Dogs Vs Humans

I will be honest with you all. I have never been close to dogs or at least for the last 15 years. Nor have I ever been a dog lover. Certainly not the kinds that you encounter on Instagram or like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson kind. These creatures have thrown me out of my saddle while riding my bicycle many a times causing me physical injuries or that is what I have thought it to be. Because of which I had never been a fan of them, nor have I cared for their existence.

I have been locked down in the Shiv Nadar University for the last couple of months. There are a lot of clubs and communities in the University. This kind of diversity and awareness is something I really like about SNU. So there is also a community for dog lovers by the name Dogs of SNU. I am clearly a misfit here given my original disposition. But in the desperate times with lesser the number of students on campus I was given this responsibility of feeding the dogs of my cluster by Dogs of SNU. To be honest initially I thought what unnecessary irk I got down my throat and I was not very willing to do it initially. But then I thought what the heck, if I cannot help the poor creature in the time of need being available on the campus then who will. Keeping my prejudices related to dogs aside I agreed to take up the responsibility.

Now I am really thankful and grateful to Dogs of SNU for giving me this opportunity to serve these creatures who are epitome of faithfulness. This exercise has transformed me in many ways and changed the way I think. It changed me not just in my approach towards dogs; by being more empathetic towards them; but also in a way I started seeing other human beings. It also helped me a great deal in dealing with my break up.

It was never these dogs who threw me off my balance and bicycle I have come to realize now. It was my fear. As I started coming closer and closer to these beauties I have come to a realization that you better know and understand your fear rather than running away from them so that they don't throw you off your balance in life. But rather transform into love and compassion.

I had grown very acerbic and bitter towards others because of my breakup. As Buddha has rightly said and I quote "you are the first victim of your own anger". I would say it is true not just for anger, but for every negativity that you generate, you become the first victim of it. Being a Vipassana practitioner I knew this for a fact but when it comes to real life and situations the mind has its own ways. But I am really thankful to my practice and these dogs who have helped me see it.

The clouded compassion started shining again once the clouds of negativity started to clear. There is one more thing I have learnt about humans through these dogs that  when you get to know dogs better, you tend to develop a comfort zone around them and vice versa. Same is not true with humans. As and when you get to know humans better you need not develop the same comfort zone. It can also be that the comfort zone that you had before you have known the person in depth, gets transmogrified into a discomfort zone. With us humans ignorance is bliss. With dogs it is not.

Lastly I just want to thank Dogs of SNU for giving me this opportunity to come close to these beautiful creatures. They have really helped me in transforming my being. They helped me in being a better person, from being spiteful to being kind. Now they don't scare me anymore. All I have for them is love, compassion and an easy sense of friendliness. I still may not be a notarized natural dog lover, but I don't care for anyone's approval. I am happy with this change in my being.

“The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.” – Charles De Gaulle

The Starting of Starting All Over Again and Again

"The Wobbly Clothesline In My Balcony; The Clips Depicting The Inconsistency Of Life With Moments Of Interruption"

When it comes to picking up a hobby or activity; leaving it all of a sudden and keep coming back to it; I will be crowned as an unprecedented, unrivalled champion! I am an expert to this kind of pattern. I have only been consistent in being inconsistent. Before we can go into the pros and cons of the matter; let me put some facts about my life to support the argument made above in regards to my inconsistencies:

1) Took up playing Basketball and Cricket. Played it till State Level; now play neither of the sports.

2) Loved Mathematics and Computers; but lost interest in both subjects in Engineering College.

3) Took up reading and avid interest in English Language. Till now had frequent love hate relationship with it. This inconsistency can be observed from difference of date and time in my blog posts.

4) Went for my first Vipassana Meditation course in 2011, maintained the practice of the meditation technique for nearly 6-8 months, managed to stay away from Alcohol and Smoking during this time. Fell back again. Went again for another course in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. The story remains the same for years 2012, 13 and 14 and after 2014 I had went into chronic drinking to the verge of being declared as an addict. But since 2015 I had been consistent in my practices till date and now have no intentions of falling back.

5) Recently took up cycling and running; but had been many a times quite consistent and many a times not so consistent with them.

That being said; you must be thinking what good 'being inconsistent' can bring in one's life. The negative aspects attached with inconsistent behavior pattern are quite evident and clear, I need not to highlight them or state the obvious facts of the matter. Everyone knows that perseverance is the key to success; even the person with my level of inconstancy understands this simple fact of life. I am here to talk about a few positives which I had taken from my own vacillations in the following few paragraphs.

The very first and foremost is the art of dealing with reluctance when it comes to starting something all over again. Reluctance is one aspect of 'co-efficient of friction'. There is a fundamental difference between life and physics; i.e. of objectivity and subjectivity. In life there is no one co-efficient of friction; but series of co-efficient frictions deterring your movement forward. So with each new endeavor of starting all over again, you get rid of one or two of these co-efficients or reduce the intensity of it.So that way; as compared to every (n-1)th process of starting over; every nth and (n+1)th process becomes easier. And time taken to get back 'on track' reduces. This learning in itself is worth the trouble of starting it all over.

The second benefit would be awareness towards 'self ignorance' resulting in self-awareness. People who do things consistently does not mean that they are doing it with awareness. And since they have a straight line graph so there is a very little chance that they will come to know about this ignorance. Whereas with people like us; we will be totally self ignorant and at the same time will not be doing anything what we should or ought to be doing. This will give us some space to see this self-ignorance and we become aware of it. As soon as we be aware of it and aware of the fact that we have been off the way; off the track; we snap right back in and this time with some sense of awareness into the act. The more this happens more is the awareness we get. The only trap here is of falling more into the phase of inaction and self-ignorance and not making any visible or viable efforts of coming out of it. Rather totally giving in. This happens with the thought "what is the use", "not worth it". But let me tell you with my own experience that it is totally worth it and that is the only use life has. To fight back your own lows and come up to fall down again and so on and so forth.

The third positive is that you learn the art of dealing with ennui. Ennui is the root cause of all evil in the society is my take on it. Most people don't know how to deal with ennui. People with a consistent life have consistent way of dealing with ennui which in itself becomes the biggest ennui of their lives. But people with inconsistency will try to find different way to deal with the same. And these different ways will become different activities in their lives. There is a chance that some of these activities becomes hobbies and in turn becomes a part in life. But the pit fall here with this type of dealing is: sometimes it leaves you as jack of all trades and master of none.

The fourth and very last positive I find with my type of inconsistent life is getting prepared for the second half of the life. Life is very long.Worldwide, the average life expectancy at birth was 71.5 years (68 years and 4 months for males and 72 years and 8 months for females) over the period 2010–2015 according to United Nations World Population Prospects 2015 Revision, or 69 years (67 years for males and 71.1 years for females) for 2016 according to The World Factbook. Keeping that in mind, if one does not get an untimely death one is going to live for atleast 72 years. Mostly people they get married at the age of 28 and gets settled at the age of 36 and then they go on vegetating and become clueless as to what to do with life till they die. The kind of education and values we impart on our children is to lead them to settlement at a certain point of time in life. And that number is defined as mid thirties. But no body knows or thinks about what next? What after 35-36? With inconsistency you get opportunities to experiment till you are 30-34, then the time comes to consolidate on these experiments you have done with yourself. You would be left with so many things and ideas which you could work upon in the later half of your life. The only pit fall in this line of argument is: you tend to lose focus and there are chances that you never will be focused enough to turn your experimentations into viable outcomes.

So all in all I would say that there is no harm in being inconsistent in life, unless you are determined enough to fight back and get back in the game of life. This is a fight which you fight within yourself and is the only fight worth fighting for. So keep fighting and keep coming back. Be as inconsistent as you wish to be, trying not get consistent even with this inconsistency. Try to find something concrete from this wobbly life, taking every wobble as an opportunity to find something composed which can accompany you all your life till the very end like I found cycling and running.