Seriously Serious

As often as I lay my thoughts on this matter, I fail at each instance to realise the profound complexity of this problem whose solution stands on this rather softly lit alcove waving out to you and then crossing its arms across its chest and smiling: smiling in the know that you will not come over to shake hands with it. Well, it is a rather terrifying solution in all its simplicity and nudity. Why else would I be writing about it and not spending afternoons with it under an apple tree?

The seriousness of the world grips me and makes me wonder about the taut expanse that we call life. This outpouring owes itself to the oft heard (and now in India as well) phrase of "quality time". A mother tells me that she will spend quality time with her son. A son tells me that he will take his mother out to dinner on Saturday thereby spending quality time with her. And what about other moments in life, dear? They lost their quality in the light of your serious activities? God bless you!

What I fail to understand is how did the artificial routine of life and the notion of dedicating all of it to serious pursuits come about to infest this earth. I do not debunk the position that seriousness holds in this world, but think about it, my friend. Why is there so much seriousness?

I think most of the seriousness in this world stems from the sense of personal worth and the money that is involved therein. People want to be taken seriously and that is usually ensured when their personal station is fortified and puffs its chest from the ramparts. A poor but extremely talented artist is usually not in high regards as is a moderate artist who knows how to make money. Recently, a friend and colleague of mine from UK was discussing his career with me and was amazed to see that I had surpassed his rank in 4.5 years what he couldn't in 30+ years. It only made me ashamed while I pondered over how naive I must be to assume that I can do all that he had acquired over 30 years. I do not deny the edge that my education or my career path has given me, but still, look at the difference. The funny thing is that I wasn't serious about most of the things in my career and let a lot simply happen. But let's not go there.

So in the quest for personal worth is this need to establish oneself in the ranks. I smell work here. So did they, and the industrial revolution of the West brought in longer hours and more driven men who wanted to do it all. They worked hard to improve their worth and acquire money whereby they promised themselves and their dear love that they would have a lot to enjoy life. But I hardly see that happening, then or now. You might want to visit this page, and click on each of the individuals in there (on the right panel): http://www.mckinsey.com/aboutus/careers/people/dayinthelife/consultantdiaries/tj.asp

Do you know that I would give my right hand to be in McKinsey and dash around solving problems in a jiffy? But such hours!? Life isn't something that happens around work, is it? Work is an element of life that provides means to realise several facets of life, but what be said of that work which denies the opportunity to transform the gains into the desired provisions of life?

With such rushing around, comes the need to pile all good things on a weekend. TGIF. I never quite understood that. Friends would mail me or SMS me sharing their relief that the weekend was arriving and I would frown and wonder: "What's so exciting about it?" I do not say that there is nothing good about a Saturday or Sunday (given that most theatre shows and the like are scheduled on weekends and I get to cook a variety of new recipes) but why do people not try to enjoy their weekdays and not associate "quality time" to weekends? And that is when I read this (which in turn made me write this post): http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEED6153EF93BA3575BC0A967958260&sec=&pagewanted=2

I agree with him-who-has-a-difficult-surname and would love to read the book (anyone kind enough to gift it to me? I can cook up some occasion! :-).
This article and the contents of the earlier link in this post jumped in with memories to raise the stench of this question: What are we doing with our lives? Seriously, what are we doing with it?

People love talking about passion (and I raise my hand here) and the courage it takes to follow your calling (I lowered it). People admire the John Woods and Muhammad Yunus of this world as much as they admire the Chandralekha and Shankar Mahadevan but all this is better for others.

In all this maddening rush to be serious and achieve and augment, we seem to have lost the essence of simply living and doing nothing. I tried it this Sunday, switching off my faculties to recall (couldn't help switching it on while I cooked the new pulao. I had to reel it out to my mom!! ;-). My Sunday disappeared in doing a lot of nothings. What did I achieve? Nothing. But I feel at peace and I got to speak to a few relatives in Bangalore and friends around India and did a lot of reading and writing... I feel happy.

But this is not about me (though I give you samples to assure that this is not mere banter or preaching). It is about looking at life as a whole and not looking at it as fragments, some of which require you to only give them "quality time". Life is a composite. People who look at their career or their family as being the one most important thing, seem to be missing something. It is easy to go piecemeal about life. It is vital to look at it as a whole. Seriously, you have only one life.