The Chronicles of a Happy Life

Or do beautiful girls really look hotter with a gun or any other weapon?

Blogger’s new photo uploading feature really rocks!

I just finished watching the Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. (Yes, I know, I should have watched it in a cinema theatre). Awesome movie!! Fantastic story, beautiful graphics and it’s deep too.

Ironically (is this the right word?), if we go by the movie’s definition, the world today is completely under the influence of the dark side of the force. We are passionate; we are attached and not just to people we care about, material possessions too; and we think only about ourselves, continuously, more than ninety percent of the time! While the Jedi way is probably theoretically right but it’s not practical at all. Actually, the Jedi way is quite similar to what I learnt at a Jeevan Vidya workshop (shivir).

Yes, a few months ago, yours truly, sat through all sessions, start to finish, for each of the seven days it was organized. The speaker did give a new perspective on things and some of his thoughts were really enlightening (esp, the one about intentions and competencies) but most of what he said just wasn’t practical. His recipe to be content (in terms of material wealth) was to decide on exactly what one wants in life (he used the amount of rice we are going to eat as an example!) and then be content on achieving that much. Theoretically, it’s all very simple. If all of us desired only what we strictly needed and nothing more, the whole world would definitely be a more contented place. After all, how much rice can a person eat! But, in practice, the entire argument collapses. At that time, I had put to him, the question - ‘what if my desire is to be richer than most people I know’ or ‘to make X times as much money my father makes where X is the ratio between what my father makes to what his father made’. He didn’t have an answer. I had asked him, ‘If your theory were simple, what would motivate entrepreneurship?’ (Really, just think about it, if all of us were content with our lives, the present economic system would simply collapse). He only gave vague replies, basically saying that business is bad/evil! This is just like the Jedi council reiterating that the Sith/dark side is evil/wrong, without further explanation! Under these circumstances, I don’t blame Anakin Skywalker turning into Darth Vader.

IMHO, Passion is necessary. Without it, one only lives an incomplete life. Passion leads to pressure. Pressure leads to performance. Performance leads to success. Success leads to happiness and paths to even greater success. Why is this evil? Answer these questions, who can?

Btw, some of you have said that I should post more often. Please don’t say such things - all the appreciation goes straight to my head :D Jokes apart, I’ve realized that I’m not really a regular-blogging kind of guy (read EXTROVERT who doesn’t mind publishing his most private/trivial feelings/thoughts on the web) [I'm not saying that all my posts are profound and non-personal]. I’m a private person and most of what goes on in my head, generally stays there. I do like reading blogs and I just wanted to try my hand at this new (to me) technology. The next post might be long in coming. Till then, may the force be with you :)