Paulo Coelho : The Interview

You can follow this link to read an interesting interview of Paulo Coelho.
http://www.egothemag.com/archives/2005/04/paulo_coelhos_m.htm

Paulo Coelho : The Influence

They are only a cluster of words. But they churn my mind to spill out hidden memories, familiar feelings and hidden meanings. They hook me irrespective of the time and place, to mull over and over wondering how it is what it is.

He hits me every time and hits me at the right thought. He is Paulo Coelho, my favourite author. Some of his books that I read and liked:

The Alchemist

By the river Piedra, I sat down and wept

The Zahir

Veronica decides to die

The Witch of Portobello

I say to my friends: He must be really mad to write this kind of stuff. No wonder his family sent him to the mental asylum twice. Hmm… we connect very well.

Here are few lines from the book “The Witch of Portobello” that hooked my mind for quite sometime.

No one lights a lamp in order to hide it behind the door :
The purpose of light is
to create more light,
to open people's eyes,
to reveal the marvels around

Don’t confuse the teacher with the lesson, the ritual with the ecstasy, the transmitter of the symbol with the symbol itself.

What is a teacher? I'll tell you: it isn't someone who teaches something, but someone who inspires the student to give of her best in order to discover what she already knows.

The light is unstable, the wind blows it out, the lightning ignites it, It is never simply there, shining like the sun, but it is worth fighting for

Faith is not desire. Faith is will. Desires are things that need to be satisfied, whereas Will is a force. Will changes the space around us. But for that, you also need desire.

Inspire and Conspire

Just as i was publishing the post below, my dualite friend had come to ask me some doubts in Microelectronics. I never prepared for my tuts and tests when i actually had to prepare. But when she asked me doubts, I was feeling so motivated. After she goes out satisfactorily, i feel.... ah! this is the spirit. But what's the use of it all... if i cant pursue it? Pls Universe... conspire to give me the right thing... i think you know me the best... even more than myself.

Passion and Productivity

I always enjoyed working. The struggle where I get all my senses to work on a common goal stimulates every nerve and vein in my body. But right now, there is nothing which I am so motivated about. I am not sure if I would lack the interest in do something I am confident about. But without starting, how would I ever be confident? It is a vicious circle. I doubt if planning to overcome this lack of enthusiasm would take me anywhere. How long would I have to wait to know what I am interested in? But even if get to know my interest, now that I have already finished my bachelors, isn't it too late?

One thing which gets my energies up is doing something on my own. I am a person who would hold on to my values and try to create something useful, not just for my own good, but for the common good of the society. But what is the use of just speaking or thinking about it. It is important for me to start doing something. But I need an idea and some support. I started discussing this with my grandfather. He doesn't even remotely think it is possible. They are people who prefer a safe life. But I don’t think I would agree with them that educational qualifications make you a successful person. What is the point in getting random education when you are not going to pursue that field? I don’t find any point in it. As far as work culture is concerned, you could yourself set a benchmark by learning from your experience. I don’t really think you need to be in an educational institution for that. At least I don’t understand the meaning in doing a course in management. I think it would suit me more to start off something on my own. I think that is the only thing that could re-kindle my passion for life. Productivity. (Well… I really need to give myself a thought…. After all I am just blogging right now… productivity... really?

A cinderella Story

I should tell ya. I was so addicted to “A Cinderella Story" that I had watched the movie a minimum of 30 times in the last week... Well... the movie is sweet and romantic... as you expect... But I think it’s the concept of a Prince Charming who would swoop you off your feet into the world of love... Finally to "live happily ever after" that really fascinates me. Ah... thanks to the good music, I spent decent amount of time dreaming.. Well.. Michael Chad Murray didn't do a lesser job either.. Head over heals for you.. so in love with you.. :)

Erase Memory!

I first came across the idea of getting memory erased in the movie 'Paycheck’. There, the concept is introduced in a corporate scenario, where companies avoid the divulgence of confidential information such as, the innovation behind their products by erasing off the memory of employees leaving their projects. The story is about a scientist who saves the world from his own invention, a machine which shows you your future and also how he gets his girl. But then how would he remember his mission once his memory is erased? For this, he leaves himself some clues. The company he was working for, erases his memory at the end of the contract period. He is penny less and clueless about his current scenario and is just left with a handful of random stuff. He deciphers that he has some connection with them. He pursues the mystery behind the clues that he left for himself. Finally, it is shown that with willpower and smart usage of our brain, we can overpower technology. Impressive. About getting memory erased, you work hard and accomplish gr8 things. Forget about taking pride in your achievements, what is the use of it all, when you don’t even remember starting off working on it. Of course, you do get money to live.

‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind’ deals with the same concept of erasing memory from your brain from an emotional perspective. The guy here comes to know that his impulsive girl friend got the memory of him erased from her brain coz he hurt her. He then meets the doctor to do the same, get his brain erased of her memory. But during the procedure he realizes that he wouldn't want to lose the emotions of the time that he spent with her. He tries to resist the erasure. Finally he could only help himself to create an emotion which would drive him to a place where they spent good time together before. By the way, the girl by now realized that she was missing something in the life that she started afresh and reaches the same place. Eventually, they meet each other afresh; neither of them remembers anything about their past but fall in love yet again! Both of them feel the connection. It could be the psychic connection that the girl keeps talking about. Whatever it is, the question is... is it all over and brand new, if one gets the memory erased? How does one feel like without feelings left about a part of one's life? Isn't a chunk of your life missing? Imagine yourself not remembering anything from your past. There's jus no effect of that part of life on the rest.

Finally, the way our mind works, sort of awes me. What is our mind made of? What is it that makes the person that u r? Anyways, so what will I be if I get a memory erasure done is my question. Say I forget all about incidents where I was hurt in the past. All the incidents, where I, who lived without my parents, was left alone to face on my own, say are gone. What if I forget about the pain that I ever suffered? What if my grandfather who was my best friend, who had nursed me as a baby, took good care of my life all through, who values me and makes me feel good about love in life is erased out? What will I be from tomorrow? Will I still be a strong girl who doesn't expect others to stand for me, to hold on to my values? Will I still be an independent girl who doesn't expect others to help me out? Will i still be an enduring person who takes in pain to help out people? Will I still be an empathetic person?

Sometimes you keep failing. Yet you are perennially confident. Where does that confidence come from? Sometimes you are always successful, but not happy. Sometimes, whatever you have or not, you are happy. Where do all these characteristics in different people come from? We might call it 'learning' from the past. But conversely, the path that you traverse ahead in your life might not be the same path that u have taken in your past. In that case, why do you really need to follow the strategy that you have learnt from the past? So you can go ahead without any memory of the past, is it? I don’t know. But for the present, I think, I would be comfortable feeling my feet on the ground, remembering everything that I have gone through in life and learn as much as I can from it. By the way I am scared even to go to an eye specialist to get my eyes checked. So I don’t consider myself strong enough to visit a brain doctor! Considering that it would be a long way ahead for such a thing to come up thoroughly, I think I still have decent time to think about it. Anyway, who knows what I will be and how much I care about my past in the next minute? There’s even my favourite line : “ Everything is for our own good” and sometimes God knows it better than us. So jus take in what happens to you. Quoting Steve Jobs from his Stanford speech : “You can only connect the dots backwards”. So lets jus live happily ever after!

Purpose of Life?

The only topic that decently stuck on to my mind, as a matter of fact, for ever, since i started remembering stuff is about 'The purpose of life'. The closest i went to finding it out was, probably, a spiritual retreat where i was assured to be able to realise it if only i concentrated enough and gave myself to it. Well.. all that i remember from that session was me, forcing myself to 'catch the realisation' and pumping in all my efforts to create an image infront of my closed eyes which would help me infer 'the message'.

I am not usually a person who would consider even the most useless thing with me, to be actually useless. I find it very difficult to classify something as useless. What can be one's criterion to come to such a conclusion? I just have to spend 2 seconds thinking about its prospective its usage, whether innovative or banal, it certainly flashes in my mind. Well this detour from the topic of discussion was not just to elucidate my probable indecisiveness, but to give a better idea about the complexity of thought in my troublesome brain.

hmm.. coming back .. considering that i still think about what i should be doing in my life, inspite of all the coulds and couldn'ts, should i call that day a useless one? Or is there some clue that is present in my vicinity and i am just ignoring it or just not noticing it.Or thinking about all this, in a time that i should have done better things, like the previous day of my examinations, did i just mess up with my acaedemics which otherwise always had worthy exploits to speak about.

But let me tell you, all this thought has always been within me. It remained so forever. It grew with me getting to know more things, experiencing different situations, making different kinds of friends, liking some kinds of attitudes and not being comfortable with the others, defining my own rules, following some rules set by society and family and then most importantly coming to a stand still thinking about what is it that i really want out of doing all this.

But when i notice my friends who are very casual, pragmatic and mostly joyous, i again fall into thought, reasoning it out with my childhood and family woes which i suspect made my mind older than i am. Either way, i just can infer that i think about this more than the others, who remotely care for it. So what do i do.. just sail with the wind like a boat? But even a good boat has sails and by deciding about the direction you want travel in you can set the sail and travel where you want. But what if you dont know what you want or where to go? I dont even have Captain Jack Sparrow's compass which, who knows, could have helped me. Now i understand why Arjuna in the picture had been so special being able to hit the moving target.

Well... so to say ..

I was wondering why i had ever started a blog ... then the memories unfold.

This blog came to life in the summer of 2007, with the title "i speak" . It was the year i had spent a peaceful summer in the cocoon of a far and distant land which had been shielding me from all the turbulance, that i feared would engulf me. I blogged out. Ofcourse ,everybody likes a "Lived Happily Ever After". And so did i.... flushed it all out.. even from the blog.

Animal Farm by George Orwell

It is a wonderful hypothesis about, how man could have possibly evolved as the master of the entire living on the planet, to become the most powerful and influential species, utilising the benefits of most other.The author has exercised a lucid style in expressing the probable chronology of events, however, extrapolating the situation in the absence of man.

At the offset, the animals in 'Manor Farm' bring up a rebellion against the owner(man) and establish their independence in the renamed 'Animal Farm',to become the first farm carried on entirely, by animals.Inspite of the hostility of humans and non-cooperation of some lazy and pessimistic ones, all the animals work in unison, whole-heartedly for a better life.

The pigs, being the most intelligent amongst them, succeed in manoeuvering the other animals for their own benefit.Later the pigs resort to dictating them, unleashing hostile security dogs and formulating rules.They keep manipulating the history and banishing, at last even murdering their fellow animals.The conditions although deplorable are digested and accepted by the animals for the one and only reason, the pride of living free and not as a slave of man.

However , the conditions in the farm reach the same state as they were under humans.The animals were exploited to work to their maximum capacity, yet were made to live with meagre supplies by the so-called leaders, the pigs, through the commandments, which they rarely follow but convince others by constantly modifying them to their own benefit.The story comes to its climax with the most loyal, hardworking animal being sent to slaughter, once it becomes unfit to work, the same that used to happen under humans.At the end,the author brings home the similarity between the pigs and humans.

Probably, any species would have treated the others pretty much the same way as humans treat animals.It is the lack of empathy towards beings whom we dont consider to be amongst 'us'.The way memories, perceptions and the very principles behind their own rebellion are played with by the stronger ones, reflects the vulnerability of the weaklings, at being manipulated and exploited.