Paintings and Idols

I used to watch this show on PBS. A painter used to draw paintings and teach his art on canvass. I once saw his program from beginning till end. He started with a layer of color in the background. He took his brush and painted half the canvass blue. At first I thought he ruined the painting because there was no space left to draw anything else. But he knew what he was doing. He later mixed other colors on top of the background layer and from that he drew mountains, trees, houses, birds, bushes and what not. The mixing of colors gave his painting a depth that I could never achieve in my 5th grade drawings. He was a master of his art, of course.

When hindus need to remember their god, they take a piece of stone and sculpt an idol. They hit that stone with hammers and whittle its details out. With every hard hit on the stone, it takes its shape. If the stone were to complain on the blows, it would never undergo that change. Once its features are carved out, the idol is then washed in milk and is worshipped as a god for the rest of the time.

Our experiences shape our character in that way too. When they happen to us the first time, we seldom understand. But one after another, they start taking shape. From those haphazard layers of colors arise shapes. From those hard blows arise features. From those unanswered questions arises a clear picture.

Time is an artist, and we are its art.

Absolute Value

I had been thinking about something for the past few days. I had been asking myself why is it that we often yearn for something so much, and once we achieve it, it loses its value. Last night, as I was going to check my mail, I stumbled upon a simple idea. I thought that nothing in this world had absolute value. I am not going to say that everything is relative. Rather, there is a supply and demand relationship in everything.

Firstly, the value of things is a subjective issue. I am not talking about how the value of a BMW varies from one heart to another. I am talking about how we value things in life as time passes by. A baby wants food, a boy wants toys, a guy wants a wife, a middle-aged guy wants stability, and a senile man would want peace and tranquility. Every age has its needs. Those needs only bother at that age, and not before or after. Its like looking for a parking spot during peak hours. The coveted parking spot means a lot when we need it. But if you visit the same place at off-peak time, that parking place doesn't mean much. Supplies are only needed when they are in demand.

It seems to me that before we get to a certain stage in our life, the demands of that time are already there. As old needs are met, the demands change and we have a new set of needs. Is there a need that never changes? Is there anything worth the attention of a lifetime?

Memento

In the corporate world, there is a thing called initiatives. Initiatives are taken to bring a much-needed change in the company. Recently I read an article that talked about what makes an initiative successful. The onus fell mainly on the shoulders of the CEO and the senior management. Companies initiate a change to fix a chronic problem or to mitigate an imminent risk.

Initiatives happen at a personal level, too. People often decide to change something about them. They find out that something is wrong and they decide to take it by the horns. Then the struggle begins. Of all the struggles, the oldest one is the struggle between good and evil. This is the struggle between our morals and our desires. It is between our knowledge and our impulses. It is between our social pressures and our chosen paths. It is between our minds and our hearts. It is between our souls and our bodies.

Its not that we don't know the problem, or we don't know how to fix it. It is the perseverence that poses the challenge. It is hard to leave the comfort zone and jump into the unknown. It is hard to resist the urge and be desciplined. It is hard to let go what we think we deserve, while everybody else is enjoying.

When I saw the movie 'Memento', I felt a connection between it and the human nature. Even though you hardly come across a character like the one in that movie, but it can be used as an allegory. Memento is the story of a man suffering from amnesia. He is trying to find out who he is, but keeps forgetting. So he devises a method of remembering by leaving notes for himself. Each time he loses his memory, he reads his notes. But how to remember to read the notes? You'd have to watch the movie to find out.

I just realized the connection between the struggle of the protagonist in the movie, and the struggles that we go through when we want to change. We do want to improve, and we do want to follow our heart. But, as the strong winds of our desires blow, an amnesia plagues us. We forget what we aimed for, and what we decided was best for us. It is like a storm hitting a boat in deep waters, when everybody loses orientation. It is when our philosophies fail and we disgrace ourselves. It is when we forget about the sublime, and stoop down to the sub-standard. It is precisely at that time, when we need a memento.