If there were to be a club of coconuts that occasionally view the patterns of life with a magnifying glass, I would gladly recommend my head, or so I fancy. Strain the brain a wee bit, and one can hardly dismiss similarities among the many situations (or should I say many kinds of soup) we find ourselves in, very many times.

Some case studies may come in handy in our analysis. I may be the subject of the following case studies, but my guess is that not many will miss identifying themselves in similar soups that life brews up.

Steady, Steady…

I have many times endeavored to be polite and amicable, without raising the decibel level of the world to new standards. Almost always, my success falls at an unprecedented rate. As soon as I make such a resolve, a ‘certain’ character is bound to cross my path in a hitherto unseen way, and irk my head to higher temperatures. The coolant flows freely in the beginning of such endeavors (a lot of zest is initially available, you see). Subsequent encounters with characters of the above mentioned species are marked by astounding reductions in coolant flow to the coconut. Towards the end of the experiment (which generally, is not far from the start), it takes all I can garner to avoid a catastrophic top-shelf implosion.

The reduction in coolant flow is not always devoid of reason. The set of ‘certain’ characters that you are now familiar with, includes me among many others, many times. These characters many times make unreasonable demands, some of which can be entertained (endured), some which cannot and should not be entertained. So I put my foot down and the coconut shakes horizontally (a firm ‘No’) in the latter case.

The heart of the matter is that there is no thick line to distinguish the endurable from the otherwise. Gradually, the coconut starts shaking a firm ‘No’ for the endurable demands also….and once begun this is quite a quick phenomenon. In no time, a ‘scoff’ is all that is offered to demands, reasonable or unreasonable.

Now, if there is a way to check myself in mid-stride and distinguish situational demands as ‘foot-put-down-able’ and ‘non-foot-put-down-able’, wouldn’t I be Mr. Steady? So, it is all about balancing the coconut up there!

Wow, Am I Disciplined…

 

Sure, its true. I have wanted to write all this stuff for more than a month now. Its also true that these thoughts have found pen and paper in record time. There are many other things I have wanted to write about for years, and haven’t. Among other want-to-doos, I want to meet people, sing, cook, muse, read, put thoughts to paper like now… the list is almost never ending. Well, I have a word for the wisecrack who says put down a timetable. I am NOT a morning-awake-owl and I like to cool my nerves when I can’t see without a decent lamp. How many things can one squeeze in? It doesn’t work like that! I’ve tried it. Sincerely!

 However, I’ve also discovered that brushing the white columns in my mouth every morning plus a bath, never fail to rejuvenate and get me awake. In fact, ‘awake’ is defined as brushing teeth plus coffee for me. So you see, I am not entirely a random guy. Certain things are in place.

Now comes the all-important question. What else can I fit in as regular items on the agenda? If I accommodate as many as possible and religiously stick to it, I am termed inflexible, inadaptable, not creative and so on. Sure, I am so, since I can hardly do what I feel like doing, given one fine day. ‘Musing’, for example, cannot be scheduled. I cannot fix a time everyday, say from 6 to 7 in the eve, to sit and ponder. It just happens when I feel the need to do so. But then, if I muse a bit too much and do not work, you know what I am: Not disciplined! So, what is an optimum amount of musing?

Nature is random, so is life; and everyone is entitled to the “method in his madness” statement on Hamlet. What I am aiming at is this: a hint of indiscipline does drive one’s creativity, but a strong hint at that can make one drab, dull and unproductive. The all-familiar problem is back again! There is no thick line between a hint and a strong hint. Its all, as I said before, about balancing the coconut.

Indeed, there exist a plethora of such dilemmas, without the well-known thick lines. Musings on these lines do make very interesting (not necessarily disciplined) excursions. Be sure to try them out. Life, I repeat for emphasis, is all about balancing the top-shelf!