Saint Rantic

LADAKH………………. AKA Heaven…

Place: Pangong Lake
Source:Wikipedia on Ladakh

What makes a successful family?

This question has been in and around my mind for a long time. Everyone in India would look and comment at our commendably low divorce rates… however has anyone cared to check the rates at which they are going up? U may say that it is because of the westernization of the society. To me it is a sign that people are using and enjoying their freedom. It is a sign that if they make a mistake they try to correct it. Increasing divorce rates therefore partly indicate a healthy society. It also indicates the estimate of the number of people who make mistakes, thus shows the number of people who made mistakes marrying.

I believe that every culture has a divorce equillibrium. If our culture remained the same always, I have strong reason to believe that the divorce rate would fluctuate along a mean with small variance (i.e. no high devations). But culture changes slowly, as it is the product of complex social thought processes. So u can model it in a stable society with a small trend (up or down) and a random variable(zero mean gaussian maybe ) added to it.

It may be seen from the UK and Australian divorce statistics that the divorce rate fluctuate around a small upward trend. This means that they are more or less stable for a long time to come. The US has stopped collecting statistics on data (STRANGE!!), for some reason. So we can see that my theory in the above paragraph can be substanciated.

What is happening in India?

http://www.divorcereform.org/stats.html

The above is a good place to start looking for all round estimates of divorce and one can see that the divorces are in India are going to hit the sky sometime. There is a huge upward trend i guess( i dont have the statistics, and i believe no one does.. coz there has not been an effective census measuring this). Assuming this upward trend exists, it shows us that there is some big change in our culture, it is a cultural indicator. It shows how many mistakes are made, and it shows that more and more people are realizing that they have made a mistake.

Another interesting aspect for me to note would be the number of couples divorcing after having an arranged marriage and a love marriage.

I despise arranged marriage. For Love is the first pact that holds the four walls of a home, marriage is just a social recognition of the same. So love should come first, logically, and then , when the couple are suitably comfortable with each other, should marriage be coming. In India we have the opposite going on, an inverted logic, to say the least. Where marriage comes first and then maybe love happens.

I have seen couples, having grown up kids, living a zombie life just because the society demands that them be not divorced. There is clearly no love in the family. Everything is just official. The dad wakes up and says an official good-morning to the son. The mom makes official Tea in the morning. Then there is an official breakfast. Well, nothing un-official about it, we are just playing our roles here. I have a question in this case: Does marriage hold any meaning here? No, I guess. They should be divorced. Happiness is otherwise impossible.

Why don’t they divorce?
One reason which people give are the kids, which is plain bullshit. Most of them do not do it because the name of the family goes down the drain, if they ever divorce (Our business is smelling the shit of our neighbour and not caring about ours). And because of our motherfucking Indian man’s pea sized brain a divorced lady mostly would not find another man in her life (exceptions can be found, though). So our culture coercively prevents divorce.

So a person getting himself/herself into an arranged marriage is willing to subject his/her will to the whims and stupidity of the society. S/he does not care about whether s/he loves someone or not, all s/he worries is that the ‘name of her family’ should not go to the drain. Or maybe s/he wants to subject herself/himself to the emotional blackmail of her parents, because they somehow magically get hurt if their son/daughter marry someone whom their social status cannot accept.

When some desi dude/gal tells me the s/he will do what her/his parents say in the case of marriage, I go to some corner and breath in and out slowly in order to cool down. When they say that it affects my mind. It shows me that another dumbass does not mind losing her freedom. It drives me really angry, and that usually is a block in our friendship later because there is no emotional richness in such a friendship.

So the sky high divorce rates makes me a bit happy, more than anything it is a sign of arranged marriages breaking up(U might say that the same is true for ‘love’ marriages, but what i am talking about is the rate of increase in the divorce rate… it IS sky high and because of the very very few number of love marriages, i believe that the divorce rates are largely indicative of the arranged marriages breaking up! Atleast that is what my 2 semester of core statistics courses say). Although I feel really sorry for the kids who have their childhood torn apart from because of this, I should say that it is a sign that our culture is opening its eyes and listening to freedom.

The best way to deal with the kids who are affected by divorce is to start some organization which makes their lives smoother, like some counselling centers. Instead of making a hue and cry over the higher divorce rates let us rather let it go its own way and focuss on making less mistakes and also care for the children of the divorced. This will make sure that we kill this issue at the nip of the bud.

I find myself lost in the sea. Though this was expected of my journey, what was not expected was the pace at which things hit me. I am thinking now:”Am i worth it?”. This question is strange, because it asks u everything in just four words. For a dichotomous answer I would say No. For a more detailed answer it would be: Am i worth it? Not yet, but stay tuned!

There is one thing that I have noticed in people of great minds and great achievements. They manage their time. You have 24 hours in a day, 8 of which go for sleeping, 4 of which go for the housekeeping activities of your body. The remaining 12 hours are what we have in our hands. These are the hours that make the great people what they are and the average man what he is. Time is definitely a precious commodity.

The main ingredient of success is not of having talent that can beat anybody elses, but it is the whole of the mind and the body to be tuned into whatever you wanna do in your life.

Every beautiful achievement is like a consciously planted tree. You carefully choose a place to plant it. Then plant the seeds of change. Put water and take good care of it. You also enrich it with fertilizers and supplements. Some or even all parts of your life will be almost spent in thinking about the tree, when and how it grows up etc etc.

Any great achievement can be thought of in the same way. The seeds of change sown by the conciousness. The decision to work hard to make it possible no matter what, and a single minded dedication to succeed. Ultimately the consciously taken decision to fight and then the hard work of fighting it through.

I am losing it on two grounds. I am not working hard and I am not utilizing my time. Everyone who knows me would note that I have been successful enough to be called successful, but it is never even close to the kind of success that I expect to get. Not even close to where I expect to see myself in sometime. I know that this is a long journey and I am biding some time to cleanse myself of my idiosyncracies. Nevertheless, i feel that I have wasted too much time biding and relaxing, and that makes me unhappy.

Philosophically speaking, Satisfaction and Hapiness is objective i.e. derived from ones own actions and in an ideal case should not depend on others or their actions. This means that they dont come for free and that you would have to work for them. I am not working hard enough. I am not searching hard enough for opportunities. I am making myself weak and feeble for the monster called time to eat me off. I am not giving my dreams the run of my life. My adrenaline no longer rises when I dream of something that no one has yet seen. It looks like a part of me has died and it does not sound good at all.

I am planning some changes, and I shall note them here and also note how much of it I achieved. Everytime I change in some positive direction I notice that there is something that destroys it. I have come to see a pattern. It does not show anything superhuman, it shows that I dont have the will power to do what I have to at any cost. In such a case how will I ever attain what I have set to achieve.

Another aspect is a bit funny and emotional. I have always dreamt that I would be madly in love with someone. It is both a physical and an emotional need. A Ying-Yang thing. It is somehow disturbing me that I have not yet come accross a woman whom I shall say “I love you” and mean it for all what I am worth. Or maybe, the problem is in being worth. “Am I worth the kind of woman that I want to fall in love with”, The answer : No. The detailed answer : Not right now, but tommorow for sure. Then wait for tommorow, build yoursslf up and you shall be just fine.

Waiting! And the wait is killing me. It is difficult to see yourself change. Emotions are like muscles. The more you put yourself into something the more emotional you become in that aspect. The more time you devote the more strong you become. It maybe a healthy growth OR it maybe an obsession. My emotional muscles are slack now. I have a weak emotional muscle for achievement. In other words, I am emotionally obese. Like the fat kid who lives around the corner doing nothing but eating chocolate and watching TV. Waiting! Suddenly one comes to realize that there are no miracles, you have to build the miracle with your own hands.

And henceforth starts the new chapter of my journey. A quest to rejuvenate, by doing something that holds meaning. Will post more, as soon as time permits.