Unconventionality

Depending on your background, upbringing, religion and culture a life has been described for you. This life is being lived by your parents, distant family and others with a similar background. Let us term this: The Conventional. Today’s entry is to prompt a comfort level with what we commonly end up recognizing as the Unconventional.

For those in their twenties, we have been exposed to a generation gap driven wide by rapidly changing technology and a world that is smaller than ever before. Our exposure of the world surpasses any experience the generation before us has had living it. Even though they notice the same diversity in cultures and religions today, they have passed the age where they could incorporate it in their lifestyle. The Conventional choices get pretty set in stone after a certain age. They look at life from a certain view point. The experiences of their generation allow them to pour their unbiased trust more often than not only in people from their own cast and religion.

The ever wired life on the internet, the increased diversity by people migrating all over the world, the social addiction of Facebook has caused major interactions between people with different backgrounds. I urge you to view somebody else with an open mind set before dismissing their lifestyle as unconventional. I request you to put yourself in an uncomfortable position, outside your territory of similar peers; it will make you strong, well rounded and truly global.

Making acquaintances through common friends, trusting individuals rather than their background, reading scriptures from a religion other than your own, going for the unexpected such as a dance, an adventure or an event which you usually wouldn’t attend are all minute gestures that will incorporate a different culture in your life and help you define a life for yourself. God gave us humans the ability to reason, our parents trained that ability and developed our keen sense of judgment; it is time we use that ability and define our own set of The Conventional.

The next time you find yourself dismissing a friend’s choices as wrong, put yourself in their shoes and give an extra minute to think whether it’s something worth trying yourself :). Comments, rebuttals, feedback welcome as always. This is certainly a topic that needs discussion to be truly explored. A shout out to Tanu... For prompting my thoughts on Unconventionality...

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Taken For Granted

Two unexpected responses to an unexpected question have triggered this entry. My Question Series recently posed a question: Who are the people you are comfortable taking for granted? A general consensus of the responses was, obviously the people who wouldn’t leave your side even if you did take them for granted. Discussions with a few friends however, lead to some very interesting meanings of the taken for granted idea, henceforth referred to as TFG.

To prioritize last the people who are closest, to think of everyone else before thinking of them, to worry more about what that new friend of yours thinks of you from the other night, rather than wondering what your parents have come to know you as after 4-5 years of college far away; Is this TFG? If so, I am sure it asks for certain fundamental changes to be adopted.

On the other hand, another good friend simply looked as living in the moment to be inevitably connected to TFG. The age bracket most of us belong to, i.e. in their twenties, earlier even for a few, marks the beginning of well retained phases of life. Each phase is embedded in memory for its worst and best moments. Inescapably those moments are shared with other individuals; mere acquaintances or close friends, they simply define an aspect of your life that will forever remain with you. Now, as we move on to the next phase, if we lose touch with our close friends from the past, is that TFG?

Whether you live in the moment or are simply accustomed to taking your closest friends and family for granted, please realize that these are the people who deserve your pampering the most. Earlier I mentioned one definition of TFG to be people who wouldn’t leave your side even if you did take them for granted. If I have ever put you in this position, if I have ever taken you for granted, I request you to bring it to my attention. Believe me, there would be no better feeling/time spent than doing so making it up to you. You truly deserve it.

I urge the same to my beloved friends, living in the moment is wonderful, meeting new people, making new friends is blissful, at the same time, pampering those we take for granted is just as delightful and pleasing to heart. It isn’t that difficult either. If you have read some of my earlier entries, a cup of coffee shared, a hand written letter, or a simple email even will suffice. It will make sure that your friends will stick around in times of need or not. They say, a friend in need is a friend indeed. I say, a friend in need is same as any other acquaintance. The ones we turn to without need are friends indeed.

Comments, feedback, rebuttals welcome as always.

Love,
Mohit

The Mirror

A question with infinitely possible answers, infinitely possible interpretations recently confounded the readers of my Question Series; Define Friendship. As simplistic that sounds, given a thought, many came to realize how much this word entails and truly displays your adaption of a relationship. Yes, as a few pointed out, friendship is a relationship. In my view, however, your expectations of a friend define the sense of relationship you end up developing with someone.

May it be family, the special someone, childhood inseparable attached to the hip buddy or someone you met today, you portray various degrees of attachment. I feel your top friends amongst these are the ones who take you for granted the most. A selfless outlook allows you to judge these relationships based off your contribution rather than theirs. Of course, not all of them will reciprocate with the same kindness, but will also end up losing one of their true friends.

You must be wondering about the title, The Mirror. It was the first thing that came to my mind, when answering the question. Something slightly different from any answer I was given on the series. The unspoken punishing judgmental anxiety of oneself, the discomfort at being deceitful that can only be triggered by looking into a true friend’s eyes, one no mirror can ever replicate, is the honest test of a friend of the highest degree. Unfortunately, for many, that may not lay in your parents, that may not even lay in that special someone, but perhaps an unbiased unattached stranger who you have come to know in recent time and yet are unable to lie to. Only such a friend is your mirror. He/she is everything right you look for in yourself.

I thank everyone who responded to this particular question. Its purpose wasn’t just to inspire this blog entry, but to allow you to reflect back on those who entered your life to never leave; Who left their mark by helping you in your tough times, rescuing you from a flat tire an hour away from home, by making you laugh, offering you the shoulder to cry on, by letting you be stupid, letting you be yourself and most importantly, by being your mirror.

As a response to a direct request from a very special friend, I’d like to incorporate another minor facet of what friendship has to offer. I was asked, what does one do to find the special someone? If you have dated multiple people, if you have felt love with more than one person, how do you judge anymore to find the one that will last a lifetime? After giving it some thought, I couldn’t imagine any other entry more apt to answer this question. Dearest anon, instead of trying to find love, why not try to look for this friend? I feel if you can reach such a comfort level, that surpasses one with anybody else in the World, then love is simply waiting to infuse.

I offer my humble appreciation to anyone who has chosen to read this entry. I miss you my dear friends. Please feel free to respond with your definition of friendship, comments, rebuttals or simply saying hello. If there was/were a few friend(s) that came to mind while reading this entry, they deserve to know that they were thought of. Do send them an email of admiration.

प्यार भरा शुक्रिया,
Love, Mo

The Coffee

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word coffee? Here are a few responses that might come to mind:

Caffeine, for how tiring your life is and how it is easy to relate to the coffee I.V. joke.
Hot good quality roasted cup of black coffee, you can almost taste your best cup.
It’s good for you/It’s bad for you… each with supporting reasons.
Starbucks boycott to save the local brand.

All answers, true yet focused purely on coffee being the main constituent rather than an element of the thought. Besides, all very fundamentally influenced by the masses. For instance, tired or not, everybody can use more caffeine. Whether one cares or not, can certainly agree to boycott Starbucks. For me, a cup of coffee is only validated as an excuse to share valuable time with another soul. The caffeine has never accomplished keeping me up, whereas my taste buds are almost immune to quality; instant coffee is as good as one poured in one of those Nescafe advertisements. (I am sure many of you disagree, sorry, my five senses rarely operate to their full ability and I am still developing my sixth sense)

So coming back to the only valid excuse, I cannot start to explain how crucial a role coffee has played in getting to know some of the closest people in my life. Whether it was the Irish coffee I shared in the mountains of British Columbia or the sweet peppermint mocha in the basement of Irvings. I guess I am simply trying to urge you to try this just one out. Order a coffee not ‘To Go’ for a change. Sit down with a companion and sip it from one of the large coffee bowls over an extensive afternoon. It will bring you closer to another person more than you’d ever get in a hundred parties/movies/dates. Be sure to go there with no agenda and let the conversation unfold on its own. Share it with friends to bring some relaxation in each other’s fast paced life.

If we are in the same town, your next cup of coffee is on me. I’ll be glad to hear some of your experiences here if you have already enjoyed this subtle activity or are soon going to give it a shot in the near future.

With Love, Mo

Pull out that pad and pen… Write a letter…

With the advancement in technology, one of the (not so long ago) routine gestures has amazingly taken a higher level of significance. Aptly quoted by my dad, the world today is as small as we choose to make it. Cell phones, email, social websites such as Facebook, even professional websites such as LinkedIn allow for you to contact any friend of yours instantly or at the least expect a response within a few hours of leaving a message. Location and physical distance from you is no barrier. In fact, not just friends, but total strangers can be looked up in a matter of minutes and traced to their current location almost effortlessly.

In this day and age, writing a hand written letter is no longer the method of choice to communicate with someone. Unless it is a legal notice that requires a paper trail of certified mail, or someone lacking the technology skills needs to pay his/her bills, paper mail is nearly obsolete. However, such a decrease in its use has brought with it an opportunity to make someone feel special. Absolutely unexpected yet unusually unique, a hand written letter is considerably appreciated by most of us. The content itself isn’t even of much importance; simply a short paragraph or two will be read over and over again, as the lucky recipient just received non junk mail and have you to thank for it.

So, I urge you today to pull out that pad and pen and write up about your favorite color perhaps. Send it to a special friend and see it make his/her day. Do not forget to put down a return address now; it is my guarantee, your friend won’t sleep before responding to you. I have swayed a bit from my personal nature of the blog; however, I felt it was important to remind everyone about one of the little non-effort gestures that can go a long way.

To my friends and strangers interested in pen-pals, I will not put down my address on the blog. As mentioned before, it is readily available online within a few smart clicks for one who really wishes to write. For your effort to go through this entry, I urge you to leave your comments and feedback.

With Love, Mo.

The Couple Bubble

A few days back I commenced a Question Series on Gtalk (Gmail chat software). It was started to instigate discussion on various thoughts that cross many of us every now and then. Overall, it has received very interesting responses. I am glad that many of you have taken interest and have started looking forward to my questions.

As a form mainly of self-reflection and retrospection my first question of the series was, do couples live in a bubble and forget about their friends? 2008 has been a year of growth and fascination with the idea of love. Looking back, I realized many of my friends, myself included, have been under the influence of the couple bubble. I was intrigued to see that every friend of mine currently involved in a relationship took offense to this question and believed it was intended for them. Some food for thought I guess.

Whenever one enters a relationship, a feeling, a feeling stronger than one that can be described in words, blinds him/her. They are surrounded by a jolt of happiness and lose any capacity to reason logically, as they have their whole life. The stronger the relationship gets, the fainter the memory of past life. I can list innumerous positives that the entry of someone in your life brings with it. However, I’d like to discuss one of the absolute shortcomings of it today.

I call it the couple bubble because a relationship brings with it a layer of aloofness. People intertwine their life to such an extent that everything else becomes secondary. Usually nothing so wrong with it, however, when friends take a secondary spot one needs to be reminded of the big picture. Whether a relationship turns into a lifetime commitment or it is cut short due to irreconcilable differences, life is incomplete without friends and poignant when deserted by them.

The end of every relationship, whether for love or friendship, whether a loss or simply a disassociation brings with it a sense of sadness but more importantly a fear of loneliness. Instead of letting that fear guide your life, one needs to use his/her friends while at the same time regain their love, confidence and nurturing. It has to be looked at as a time not to be sorry for oneself, but to provide every happiness and joy to the friends who might have taken the backseat. It is a time to explore and move away from the only thought that surrounds us; the thought of a hollow space created in a very short time. Twenty 0dd years with a loving family, one to two with your counterpart; you be the judge about the non-existent/mistaken hollow space. Honestly, once through such an experience as many of us have already been through and many will certainly in the future, I feel you’ll never desert your friends.

I, for one, will always be there for you. Anytime, anywhere, I am simply a phone call away. If you are currently involved, I hope you do not take this personally. I have no fears of ever being forgotten by any of you. As aforementioned, this is pure hindsight. If you have taken interest in reading through this entry, one very close to my heart, your responses, rebuttals and comments are extremely welcome and desired. Please provide me with another point of view and I’ll gladly incorporate the same in my own thinking. <3