For No Rhyme Or Reason But For The Pure Joy Of Creation
A casual conversation with my sister about ‘what we will be when we grow up’, needless to mention it is never too late for this thought, led me to understand the futility of incessant goals that exist in every little turn of our living. She told me about her colleague who dedicated multiple years of his life pursuing a subject in academics that has almost no correlation with the kind of work he is doing now – not to mention sans any regrets. The crux of our discussion was that formal learning should be in the direction that interests us not necessarily in the direction of a cushy job or more money or better esteem.
This moots the idea that is having a goal in life an absolute necessity – worse still have we attached derogatory connotations to the absence of a continuous goal?
Think of the feeling and experience of visiting an indulging spa or a book and a hammock on a lazy, sunny afternoon – what goals can these activities possibly achieve. But the bliss and joy they provide is unique. So what holds us back from recreating that similar joy in every other aspect of our daily being? Moreover, the possibility of exhibiting excellence multiplies in the environment of enjoyment of the experience rather than fear of not achieving a goal.
I have more often than not been confronted by others for the lack of brevity in my writings that metamorphose a plain-Jane line into an overdressed paragraph, sacrificing the impact of being precise to the beauty of embellishment. Few friends have even hinted on re-visiting the rules of précis writing that I have so ignored in spite of the frameworks provided by High school teachers. If I ever make the mistake of submitting my writing to a hawk-eyed critic, the number of times I am told to break my lines, connect my paragraphs and restrain my vocabulary would shame any average individual into giving up writing. After all, I am told, the prime objective is communication not confusion. But what if I have no objective when I write? What if this is my equivalent of an hour in the spa – experiencing my high in the pure process of creation, deriving oodles of satiety in concretizing the random ramblings of the mind without any objective of effective communication or developing an audience.
Most often than not all these goals at every step we walk mushroom because we feel the need to constantly prove ourselves. We derive pride from the act of someone else’s approving nod – but imagine the magnitude of the freedom if we detach the sense of pride from the act of achieving the objective set under external pressure but re-focus it on approval from only ourselves because we have been kind to ourselves for a change and done what we truly need and want.
This chain of thought is delicate because it can be construed as an espousal of a life in which we simply drift without understanding the path. But on the contrary, detaching the sense of a continuous goal lifts off the burden that prevents us from expressing our best selves and bestows us with the ecstasy of creation – where the only answer to our professional and personal choices is because it brings out the unadulterated, burden-free best in me.
My yoga teacher often instructs us that this is not a class in ‘Yoga-Olympics’ – we are not here to compete against others – but are here to understand and respect the needs of our body – urging everyone to move the focus from outside watching what the person next to you is doing to inwards and listen to what gives you true joy. Removing the albatross of an interminable goal around our necks and consciously making the effort of embracing the sole objective in our life as experiencing the joy of creation can turn our life from being a constant Olympics to an experience of blissful excellence.
A casual conversation with my sister about ‘what we will be when we grow up’, needless to mention it is never too late for this thought, led me to understand the futility of incessant goals that exist in every little turn of our living. She told me about her colleague who dedicated multiple years of his life pursuing a subject in academics that has almost no correlation with the kind of work he is doing now – not to mention sans any regrets. The crux of our discussion was that formal learning should be in the direction that interests us not necessarily in the direction of a cushy job or more money or better esteem.
This moots the idea that is having a goal in life an absolute necessity – worse still have we attached derogatory connotations to the absence of a continuous goal?
Think of the feeling and experience of visiting an indulging spa or a book and a hammock on a lazy, sunny afternoon – what goals can these activities possibly achieve. But the bliss and joy they provide is unique. So what holds us back from recreating that similar joy in every other aspect of our daily being? Moreover, the possibility of exhibiting excellence multiplies in the environment of enjoyment of the experience rather than fear of not achieving a goal.
I have more often than not been confronted by others for the lack of brevity in my writings that metamorphose a plain-Jane line into an overdressed paragraph, sacrificing the impact of being precise to the beauty of embellishment. Few friends have even hinted on re-visiting the rules of précis writing that I have so ignored in spite of the frameworks provided by High school teachers. If I ever make the mistake of submitting my writing to a hawk-eyed critic, the number of times I am told to break my lines, connect my paragraphs and restrain my vocabulary would shame any average individual into giving up writing. After all, I am told, the prime objective is communication not confusion. But what if I have no objective when I write? What if this is my equivalent of an hour in the spa – experiencing my high in the pure process of creation, deriving oodles of satiety in concretizing the random ramblings of the mind without any objective of effective communication or developing an audience.
Most often than not all these goals at every step we walk mushroom because we feel the need to constantly prove ourselves. We derive pride from the act of someone else’s approving nod – but imagine the magnitude of the freedom if we detach the sense of pride from the act of achieving the objective set under external pressure but re-focus it on approval from only ourselves because we have been kind to ourselves for a change and done what we truly need and want.
This chain of thought is delicate because it can be construed as an espousal of a life in which we simply drift without understanding the path. But on the contrary, detaching the sense of a continuous goal lifts off the burden that prevents us from expressing our best selves and bestows us with the ecstasy of creation – where the only answer to our professional and personal choices is because it brings out the unadulterated, burden-free best in me.
My yoga teacher often instructs us that this is not a class in ‘Yoga-Olympics’ – we are not here to compete against others – but are here to understand and respect the needs of our body – urging everyone to move the focus from outside watching what the person next to you is doing to inwards and listen to what gives you true joy. Removing the albatross of an interminable goal around our necks and consciously making the effort of embracing the sole objective in our life as experiencing the joy of creation can turn our life from being a constant Olympics to an experience of blissful excellence.
posted by Garima at 5:05 AM
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