What we are

It takes a remarkable depth of
effort to recognise effort;
beauty to find beauty;
pain to see pain;
genius to perceive genius;
humility to see humility.

It takes a profound breadth of
ugliness to find ugly;
shallow to meet shallow;
pettiness to behave pettily;
hatred to spread hate;
pride to see pride.

It takes an abundance of
anything to see it in others;
To have it within us
to find it in others;
To see in others
is to see in us.

We need to have it in self
to see it in others;
that malice, that violence,
that brilliance, that piety.
What we are is what we see
in ourselves, in others.

My beautiful mansion

I build mansion in the air.
Thoughts like the wind.
Swaying my hopes, the sands, the clouds,
Hoping for my weather patterns to take care
of the blueprints and wherewithal.

My incremental actions,
create gardens around the mansion.
Manicured gardens, natural landscape.
The winds spread the seeds,
in the fertile lands.
What grows, trees and weeds.

Antinomy: Irony of Words

Surrounded by words, people as words
Ideas as words, actions as words
Nothing to feel, only words.
Only talk, only babble.

Sadness in words
Happiness in words
Twisting, modifying
Aggrandizing, astonishing
Complicating, simplifying.
All words, all talk.

Hope as words,
Despair as words,
Nothing is felt,
Nothing is experienced,
Only words.

Am I a judgement?

Thought.
Judgement.
Thought, and judgement.
Thought or judgement?

Judgement, and thought.
Judgement or thought?
Judgement is thought?
Thought is judgement?

Thinking is judging?
Act of thought is an act of judgement?
I think therefore am I?
Am I because I think?

Flame

Looking at a flame in a closed space,
Running the fan at the lowest pace,
Flame is stable, flame is flickering,
It sometimes dances, mind is bickering.
Dancing flame looks appealing
Yellow, bright, swaying, pleasing.

Room flickers with the flame,
I only see what the flame shows,
Room looks unclear, many shadows,
Brightness is uneven, room looks narrow.

Flame occasionally settles,
It is no more just yellow.
Dark brown at the center, yellow surrounds it,
blue covers it with a clear glow.
Room no more sways,
It is visible with greater clarity,
Shadows still remain,
only limited to areas not lit by the flame.

Greatness

There was once a man who wanted to be great,
great in the eyes of others, great in his own eyes.

So august, so unlimited, that he fixed everyone else around him.
Bound them to himself, bound them with himself.

He applied his ideas upon them, enforced his thoughts upon them,
He imposed his experience upon them, imposed his greatness upon them.

Advised them to be like him, advised them to do his bidding,
Tutored them about the ways of the world, counseled them to act like him.

He morphed himself into a figure of his own belief,
In an expectation of excellence which he knew only in his limitations.

He molded others around him in his limits,
Devoid others of their own infinite, devoid himself of his own infinite.

He finally became great, a restricted greatness it was,
surrounded by boundaries of his own imposition,

His power was fragile, brittle, and weak,
his power felt powerless, with many, at many times.
He still didn’t feel immense despite such control,
such greatness he had, such power he would yield.

He wondered what could have gone wrong, he wondered what he didn’t manage.
That’s when it occurred to him, that he was fiercely controlled.

Wishful Thinking

Watch your wishes,
Watch your thoughts,
where they come from,
and what is sought.

Do they come from abundance
of what you have,
that it be no other way
than to give it to all.

Watch your wishes,
what your thoughts,
What you have,
is what you sow.

Wisdom

For some wisdom is
being able to navigate life,
ensuring everything’s fine.
Skirting through troubles,
safeguarding their hearts,
shielding their minds,
from intensity.
Having found the least troublesome,
most secure methods,
is wisdom for nice.

Is it street-smartness?
To go down one and never detour,
collecting the discarded parts
in adjoining gutters?

Beyond Intellect

All sorts of disagreements or lack of understanding among people is due to the titles and roles we assign to each other whether it is in personal relationships or professional relationships. To elaborate, people don’t consider others as a whole human but as a specific role to play in a certain scenario. As long as a person limits themselves to their assigned role or tag, there is harmony and what we like to call ‘love’, ‘compatibility’  or whatever other term one fancies. As soon as a person goes beyond their role, there is a clash. Since people are not able to grasp a person as a whole and can only understand them in a certain role or as a conglomeration of many roles, there is a clash! This could be inter-personal, or intra-personal or within self,  whatever.

What we fail to understand is that for a human being, sum of individuals doesn’t make whole. One plus one is not equal to two.

And this is the very reason there are roles allotted to people! Because a human mind is unable to grasp entirety, we make divisions.

Part-I, Cornerstone?

Trust, respect, loyalty, etc are commonly considered the cornerstone of relationships. Not just human relations but any kind of relation. Why?
Not only are these imposed upon people but are made to be strictly followed as well? Why? This has to thought about step by step. Starting with trust (It can similarly be extended for loyalty, respect, etc)

What is ‘trust’? Trust is believing that somebody will do something as per expectations. Those expectations could be from an individual or a group of people (which make up institutions like family, society, culture). Institutional expectations are usually called values. This means trust is adhering to certain expectations.

When does one break trust? When a person takes an action very different from a certain expectation(s), it is called as breaking trust.
Hence trust exists because expectations exist.

 Expectations (is the reason for the existence of) Trust

Now let us observe expectations.
Why does someone have expectations?