Friendship Project: Being slow to listen, respond and build a relation...

Let us be slower to become friend and thus life will be easy…

We are very busy and always rushing to get something. We are not engaging with life and reaching to appreciate things around us. We need our narrow –prejudiced proud groups to paint our identity and are delighted to invest more time in virtual social networks and professional affiliations rather than in real people having flesh and blood. What is this happening around us? We these days don’t believe in real conversation but merely are satisfied by superficial, hypocritical meetings otherwise would not be possible because we found someone we know at railway station or at the crossroads.

Is it so important topic to discuss, you will ask. Well, yes and no. If you are well proven in your biography to maintain and sustain the responsive, empathetic feedback to your friendship then certainly this will come as a surprising appeal or advice. But, mind well. It is much more than that. Here we mean friendship, not by compulsion pragmatic sense of selfishness. Rather than it is realizing that our life is other-centric and we are immersed in the aspirations and respirations of the people on which we are dependent and communities which help us to live.

When we discuss democracy, we discuss citizen rights, government`s welfare programs and the civil society which tries to bridge the gaps of performance continues to exist in three arms of democracy i.e. legislative, executive and judiciary. The notion of friendship is extended towards efforts and instruments to build solidarity, to exchange grief and painful experiences, initiate to express your sincere acknowledgement of the challenges faced by people around and wishing them good. Going beyond it comes to engaging people in small, small things. Discussing daily issues which may be very trivial and ordinary from the perspectives of ideals of friendship which ‘expects’ rather than ‘gives.’ This spirit of bringing our own hand to say hello, to touch and console the other person, to wish to congratulate about their hard work and asking for a cup of tea is worth living for.

So going beyond law, welfare schemes and democratic rights how we can ensure that people around us who suffer are enabled by this friendship rather than always running towards courts, politics and other institutions which otherwise are not successful in addressing the small problems, let alone bigger problems. Friendship is like seamless web. It does not solidify itself in compartments, narrow boundaries and divisions. It surpasses every possible mechanism of segregation and exclusion. Then friendship becomes a very flexible, comfortable axis through which discuss, debate and even fight over ideas, principles and our perspectives.

This has become the bridge through which peers share the business, research ideas. This is the channel through which water of our concerns and responsiveness flow thus enabling communities to share their legitimate grieves. In the age of accelerated conflagration of news and emotions through mass media and technological instruments we have forgotten to seat down, share a tea, think and converse with minimum trust with the person in front of us. This leads to more and more secrecy, confusion, suspicion, rumors, distrust and hatred. So, where are going from here? Humble friendship is the soul harbinger of initiating the kind of environment we wish to build around efforts to bring peace and prosperity in life.

So, let’s go for tea and have chat !

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Making choices, shaping times ahead...

Choices…what choices!!!

When I think about ‘Choice’, I start wondering that did I ever contemplate over any of the available choices in my life meaningfully. What is choice? Is it only a decision out of set of available alternatives? Choice may not be available all the time. Sometimes we have to create space, environment for choices. For creating ambience suitable for us takes enormous patience, time and resources.

We rely on our basic instincts, on the rational appeals of our needs to perceive choices. Our awareness about the options, information about right ways to pursue those alternatives and specific techniques, skills to complete the requirements needed for that toiling path is most crucial when we try to map out the choices. Freedom to think about different approach completely opposite to that of tradition in which we have been nourished also leads in prioritizing the list of choices.

On the other part our emotions also paint our vision while preparing for choices. Our perspective towards world, our ideologies, our approach to materialistic world, how spiritual we are, how religious we are, how much we have immersed ourselves in worshipping, how we react to diversity around us, how we relate to people common to us, our attitudes, our habits, our way of facing crisis everything makes choices.

How we question the past, present and how we envision future according to those glimpses from past and present creates enormous possibilities to think about scenarios in coming times about the future ahead of us. Our needs and capabilities determine our choices, of course. But going beyond that, we are also shaped by events. Crisis in personal, social and national lives force us to make critical choices vis-à-vis the personal lives. If I am driven by some insane dream I will naturally be not attracted by ordinary choices available in front of me. May be adopting those available choices will give temporary satisfaction and sustenance. But when I am moved by the dream to achieve the impossible as the world sees it then, I will be neglecting the allure of those and instead opt for non-obvious one.

Having number of choices is always better than having very few. This is a pragmatic sense which provides security. Mere manifested availability should not be a reason for committing yourself for one particular choice. Some choices we wish to make are hidden behind the obviously available exciting choices. If we are curious to ask simple questions, if we succeed to notice the subtle but significant changes under the surface and deeply evolving gradual paradigm shifts around us we can make use of choices we are having or choices we are not able to pinpoint with exact location. 

Is choice only like gateway, through which we pass, and can never return? Some choices are reversible, but many of them are completely irreversible. Preventive and proactive action to address the work we are doing is all about limiting the damage out of wrong choices done sometimes. How liberal we are, how open minded is our approach for the events happening around us? How mature is our common sense,  how down to earth is our experienced wisdom and knowledge also catalyses the whole umbrella of choices, likely to be present and likely to be emerging.

Choices…

When Darwin refreshed from slumber of his voyage,

he told us about natural selection, diversity and survival of fittest;

and also about choices nature makes for our existence,

which jungle for which animal and which flower for which butterfly…

When Columbus turned west instead of east,

he discovered the world never dreamed to be embarked,

When Picasso painted Guitar with dying old man and provocative colas of girl with mandolin,

he created different world of aesthetic choices for future…

                       

                        When Churchill decided to fight Nazis in the sky, seas and land,

                        he left no choices in front of British except to die,

                        but in the end he defined the meaning of Victory sign

                        and the followed his extraordinary choice of bravery…

                       

                        When Rosa Parks chose not to seat in biased seat in bus,

                        blacks revolted under leadership of Martin Luther King;

                        when India chose to lift one ounce of salt for freedom,

                        that became the pride of the liberation movement all over globe…

                        Ultimately when beauty chooses truthfulness as companion,

                        world becomes more just to cherish and to prosper,

                        when compassion chooses passion as soul mates,

                        life turns out of to be perfect choice of god gift created ever…

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