Just panning it out!

There have been times when we put on a thinking hat, gazed dreamily into emptiness in a dimly lit room for hours together and delved into a train of thoughts only to have rejected them as disillusioned or just not having had the motivation or time or energy to pursue the answer. This is a reflection of one of those times.

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All of us have been through epochs in time when things didn't go as planned. Depending on how short or long these periods were, the experience may have varied from being an interesting twist to the plot, a challenge to address, a hurdle to overcome, a gloomy day in the season, a series of unfortunate events or perhaps stormy weather prolonging the days of agony. While we relished the smaller challenges, we tended to suffer as we plowed through the longer trials. The initial enthusiasm at the opportunity presented by a challenging situation may have deteriorated into days when you just didn't care anymore.

During some of these longer periods of testy days (in recent memory) some random but frequent thoughts on topics that otherwise evade my everyday ritualistic world, like spirituality, meditation, prayer, philosophy and God would fill the void during the evening walks with friends (going through similar phases). These thoughts were the result of a day when you did all you could to make it count, but nothing happened. A string of these days would suggest that you were not in control of your life, while the quintessential truth as you had known it, suggested otherwise. The process of reconciling this cognitive dissonance created a platform that brought together the elements of spirituality, meditation and God. These were ways to balance an equation that was out of whack, add order to randomness and inject sense into events that seemed to have gone awry. I had thought of God frequently before but there was less questioning. Spirituality was just a tool for achieving control of the mind and not the righteous way to true happiness. As these days prolonged, I wondered if our way of life, where everyone did the same thing, in some form, way or shape, where we all spent our time running after pieces of man-made paper inherently accepting a vicious cycle, was really the way to be. I questioned if I was being rational or if I was just rationalizing. Was I looking at the world through a prism?

Finally, when the days of toil came to a happy ending and the solution to the dissonance was finally discovered (that it existed in the first place because I was not running with the rest of the crowd) the spin on it was that the hard work combined with an element of luck had paid off. Quickly, as I adapted to the way of life which I was just questioning earlier, everything seemed to be just fine. The thoughts instantly disappeared as I began to savor the taste of success. The new vigor injected by the turn of events drowned out those questions (although they remained unanswered).

Did we, during the process of evolving to the place we are at now, discover this to be the best approach to achieving fulfillment in one's lifetime? Or was the potential of the less traveled paths just dismissed because they weren’t just as appealing? Is the ignominy of our indulgence rather a blessing in disguise? The questions linger on.

-Vijayasarathy-

The white stuff must have got me high

Just after falling down a few times, my blue jeans was completely wet. I was having cold feet because of the wet socks. My fingers were frigid since the 10 dollar gloves were no good either. I lost my skis many times. I thought I had twisted my ankle. I just wanted to make it down hill back to the renting place. I just wanted to live.

Almost 5 years ago, I was having morbid thoughts on the slopes of Beaver hills in the mountains of Utah. All I could do to prevent crashing into trees or taking a 10ft dive was to stop abruptly by hitting the ground sideways. Five year old kids zipping past me made the situation seem worse for me. I didn’t know how to slow down, stop, turn or recover from a fall. And fall I did, many a time. Sympathetic passersby stopped by to ask if I was OK. Some told me to try the pizza wedge. Others told me to zigzag my way down. I did, to no avail. I fell and tumbled at every turn. After about 50 falls, I had mastered the art of getting up. About a hundred falls later I figured out I could use my already aching butt to make my way down. I sat on it through the bumps and troughs, determined to make it, no matter what. After an agonizing 2 hours I could finally see the rental office. I tumbled through the last of the many steep slopes and 20 minutes later I was where I had started.

Back at the rental place, I was trying to revive my fingers. I couldn’t feel them anymore. I ran warm water on them. I didn’t feel anything for a few minutes. Finally when the blood rushed back into the fingers, it was so unbelievably painful. I hadn’t experience anything like that before. I was still not sure about the ankle although the pain was much lesser than I had expected earlier.

As I was limping to the car, I began to recollect the events that took me to the top of the summit. Barely 10 minutes after I put the skis on and only after going down a small slope a couple of times I had impulsively hopped on to the lift. Only I didn’t know that the lift dropped you at the summit. As the seemingly endless ascent to the top began, the implications of this blunder began to sink in. I even considered taking the lift back to bottom of the summit but it looked equally dangerous. I had never worn a pair of skis, never been to a skiing place, never watched anyone ski, never skied down a slope until that morning. How did I ever think I was ready for it?

In spite of all the self inflicted torture, by the time I made it back to the rental place, I began to get a feel for skiing. I had tried the pizza wedge a few times. (It seemed to work when I was in no danger of crashing into a tree or hitting the ground!) I had learnt how to fall without hurting myself too much and to get up from the fall. And I was still alive. So I decided then that the next time I tried skiing, I would learn at least the basics before hopping on a lift.

….. and so I did. I went to the Wachusett ski resort a few weeks ago, took a lesson and have been skiing almost every weekend since. Not a pro yet, but one day I will try to make it to the Winter Olympics for the disabled (a twisted ankle or a broken knee!! All bets are open). I guess I’m just high on Boston lager and the Boston life!