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Be what you need
In a world that is demanding attention all the time, it’s easy to get caught up in what we need from others while ignoring what they need from us. Our humanness is often celebrated for ourselves, but set aside in our expectations from others. We all need sympathy and compassion, but are hesitant to give…
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Farewell, it wasn’t fun
Goodbye to a year that has defined new depths of beauty and pain, and left its mark somewhere adrift between the two, leaving an ambivalence of hope and hopelessness, where once there was certainty. Nothing changes after midnight tonight. But the token of 2021 may give some hope, while the rest brace themselves for a…
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Be gentle…to you
When you treat the vulnerable or the gentle ones with contempt, you create the same monsters that made you. The moment that we realise what we assume to be our nature is in fact a product of our upbringing, we’ll be able to make conscious decisions about who we want to be. Sometimes, we place…
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Empathise
Empathy is expressed when we desire for others what we wish to have for ourselves. Sometimes, it’s something we have, and we hope that others will be able to enjoy the same value and benefit that we enjoy from it. Sometimes, it’s what we don’t have, yet we hope that we may be able to…
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Trappings of Entitlement
Ingratitude seeps in when you look for evidence of deliberate kindness despite there being no evidence of cruelty from others. We’re so conditioned to find goodness against the backdrop of evil, or generosity in the midst of selfishness, that we’ve grown to believe that only the evidence of deliberate kindness is an indication of care…
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Delusions of Godliness
The delusion of godliness diminishes our capacity to connect with the divine. When we assume ourselves to be above those that behave worse than us, or we assume that we hold within us the capacity and means to punish others, or withhold their reward, be it in this world, or the hereafter, we assume to…
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Serve a greater purpose
We’re built to serve others. When we lose hope in being served by others, we withhold our service in protest until we convince ourselves that no one will take care of us so we must take care of ourselves. That’s when life becomes hollow because it pulls us away from our core need: To be…
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The Belly of Delhi (Take II)
I left Delhi feeling uneasy. On the one hand I felt arrogant and judgemental, and on the other, I felt justified in some of my observations. The nagging notion that I could not shake, despite it prompting that feeling of arrogance or superiority, is the fact that individual choice will always trump the political setting…
