Rio - Christ the Redeemer

Meandering of a mind in conflict. 

We lie to the world without a second thought because calling a spade, a spade means getting hit on the head with the same spade.   

We keep our thoughts to ourselves with our loved ones, for reasons best known to our own perceptions.   

We don't listen to our own self.  

Interestingly there is so much of chatter in the mind yet we try to drown it instead of making sense out of it.  We think we have all the answers without knowing the questions.  

When are we really ourselves ?  

"Our entire life gone by",  is the basis of the perception of our own life at the present moment and is the reason for the way we are -  the way we are, so in a way it's a self fulfilling prophesy of yesterday repeating itself today and then the same today becomes tomorrow and life becomes a photocopy of no change except the change in age.   Which eventually means we become animals  of habit with a mind without a mind of its own - on the larger picture. 

The imperceptible  changes - though visible to us are not ignored but we fail to act upon them.  When we fail to act upon them, there is nothing else to do but to react to them.  Reactions are generally of the knee jerk kind, both in the mind and in real life, which basically means that we end up with an action and a result which is more often than not - unwanted or unwarranted. 

Do luck or stars or karma play a role in your life is another line of thought that plays on the mind of why we are, the way we are but that's only when you choose not to fight the flow or not to take the blame for your own mistakes in life. 

Yes we all do make mistakes in life whether we choose to accept them or not is again a matter of choice.   When you have a choice you  make a choice. Choosing not to choose is also a choice. Choices are not always left, right or centre.  Sometimes the choice could be just to stand still and breathe deeply or simply run faster on the same path to self destruction or self gratification which ever way we look at it. Destruct we surely will,  like all humans- eventually when breath becomes air and what you leave behind is immaterial to yourself. If you look back you can plan a seamless transition from being there to not being there for what remains behind you.  

The idea is not to press the self destruct button.  The idea is to press the button of "Keep going" every morning with or without knowing where we are going ourself but we send the child to school every morning thinking we know which path we are sending him/ her on and where it leads to. Or do we even really know that ? 

We just know it leads to the future.  What the future holds is not known but the belief of creating a better future than our own is the goal.  

As I write this I am reminded of what my dad always said that his dad in turn told him that as a parent you have succeeded only if you leave your child on a platform to walk ahead in life than what you ever walked on. I never really understood those words till maybe today as I sent  my son or should I say despatched him to school imagining that he is headed for a better future than mine while not knowing what the future holds. It's all imaginary.  It's all about creating more opportunities for him to be better than his grand parents when he looks back at his own life. 

Which of "The 7 Wonders of the World"  would you like to visit ? : 

If my son wants to go to "Rio" out of all the locations of the wonders of the world for the simple reason that the Fifa World Cup was held here and Messi won the golden boot here and so on and he writes an entire page of it for class work but we rub it all at home and say - "Son, all this is very nice and very well written but you can't write this for an answer. You can't write what your mind thinks.  You have to write what your teacher wants you to write, what she expects you to write." And so he writes about "The scenic beauty around Christ in his flowing robe with the beautiful ocean on one side and the city of Rio on the other and the image of the feeling of warmth of the embrace that Christ's arms are  open wide for all of humanity and it's only befitting that the Olympics are being held in the city with Christ overlooking it." Or something to the effect.   

The beginning of teaching the child to lead a dual life has begun in real earnest.  

Ridiculous that we preach to allow the child to be what he wants to be and express what he wants to express and be how he wants to be.  

Children learn best by example. 

Are we really the complete perfect sample of what we would want our children to be like ?  

The child also does not really know you or maybe he/ she knows you better than you know yourself because he/ she sees you for what you are and not for what you have become.  

12 August 2016

  

Time and Quality time for children.

A few games of chess in a few hours with unknown children  at age 8.5 years.  

So you lose some and you win some. 

Sometimes you lose all and sometimes you win all.  

It's how you feel after you win or lose that makes the big difference to your psyche.  

A high after a win.  The need to share that win. To Share that achievement.  You need someone for that.  It's a natural human need, more so for a child.  

A low after a loss. The need to withdraw into the invisible shell.  

You need to be physically there  To reach out to the child inside that invisible shell that you can't enter.  To coax him out of the shell. To pep him up, to send him to play the next game when he does not believe in himself that he can win but so desperately wants to win.   It's the "wanting to win chord" that needs to be touched. So long as that chord is there you can always believe that - all it needs is a nudge to go back to the table and that it's just another game and it starts afresh and the previous losses don't count.  The mind has to forget it.  You have to remind the kid to look forward and not backwards.  

You have to make the child to live in the moment.   

If the child is not living in the moment then he has become an adult and that we all know - what it is like to be robbed of our childhood.   

BE THERE, even if you think you are not required.  

I was so wrong about thinking that 

all the movies that show the crest fallen face of children whose parents don't make it to their child's first baseball match or soccer match are over dramatised and the child is only being melodramatic and the wife saying that the kid really wanted you to be there --is so much of "booooo"  is highly over rated.   They are bloody right.   

As a parent Somethings have to be experienced to believe in.  

Some moments don't come twice.  

In hindsight I am so glad I was there for those 5 hours for Arjun to share his 2 losses followed by 2 wins and ending with a loss, for sharing his anticipation and strange anxiety of knowing the final score and final position in the tournament.  His jubilation to know that he was not last looked kind of a strange emotion to me till he told me that all his chess mates at school and sparring partners where he trains had told him that they had all come last in the first tournament that they had participated and that he would surely come last too.  

There is so much that a kid contains inside him that he does not share till he is ready to share with you and can share only if you allow yourself to spend time with him.  It all comes out with time only.   

Don't expect him or her to share what happens in his or her life in the Quality time window that you have identified for him or her out of your life at your own sweet convenience.   

The child will share it only when he is God damn well ready to share it with you.   

There is no substitute for "time". "Quality time with children" was a phrase invented and coined by folks who wanted to remove the guilt from their own lives for not being able to spend time with their children. 

On the 5th of August 

for 31st of July 2016

PS. Don't confuse spending time around and with your children and being a helicopter parent as being the same.