joy to ego

Yo. Mental state is such a fickle thing. So many things affect it. We are unable to understand how it really works and how it affects us, there are so many variables. And its not like its in your control and that you have ot be aware. Even if you are aware there is very little to do anything about it. Because ta the time you are so consumed by it that even if aware you are helpless.

When you are angry, you know you are angry, you know it’s bad for you and the other person, but still you let anger take control. Then it takes some serious will power to control it. Sometimes the will power itself exhausts you and that causes more trouble. My god this is such a tough thing.

I have also learnt that mental state is also affected by the food we consume. For me – coffee is a big thing. Caffeine has such a positive influence on me, its amazing. It drives away lethargy and keeps my mind active and I like to do work. I genuinely enjoy the caffeine kick I get. Be it from a coca cola or from a coffee. Coffee highs are brilliant.

But like my lactose problem I have also seen a coffee problem. If I have coffee two days in a row I am jammed. I get withdrawal on the third day. I must have coffee, or I get a splitting headache. So I keep a gap of at least one day in the middle before I have another coffee. Now my body is getting used to thing. It now craves coffee every 48 hours if that is what I train it for. Man.

Now I have to keep confusing the body on the caffeine dependency. Sometimes, one day, sometimes two, sometimes a three day gap, nothing predictable and routinised. I know it sounds funny, even I don’t believe it but my body just adapts to this.

I get very angry with this. I am lactose intolerant which I have learned to live with. No complaints there. Life goes on. Then I realised I can digest certain pulses. They give me gas and the gas gives me a subsequent migraine type headache. Not very bad but irritating enough. Then, damn you, I realised that I can’t handle potatoes. WTF. Potatoes. Now this is the limit. No pulses, no milk products and no potatoes. And coffee which must be timed. I can’t be living. I am dead man walking.

The last thing I know need is gluten intolerance. Then we are done. End of story. Eat fresh air and love long!

The plus side – I probably eat much better thanks to all these restrictions. Less fatty foods and more simple nice food. This is a good thing – but that doesn’t mean I am happy. But the most irritating one for me is the coffee. I WANT COFFEE EVERYDAY.

Jasmine view on this is simple. Drink it every day. If you are drinking there is no issue. You get coffee everywhere; you get coke everywhere. Drink it and feel happy. Why you so upset. You only get a headache if you DON’T drink it. For drinking it there is no issue.

Arrrggh. I don’t know what the right logic on this is. Drinking it or not. On one hand I hate to be dependent on anything, but on the other, it’s a simple joy of life that I can have for myself. I genuinely love coffee. I don’t smoke or drink or eat crazy expensive foods everyday. I wear cheap 10$ watches and I wear the same jeans for years on end. Why would I not give myself some simple joys.

I think I should try this. Everyday morning pour myself a nice cup of coffee and enjoy my life. A cup of coffee can’t kill you. Still – my ego to not be dependent on anything comes in my way of adopting this life. I can’t get this. Ego versus joy. What must win? I am so conflicted on this one. Let me see.

joy

When we joined the gymkhana first we wanted Jispa to learn a sport properly. The one we honed in thanks to the timings etc was badminton. We also put her in swimming just to get her to learn it as a life skill. She was doing well in badminton as well when she got promoted first in the swimming batch and that decided her (till now) sports career.

But that’s not the point I am making. I remember one of the things that they made Jispa do was run up and run backwards on the court. Just run up and back. Simple. Get on your toes and run up and backwards. That’s a drill. Drills are important in sport training. They help you develop specific muscles and the build muscle memory. Then on the court it’s a second nature and replication of the same.

I have been playing badminton for long and all of it is self-taught. Looking at what the others do and thinking and trying to improve my game. It has reached a reasonable level but is now obviously plateauing. You end up playing with the same people again and again and then you aren’t able to develop your game. You have to play with multiple players in multiple settings to get an all-round feel to your game.

On the side of the court is a poster with the Indian legend Gopichand with different poses and explaining how to hit different shots. For the overhead smash one thing that I noticed that it required you to get behind the shuttle in a way that the shuttle is just ahead of you and you can then smash it right. It was interesting. I started trying to do that and it’s right, the shuttle then just flew off the racket in a powerful hard smash. That’s when I knew what I was doing wrong. I was being lazy. I was just getting back enough to get to the shuttle to hit it back not enough to get behind it. Just a step more… or possibly half a step more. That was the difficult one. It didn’t come naturally. That’s when I remembered Jispa’s drills- run up and run back. That’s the trick. Keep running back. I forced myself to run back a little more than normal. Again and again. And again. The smashes started going. It’s just a simple thing.

That’s the great thing about drills. Drills help you get the muscle memory right and get you to do the right thing immediately without effort in the match. I am amazed how simple it really is and with a little extra effort the game becomes much more enjoyable. Lovely.

These small efforts give me tons of meaning. I think these are cute things that help me get past what otherwise would be a mundane life. Our experiences around us make us who we are. We can go by thinking about the same old routine and get bored and exasperated by the predictability of it or we can get small joys in knowing that they can be improved or there is joy in the repeatability of it all.

Will I be a cynic with a mid-life crises when I tell you that don’t chase some great joy in life? Great joys are few and far in your life. My child being born was a great freaking joy. Falling in love with jasmine was a great freaking joy. Seeing my daughter win a race was great freaking joy. Seeing her lead the sports day oath was great freaking joy. But these come a few times in a life time. Rest are all small joys. Talking to her on various topics. Ganging up with her and making fun of Jasmine. Making the world’s best Paneer bhurji for breakfast for Jispa along with a coffee cup with oodles of cream is a cute joy. Running like crazy across the court and picking up the shuttle inches from the ground to take it across the net for a winner is acute joy. Giving a tough fight to the opponents in spite of being a weak team is a cute joy. Solving a puzzle with Jasmine or figuring out a product with her is a cute joy. Going to starbucks and ordering a pour over with milk and then asking for extra cup and some soy milk so as to get two for the price of one is cute joy. Writing this blog and posting it is cute joy. Buying a new pair of shoes is cute joy. Having a whack a mole fight with Jasmine with me being eth beaten mole is cute joy. Giving Jispa my old night suit t-shirt and then getting her ear lobe to kiss is cute joy. Fighting with Jispa over who gives the cutest nose kiss to Jasmine while she struggles to cover her nose in protest is cute joy. Talking to the trainee sitting next to you in office and giving gyan is cute joy. Rolling a tissue paper into a pointed rocket so that you stuff it inside your ear to get the last bit of water out of your ear after swimming is cute joy. Sharing your reading glasses with Jasmine while we oldies struggle to read a menu is cute joy. Putting cold cream on Jasmine’s legs or getting her to put cream on my back is cute joy. Giving Jispa a massage after a particularly tough works out in spite of you having a particularly bad day at work is cute joy. Giving a coworker a hug for no reason and not saying anything is cute joy. Peeling an apple without breaking the skin, in one straight flow is cute joy. Sitting in the pot and having one hell of a good download is cute joy. Finding a new restaurant that serves you awesome vegan dishes is cute joy. Meeting an old student who remembers you and tells you that you were the best is cute joy. Having a young friend tell you about their ups and downs and mental state just so that you know… is cute joy. Having a cool chat with your daughter’s class mates and just chilling around is cute joy. Connecting to a barista at Starbucks and hi fiving them when you go the next time, is a cute joy.

Beat all these bare cuteness of life.

The joy of giving joy is the greatest joy

Apologies for the alliteration but that is the greatest joy I see.  I may be a teacher at heart – I have tried to teach wherever I can and but I think the underpinning of all that teaching is that I am a performer. So two words describe me – performer (as in the arty types, the loud types, the actor types – not the top of the line types, not the excellent types, not the sales target champion type of performer). The second one is teacher. In marketing we like to put these in two different boxes. One is the motivator and the other is discriminator. The motivator is why need you fundamentally address and the discriminator is how different you are from others in addressing it. So when I think of myself – which word is which. Is the performer the core motivator or is teaching the motivator. Am I motivated to teach and I am a different teacher because I am a performer (I do funny things all the time while teaching) or am I a performer and I since I don’t have any other tricks I figure I get my audience by teaching.

Good question.

But I surely like to perform all the time. I have always wished and looked upon with envy at people who could play a musical instrument. I wish I could. I wish I learnt as a kid. The two instruments that I remember would always catch my fancy were one- the harmonica and second the flute. These are amazing instruments in the fact that these are possibly the easiest portable instruments of all time. you can carry them wherever you want and there you have your music with you in your pocket. Flute wins hands  down purely on the melody bit though.

Ever since I can remember – possibly since I was around 8 I would dream about playing these instruments everywhere. Just put them in your pocket and play it somewhere to someone. Regale an audience. An anonymous audience, an audience that is not expecting your performance. I never ever dreamt of playing on a large stage before a large audience. That never excited me. What excited me were the street performers who played on in the hope that people like what they are playing and danced to your tune. People who played for a penny were the real heroes in my life.

Art is a gift. It has no value that one can put on it. I would hate to price my art. What is the price of making someone smile? That’s why I love to teach where I teach. They possibly give me some remuneration that does not even pay my petrol bills to reach the place. But the joy of teaching – of showcasing my art – is greater than anything else.

Art must reach the common man in a form and manner that he can access it, touch it, be one with it, interact with it. when we won some award at my firm, to celebrate we hired a crooner with a  guitar and one bongo or something and we set it up in office. The office guys went crazy. They started singing with them, one guy took charge of the drum, the other took his guitar and the third (and fourth and fifth and sixth) started singing. It became something that was inclusive and not exclusive. We could have had a stage performance where chairs could have been laid to watch – but this way people interacted with the art and were one with it.

We celebrate Christmas and Diwali and then quickly put a cordon around the thing. You will see Diwali rangolis with cordon around it, Christmas trees with cordons around it, you will in fact see Santa Claus with  balustrades. Who is in the prison – him or us?

I want to break these barriers. That’s why the big mirror bubble at Chicago is what it is. It allows for people to be a part of it, interact with it and be one with it. It does not exclude but include. Everyone’s invited. All it takes is the first curious guy to break the invisible shackle and all hell breaks loose.

That’s why I love flash mobs. Flash mobs take the performance to the people. Thye can feel it, be one with it, it includes everyone into the stage. There is no stage. The performer and the audience, the stage and the theatre is one. It is a fusion of the opposites (a reconciliation of opposites), a burning of the curtain, that makes flash mobs so sexy and so engaging. The best flash mobs are those that are inclusive and interact with the people around. I saw this one today and I found it most lovely. In fact I went emotional. I wanted to do something like this.

This one is really special. What is different about this one from other sis really quite a simple thing. A child pays a coin to start something. She was expecting a simple small thing to happen. Slowly she is amazed by the width of whats on to offer. It took a child with a coin to start it. it was on demand. It interacted in some ways with the audience. That is what made this flash mob so special. Social networks unknowingly caught it bang – the headline screamed - “Best coin ever spent - A little girl donates some coins to a street musician and gets the best surprise in return. Well, that's certainly money well spent.” So there were many other flash mobs involving musicians, but this one was especially poignant. The whole orchestra can come in for a penny for a little girl. Not free – but for a penny from a girl. Sometimes – a penny can be better than free. Most marketers would disagree!

The joy of giving joy is the greatest joy!