered in yellow by the fallen leaves of the trees, the bright red of the small fruits of the trees. I can see it. There is a conflict within me; should I be brood ing about my own life or should I be basking in the warm-cold sunshine of this November morning....

The catch behind CATCH-22

Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another approach.

"Is Orr crazy?"

"He sure is" Doc Daneeka said.

"Can you ground him?"

"I sure can but first he has to ask me to. That's part of the rule."

"Then why doesn't he ask you to?"

"Because he's crazy," Doc Daneeka said. "He has to be crazy to keep flying combat missions after all the close calls he's had. Sure Ican ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to."

"That's all he has to do to be grounded?"

"That's all. Let him ask me."

"And then you can ground him?" Yossarian asked.

"No, then I can't ground him."

"You mean there's a catch?"

"Sure there is a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, that specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity ofthe clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. "It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka replied.

The Larger Scheme of Things

Someone said that a system cannot define itself completely. Yet another man (i happen to know that this is Douglas Adams!!) said

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

God knows who is true. Probably they both are! The point I am trying to make is that inspite of all the efforts on my part(not that it counts for a lot!!) , I am still not able to comprehend what I am doing here. I wonder what the Maker was trying to achieve when he/she/it added an infinitesimally small fraction of complexity(thats me!!) to the Universe. As if it wasnt complex enough already!!

Makes me wonder...what is the scheme of things that he/she/it has planned for the Universe. Does he/she/it control it at every moment. Or is it that the Universe had been set off and now it is just being watched over? I really wouldnt like the former. I cannot stomach the fact that I am a puppet strung up to someone else's strings. If it is the latter, what does it matter if a miniscule fraction of it goes astray!My doing one thing instead of another is'nt going to affect the rest of the Universe a slight bit. I mean I could have decided to not go to the school and go to the park and watch the grass grow instead and the rest of the world would still be going about its business the same way it always did. It does affect the Universe as perceived by me though!! The class that I went to today might just be THAT important class that could have changed MY world.

The conclusion being that one should stop being pulled back by thinking what the purpose of one's being is and should enjoy what one is gifted with. And I dont mean your organ!! I am talking about CONSCIOUSNESS. We should be happy about the fact that we, inspite of being a large chunk of inanimate matter, are still able to have a realization of self. For me, the fact that I am not able to fit mysef in the larger scheme of things is not a discouraging sign. Rather, it is something that encourages me to introspect,explore my level of consciousness.

I for one, am happy I(whatever "happy" means!!) that I am able to see the flowers in their full bloom, smell the sweet scent that the first rains falling on the parched earth creates, touch the dew drops on the grass early in the summer mornings, stand in the shade of a banyan tree and listen to the gushing sound that the first drops of rain falling on the leaves make,laugh, cry, feel love...to put it in a nutshell, I am happy to be right here rigth now!!!