Things should end on their own accord - Part I

There was an episode in Seinfeld where George's girlfriend suggests that they change the topic. George is discussing with Seinfeld later about the propriety of suggesting a change in topic during the course of a conversation. Both George and Seinfeld agree that it is against the spirit of conversation to explicitly suggest a change in the topic - it disturbs the natural course of the conversation.

I tried to find an exerpt of this on the web, but was not able to successfully google it. Odd.

In any case, I was thinking about past - a lot of people in general, mostly forgotten. For instance, my classmates in 10th grade. I am sure there were some with whom I shared lunch. There were those who I considered my friends back then. Yet, now, I have no memory whatsoever about them.

Since I practise extreme information-weeding and do not really let my brain process any details unless it is absolutely necessary, there are people from less than two years ago, who I knew and was friends with, but now, I have no recollection. The relationships were not very deep - at least not deep enough to warrant gargantuan efforts needed to maintain a long term relationship.

When I consider all the teachers and headmasters and deans - some who I liked, some who I didn't - I realized that now, I don't mean anything to them and they don't mean anything to me. Closer to the home, there were some cousins, some uncles and some aunts, who used to mean a lot when I was younger. Now they don't.

What happenned? How is it that someone who means a lot one day can mean nothing the other?

Take my Dada (my mom's dad) for example. I loved him. He was my most favorite person in the family. I loved him more than my mom, more than my dad, more than my sister. I loved him more than I loved anyone else in the world. Until I went to college. I had to go away to Guwahati - and visit family only once every six months. The people I interacted with daily, suddenly were different. It was no more to my home (or to distinguish all my various homes in this blog, my parent's home) that I returned every night but to my hostel. It was no more my mom's food that I ate but the Mess's. When there was a festival, it was not to my Dada's home I went, but nowhere.

The mere change of location was sufficient to upset the delicate balance of a relationship. Now we met each other after a long time, and it was more about giving each other an update about what has happenned rather than just talking. It was to talk as much as possible in the limited time. When such artificial pressure is introduced into a relationship where there was always a plentitude of time, relationship suffers. All you feel is a disappointment that things are not what they used to be. There is a sad acceptance of a change in reality, an acknowledgement of "growing up of kids" and the inevitable change of focus from this disappointment to something different that is happenning in life, because life continues to happen at its inexorable pace.

For instance my wife called. I will continue this one later.

Not Letting Inconvenience Get In Way Of Accomplishing The Important

Somethings in life are avowed as important - at least in the short term. However, for one reason or the other, they don't get done - or at least don't get done soon enough. Eventually, the frustration of not having been able to accomplish an important task in a timely fashion overpowers the joy of accomplishment of an important task. There is no positive feedback - if anything, there is a negative feedback. We grow more wary of undertaking or promising important tasks. Gradually our lives attain only a fraction of meaningfulness that their potential promised.

I bought some gifts for my relatives in India about 2 months ago. When I looked at the gift items, I knew I just had to send them to certain people I know. I bought the items, and the only things remaining to do were: Get the addreses, go to post office and post the gifts. That is all. It took me all of the 2 months to do that! Unbelievable! When I originally bought the gift items, I thought I would be sending the gifts in time for the new year. New year came and went and I still had not gone to the post office.

What explanation do I have for this delay? The only thing I can say is that the post office does not work 24 hours. Had it at least been open until 11 pm, I could have dropped into it and done posting. During the weekdays, I am working at the time when the post office is open. During weekend, I am busy playing chess. With all the busyness, visiting a post-office becomes a very difficult task. Yet ... when I went to post-office yesterday, I went in the middle of the day, out of the way, not thinking about not showing up at work early, just not caring about the consequences, because I was too frustrated with not having been able to go to the post office for so long.

Moral of the story: I could have not cared about the consequences of turning up late two months ago, and sent the gifts in time, and felt good about it! Delaying the Important just because it was Inconvenient only meant Losing Joy Of Accomplishment.

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When I started writing this article, I predicted that I would be defending all the extra time it took me to go to the post-office. Instead, I surprised myself by concluding that I should have just recognized the inconvenience as a cost of doing something important, and done it without wasting time.

Other things that I have considered important for a long time are:

1. Writing a chess book on Colle Zukertort opening ... a book that is useful for recalling the important points in crunch time.

2. Spending time / energy and other resources on finding affordable technology to lengthen life span, especially of the old people.

I know that the second one is more important than first one in terms of overall importance. However, I have spent a long time on the first one, and I need to get it done.

They both need a commitment of a certain amount of time - time that was difficult to find a few days ago, but now, I have some morning time available on some week days, and some Sundays.

Wishing myself good luck on completing the chess-book writing project, before this month ends, I sign off.

Why Blog

I came across a thought written in someone's email as a signature:

"If you don't share your concepts and ideals, they end up being worthless,"
"Sharing is what makes them powerful."

I was very touched by it. Blogging was originally meant to refine some of the concepts and ideals that I had. I have fallen behind in blogging, but hopefully, soon, I will be back. The idea, of course, is to eventually share them. If they are interesting enough, then someone searching Internet using Google will find this blog and stick with it.

Got to work! Going Back.