Important not Urgent

Sometimes feels real and at times just a dream

Two belligerent siblings fighting to reign supreme

Clamour and void

are their names, their mission to abort the same story

whose very being lends them glory

Both can’t look other into the eye

and believe the identical effect they produce upon their subject

is just a delusion

a big lie

They probably never heard the adage –

Looks can be deceptive

For only when they collude and collide

That their subject is most receptive to

a paralysis of the worst kind

an impairment that imposes status quo

of the heart and the mind.

If you ever come across these two

You can always spot them like you can pink from blue

They make your life a bumpy ride

As they can,

Run as well as hide

I find it interesting how logical ‘thinking’ and rationality is given precedence in every-day life but every time I have attended an ‘intervention’ (training/workshop) it is always the role of ‘feeling’ that is highlighted as a key area of work.  We always find it safer to state our beliefs by saying – ‘I think’, I have noticed myself and others switch to this line after saying ‘I feel’ lest others think we are governed by some ‘unpredictable’ emotions and that we haven’t ‘thought through’. I also find the whole chicken and egg syndrome with thought and feeling (what came first?) quite amusing.  Though this piece is not an exploration of the syndrome.

I may as well have called it – ‘In Defense of Feeling’, which for me is remarkable since I have lived practically my whole life devoted to the altar of logical thinking. I would suspect anything that would be lacking ‘consistency’ or ‘evidence’. I consider myself no less than a convert as I have found new gods in ‘intuition’ and things which may not be backed by historicity but ‘personal experience’.

So here’s the question that bothers me – why is ‘feel-good’ relegated to realms of superficiality when actually at some level that is the very purpose of why we live – to feel good.  I looked up the Merriam-Webster which explained ‘-feel-good’ as “relating to or promoting an often specious sense of satisfaction or well-being <a feel–good reform program that makes no changes>”. The synonyms for specious include “false, hollow, phony, erroneous, baseless, fallacious, inaccurate, unfounded”. I am not sure which part of the phrase is considered more legitimate target of the attack – ‘feel’ or ‘good’ – after all both in isolation itself  represent capriciousness of the highest order, together they seem even more elusive and whimsical. At the heart of the attack appears to be a belief that ‘feeling good’ would drive inaction since once experienced as an ‘individual’ it will leave one with no motivation to drive that change for the ‘collective’. It is ‘selfish’ to ‘feel-good’ and as an individual you need to stay discontent to be able to externally drive that sense of dissatisfaction and lead to change and affirmative action in the outside world.

As a convert, I sense something not quite correct with the set of assumptions at play here and fear that they in fact may work to the contrary. Since ‘feel-good’ is superficial, we need to engage in something beyond the surface and deeper (think good?). To go to depth of the matter, we need to abandon these –non-empirical’ beings called feelings. It’s even ‘okay’ to ‘feel numb’ but not ‘feel good’. In case of former, we somehow seem to retain the agency of control (“look, I could put my feelings on mute mode, yay I am in control!) while in latter something inexplicable within us seems to be in-charge.

As an ex-rationalist, with some vestiges of ‘logic’ still intact, I am left to wonder if the reason for relegating ‘feel-good’ to the pits of the moral order is because ‘feeling’ is an individual act and lending it a free hand may bring it to clash with ‘collective’ good which far from being intuitive is extremely contrived. An individual’s ‘feel-good’ may be impulsive and morally incorrect. In a society with set rules and structures, where morality has been arrived upon with much deliberation, the ‘larger good’ has got to take precedence over ‘feel good’ to maintain order and avoid chaos.

What do you feel? J

I am currently on a sabbatical of sorts, the idea is to take out time for myself and family and possibly to undertake some self-introspection of life in the past couple of years and defining purpose for coming time.

In terms of professional work, I have less than a decade’s experience and in full-time house work avatar only a week, but I see some common threads emerge across the two. In the initial phases in both cases I have found there is much that keeps one engaged – new situations, where you predictably flounder and some where you surprisingly succeed. There is a journey of self discovery, things that you do well, those that you don’t, processes and means to improve upon the latter. Over a period of time, there are a set series of situations that seem to emerge, only the skin changes but at the core the issues are the same. We naturally learn to adapt, adopt and create unconsciously a series of template responses to these issues.

The closest example that comes to mind is of channels on TV (we got a set-top box installed today). Initially, there are 300-400 odd channels and there is no way to remember which one plays in what sequence, one needs to continuously surf back and forth.  However it is easiest to remember where the favourite channel plays and over a period of time most of them (even ones that you don’t care about)

Hence, once you have been through the circuit a couple of times, you know the drill, from this point it’s about (in a loose usage of the wordJ ) operational efficiency. Ensuring you do it clinically, consistently, less time to achieve more etc. From this point, the actual task matters less; the efficiency of its delivery is the key. To use a cliché, romantic discovery fades and are replaced by daily rituals of marriage.

I am at this point where I wish I could find meaning beyond doing the same thing well repeatedly. I don’t wish to be just busy anymore (like the saying goes, ‘It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants’). I had imagined being away from 9-5 professional work would give reprieve from seeking efficiencies only to realize that home work is about attaining efficiencies of a different kind.