Dealing with Acute Lonsomeness : A Surviver's Notes

The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by Scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable Than my own meandering Experience…

~Baz Luhrmann in Sunscreen 

I am no stranger to lonesomeness. for past one and a half year I have been ALONE for most of the time .Eversince my flat mate Jitu got busy with his film making gig . I am pretty much living by myself .I  was in a relationship  but unfortunately  it fell  apart few months ago .This solitary existence played a catalytic role in withdrawl symptoms . Things were pretty bad at one point of time . Its not that I don't have friends. I have and they are dependable but calling someone over to your flat for a  drink or some philosophical babbling doesn't justify the logistical difficulty (and cost) . Ergo I stay in my cocoon . waiting for the time when I will become a " butterfly". 

I was forced to deal with this "urban loner ", "High Tech Low life " syndrome.Charles Darwin told us that In the process of evolution , humans ( mammals to be more generic ) develop some sort of equilibrium with their  surrounding .This is how life flourish .While all the biological  and ecological adaptations are gradual, natural and somewhat instinctive , same can't be stated for psychological adaptation.They are anything but INSTINCTIVE .Things are not in Black and white there. When things are inside your head you don't need to change the world you need to change your  perspective . Easier said than done . Dealing with lonesomeness  is one such thing.  

My time as a loner has tought me that Lonlinesss is not a state of world its a state of mind .with that relevation I fought back and I am still fighting back and its fucking  fun fighting it .This post is an attempt to share some of the tactics which has worked for me .I am writing them here so that you don't have to learn them hard way .so here goes .

Every Lonliness is a Pinnacle 

~Ellosworth M. Toohey In The FountainHead  

#1 Stop Mulling  Over  Your "Story"  and Start writing it :

So Whats your story so far ? Let me gues .You are someone in his /her late twenties , staying away from  parents for past 4-5 years , working with a leading software company , making a decent salary every month, You like your work but you also know that it's not world changing , you had a girl friend /boy friend but things didn't worked out , most of your friends have "other plans" everytime you call. You have some ideas for a starting a business /wrting a book / starting a project  but things are stagnated . There is an inexplicable inertia all around you  .Your parents are after your life to convince you to get married but you are waiting for your  Lady Love(or  Mr. Right ) .  Usually you put up a brave front but one sublime day When you get frustrated you ask "Why Its happening to  Me ?" . Well....there is nothing  unique about you and ....It's not "happening" to You Damn it, you are doing it to yourself . 

Mulling over your story is the worst thing you can do while facing the challenge of  lonesomeness . You can think about your college days, that trip to goa with friends, your frust crush, first kiss [if any],first heart break ,  first job and First ["insert your mental cobweb here"] . This won't help. You can think about this till Cow comes home and you will still be miserable.  Trust me  I  am speaking from experience . 

You need to understand ..what ever it was... its over .There is nothing wrong in looking back at your life once in a while and feel nostalgic but don't make it a full time job . if you keep on rewinding those memories again and again they will loose whatever little healing power they have .  and let me tell you what you are "Actually" doing . you are escaping and you are escaping to familarity .  Don't do it . Your mind need stimulus  .Go out create your new memories .explore life . what happened  till now was one chapter of a long book named Life . Now turn the fucking page and write the next ...We are looking forward to reading  it :) 

#2 Don't think you are the only one :

One of the most common misconception harbored by any loner  is that He is the only one in world going through it .  That all cosmic forces are conspiring against him . Its not like this dude (or babe) . I have some good news for you .World is full of self proclaimed victims like you  (one of the ex vetran victim is writing this blog ) . What ? You want to know where they are  ? Well I can tell you some of them are sitting in front of a computer screen right now and reading this article, like you . Rest of them log in regularly at Facebook/orkut/my space . Patient in advance stage of disease becomes bloggers and you can find teminally ill folks at slashdot .

I was reading google trend report sometime back and learned that most of the time highest  traffice laod on sites like Facebook, Orkut,Match.com ,Yahoo Chat is in late evening hours .and its consistent across Geography .  Be it india , Korea , brazil or USA  there are are people who don't have anyone to talk in evening . Take a look at this chart and see how consistently people are looking for the solution for loneliness . 

 

So how does this knowledge can help you today evening when you will be alone again ? Well First off it will have a sort of placebo effect ..you may find an irrational (and may be false) comfort of  proximity,connection  and numbers . second you can rule out the "Fate-is-conspiring -against-me" theory  ,third if like me you are thinking that Changing City-Country-Job will solve your problem than you can throw those hope away too . 

Trust me, once you clear this crap out from your head problem will look very managable . 

#3 Stop Comparing 

When We are lonely We start comparing our self to people around us. We compare and we compare stupidly some common examples are 

Situation( i ) : You see this  always smiling  guy with iPhone who flaunts it to evey girl in office and they swoon looking at the shiny toy . You look the "stardom" of guy and think "Man ! Whats the big deal.  Don't they know that iPhone Firmware had this issue  and it don't even let you access file system and there is no fucking Cut-Copy-Paste in that . My Nokia N95 is far better than it . Why don't they see Me and My N95" .  

Therotically you are right. May god give  more  Power to you  "theoretically" .  But in the mean time that "jerk" will  keep on getting  one date after another . 

Situation (ii) : You go to neighbourhood shopping mall  .you see a newly wed couple where  lady is holding (clinging) arm of  her "Hubby" while navigating   her way through the crowd .  you think "Man ! How cute. such a gesture in today's time ?What a Lucky Dog "  

Example (iii) :Your married friend seems to be having a perfect life He just got a new job and a second  car . 

Example (IV):  Someone less competent got a promotion ,while you suffer a 10% payrise .

 I can go on and on ...List is endless .

To sum up It appears to you that whole world is living in the state of blissful joy  .Like they are celbrating the second coming of christ . On the other hand in your life. its  like an eternal month "ramzan" and you are thumping your chest like rudaali . You know something ! you are stupidly selective in your observation . I was like you only before I wised up.

Solution (i) : Chances are that this "always smiling  jerk " is not that popular as it seem . Do as I say. Talk to one of those girls ..talk to them for 5 min ..Mention his name once and than wait, beat around the bush. I bet you will see the dirt .No,You will see a Cloud of dirt . A Massive explosion of  dirt . In that explosion of dirt you will see the "eternal truth"  which has always elduded the masculine of human species . " If you think that you are popular with More than one girl chances  are that you are popular with none of them ". 

So next time you see such "hot shot" .Just close your eyes imaging a huge explosion of dirt bomb . you will feel better .

Solution (ii):

Do you know that most  of the time when newly wed women do that "Cling-the-arm-in-public" stunt is   when  

•  A more Hot single chick  is passing by . it's women's code of saying " Stay Away Bitch , He is My Catch"
  
• They are wearing a sandal with pencil heel .their clinging to hubby's arm is not a gesture of emotional support or something, its a gesture of  support ; litreally .
  

This is not to say that this gesture doesen't mean anything . It do  but when such actions are driven by genuine love, admiration and dependebility then it will be very pure . The vibes won't make you feel bad  about yourself .  Its hard to explain the diffrence . you will know it when you will see it . I have seen  both and from compelte strangers . there is a hell  lot of diffrence . 

Same goes for rest of the examples also . you are seeing wordl filtered through the lense of  your biases . there is always another dimension . Often times when chips are down we don't bother to look for alternate explanation of events . We run with first thing that comes to our mind . sadly its in those un explored dimenstion that truth reside .Explore them ..look for alternate explanation .Truth shall set you free from truma of comparision.

# 4 Join A Gym - Excercise is just one part of it 

For years I resisted any suggestion of joining gym and doing workout . Mere thought of getting out of bed and doing those funny things to yourself was a horror. Result ?  I had a body which was rapidly turning in to a SCUD ( solid Cylinder of Uniform Diameter) and a stamina which was not worth mentioning . not a good thing for someone with the ambition of dating Sania Mirza .  So Sometime back i joined a gym in my office building .  It was very hard initially  I felt pain in those part of my body which i didn't even know I had . Talk of self awareness !

But one unintended influence of going to gym was the people I meet there  .  I meet a middle age housewife working in a software company .Mother of a 4 year old kid . She told me that She do gym not because she aspire to be a slim "in shape" chick  but becuase it keeps her mind  fresh  and clear the stress . One shower after an hour of workout and She feel stress free . In the absense of regular excercising she becomes edgy and restless .  Her husband is so happy from the change that he makes tea for her in morning so that she can do gym.  

I meet a group of 4 guys of  my age.Listening to their conversation in shower room is like daily dose of laughter challenge . they told me that they come an hour early to office so that they can have fun in gym . otherwise its boring life in office .

what you see here ? these are people who don't let things happen to them .when they see some thing wrong with their life they take action to fix it . scope of their action might be limited to their life only but still we can learn from them . They don't drift through life . this is the type of people you need to interact with  when you are alone . so that you don't resging your self to fate . BTW I've started wearing my body hugging T shirt again and it don't feel that odd  . : ) 

# 5 Call your parents  more often : 

Your parents can sense your trouble from miles away .  even on phone . they can tell something is wrong . so you think you can save them from trouble by avoiding to call them . they will still sense it . so best bet is be regular ..more regular in calling them and based on your comfort level discuss what you are going through. they are one of those very few people in world  who won't judge you no matter what . so be  little more open to them . I don't know why it helps but it helps . Of Course their is a sideeffect that you will have to field the Questions about getting married but I believe you can handel it . 

#6 Go Ahead Talk to "that" Girl /Boy  

This is a bit  risky but worth trying . You don't really know this person.  you see them once in a while ..around you but have no direct communication link . there is something about them there personality , mannerism , their eyes ,their look , their aura  or something inexplicable .  complicated  protocol of social formality dictates that you shouldn't  venture to talk to them . unless you mask it under  some stupid  "friend" stuff.  I strongly advice that if you think that talking to this person will be helpful than go ahead do it . Most people respect your honestly  If your intentions are clear  . its risky because 

A) Most of the time this occurs with the person of opposite sex so often times we confuse it with Crush or something .As I will explain in next point that its anything but crush . 

B) You can get rejected or humilated if the person whom you talked to turns out to be shallow or uncommunicative .

If you get humiliated or something than please be easy on your self and other person . see there are so many folks around us who play the victim card to get sympathy . it may be the case that person you are approching has been tricked before on such things . HE/She has good reason to avoid you . Eveyone has got their own history and their own cross to carry .

But my Life's experience tell me that people are more nice than society allow them to be . Since each one of  us has gone through this phase at one time or another so most of the time they try to be help.Its a risk nevertheless but a risk worth taking . I talked to someone about my problem once  .Someone whom I didn't knew much . I was lucky than She didn't turned out to be a jerk . Did it helped ? You bet . 

#7 Remember Relatioship is  not a  cure of  Lonesomeness  

You are going through this period of extended solitude and someone who is your well wisher suggest that "why don't you start seeing someone ?" .Its more likely if you are suffering a breakup . suddenly you will see a whole army of friends trying to set you up with another friend of theirs (who in all pobability is also suffering  from same problem) .you are so distressed that  a slightest  of comfort will seems like a Manna in dessert. you will fall for it . and agree to meet . you will tell yourself ..after all its just a meeting . 

This is a Trap , turn back and RUN ..Run for your fucking life or else  few months down the line you will wreck two more lives  . one of those will be yours . This is one point where I am not speaking from my own experience . But  I have seen it happening from sideline. I have seen it  way too many times that i think its true . Why this happen ? because the foundation of that realtionship was pain . it was never meant to last . Its like dating your dentist . you can only have 32 trips on the pretext of your "Problem" . if you want the relationship to last beyond that than it better have some thing more real and more robust . Sadly this is not true for most of the cases.  

# 8 Learn to be comfortable with your self 

Being Alone force you to be in the company of one person who matter most in your life  YOU .  We feel bad because we don't really know this person or we have forgotten whatever little familarity we had . whats left is a chaotic mix of your friends and family's opinion . without rhyme or reason . Take this time to sort it out . Take this time to be friends again . Its not some freudian crap i am talking about  its your life which is being dicussed .  As I don't know you so i can't suggest what you should do specifically . but i can tell what I did so that you can get a general  idea .  

Once i resolved to fight back , I  realized that only thing i have on my side is time . I started using it for good . started spending time on my self .  All the while i knew some of my prsonality issues .aggression , too much analysis , too mcuh involvment ,  too much spending , etc etc . I always wanted to work on them and improve them but never did. with nothing else to do i started focusing on these aspects of my persona .  Initial result are very encouraging. You will be surprised to see what you are capable of . It require a lot of disciplain initially but soon it becomes a routine . Today I wake up early (5:30) read a book for an hour, walk for 10 -15 minute. every weekend I do my own laundry  .I have actually started saving . all this was stuff of dream few months back .

 I am nowhere near my goal . I am nowhere close to attaining my residual self image. there is a long road ahead .whatever I have achieved till now are my private personal accomplishments.I am sure their will more acid tests down the line .It will be hard  but for the first time in many years I want to give it a good fight . for the first time in many year i am starting  to believe . I doubt if any of that would have happen without the opprtunity of self reflection offered to me in the disguise of solitude . 

# 9 Work on your interest : 

You are single , you have a 5 day work week , you have some money to spare . you might as well  use it on doing all the stuff which makes little sense to do but which you always wanted to do . Travel  to little known places , Read those obscure book you heard about , buy yourself a set of lego bricks,Indulge in Window Shopping  .kind of  stuff which is generally associated with  kids or old people . They do it due to lack of other option and its unlikely that they wil be able to alter their life in any siginifcant way by doing that . but you are still young you can use the learning for your own good . 

In last 06 months or so i have traveled a bit . read some weird books like simulacra and simulation , tried my hand at lego bricks .I learned to paly opening chord of "Ajeeb dastan hai ye" on aryan's synthesizer .  I am proud of every single second of doing that . find your own muse and you will be happy too . [ By the way Making model with lego bricks turned dout to be  more difficult than I imagine  . other good thing about having lego blocks in your  apartment is that you have some bright colored thing around .  ] 

#10 Fix your dinner your self

 I Love cooking  so I am biased on this one .It may or may not be usefull for you to same extent . But it won't do much harm either . I learned to cook three chicken dish , i can make a brittish breakfast of pan cakes and many such stuff . How i did that ? By putting my laptop on refrigerator in my kitchen , searching google recipie , watching  youtube video of cookery  demonstration. while listening to some song using winamp . It  was Fun ! Try it . 

By any standard I am still a loner and I have a long way to go . But it hurts me a little less now and I am fighitng it . I dare say that now there is some fun in this .I write this so that you can also look at it in same way . I hope that these rants are usefull for you . 

Thanks For reading a Loooooong Post . 

serendipity

Few year back I read a novel named "The Lost World " By Michale Crichton . the protagonist in that book was Dr.Ian Malcom . He was a scientist at Santa Fe Institute where he teaches Chaos theory. At one point in the story while he was giving a talk about Survival at K-T Boundary he asks

" What Makes you think that Intelligence & Awareness are defining trait of Human Race ?.No Its Not . Our Defining Trait is not awareness but its Conformity .Look at what we as a species are doing to Ecology and biosphere ,The very Foundation of our existence , we are damaging the Biggest enabler of life on this planet ."...

after a pause He says one of the most impressive lines I ever read. he says

"...Life Happens to us in spite of our intelligence not because of it "

Many year later today I realize that this is true not only in Biology but rather in every aspect of our Life .

"...Life Happens to us in spite of our intelligence not because of it "

I don't write this blog with any delusion whatsoever of offering any solution to Grand Question of Evolutionary theory . i have a very limited knowledge but still there are few things about the world and how we lead our life here that never fail to amaze me.one such thing is the seemingly random events which makes us happy , inspired and make us feel an inexplicable urge to do something extraordinary. what are these events ? why are they so random ?

We plan our life by the year but we are forced to spend our life by the day.we plan what we need to do Today so that we can ensure that our life is comfortable 1,5,10 or 20 Years down the line . From study,job,savings,insurance,stock,mutual fund to Buying AC in Winter and woolen cloths in summer ,you name it .

Outside of drinking beer I don't think anyone around me do anything to make him happy "Today". what was the thing that made me happy last time ??

a phone call from friend , Warm Smile from a colleague , a cheer full kid sitting next to me in DTC BUS, Stumbling upon a OLD song on Youtube.an encouraging remark from my boss, 2 hours of 150% of productivity in office because I reached there at 7:00 AM , a chirpy Girl from adjacent office who asked me "Hmm..long hairs ?? So will You be having a Pony tail now ??" and of course receiving comment/link back on a post I wrote 2 year back. all these tiny little things which I have no way to control .

Irony of life is that on death bed we won't remember what happened in Years , We remember moments . Moments of Love,Happiness,Ecstasy, Accomplishment, sadness and Joy. I am 30 years of age. If tonight is my last night what will I remember on deathbed ? what are those moments in my life till now ? funny thing is that none of these moments were result of any meticulous planing . They just happened .Till recently it was very hard for me to explain this ... I wasn't able to find right word for it .

But not anymore.Few days back I had a discussion with my friend Pankaj Parihar and he used a word which was exactly fit for what I wanted to convey.the word was "Serindipity" . Yes serindipity that was it .

"God has a plan for me ..and thats all I want to know "~ Anonymus

Each one of us want to know what's god's plan for us .at times when we are just drifting through the life we doubt;Do god really have a plan for me ?? Why can't I see his plan in action ? Where is the sign ? Where is the angle ? I think that all those serendipitous incidents are sign of god's plan. Take today for example . why i am writing this post today ?? I was thinking about this for a long long time but why now ? Why Today ?

Well because today I read a very inspiring discussion on Slashdot about value of taking risk and following your dreams and how to balance this with Family responsibilities . I received an email from a longtime reader of this blog asking me why I am not regular with posts.

Was there anyway I could have planed for these inspirations ? No . They just happened. I pick up the inspiration and run with it . result ?? I wrote all this in 20 Minute without a single break :) .Thats the power of serendipity . once you pick up the hints dropped by these seemingly random events there is no limit what can be achieved , its ..its like magic . I never typed that much in 20 Minutes . :) .

Unfortunately our whole society teaches us to ignore these hints , they ask us not follow that tiny little voice inside our heart . they give us logic ,rationality , plans , predictability and boredom . life tells us to take chance , society tells us to take precaution.

"Unless something terrible befalls you (unlikely) people rarely regret the choices they made and the chances they took. The regrets you have are the chances you never took. The opportunities you had but never caught. Go to your next reunion and talk to the people who are there. It is usually astonishingly depressing. A huge part of them still remember school as the best time of their life and they always will. The best time of my life is in the future, and it always will be. Take chances, try new things, and that will always be the case. Don't listen to those who tell you to "be responsible" and "content with what you have". There is only one reason they are giving you this advice. They hate to see you on a new adventure. It reminds them of all the opportunities they passed up in their miserable lives. When you get successful some time in the future, and if you try hard enough you might be, they will tell you about all that they "could have done, only it was... [wife, kids, job, weather, house payments, sick mother - take your pick] that prevented them from becoming successful. Oh, and BTW, if you succeed, these people will resent you for it."

~ Terjeber commenting on a Slashdot discussion

So folks what are you waiting for Go Out , Go Ahead take your chance.listen to the hymm of life its telling you something .don't pay attention to what people around you tell you , remember

"Risk is not that you will fail , Risking is that you won't even fail"
you think about it ..मैं चला बीयर पीने ...


Photo credit : Mr. Yogesh Moorjani

Observations,Patterns and Exception

I spend most of my free time reading books , blog , journals, newspaper etc. I had this hobby since my school days . I was never too good or keen with sports . only physically demanding activity I indulge in is Traveling . But most of the time my travels are a way to facilitate my thought process only . some kind of walking meditation .

If you ask me to name something in which I consider my self "Gifted" . I would say its my penchant for reading on wide range of subjects , and My more than ordinary memory for things which interest me . Somehow I am always able to remember trivial things from past . This is a funny and strange combination . This cocktail of Reading ,Remembering and Analysis sometime gives me some funny insights . they are mostly not earth shaking but they are amusing .

I had one such observation yesterday . Funny thing is that I observed something , [i thought ] i discovered a strange pattern , I was amused and inflated at my personal discovery and with in few hours an exception of that pattern was staring me in my face .

I rarely share these discoveries with anyone . My Girlfriend is very bored with my sudden shouts of Eureka!! Eureka!! Poor Girl :( .

so I decided to spare her and tell you my weird observation . Here I go ,Keep an Aspirin handy ,

Biographies :

I read biographies of a lot of Famous and successful people from different field. overtime i Noticed a strange thing in most of them . Successful and famous people somehow know each other long before they became famous .you may ask Whats the big deal in it ? Well see it like this

Statistically Only 10% of people try to do something which has a potential of morphing in to something big and more than half of them will fail. out of these remaining 5% , only 1-2% of people will be BIG enough to attract public attention. Attention of ordinary people like me . now my Question is "What do you think is the probability of the scenario where these 2% of folks know each other or are associated with each other in childhood or long before they werer famous ? " I think instincitve answer is very little or almost coincdential . well i notice these co incedencec too many times . see this facts .

• Steve Ballmer and Scott McNealy were childhood buddy as they grew up in same neighborhood .One of them is CEO of Microsoft and other is Founder and [until recently ] CEO of SUN Microsystem . What was the probability of having two Key figures of PC and Computing Era coming out of same neighborhood ?

• Dhiru Bhai Ambani got his first Institutional loan of INR 80 Lakh from a Banker named K V Kammth , who was just a simple Bank Manager at that time . Today K V Kammth is Heading ICICI Bank , a leading private sector bank of India . and Dhiru Bhai Ambani created Reliance Empire . Kammth was main person in resolving dispute between Anil and Mukesh Ambani . What was the ODDS that a regular banker and Trader who did a transaction and end up as Key person in their fields ?

• Mukesh Ambani and Steve Ballmar were class mate at Biz school .

• As a KID ShahRukh Khan was friend with a girl [daughter of a family friends ] who used to accompany him to movies and they used to enact movie scene after ward . Name of the girl was Amrita Singh . She became a popular actress and SRK became King Of Bollywood .

• While ShahRukh Khan was in school , He took part in a play where he has to sing a song. Teacher thought that SRK is good with acting but it might not be a good idea to make him sing too. so He asked another guy from school to be his playback singer . Name of the guy was Palash Sen ,Lead Singer of Euphoria .

• SRK was part of a Theater group called TAG . His first movie was an experimental film , where he played a cameo role of a gay . screen play of this movie was written by Arundhati Roy .Arundhati won Booker prize for her debut novel "The God Of Small Things ".

• SRK's Father -In-Law Mr.Chiiba was a close associate of Dr. Zakir Hussain, Former President of India .

• SRK's first TV Serial "Fauji " was produced by Retd.Col. Raj Kapoor . Col.Raj was classmate of Shammi Kapoor , Raj Kapoor,Shashi Kapoor.

• SRK's ancestral house in Peshawar was only few blocks away from house of Prithviraj Kapoor .

• During his stint in politics Amitabh Bacchan bought a house in Delhi , which was few block away from SRK's Place .

• Hollywood actor Rusell Crow is a Relative of Martin Crow who was Captain of Newzeland Cricket Team .

• John F. Kennedy was Chief Guest at convocation ceremony of Bill Clinton.

I noticed few more points about few more famous personalities but i think these example are adequate to convey a point . Enuff said

Exception :

So once I knew all these facts I was feeling very insightful.As if I have accidentally stumbled upon some secret formula .After few hours of this cloud walk I noticed something in news paper about Geetanjali Nagpal, . An erstwhile model who once shared ramp with Sushmita sen. News paper story said she was living a life of poverty . my theory was proven wrong . or is it ?

Epilogue:

So this was my little story of the day , I am still wondering if all these were some random occurrence or it has a hidden meaning . I am not sure . what do you think ??

PS: BTW I share my birthday (24th of March ) with Steve Ballmer and Imran Hashmi . Now i am wondering if it is a sign of things to come .:)

Thanks for reading my rants.

UPDATE: Recently I came to know another supporting evidence. Before joining Microsoft, Steve Ballmer worked at P&G . He used to sell Brownies and Cake mix . During his sting at P&G Ballmer has some co worker .One of them was Jeff Immelt , He is CEO of GE Today. Other was Steve Case , who Founded America On Line [ AoL] . if that's not enough there was a third guy too. His name was Scott Cook who started a hugely successful financial software company called Intuit .Microsoft tried to buy that company but some legal technicality forced them to give up the idea. Now you tell me is it strange that i smell something here