Towards a zestful life...

     The title says it all. Zest is the  supreme quality when it comes to achieving success and no matter how big your dreams are, it finally comes down to your will, to your physically non-existential will to be precise, to do things. Everyone of us have some or the other situation,people who give us the necessary zest to succeed and surprisingly, it hasn't have to be positive all the time; for me negative things have also added zest in my life by creating a void which only greater things could have filled up. I consider life to be a surface which maybe irregular and with depressions in certain patches; but these depressions do not exist for a long time. If depressions exist either you perish or live by filling up the depression. I'd like to share five scenarios which lights me up:

                                             Presence of like-minded people: 

Like minded people, the kind of people who have the same electric charge as yours. If you go right, they'd also prefer going right. These people are the ones who make us feel at home when we are alienated in a particular place.I still remember the times in my college when I used to get a bit sullen owing to the environment there and wouldn't interact much. I inhabited this feeling of loneliness since I felt that no-one thinks the way I do, hardly pursue things which I do and then I met a person who had thought the same way I did and then we had a plethora of topics to discuss. In that sullen environment, the presence of a single like minded person adds considerable life and zest to any situation.  

                                                Presence of positive people: 

Optimism has always been a key factor which provides the necessary nitro boost to keep the car running in the long race.If any of you have played Need for Speed, there existed a concept of Nitro-Boosters, Optimism is like a Nitro-booster where the race has participants who are optimists,pessimists and extreme realists; optimism gives the necessary boost which helps overtake even the fastest bike in the race. The best thing to learn from optimists is how they succeeded inspite of the impediments they had. Considerably adds to my zest. Positivity is always associated with zest.

                                              Presence of a motivating leader: 

Sometimes, all you need is motivation. You might be the best engineer in the planet but without proper motivation, you are as good as a confused average engineer who is stammering to get things done. Brain ceases to support owing to the dull environment.
 Impossible has been achieved by people who have had a good leader nearby. A zestful leader can take you to the darkest dungeons and make you believe, against your senses, that there exists light and you never know, you have already crossed that dungeon thinking so. Such is the power of a leader.

                                   Being Happy and making others Happy:

 I like being happy and making others happy. Happiness is such a good feeling that it adds life to even the darkest of situations. There is no definition of happiness as such. I get happiness by seeing someone smile, by being in a place where there's a lot of greenery, sometimes by being solitary,sometimes by breathing fresh and non polluted air early in the morning. The spectrum of happiness in my dictionary is too huge but surely being happy myself and spreading happiness is an idyllic scenario for me.

                                   Presence of people with conflicting opinions: 

Having written the first point, it seems quite strange to write this point which is the total opposite. I find this to be a necessary condition in growing.Even a stable democratic government needs an opposition for smooth functioning. When you face opposition, you face either of the two situations:
     i)You are driven to prove them wrong.
    ii)You learn something out of it.
The first case is a clear situation where one is motivated and the second case is where one learns something new.This is one of the situations which adds zest to my life. Isn't it refreshing?
  So guys, what is your zest mantra??

This post is a part of the #ZestUpYourLife activity in association with TATA Zest and BlogAdda.com




The beauty of fiction

            

    Fiction has allured scores of people over the years. Fiction has helped many authors make a living, fiction has helped us to reach areas which are considered remote according the realms of reality. Fiction has helped some authors showcase the power of words which they possess to make the experience nerve-gripping. I haven't based any of my articles on fiction but have read many blogs where authors so lucidly and vividly describe some surreal circumstances. To understand fiction, a person needs a mind which says "There is world beyond mundaneness".
      Reality can never second the old adage of "Nothing is impossible". In our real world, we are often impaired by our limitations of seeing,listening,sensing things. Yes, you got it right, these are an impediment according to me. I term them so because they widely limit our thinking to whats called actually possible. No doubt that today our race has made a mark on the moon. Long before it could be turned into reality, we had already made our mark on the moon fictionally. It is fiction which initiated and heralded a spark in us which is today responsible for this milestone by human race. We are still physically putting in efforts to determine the end of the 'infinite' universe. Well, I have already reached the end and have also seen its creation. It is imagination to be more precise, the premier component of fiction which defies all laws and breaks all the shackles. There exists no manacle for the hands of fiction.  I sometimes wondered, how to restrain thoughts just like a person who is jailed. Is there a way?After hours of being pensive all I could infer is that "there exists no non-existential(because thoughts are themselves physically non-existential) chain to restrain our thoughts".
     Somebody has rightly said that 'a particular thing is realised twice, once in the mind and once in reality'(words may not be exact as the quote). For the latter to happen, we must let the first stage to really 'materialise'. All great inventions can be considered to be "fiction" once upon a time when people could only imagine talking to each other with them resting in different continents and united by a wire carrying electrical signals; the telephone which is now a reality.
   I feel that fiction is the precursor to reality. Some of you might still think of situations where realisation of the same is next to impossible. One of the situations might be humans declaring to have reached the end of universe and interacting with other extraterrestrial beings as depicted in numerous movies. The "fictional" part in me clearly shows a affirmative feeling. For me there exists nothing coined as bizarre, everything is possible, everything can be done first in the mind...and then finally, someday, experienced.
    Unexpressed fiction is the ultimate freedom a man can have, he can surely do all the bizzare things in his mind and no force but himself/herself can only stop or oppose his/her actions. So, let the MS Paint of your mind be active and let you all paint something which you wish to see true, someday.
I would like to end this blog on a quote:

"Whatever the mind of a man can conceive and believe, it can achieve"
-Napolean Hill

Let me know about the fictional stories you have written!
GOOD DAY TO ALL OF YOU!

Fakerisms

   Well...well..well.. Did I keep you wondering on the title of my blog? Any guesses? take a chance one more time? Fine, lets me break the ice, it means 'fake mannerisms'. It means to show to the world that one is well 'mannered'.For the sake of understanding let us consider mannerisms something more than etiquette's followed when we meet people. I mean to say that it is the value given to a particular relationship from the heart and to actually mean when they greet a person.
    There are so many people who say "Hello, nice meeting you" but hardly a handful of them mean what they speak when they follow the etiquette here. These dialogues have become so banal that we now utter them like machines do when we meet people either to match up to their status or to be as sweet as honey. Well, some innocent people are unable to realise this and think that they really mattered to these people.This apparent feeling of being valued is limited to only one meeting: once the meeting ends, the "strong-ties" come to a bleak end.
   A little more introspection into such people shows that these people are the epitome of being fake. They will show you green pastures only when they need your support to cling to. You must either be of some financial value or emotional value to them.Meeting them is a good experience altogether; their talks filled with embellished language to cajole preys out there. They will analyse each person by the value that person may provide in their lives and accordingly tailor talks to keep their record clean in his/her books. They will have no emotional attachment towards anybody whatsoever but they are master disguisers and will never let their true self show up.  These people will have two faces and to sets of friends; one set of friends to show to the other social beings out there with all sorts of fake interests and to create a fake high social image. The most jocular part is they may do 10 things which may seem modern apparently but their bases of such things are void.The second set of friends who actually stood by them during their tough times. The latter set of friends would never make it to their "parties" and other social gatherings. The worst part is that these people may not even bother to remember their well-wishers who stood by them like a pillar during high tides in their lives.

   These people are heralder's of fakerisms and they very well know how to lure others by talks and trap sane people for their own insane actions and purposes. I loathe such people to the fullest and feel that these people must be ripped off all the company they have at their disposal. They do not deserve anyone who is genuinely interested in friendship.These are the people who can never actually experience the joy of true friendship with anyone but can only maintain a ledger/balance sheet in life with one column containing people names and the other containing the "value" others contribute to their lives.Sometimes I even admire the "best-friends" of such people.Who knows this best friend might just be another person to just support this person so blindly in even all the wrong things he/she might be doing.
  So..so..so let me end this piece.It was surely a long one with
rancor directed to such fake people. The instant I see them, I am repelled miles away mentally. Someday, I wish to see such people out of this world so that the efforts I am taking to even keep them away is reduced and used for better purposes.
So, beware of fake people guys!!they are everywhere and you might be the next object of their interest, lured by their sweet mannerisms trap!
                                       GOOD DAY TO ALL OF YOU

The filthy rich but poor state of affairs!!

   It is morning 7:30 am IST and I and my friend are standing in anticipation of a bus at the stop. In a vast colony of ours, I can just hope that some bus might have gone inside the depot to later on make an appearance outside to ferry the customers to station. These buses are said to follow a timetable and are supposed to be on time like the local trains. The "Fixed" time actually is "variable". Sometimes the "standard deviation" is too much and sometimes astonishingly too less. I get a bus after these calculations only to know that I have no seat to sit but a comfortable place for my legs to hold the weight of my body.
 After a half an hour journey with my friend, we reach the station and this is where things are more disordered though the timings are fixed and sacrosanct. Every train does come on time, does its duty diligently of ferrying customers but customers fail to care for the services provided. In this case it is assumed that money paid is a big favour done. This is not the attitude which people portray or would express but something which their actions speak. "Macho-ism" here is something which is not based on one's character and actions but more on one's habits and appearance. People consider the whole of the country as a "wash-basin" since hardly there are any restrictions on spitting and every man has an extended right of "right to spit".
The railway tracks are a victim to this phenomenon. They are filled with so much filth and dirt that it is hardly bearable. People have become active doers but passive observers, what I say by this is that we act very easily, may it be any action but the effects of such actions are something which nobody wants to even observe or bring to notice or for that matter improve. One glance at the tracks will show many plastic bags, sometimes some bad spit stains which are considered to be "normal". From the person's perspective who has spit can consider himself/herself a hero figure since he did this action and there was not a single person to stop him/her in doing so.Behind him maybe 10 other passive commentors who would not publicly ask him to mend his ways but might abuse him internally for his insanse actions."Akhir me kaun jhagda karega aur jhanjat mei padega, ek ke sudharne se desh nahi sudharta(At the end who wants to fight and why to get into trouble and just improving one person will not improve a country)" is what people use as a standard "comment and logic" to refrain from correcting the person or questioning his/her actions.People, with this logic end up getting a false satisfaction a  reason for their actions. Owing to this attitude today, the not only the tracks in India but also the streets are filthy with garbage lying on roads, in certain areas(I see the condition slightly improving these days, feel good).
One more dirt is the passive attitude of people in turning a deaf ear to such problems. As I mentioned above, as always there is a rat race for money and there is no mistake in it being so, mistake lies in considering  that paying money allows one to do as per his whims without fulfilling any of his/her responsibilities towards the country. People don't realise that money cannot buy him/her everything: money can surely buy a house but it cannot buy him/her environmental beauty which is complimentary with the house. As the environment is complimentary, so should be such duties and they must not be equated with money paid for a service.
   So, people are getting richer day by day in terms of money but we are still poverty struck when it comes to our social responsibilty. So, guys, human race can never be poverty-free, can it? If we ever have to experience any such time, let us not turn a deaf ear to all gross that is going around us and make this world a "rich" place to live in.
    Let us first understand the different shades of "poverty".
Lastly, I would like to end this blog on a quote
“You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.”
-Frank McCourt