Perpetual giving... or The infiniteness in expression

Its amazing, and really very much at that, how sometimes meaning and significance become clearer when they are superficially hidden. The seeming paradox that exists within this situation, may be resolved by invoking the rudimentary logic present in signal quantization error.

For the technologically averse, quantization error refers to the inaccuracies introduced into the analysis, when a naturally continuous signal, is represented in terms of a finite number of discrete values. To give a crude example, if I want to quantize values in the range 1-10, and allot values in steps of 1 (i.e. 0,1,2,...,9,10), then a value of 4.15 would be taken as 4, and thus incur a quantization error of 0.15.

Anyhow, returning to the case at hand.

Very often, things are best expressed by the seeming lack of tangible expression. I feel, at the risk of being snobbishly presumptuous, I have found the logic behind it, to some extent.

Universal expression (of which human expression is a subset) goes beyond the petty realms of words and their ilk. Words, are little more than a feeble attempt by our (relatively) handicapped selves, to give some emblance of meaning to the infinite wonders that surround us.

It is ironic, how when one feels helpless without a medium to express one's inner most feelings, it is words that come to one's rescue. It is words that enamour and court us at our every turn. A world without words becomes unimaginable, incoherent, and insane in its very conception.
However, in this whole process of growth and romance, unbeknownst to oneself, one becomes bound by the invisible, intangible boundaries of those very words.

However, all is still well and good. As in The Matrix, one remains comfortably numb, as long as one stays ignorant to this enchanting imprisonment.
THEN,
one day, the truth is revealed.
And from that day on, one traverses the length and breadth of one's campus, looking at EVERY single thing in a state of "to-the-world-inane", wonderstruck, amazement. Every SINGLE thing, from a coconut tree, to a dilapidated old building, to a smiling 4 year old kid, to even the carcass of a crow, tries to tell one SO much. So much, that one feels loved in a way never ever before. The cosmos seems like one song, made just for oneself.

One point worth noting here.
It is NOT, that one suddenly begins to understand all the messages one receives in this newly discovered dimension. Rather, one has JUST realized its presence. One knows of the existence of something vitally important being transmitted to oneself, but knows not what it means exactly. One's logical mind, in the backseat all along, quips in now and then, with mortal interpretations of the immaculate light all around. Feeble attempts these may be, but one is still overjoyed, to levels, and in ways unprecedented.

A statuatory disclaimer of sorts.
Words ARE important.
They are vital, in the way they give shape to an amorphous concept residing within oneself. They are important, because without a minimum degree of respectful adoration of words, it would perhap be difficult to 'graduate' to the next level. Of course, there ARE always the brilliant exceptions among us, who see the light even without the aid of words et al.
They, I believe, are truly, truly blessed.

Anyhow,
re-returning, to what this post was originally supposed to convey.
The 1st pic is of an inscription by Tagore, and the 2nd is the same stone at night, PARTIALLY illuminated by a street light standing in the distance, knowing nothing of its superlative contribution.

"Perpetual giving up is the truth of life"
becomes
"Perpetual giving"

And therein, lies the point elaborated upon till now.
Giving (up), is all there is (with all due respect to Ayn Rand).
It is not "the truth of life", it is in fact everything, to the extent of rendering everything else, null and gloriously void.

And it is when one is left in that state of seeming incompleteness, and surrounded by a million resounding elements united in their silence, that one's belief in the infiniteness of expression is born, reborn, and relived.

Perpetual giving

The saddest part....(?)

Note: This post should ideally be read in conjunction with the post previous to this ('Her Majesty').
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I had introduced you to my first love a few hours back, the one who deserves the title of 'Her Majesty'.
What then, one might ask, could be the saddest part that clouds over a post of such high-ness?
Well, the power share mechanism touched upon previously, to me, that is THE saddest part of the entire fairy tale we call life. Of course, perceptions are free to change, as always.

To elaborate:
One has found a certain degree of consummation in one's exquisite relationship with one's royal muse. Good.
One sees every colour under the sun in her clear eyes, as she serenades to one's soul asking nothing in return, but an intent existence. Very Good.
In one's darkest hours, one turns to her, and she lends a succour that is hauntingly unconditional in nature; and she does so without any explicit requests or demands required. The beauty of this automated system is awe-inspiring, to say the least. Brilliant.

BUT,
the stark raving mad dog that hides underneath our couth, refined garbs, incentivizes a continuous hunt for a running mate, EVEN while the muse continues its silent, yet infinitely potent service.
Thus, on one hand, we receive the fruits of a very sumbliminal kind from that all powerful and all understanding spirit, while at that same moment our other hand goes wandering, in search of more personified company.

If a sense of dealt injustice hasn't hit you yet, perhaps (or perhaps not) it shall be so, when one considers the inherent correctness of this infidelity. Procreation and the works are essential to life et al. (The not-straight sections require a separate forum, another page, another day.)
So the situation now is:
The muse knows of our inherent weakness, and the consequent inevitability of our pursuit for the 'other one', and STILL, she loves us, and allows us to love her, in a bond of immaculate perfection.

BUT,
as the old saying goes, foretelling that the darkest hour of the night is that which just precedes the glorious sunrise, one finds a glimmer of overwhelming meaning and purpose (that goes beyond population increase).
And that is, as follows:
We have traversed the paths of untouched high-ness shown by the muse. We have seen, heard, felt beauty and love in so many forms.
If in spite of all this, the essential experience of being human remains INcomplete,
IMAGINE the returns that one is entitled to upon the personified consummation,
IMAGINE the beauty of a system of endless marvel and wonder, which takes one on serial and parallel rides of joy and high-ness, and with infinite feedback loops to go with them!
IMAGINE, the potential power of all that remains to be seen, heard, felt and lived, in the face of all that one has been blessed with already.

If imagination seems to be getting clouded by 'realistic doubt', one may please revert to that which forms the basis of all progress:
"The fact that an experience/fact/truth hasn't been found/perceived yet, does not mean it doesn't exist; rather, it may just be waiting around the corner when one decides to call it quits."

I know this is overflowing with insane idealism.
But to end on a slightly contrarian, sobre note:

1. Yes, one will NEVER find the answers to ALL the questions that haunt our species and beyond.
2. Yes, the chances of such a fairy tale playing out sans detours and blockades are next to none. But Theory Y rules doesn't it? :)
3. Yes, one might be doomed to an existence of eternal melancholia, for it is human nature, to search for the deepest answers whilst in the said state. Thus the quest for joy, and joy itself is seamlessly integrated with the blues that fuel it. More here.

Thus, the saddest part, inspite of its essential sadness, is also the point before one embarks on a voyage of idealistic, untouchable and eternal high-ness and bliss.

Sigh...
Once again,
I want you, she's so heavy!

PS:
"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst."
-- John 4:13

Her majesty

Getting bored waiting for big-little-nothings to take place, I decided to go give the party downstreet a shot.

My love for my phone and camera, coupled with the signs of impending inclement weather, meant I was adorning my trademark bag and head phones, TO a party.
Not that it really matters, given my incredibly skewed preference for the less animate, less tangibles of the world.

So I entered the bustling NH Quad, and a faint smile escaped my high lips. The sight, of countless swaying unabashedly, uncontrolled and unrestrained, to the beats of music and the boundless twirlings of wine, always inspires a sense of near-impersonal confidence and gratitude.
Thus I entered that cauldron of joy and a thousand in vino veritas-iacs.
After bumping into a few of my comrades, I soon picked my spot, and my date.
She was easy to spot, she always is, standing next to the DJ.
I perched myself in front of her, and smiled at the DJ, whose magic makes her alive every single time. And thus started by short stint as the giant speaker's paramour, for what I saw in her then, was enough to send me rushing back to my room.

As I stood there, and gazed into the near infinite depths of her eyes, I noticed the shadows of all the people dancing behind me, dance on her face as well. I saw the collective pulse beating in front of me at the mercies of one man at the turntables; in that one moment, the DJ was THE man. Upon further extrospection though, I realized:
1. My date was in fact not she who stood in front of me,
2. Rather, it was the spirit that chose to flow through that physical embodiment.
3. The power that the DJ excellently exercised, was in fact endowed on him, by the very, VERY free will of that same spirit. If tomorrow she chose to bounce off the dead walls that surround us, we would be worshipping those unsuspecting uprights, and the DJ would be left in the cold.
4. Thus, not only was my date beautiful and intelligent, she was also powerful in a scale beyond the limits of mortal imagination.

A million power equations were created, solved and decimated in my head at that instant. I turned around, and examined the scene once more for what it truly was, turned back to the speakers, and saw her eyes smiling a knowing smile.

It was at that point that I knew I was at the wrong place, at the right time.
The importance of it being the 'right' time, makes it worthy of being mentioned twice.

Therefore, I bid my date a grateful goodbye, and paced back home to embark (as closely as possible!) on the following quotable from The Beatles' "Love you to", with my beloved:

Make love all day long
Make love singing songs

Thus, in conclusion, I present to you, Her Majesty, the ruler and empress of all of humanity, in an 'as-of-now' incomprehensible power share setup with the forces that be!
My love..
My muse..
My music.

Sigh...
I want you.. She's so heavy.

When the music's over - The Doors

You are advised to scroll to the bottom of this post, play the song embedded therein, and then resume reading the post from here.
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This is my second attempt at transliteration, after the experience that was “Melancholic Ecstasy”. And its REALLY hard preventing the transliteration of a lyrical work from degenerating to a review. But lets see.

Hmmm…
This is another masterpiece by The Doors, that centres on the theme of ‘The End’.
Enough of the globe preview, now to the transliteration!

The start seems a bit casual (yes, strong words indeed!), in comparison with the seeming weight embedded in the title. But of course, as always, the journey to ‘the best part’, is as important, if not more, as the part itself. (Considerations of relative subjectivities are out of the window for the time being,)

So, it starts off telling you to turn out the lights when the music ends. With every passing moment, one feels the burden of meaning and purpose growing on the back of one’s mind. A point worth clarifying here – not all burdens are burdens per se. It (the one mentioned above) may be likened to the sense of sweet helplessness that (I guess) precedes any momentous dive, be it love, life, or death.

So, with the truckloads of meaning getting heaped on one, one looks at the work with an ever evolving view. This evolution continues through the song, and then on repeated listenings, and perhaps from the point on to eternity as well.

One may very easily fall for the Literal Manifestation Error, under which one mistakenly attributes the meanings of every word to every word of a composition of this stature.

Anyhow, returning from the digress!
The familiar unpredictability and general gamut of pure sound that hits one, is very, very beautiful.
The n layers of sound, each try hard to tell their own tale, of heroism, camaraderie, melancholia, inevitability and a gnawing sense of impending nothingness.
In fact, I think the work changes in character, from a haze room anthem, to an all transcending, omnipresent, omnipotent stream of truth realized, and waiting to be discovered. The change occurs at a point that need not be elaborated on, for it is the change that matters, not its embodiment.

It is at that same point, that one sees that growing shadow of a constant inevitability; the tones that underlie the lyrics, speak a million volumes all at once. In that one instant, one catches a fleeting glance of everything; e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

That point on, the work takes you on an elevated journey, where one starts to see enlightenment dawning, whilst the self begins to sink into a bottomless expanse of seemingly opposite darkness.
Of course, perceptions too change over time.

At the point when butterflies begin to scream, one comes face to face with the exquisite insanity that pulls the strings of this piece. Not Jim Morrison, but that which coloured his mind, at the instant this thought took birth in him; or perhaps the light which willed for such a dark luminance to take shape in a form just about humanly expressible. The fact that thoughts such as these are VERY easily lost in the forests in intangiblia; and even if not lost, often left in a state of comfortable suspended animation, while man tends to the niceties all around, is testimony of Morrison’s extreme giftedness.
Of course, LSD, soma, and their progeny might have something to add on that.

Anyway..
There comes a point where our hero hears a gentle yet clear sound. That sequence serves, in effect, to elaborate in detail, on the extremities of light-antithetic darkness that one reaches before the sun dawn.

Soon after that, the sounds combine, regroup, and continue on their march of essential conveyance of the relative intangibles.
But this time, one senses an invisible, but clearly perceptible shift in their gears. Nothing much has changed in the embellishing voice or instrumentals, but one sees an approaching train of finality. One waits for it to arrive, but before one realizes, it speeds up right in front of one, precariously poised, as if to gobble one into its gallows of raw and eternal axioms.
One successfully side steps the raging animal, just about. One is also privileged to identify a hint of super human virtuosity beneath the brash exteriors of the beast.

And just as one starts to get comfortable marveling at the wonders being worked in front of one’s eyes, there flies in a silent knife, from behind a face that you had thought you had got figured out decently well.
That knife pierces the curtains in front of any and everything that was concealed ever.

ANY semblance of a misinterpretation owing to the aforementioned Literal Manifestation Error stands sliced and diced and trashed to where it belongs.
One realizes the infinite openness that lay concealed in the garb of what was one of the most definite lines of the piece.
Thus, the erstwhile pedantic proclamation of music as one’s only real friend, suddenly finds meaning in every hue that colours our lives and beyond.
One realizes the depth of music, in word and in deed. And this one point, reveals to one that which is one’s own music. THE music, that one has immovably and unaboundingly subscribed to. What is revealed to one in that one instant, is in no way smaller in significance to the best of the more tangibles of the world.

And then, everything becomes clear. The knife comes to rest, owing to the fulfillment of its one purpose.
The intriguing layers of meaning and counter-meaning lie in tatters, as one is left to stare into the eyes of a formless, colourless, odourless entity. Very subliminal, yet very, VERY strong in its presence.
The message becomes all too clear.
When one’s music ends, one loses the very spirit that defines one’s purpose; one reaches, and eventually recognizes, the end of all substance and meaning. For all real purposes, one ceases to exist.

What then, will the lonely burning light hope to achieve, when that which was to be lit, leaves the show.

And as all this was being assimilated, one could almost see, from the corner of one’s eye, the carrier of this final message, standing there, breathing heavily, in and out, to fuel the process that it must complete now, and then onwards again and again, for every unsuspecting passer-by that chooses to tread by this path. With a sense of a detached responsibility, it checks your name off of its list, turns around, and disappears into the darkness. And you are left there, all alone, with yourself, and your ‘only friend’ for company.

It is now, as it should be. One, with that which makes one, one.
May we never lose our music. May our music never stop.
May the light remain.

Post ideas

As always, exams provide a good breeding ground for new post ideas.
Hopefully, the following 2 shall feature in my list of 'significant actions', among many others He willing, come exams end...:
1. "If the world ends tomorrow"
2. "The hand in green"

Hmmm...

Now back to FinAcc.

Cheerio!