Skip to main content

New World


Source: here

“... I felt a deep joy.  This, I thought, is how great visionaries and poets see everything – as if for the first time.  Each morning they see a new world before their eyes, they do not really see it, they create it.”

The quote is from one of my favourite books, Zorba the Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis.  To be able to wake up each morning and look at the world as if I were seeing it for the first time, with the wonder of a child taken to a new place, is the blessing I’m now looking forward to.

Each day used to be a delight.  Each morning used to break with promises of new experiences, new challenges and conquests, new learning...  Work was not work but sheer delight. 

Certain things change and turn our world topsy-turvy.  Inevitable, I guess, particularly in times of rapid changes.  Fight, flight, or adapt – one can toy with the classical options for some time.  The decision has to be taken.

I’m trying to be that child on the mountain, looking at a new world, looking at the world in a new way...

It will work, my heart tells me. 



Labels:

Comments

  1. Anita SabatAugust 1, 2014 at 6:04 PM

    Yes indeed, Sir.
    Very positive outlook! May we all be blessed!

    ReplyDelete
  2. ManiparnaAugust 1, 2014 at 6:36 PM

    I follow the same philosophy...at least I try. Each day is a new beginning , a new hope blooming... :-)

    Haven't read the book " Zorba the Greek" ...as it is your favourite...must be a good one..will check it out..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 1, 2014 at 8:33 PM

      Zorba is a wonderful novel. You'll love it, I'm pretty certain.

      Delete
  3. UnknownAugust 2, 2014 at 6:47 AM

    It will work, if your heart tells you. All the very best. This is the first thing I read this morning.. And feeling like I did the best thing. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 2, 2014 at 10:11 AM

      When I was taught in childhood that faith can move mountains, I was extremely sceptical. Now I know its meaning.

      Delete
  4. Renu VyasAugust 2, 2014 at 8:48 AM

    A morning that starts with such a positive thought (post) has to be be great :) I haven't read the novel you mention, will definitely do so now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 2, 2014 at 10:11 AM

      Glad I could get your day started on a good note. Do for Zorba; it's a book I read and reread many times.

      Delete
  5. A Homemaker's UtopiaAugust 2, 2014 at 10:06 AM

    Very nice post..I believe the same :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. RAN IN JAN August 2, 2014 at 11:46 AM

    excellent motivational post sir, I wanted to share a pic with you which portrays something along this line. But looks like I cant over here. So I am sharing the pic which I had posted in quora here. If you still cant view that, may be I will find someother way to send you.

    http://www.quora.com/Cartoons/What-are-the-most-philosophical-cartoons/answer/Niranjan-Goru

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 2, 2014 at 3:39 PM

      Yes, Niranjan, your picture conveys the same idea that I've put forward in the post. Thanks for the pic.

      Delete
  7. Deepa GopalAugust 2, 2014 at 5:48 PM

    Wow...you said it! I always feel the same and I keep repeating this to my daughter as well. Be positive :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousAugust 2, 2014 at 10:20 PM

    Be Positive, Believe & stand for your choices :-)
    Thanks for this wonderful Post.
    Good wishes

    ReplyDelete
  9. PurbaAugust 3, 2014 at 2:41 PM

    Happiness changes our outlook towards life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 3, 2014 at 2:52 PM

      No doubt, Purba. But sometimes despair too can change outlooks. For the change wrought by despair to be good, the person has to have a deeper understanding of self and reality.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Waiting for the Mahatma

Book Review I read this book purely by chance. R K Narayan is not a writer whom I would choose for any reason whatever. He is too simple, simplistic. I was at school on Saturday last and I suddenly found myself without anything to do though I was on duty. Some duties are like that: like a traffic policeman’s duty on a road without any traffic! So I went up to the school library and picked up a book which looked clean. It happened to be Waiting for the Mahatma by R K Narayan. A small book of 200 pages which I almost finished reading on the same day. The novel was originally published in 1955, written probably as a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and India’s struggle for independence. The edition that I read is a later reprint by Penguin Classics. Twenty-year-old Sriram is the protagonist though Gandhi towers above everybody else in the novel just as he did in India of the independence-struggle years. Sriram who lives with his grandmother inherits significant wealth when he turns 20. Hi...
9 comments
Read more

The Lights of December

The crib of a nearby parish [a few years back] December was the happiest month of my childhood. Christmas was the ostensible reason, though I wasn’t any more religious than the boys of my neighbourhood. Christmas brought an air of festivity to our home which was otherwise as gloomy as an orthodox Catholic household could be in the late 1960s. We lived in a village whose nights were lit up only by kerosene lamps, until electricity arrived in 1972 or so. Darkness suffused the agrarian landscapes for most part of the nights. Frogs would croak in the sprawling paddy fields and crickets would chirp rather eerily in the bushes outside the bedroom which was shared by us four brothers. Owls whistled occasionally, and screeched more frequently, in the darkness that spread endlessly. December lit up the darkness, though infinitesimally, with a star or two outside homes. December was the light of my childhood. Christmas was the happiest festival of the period. As soon as school closed for the...
14 comments
Read more

The Ugly Duckling

Source: Acting Company A. A. Milne’s one-act play, The Ugly Duckling , acquired a classical status because of the hearty humour used to present a profound theme. The King and the Queen are worried because their daughter Camilla is too ugly to get a suitor. In spite of all the devious strategies employed by the King and his Chancellor, the princess remained unmarried. Camilla was blessed with a unique beauty by her two godmothers but no one could see any beauty in her physical appearance. She has an exquisitely beautiful character. What use is character? The King asks. The play is an answer to that question. Character plays the most crucial role in our moral science books and traditional rhetoric, religious scriptures and homilies. When it comes to practical life, we look for other things such as wealth, social rank, physical looks, and so on. As the King says in this play, “If a girl is beautiful, it is easy to assume that she has, tucked away inside her, an equally beauti...
31 comments
Read more

A Government that Spies on Citizens

Illustration by Copilot Designer India has officially decided to keep an eagle eye on its citizens. Modi government has asked all smartphone manufacturers to preinstall a government app, Sanchar Saathi , on every phone in such a way that no citizen can ever uninstall it. The firms have been also ordered to install the app on existing phones too using software-update technology. The stated objective is to strengthen cybersecurity and protect users from fraud. The question is why any government should go out of its way to impose “security” on its citizens. For over a month now, I have been receiving a message every single day from the Government of India’s Telecom Department to install the app on my phone. I wanted to block the sender, but there is no such option. Even that message is an imposition. I don’t trust any government that imposes benefits on me. “ Beneficent beasts of prey ,” Robert Frost would call such governments. When Modi government imposes security on me, I ha...
8 comments
Read more