Musings of an Overworked and Idle Brain

                                                Musings of an Overworked and Idle Brain

The caption says it all. The use of oxymoron, fusing the two contradictory adjectives as attributes of the brain reflects the random and rambling thoughts that cogitate my brain in its last lap before my race ends. The brain works at its furious best these days as there is not much time left to use it, though there is the caveat- use it to what purpose! When such a question darts through the mind, the mind stops and whirrs like the idle run of a motorcar. But the thought of losing time reactivates the mind to think thoughts that lie too deep for expression. This is the true state of the oxymoronic mind.

You may wonder what is about which my brain is agitated. Those who have lived life to the full in their heydays alone can experience such an agitation in their mellowing years. The hustle and bustle of life is no longer there. From the quietness of one’s stay at home, it is impossible to rouse oneself to brisk activity. It is almost like expecting prisoners who have spent a long time behind bars simply to be thrown back into the hurly burly of normal life. One thus takes to passive action ( another classic oxymoron) by sitting in a cosy corner and allowing the mind to reflect on things present, past and future.

The first thing that strikes me on getting up ( no more an early riser as in the past, for  getting up these days  is as much an effort as getting into bed where sleep has become a luxury)is a long day ahead with the painful truth that  “one day is  like any other day, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second,.. They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.”- Awesome words of Samuel Beckett that make our hearts flutter with unknown and untold anxiety. But having lived life this long -through 77 summers and 77 winters, the urge to make this day different from the other days is irresistible and like a  never-say-die  champion player, I trundle out of bed in search of  “fresh woods and pastures new.”

The morning newspaper, fresh and crisp, to hold and read is an eagerly anticipated quotidian

 routine which is a carry- over from the past. I remember my childhood days when there used

 to be a mad scramble among us- me and my siblings- to get hold of the newspaper( before

 Father arrived with his tumbler of coffee claiming his seniority and paternal right for the first to read) only to glance through the sports page. Those days there was no Page 3 or separate sections for cinema, music and theatre. The only interesting page for young people from among the heavy news and editorials was the sports page –though invariably it carried the news of India’s defeat in cricket matches against England, Australia, Pakistan and West Indies. That was a long time back when TV had not invaded our living rooms. It was the age of radio and transistor with weak antennae trying to feebly relay the broadcast from Delhi and other major radio stations. Hence the newspaper was the only channel of information  for us about the outside world.

It is all changed today. The youngsters do not even pick up the paper except if page 3 flashes an attractive model or a cine star in modish style and wear, in keeping with the present day trend. They have their smart phones with internet and What’s app to get information about anyone and anything happening anywhere.  Today the paper is all for us, the oldies who have nothing to do in the mornings- (for that matter at anytime of the day)_. No rush to pick the paper, no fights as to who should first read or who should have the sports page or the editorial page.  Newspaper continues to be the life line for us to get connected with the world. At 77+, I do not have the energy or the enthusiasm to go to clubs and social gatherings where information, rumours, fake news are freely available to quench our fallible human curiosity for gossip.  A majority of newspapers today have been modeled on the cheap tabloid editions of the previous era, known for their unsubstantiated gossip about celebrities. What does one read in the first three pages? Unless there is an earthshaking political event, all one finds is news on rape, violence, car crash, train tragedy, homicides and suicides, burglary, con jobs, spine-chilling accidents like twin babies drowning in a washing machine etc. The sensational political news that makes headlines is about who said what, who countered what was said, who abused whom, who had the foulest repertoire of the choicest expletives. But among such inanities and fatuous trivialities, we come across brilliant articles by academics, political commentators, scholars and some enlightened statesmen, like the lotuses blossoming from muddy ponds (no intentional cheeky reference to BJP) . I am reminded of the Horacean adage that “good literature combines -both entertainment and moral gravitas- that searchings and social critiques need not be arid or that erudition need not eschew wit at all.”  

The question of what next presses the mind even before I put down the newspaper. After spending a reasonable length of time in arranging or rather rearranging my table and cupboard(  a task to give me the pseudo satisfaction that I am engaged in a task inspired by our PM’s call for ‘swachch Bharat), my idle brain reminds me that I have not made calls to quite a few of my relatives and friends. But then most of them are still in their late 40s and early fifties and will be at work. Hence I fall back upon my generation and after some formal exchange of greetings, for want of any other topic, will end up with a Q&A session on my old friend’s health, his/her family’s health (that includes husband/wife, children, in-laws) ending with that of the puppy a new addition to their home. Two hours on the phone will give me health bulletins of scores of people and make me wonder if I also have these classic symtoms of illhealth!
At the end, I mutter to myself  Eliot’s famous lines

 “There will be time, there will be time

 To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time …

…for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Only “toast and tea” will have to be replaced by roti and dal-sabzi. But the mind refuses to stay quiescent and I vow to myself that I will start going regularly to meditation classes to keep my mind still. But till such time I carry out my self-promise not to be agitated, I have to engage my mind in new directions to circumvent the whirring of the idle engine.

And lo!, then comes the  Bodhisattva moment for me when I try to learn how to face the empty moments of old age and turn them to a more positive and satisfying moments before I take my final bow. The only tool I have is the gift of technology-my laptop. I should put it to the maximum use to express what I long to express, what I am shy to express, what I fear to express and what I have the power to express, together with the obligation to express what I think will be my final testament to a life lived well with reasonably good quality of happiness and wellbeing, though  occasionally punctured by disappointments,  disenchantments and despondency.

What do I want to express? A deep sense of gratitude to all those who have inspired me to rise up to my full potential that my DNA had designed.  They had helped me to realize my potential to be a good learner, a good teacher with a reasonably well endowed power of articulation and a good human being. Born in a middle class family, traditional, conservative and religious, and enjoying a decent standard of living, I had my early foundation in contentment with life’s little pleasures and not to  seek more than what my status, position, intellectual ability and personal endowments entitled me to possess. We have a saying in Tamil that no finger can swell beyond its size.  Since one has no say in one’s birth, our early training to accept our birth as not of our own making but of a Power that decides in advance  our quota of  moral, intellectual and physical endowments,   helped us to learn our first lessons in humility. Happiness is the dividend we earn from our capital of contentment and humbleness. I feel shy to speak about my growth and development but when I see so much of narcissism and obsession with Selfie among the younger generation, that manifests not only through self clicked pictures but through Facebook and Twitter, I feel the obligation to express. The Selfie generation is miles ahead of me and my generation in terms of its technological savviness, supreme self confidence, enthusiasm to live life King size, power of communication unbridled by choice and sophisticated vocabulary, artful management of events and celebrations to add greater spice to life, the  and being  uninhibited and living as per their choice and easy sociableness. I despair looking at their competence with gadgets of all kinds. I despair at my inability to be a social person. The traditional, conservative upbringing with its  ‘do’s and  ‘don’t’s makes  me far too self conscious to let my hair down- even that is to be neatly tied in a bun  as becoming of my age and I have always to be dressed prim and proper as per the middle class morality. These youngsters casually attired –sometimes even parsimoniously- are at ease anywhere and everywhere. They speak in acronyms and I look foolish not knowing their lingo. They are a happy-go-lucky lot who live in the present, unconcerned with the past and the future. They guffaw with their gaiety, as they do not admit worries, care and anxiety to spoil it and they live for the day –Yolo(You only live once). I envy their gay abandonment, their laughter and cheer.  I am also impressed with their ability to decide for themselves. Right or wrong, they act without wondering where it will land them in. This is because they know how to get out of any difficulty with the same ease with which they got in. They decide about their partners-no more arranged marriages for them. If their marriage fails, what if… They can go for a divorce and within the rules of monogamy seek another partner. May be the second time it will not be a wedded contract but a live-in contract. What is important is they want their quota of fun and excitement unmindful of what happens in the future. This is unlike us- the earlier generation that will weigh all possible permutations and combinations of pros and cons and decide after an interminably long time. Well the present generation is enviously an insta- generation.

But still I feel compelled to offer this gratuitous advice as I have the nagging fear that in a much shorter span of time, they may not be able to maintain this pace and will burn themselves out. The new generation that is ever hungry for enjoyment is slowly being devoured by their voracious appetite which pushes them to be self-centric and far removed from empathy for others.  I may sound a wet blanket and will be laughed at for voicing my worry for their  tomorrow. But I still feel the obligation because I feel their great potential to enjoy life may get aborted and their make- believe paradise may be lost.

There is a quote from Gyalwang Drupka* which reads: “You will find life more relaxing and rewarding if you go about your daily life with a little more mindfulness that encourages appreciation, helps us be more generous an dkind and so bring us happiness”.(* head of the Drukpa Lineage, one of the independent Sarma schools of Vajrayana Buddhism)

Sitting in the easy chair, reminiscing about life, my idle brain works fast and furious to learn what the new generation has mastered in a short span of time and then attempt the twin  tasks of unlearning some of our generation’s mistakes and making them unlearn Selfie life for a more satisfying life of sharing and caring. The new generation with their remarkable power of  absorption and their facile use of technology can advance to be a better humanity  if egoism, self obsession, love for personal enjoyment are curbed . I realize why I want to express- simply because I know our frailty is our idle mind; our strength is our overburdened mind.