The Incomparable Factor called FRIENDSHIP

As I entered the college auditorium, there was an extempore going on. The topic that a third year student was presenting was - friendship. Such a simple yet difficult to explain concept that I started wondering what I would have spoken?

       

A friend – brings to mind someone who cares, respects, and understands us, who wants our company and whose company we enjoy as well. Someone on whom we have no rights, who has separate responsibilities, but we come together to share some moments of togetherness.

 It's been years since college. What happens when we meet those friends from those college times?  I feel it like time travel. We travel back to those times, those little moments shared together. The dancing on the hostel bed and getting caught in the act by the warden. The trip to the lake with a friend a day before an exam, the teasing, the laughs, the smiles. We suddenly realize how little moments have in fact not been forgotten but were etched into the memory to be brought out unexpectedly when we connect with the people from those times. Connecting again to the fun, the excitement, the unique joys of college years that we traversed together.

That’s what friends hold. They represent the memories and the experiences, the lessons from the shared time period.  The advantage of friendship is that it is neither a too close relationship nor a too distant one and so the mutual expression and expectations are on a mean, neither too little nor too much. While close relationships of family as well as love relationships have their own value, these may hold a lot of expectations and demands attached, that can, in fact, make for each individual's burden! It is friendships again, that aid in carrying these burdens...of earning, of succeeding, of managing a home perfectly and efficiently, and so on. Such little comforts of sharing are what friendships provide.

Can you share ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING with your family? Since family is so close, they are often affected by what we have to reveal. But there can be friends we can share anything with, without causing them discomfort or arousing any possessiveness or anger.  In fact, a good friend can be a better listener than even a counsellor who hardly knows us.

Also, family may take us for granted. The closer we get, as in a love  relationship, the baggage of old relationship, personal issues, hidden facets; all are more and more expressed, and the result is that often close relations become more a challenge than a joy. Not that close relationships cannot become a joy, but it is only possible when they have the right amount of 'friendship factor' added to it, in other words, enough closeness and enough distance that prevents the disease called “taking for granted”. In other words, it’s important to be a friend first in every relationship, remembering that no matter what the relationship, we can't own anybody; it helps to truly care, no matter what is shared or expressed.

I read recently, that in a study, it was found that it is not success, relationships or even religion that contributes most to the happiness quotient of any individual, rather it is true friendships.  I could really agree to that! Friendship, a relationship with the right amount of closeness and the right amount of distance is an equilibrium relationship, and so, no doubt, is incomparable.

There... I have finally spoken, on what I began considering years ago, listening to an extempore, on the  incomparable relationship - friendship, and I am happy that today, I can finally say, I don't just hope to make friends with people I like, I do take the initiative to hold my hand out to those I appreciate. Not all may take the extended hand, but there are those who do, and never let go. I am blessed to have some such GREAT friends!

Chemtrails- What could they be for?

I had no plans to write about something which might just be a conspiracy ‘theory’.  But I have my reasons now for writing this. Its months since my friend Fher first told me about Chemtrails.  Fher a Filipino is not from the long list of countries which are supposedly getting 'sprayed with toxic chemicals'.  But then recently I got a comment with the greeting 'Aloha' which is Hawaiian greetings; on my post on self sketch. This topic of Chemtrails was again brought to my note by this blogger. Hawaii is a place which is supposedly under chemtrail spray. Now I had to sit up, get out of my skepticism and scan out the news to understand what might be going on. I looked through all the info on this from the net. 

The term Chemtrails specifically refers to aerial trails allegedly caused by the high altitude release (into the stratosphere by planes) of chemical substances not found in ordinary contrails(condensation trails left by planes), resulting in the appearance of characteristic sky tracks. This activity of aerial chemical spraying is suggested to have started in mid 1990 and it intensified by 1999.

Proponents of the chemtrail conspiracy theory say that chemtrails can be distinguished from contrails by many features like their long duration, persisting for as much as a half day (contrails of planes dissipate in less than one minute). They extend from horizon to horizon and the trials then spread out like clouds (unlike contrails). They even form grids whereas commercial aircrafts do not cross each other's flight paths in Xs and grid-patterns at the same altitude.

Normal contrails come from the engines and wingtips of high-flying aircraft. They do not stream from the tails of airplanes equipped with wing-mounted engines. Chemtrails, on the other hand, have been observed through high-power telescopes and binoculars to be streaming from tanker tailbooms pointing downward at a 60-degree angle. (The planes are observed to be painted white without any logos or identifications.) Contrails do not make people sick, whereas hundreds of eye-witnesses have become ill within hours of watching chemtrails woven over their heads. Many have tasted and smelled something metallic or corrosive in the air. Lab analysis of the 'fall' have revealed in some cases biological agents and in other cases high amount of aluminium and barium. 
 
Supporters of this conspiracy theory speculate that the purpose of the chemical release may be for solar radiation management (geo engineering) , population control, weather control, or biological warfare/chemical warfare. According to them these trails are causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems. It is changing the pH of the soils and is also destroying the indigenous plants, rendering them weak.

These chemtrails are  supposed to contain heavy metals like aluminum and barium (or pathogens) which are sprayed into the stratosphere all over many of the NATO countries including most of America, UK, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand , Australia (I am sure all of us have relatives in some or all of these places) to supposedly reverse the effects of Global warming.  

Who could do this? According to the theorists it is the government. Why would any government want to foul its own lungs and land. That’s nothing short of foolishness!

The problems with these chemtrials according to those who have brought forth the issue, is that it is raising the content of many heavy metals that is making the waters and soil toxic. Aluminium is indeed toxic and its ill effects are not a matter of possibility. It is real! Alzhieimers is caused due to accumulation of Al in brain cells. (Alzheimer cases are said to be rising)  Al is also flammable and can cause forest fires.  In affected areas the soil tests are claimed to be high for aluminium and barium, the values being thousands of times higher than safe limits. 

What can we conclude? Assuming that all this is truly happening, the chemtrails could be to block solar radiation and these could be trials of a control measure for global warming. It could also be trials for biological warfare where pathogens are claimed to be used.” But if it is so, the governments are grossly over reacting to the global warming scare. It is like creating a monster to combat a dog. We are creating a worse scenario. According to the precautionary principle which is one of 26 principles for guiding national and international action which was adopted in the 1972, Stockholm conference- "uncertainty (lets say of climate change damages) should not be the reason for inaction". BUT it does not mean taking any action at such a large scale and for such a long duration spanning decades without taking account of the cost benefit. The cost of control should not be worse than the benefit! No citizen of any country should tolerate such irresponsible use of power

Another possibility considered is to make it difficult for any indigenous crops to survive so that people will buy seeds that can grow in high Al soils. This is also absurd as how many people will have such purchasing power? However much the supply of such genetically engineered seeds, it wont be sufficient for the whole earth and for all types of plants and especially at buy-able prices!!

The next point is, the air any individual or government spoils; is the very air he or they are going to breathe, so why would any government do it unless they knew of some danger to all life that had to prevented at all cost. Here comes the topic of radiation from some brown dwarf that threatens life on earth and to prevent its far worse consequence of annihilation of life, we stop the radiation by barium and bear its side effects . But then what about those who claim of pathogen sprays? Are they just stray cases? Is it mostly barium and aluminium that is being sprayed. Since this spraying started in 1990's, then the brown dwarf radiation threat has been known for 2 decades now. But in the 90s it was very difficult to trace a brown dwarf. It is only more recently that many have been located, so a scare of brown dwarf from as far back as the 90s is not possible.  There are also no signs of drastic changes to the earth system in terms of increased radiation content. Are the governments being fooled then to spray on themselves such chemicals with false stories?

Then comes the topic of mind control! There was a lot of chemistry Jargon in the net  related to how barium and aluminium can be used to "download mindcontrol" onto those under this chemical atmosphere. The purpose of mind control is to make the people a slave to orders! There are also rumours that the Jews; who might be mind controlled, are everywhere in all governments and high positions and multinational companies and news agencies and they are in turn using mindcontrol to rule the world. 

But on the other hand, if those chemicals could really effectively control minds there wouldn't have been such a furore over the spraying. Nobody would have bothered to object to chemical sprays as they would have been ordered not to protest to the spraying!

Since as yet it has not been possible to know what is the truth, whether all such information on web about chemtrials can be dismissed as fabricated. Still going by precautionary principle,  it is only possible to be aware as both individuals and as governments. All governments should be alert to avoid any persuasions to experiment on its people under any pretext. It should be remembered that it is better to give in to the clockwork of the universe that created us and which so has a right to decide our end;  than to destroy our earth by our own hands out of undue paranoia.

 Chemtrail conspiracy theory true or not, we can still keep in mind that- "To avoid an  'open well',  that 'may' be in front lets not run backwards blindly over a precipice!"

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Vanity is Fair

When Spreads the Magic.....

Concept and Created By - Jovy Thomas- Photographer (multimedia)
Starring- Jerly
Year of creation- 2007

God gives us a mixed bag. He may not give us somethings we ask, but then he may also give us blessing which we never expected either! He gave me a blessing in the form of my sister-in-law who did for me what I don't think I ever seriously dreamed of! From taking professional pictures of me to making a video of me! Well, which sister-in-law does that!

She chose a song for me "soniye"(beautiful)! I was not sure it was a song that should be sung for me and then she allowed me to chose and sit with her as she edited.

Not that this song that I chose for the video (Jab Chaye) is any modest by comparison !! It means that- when my magic spreads, nobody escapes! And then the song goes on to describe a 'mixed bag' of opposite tendencies, like both soft and fiery, wounding and healing, a breeze and a storm etc etc...While I am not always proud of the other end of the spectrum all the time, yet the song is not modest at all by any standards.  But, hey, every girl is allowed some vanity, right? Vanity is fair in a woman,....so here's some awesome lyrics and video for me!!

YAYYYYY.

Who Am I

When at the crossroads where I have to choose;

I ask-who am I?

And  I choose what is true to my being;

And pass the other by...

When I feel I am wrong, and have gone with what I desired,
I don't regret ...

It is still who I am.

All what I could not do without;

It was better , than to die...

I am, when I can be

all that I want to give.

I am the one who lives,

 when my spirit is full fire.

The out held hands come many

But want not all that I am

 I have to pass them by, 

say a hundred times goodbye.

And hold only to a hope..

 that does not choose to die
..for a heart, who knows, and calls,

                                                                          to all of ‘who I am’

Have Thine Own Way!

I was told about the intrigue and beauty of Al Kahf (surah 18, of the Quran) and so had been going through it. I have to say, I simply loved the depth and the meaning of the stories in it. One I want to mention here is of Moses and the Mysterious Man.

Moses wanted to gain more wisdom and so went in search of this Man who was called Khidr, which meant green, for his knowledge was “ever fresh and in contact with the life as it is actually lived”. Moses was to take a fish on this voyage which was supposed to disappear at the spot where he would meet this man. But when the fish does jump off into the sea, neither Moses nor the attendant remember to make note of it. As they pass on, the journey becomes more laborious, the stages become heavier and heavier and fatiguing; until they remember to turn back and look for the man again.

This story signifies that when we exhaust our old knowledge and require new knowledge we have a “feeling of uneasiness, heaviness and difficulty especially if we have passed the new knowledge by, without making it our own” The heaviness and discomfort felt is, in fact, an effort of the soul to search for the new knowledge,  a knowledge we have to acquire, to make our journey of life easier once again, after being armed with the new knowledge.

The readers would be curious as to what was the new knowledge Khidr gave to Moses. Moses was told by Khidr not to question whatever he does but he could not refrain from questioning three times over, as he found Khidr causing a loss, being cruel and returning good for evil; all with no apparent reasons. Finally when Khidr explains, his reasons are found to be surprisingly very sound.

The lessons were-
“Often in life, when directed by higher impulses, a person does things that seem wrong or foolish by worldly standards. Only a similar mind can see why the deed was done, that it was from higher wisdom, in accordance with the universal plan; and so such a person may have to bear the blame and questions of the common crowd.”

“There are paradoxes in life-apparent loss may be real gain; apparent cruelty may be real mercy; returning good for evil may really be justice and not generosity. Gods wisdom transcends all human calculation”
Hence, wisdom is to trust in God's goodness, without questioning

This Sunday’s sermon reminded me of the above story and the lessons from ‘Green’. In the sermon was a mention of the famous writer Eugene who was considered a ‘good for nothing’, but his miseries made him express himself in written word, and eventually his writings brought him fame. I wondered as to how Eugene must have thought. He had indeed lead a miserable life, suffered from depressions; and I felt that “maybe he never wanted fame, all he wanted was a happy life; then why?”

From Khidr's  lessons I feel that sometimes, things have to be as they have to be. Just like Moses, we may not understand why God does some things in our life. For instance, I never understood why God made a 'blindly trusting person' like me, become a religious skeptic; why he led me through treacherous roads, why he closed all options of talking my doubts out with someone of a like mind; so I would be forced to take up the pen, talk to myself and write and clear my doubts.

But this sermon was what I heard, coincidentally, on my birthday, the day when I woke up and opened my mail to see that my book (that dealt with clearing contradictions in various religions) was published in Amazon, a birthday gift from my brother. The sermon about Eugene made me think that maybe somebody would be helped by my book someday and that would make all my slogging and troubles worthwhile. My mind may disagree and say that I had actually wanted a normal doubt free happy life, but my heart says that maybe my soul always preferred something lasting, maybe it always wanted to leave behind something helpful. Our joys and miseries are momentary but what we learn and leave behind, are eternal.

I never wanted this! Why Lord! Can't you hear what I am asking from you? What the hell is this that you give me! These are lines that I, and I am sure all of us often say to God in prayer; and then like this sermon, something may make our minds finally reverberate to the words of this hymn that followed the sermon.....
Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Thou art the potter, I am the clay.
Mould me and make me after thy will,
while I am waiting, yielded and still

Should the clay fight with the potter and say “.. Hey not like that!... Lightly not so rough!..”
It is the potter who has the final picture of the pot in mind, not the clay…In other words,
it would make life easier when we yield to the uncalled slaps of life and say…Uh Okay, I can't see the final picture Lord, You can......Have Thine Own Way …!

The Black Swan Dance

I watched the movie Black Swan a second time recently. A powerful movie of passion for dance, that didn’t fail to move my spirit as forcefully as it did the first time that I watched it.

It is the movie about a ballerina consumed with dance, who has to depict the coveted role of the innocent white swan and also its twin the guileful black swan. But she had the frigidity, a reserve in her dance that comes due to innocence and an unlived life. It made her perfect as the white swan but it prevented her from letting herself go, while portraying the sensuous black swan.

The words from her director asking her to ‘live a little’, to lose her frigidity and free herself; the incidents and competition in her life, all blow air on the dark side in her and ignite it to full flame. The result is that black takes over like a whirlwind and she dances the black swan dance in full fire and wins the audience

…but she loses herself, her life, to the act.

Her own desire to keep the role and end the one competition, her intention to meet the requirements for the role as hinted by her director; act as seeds that grow in her, that push her in a direction she was too inhibited to go in reality..and so she goes all that way in her mind. She moves swiftly from the sweet girl to the dark one, who in her stressed and twisted mind has ‘been there, done that'; murdering none else but her own self.

Are we the light or the dark or both? It is true that often in life, in order to leave our frigidity, to let go of our inhibitions, to become more at ease, we have to explore our dark side, we have to live a little; but the challenge is to not to be swept away by it and keep the balance. In life, when the dark winds blow like an unending storm we have to realize that it is the signal to stop resisting and go with the flow of life. Like a tree we have to bend in the incessant wind and not be too stiff, to avoid being broken!

Exploring the dark side is like climbing on a roller skate. If we keep the balance we can have a swifter, more graceful movement but we have to remember that the roller skate without awareness and balance can topple us over any time. The dark side is like a roller that can take over like a whirlwind and destroy all that was safely there as we walked on two feet. And so it needs a lot of control and has to be used with utmost care as we master it, and become fully aware.

The light with all its splendor and clarity, is indeed the real us, while the dark power is the tool, the roller skate, to be used carefully, a tool that when used with control can help live life with more freedom. Then as a swan we can dance sensuously with freedom and still be full of light...; be the White Swan doing... the Black Swan dance....

The Fallen Manhood

It is said that a society is known by the way it treats its women. It is said that women used to be respected in some era and some societies….

I did not want to write a post on a pointless pursuit. I don’t have to write what is the way the women are being treated today,… and that speaks all. Why I take my virtual pen finally to write is the ‘rate’ of deterioration of the society that has come to view in the past few months. I am troubled enough to be pushed to post a question as to why the society is spreading its viciousness towards women in such a geometrically progressing pace?

There was a report that one of the reasons is that violence against women depicted in movies is reflected back into society. That’s a point I quite agree with. Many movies I watched have disturbed me. Some for the foul double meaning language that the veteran heroes of the south use with women; the disrespect and objectification spewing from their words. When heroes do it, the fans follow. It is indeed visibly reflected in the society.

Other movies disturb me for how a large section of the males in the audience react, when they watch on screen the plight of a woman shuddering in fear and misery! Shockingly (maybe not surprisingly) quite a large part of it, jeers and laughs in pleasure! Lustful society indeed that cannot see a woman beyond her body.

Men would blame it on the women for having objectified themselves. Have the women of today really objectified themselves? Well, what option is left with the insecure womanhood, if she has to find or keep a man; when the only thing any Man is willing to ‘love’ her for, is her body and she is constantly in threat of being dumped for a better or younger 'model'?

What makes man so insensitive?
Curiosity does lead humankind into the dark lanes. I know of someone who tried beer. And then he tried it quite frequently. But he became aware that the beer was pulling him into the liquor lane. He also realized he had the capacity to become an addict. From that point of realization he did something that requires great strength. He made a decision and stuck by it. The decision was to never touch even beer! There are rarely any anecdotes I remember with as much admiration as this. He is one real strong Man. He had strength enough to resist even the ‘little finger’ of an irresistible evil.

I don’t know if anybody realizes the powerful truth in what the three monkeys of Gandhiji teach - “Don’t see evil, don’t hear evil, don’t speak evil” For evil is very powerful. It can suck you in, into its vicious grip. You may start by curiosity about the evil, but you never know how and when as you move more and more into the lane, in an explorers spirit, you become part of that evil, you become addicted; some evils that were repulsive to begin with, end up becoming a source of pleasure.

This happens to be the story of all sorts of addictions. Its starts with a one time and then suddenly, you realize that you are in the vicious grip of a snake, that slowly pushes out all your sense of right and wrong, deadens your spirit and makes you a ball of mass that ‘laughs and jeers at grossly wrong places’. Such a person no longer cares what a petty sight he makes, he is hardly aware of it, for he convinces himself that he is proud of his sickness. That it is his Manliness, his strength!

Weakness it is.. Can a man be so strong as to let go of even the finger of the evil when he realizes where it is leading to? Can a man be so strong as to not even touch beer no matter how his buddies laugh at him? Not even be incited by peer pressure and insinuations of not being a man? Can a man be as strong as that! If there is such a man, then he surely is a Man!

Today what we also see is that no man seems to have the strength to stand by a woman to protect her! ‘Manliness’, they convince themselves, is rather in abusing the weak women in all possible ways and blaming every failing on them. For the measure of pain and blame man is capable of giving, he does not have the strength to take even a fourth of it!

They think ,act and talk ‘lust’, and then they hide their lustful nature behind the insinuations to womanhood as sluts and objects of entertainment. Not that they believe the sex seeker image of women projected by the ‘virtual businesses’ that thrive on lies; but rather they are weak and prefer pointing their finger at the woman than admit that they have in fact objectified themselves; that their ‘whole world’ from thoughts to words to actions, revolves around their… ‘object’.
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After incidents like in Guwahati, the ‘show time’ made by the media and society out of that teenage girl's plight at the hands of jeering senseless men; women must have lost any remaining respect for manhood or any hopes from society in general to genuinely empathize with their situations. That naïve girl believed she had empathic ears as she talked to the camera! She is too young to know, that it is not just a matter of few fishes, it’s the whole river that is dirty.

As men conveniently forget to care about women whom they were designed to protect, they turn out to be woman’s worst enemies. They numb themselves, and do not care where they stand in the ‘lowly’ woman’s eyes.
By the by, what does the Man in today’s society look like in the Woman’s eyes? I am sure in any mature women’s eyes they are the weakest Men, weaker than even women, that any era could produce

But the truth is, it does not help to hate the sick. The sick have to come down from the throne of pride and see their sickness for what it is, only then can they help themselves out of it. The men who claim to be strong by harassing the weak, should come to terms with the weakness it actually is. Men have to abandon their high horses called “Manhood” that take them to hell holes. They should not lose their head to the powers of evil, rather, they should finally show their strength where it is really required; against the power of the dark as it pulls their right senses in. The head can rule again if it is kept where it belongs. That power is for Man to summon, for it is in his own hand.