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Around 3000 BC, Karna, a sutputra (son of a carriage rider) had to lie that he was from a royal family, to get education. He was given a curse when his background was revealed. The curse, that cost him his life, the price he paid for seeking knowledge.

About the same time, another promising young man Eklavya, who belonged to a tribal community, was denied education due to his background. Determined, he made a statue of the guru who refused him education, he skilled himself in archery by practicing it. He became so skillful, that it made even the most skilled archer jealous who was the student of the guru who denied Eklavya. Call it whatever you want, the same guru who denied him education and still recieved the respect of a teacher through his statue, asked Eklavya for his right thumb as gurudakshina (tuition fees), sadly Eklavya oblidged. Another tragedy, for the sweet reward of knowledge and skills.

In 11th century, Gyaneshwar and his siblings were denied a formal education due to their father’s past actions. They were outcasted by their villagers just because. Good for him that, it didn’t stop him to translate and write Gita in their local dilect.

In 18th century, AhilyaBai Holkar dreamt big, she saw a future where women gets education just like the men did. She did make it possible that I could write this, right now!

Mr and Mrs Karve established the first women university in India. How privileged I have been, to get my engineering degree from one of their institution, which was a women’s engineering college.

I am grateful for being alive right now, then any other time in human history. All doom and gloom aside, we do live in a world, where you can access infinite amount of knowledge about infinite amount of things and you won’t have to give your thumb.

What the real concern is, what George Orwell pointed in 1984 and more hauntingly what Aldous Huxley speculated in Brave new world.

“Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information.Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.” -Neil Postman

What would you give for knowledge?

What do you have to give for knowledge today?

The problem with going with the flow is lack of agency, the benefit of going with the flow is lack of accountability.

When we live with other human beings, it’s most likely to be suggested by their lives. What they choose, what they do and what they avoid, impacts our thoughts and sometimes actions.

We live with a state of anxiety and it’s most natural to be in that state. Our lives are tapestries, made with series of uncertain events. Anxiety is the only possible state we can be.

Yet anxiety is most definite, when we choose to choose our own choices. When we choose to not follow and to lead our own lives.

Uncertainty is the only thing that is there when we lead our own paths, make our own decisions, face our own consequences. Uncertainty is blunted when we can choose from the choices others made, because the outcome and consequences are known. It’s ‘more secure’, less anxiety prone way of living out this life.

Walking the same, overused path can feel secure and the price we pay is the absence of ‘adventure’, hence seeking out adventures and living dangerously to escape the all mellow peace of our life.

Walking on a windy, weedy, not-even-a-path path is the adventure itself, and the price is walking solitary(mostly). The reward is the utmost peace and content, that you find in the all thrill that is your life.

Anxiety remains no matter how we live our lives, apparently it was an important part of terms and conditions in our contract called life, that we couldn’t read but signed.

One truly overcomes being a human, when they stop needing others, and also when they stop needing to be needed by others.

Carry on, as you never knew me, after knowing me; and that’s the sentence I give you.

Some unique days, I lack a sense of self.

I lack, the Ego,

which would shape, and be shaped by, my personal nuances.

It usually would guide me,

to make peculiar decisions, to take certain actions,

in a reasonable, characteristic way.

When I am having, such lack-ego days,

It would make me feel lost,

But maybe,

what I feel, is free,

and I just don’t know that freedom could feel like this.

Freedom from expectations, which my ‘set ego’ would have.

There are no expectations on these days,

Regarding, how, what, why and who.

It just might be, a sweet spot,

which I have been looking at, as a crisis.

Just the right window of opportunity, to do everything out of character,

To be every character.

It might be the sweet spot,

where I can exist,

as if,

I never was born,

as a person confined in a physical form.

“To withstand the onset of vices when they come with such a mighty following.” – Seneca

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Surrounded by so many influences, I keep on wishing, to be born again.

Maybe a time back in the past, or maybe into the future.

Something is very wrong here, it is hard for me to put in words.

It is almost but not quite, like hearing the same song again and again,

Everyone is mesmerized, while I feel the storm of impatience, about to surge out of me.

I am afraid, what I might do, if this song does not change.

Will I know any version of me, which is not this.

Any version will there be, which ‘I’ will like.

Who is ‘I’, if I am so concerned about what this ‘I’ thinks,

And who is it, the ‘I’ is judging?

Considering my reliance on the opinion of this ‘I’,

I must like ‘I’, I must really respect ‘I’.

How many ‘I’ there are?

Which one is in charge?

Which one should I listen to?

Which ‘I’ is am ‘I’?

Would you know if you were dreaming, reading this?

Do you ever know, when you are dreaming?

How can you be sure that this isn’t a dream?

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Would you know if you are alive?

Do you know when you are not?

How can you be so sure of being alive if you don’t know what it is to not be alive?

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Would you know if you are ‘here’?

Do you know what is ‘there’?

How can you be so sure of being ‘here’, when you don’t know, what it is to be ‘there’?

A universe always present in us, as us,

Expanding or contracting but exist, it does.

The smallest particle making us, has the whole universe waiting for expansion.

The farthest state we expand to, we are destined to contract back to that primeval atom.

From the chaos, order is born,

the overwhelming quality of it, is what you can look for.

It is when, one is in the midst of crumbling realities,

they are closest to a stable ground;

otherwise, we are always riding the waves of ups and downs.

When one detaches oneself enough, from the meaning making faculties,

they would observe their senses, and find chaos quite soothing.

In the midst of chaos, one need not look over their shoulder,

everything fragile is already broken.

What still remains is durable,

to find what is strong,

let it crawl right out, through the meaninglessness of chaos.