“To travel is to live”

Here is something I wrote for an online writing course a couple of months ago , thought I might add it here as well.

According to most dictionaries, “to travel” means, “to make a journey”. To most people this represents a physical journey and the distance covered is geographical only. But that is not the case. There is so much more to travelling then packing your bags and leaving the comfort of your home to get from one place to another. Travelling is about broadening your horizons, learning new things, testing the boundaries of your limits and occasionally crossing them. It is about meeting new people, finding new places and sometimes revisiting old ones from a new perspective.
Speaking from personal experience I have done some reasonable amount of travelling myself, not too much, but not too little either. Each trip has given me something new, whether that is insight into a strange and unique new culture or just cherished precious memories that stay with me forever. Each place I have visited has left its impact on me. Whether it is the barren hills of Balochistan or the lush green valleys of Kashmir, whether it is the centuries old architecture of a historically rich city like Istanbul or the contemporary wonders of any modern day metropolis. Each is beautiful and special in its own unique way. The joys of travelling lie in keeping an open mind and not being judgmental. Only then these places reveal their inner most secrets to one and only then, can one appreciate the exquisite magnificence of each individual location.
It is true that the world has shrunk to literally fit into the palm of one’s hand. Information about everything and everyone is available to one at the merest touch. You can learn about all these different places, different cultures and different people without even venturing out of your living room but none of this comes even close to immense degree of pleasure and sense of achievement that you get when you make the effort to go to them. An article on the internet can tell you the height of a hill or the splendours of the surrounding picturesque view but it cannot give you the crisp fresh air that tingles your lungs as you inhale it while standing at the top. A feature in a magazine can tell you about the length of a long country track, it cannot give you the comfort you experience when you sit down to rest your tired feet on top of a little boulder in the middle of the walk.
In the words of the great Hans Christian Anderson “to travel is to live”. He knew what he was talking about when he wrote that. Being alive is truly not just about being able to eat , sleep and breath, it is about experiencing all that life has to give you and one of the best ways to experience is to put aside your hesitations and fears and take that first step forward. It does not matter where to; anywhere is good enough as long as it is somewhere. And live life as it should be lived.

“To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote,
To travel is to live.”
Hans Christian Andersen, The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography

To happy and safe arrivals :-)

My baby is to come home from her university in a few days and I wish the time would pass slowly.   Crazy ! right?

The thing is that I know once she arrives the days are going to fly and before I know, it will be time for her to leave.  And then ……..… I am going to wish with all my heart that somehow time would go back to the point when she was still about to arrive and not about to leave, back to the point where there were no goodbyes and departures to dread but hugs and kisses to look forward to.

And that is why I want time to pass slowly because I know that in barely a month’s time, these very days that I am living through now are going to become my most yearned after point in time. 

Feeling Ashamed and Angry :-(

What is wrong with our media???
My son came home yesterday and told me that a boarder at his university had been found dead in his room. The cause of death: drug overdose, is not being publicly disclosed as yet out of respect for his parents. The parents will eventually have to be told of course once they arrive but till then everyone is keeping mum about it. 
Today I saw the news on several TV channels who are running the clip again and again complete with the student's name and picture. Don't know who leaked the news to the media but apparently someone did. 
Do they even realize how devastating this could be for the grieving family? 
How badly it is going to hurt them? 
All our media is concerned with is increasing its own stupid ratings. It has no respect for anyone, not even the dead.

Achievement vs Success (part II)

Having written previously about achievement, I would now like to add something about success, Are they both the same thing ?  Does achievement automatically signify success as well ?
Maybe yes and maybe no.
So what exactly is success? How do you measure it?

Success comes in many forms. There can be no set definition of success but for me the meaning of success is very simple: Success is a synonym of happiness.

There can be no success without happiness.

That is why from my point of view a content housewife managing the affairs of her household is just as successful as a CEO of a multinational company.

Success is not about having power; it is not even about controlling lives and futures. It is about making a difference, no matter how small, in someone’s life and feeling good about it.

Never measure success from a worldly point of view, instead one should always rely on intrinsic scales to assess this achievement and if the scales of the balance tip on the contentment side , you have  a clear winner.
So what course of action should one follow in life? The fast paced achiever's route or the more laid back slow paced one? I suppose it would depend upon the individual. What ever makes one happy, should be the road to follow.

Achievement vs Success (part I)

According to the wise words of one of my old teachers, "if your last achievement is more than five years old it is as good as obsolete, time to work on something new".
Makes sense to me.
What most people don’t realize is that achievement like any other thing has a life span which is usually not that long. Very few accomplishments have such a massive impact that their significance and magnitude transcends generations. As for the rest it is like a flower in bloom, amazing while it lasts but not worth much once it has wilted. So it is probably not a good idea for people to brag about some amazing feat they accomplished 25 or so years ago. Not only does it sound immodest, it also draws attention to the fact that they have accomplished nothing worth mentioning since then.
For those who have that ever pinching ambitious streak in them, they should know that one’s life should not revolve around one event, one goal or one accomplishment. It should be a constant struggle to excel, a desire to move beyond the point they have previously reached.
To continue to strive for better and beyond is true achievement.

Reading woes

I have finally learned to emotionally detach myself from a book. The decision came after having read a particularly unpleasant and depressing book. The most annoying fact was that there was no need for it to be that gloomy at all. I guess the author had some notion that dismal writings are a fad and thus turned a reasonably pleasant enough book into a forcibly dismal fiasco: an act that not only left me depressed but irritated as well. So I became weary of all books based on futuristic dysfunctional societies and made it a point not to form any kind of emotional attachment to them. Result is that I no longer get depressed.

But on the other hand the fun from book reading has departed. All my life I have lived amongst the characters on the pages of the book, felt what they felt, thought what they thought and did as they did. I have always been a part of the book, never someone viewing the events from outside as they unfold on the pages. Now with my new reading formula in place, a book is nothing more than words written on a two dimensional piece of paper. Leads me to wonder, am I doing the right thing?

I have been to Bukhara and Samarkand without having set foot in those places. I have lived though medieval Europe despite having been born several hundred years too late. Some books have grown closer to my heart than my most prized possessions. Can I live with never feeling like that for any piece of written work again? The way I see it, if you can’t feel it, you can’t love it and if you don’t love it you can never cherish it.
Can I risk never being able to cherish another book?

There is no end to the wonders of a good book. And yet, the damage done by a bad one is just as devastating. It is like biting into a bad almond. Everything you taste afterwards tastes bitter. So am I to give up all my moments of magical brilliance just so that I can save myself from suffering the emotional torture induced by below average writings.
Alas! that is the question to which I have not yet found an answer.

"Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0"

The colour of the sky today took me years back, to a monastery on a small hill on the western coast of France called Mont Saint Michel.
It is amazing how something as insignificant as a flicker of colour or the brief whiff of some fragrance can trigger such strong memories.