Skip to main content

Inspiration

Rowing on

The highest form of inspiration has the signature of love somewhere in it.  Even a great intellectual giant like Albert Einstein had love in his neurons.  His love, however, was not confined to a few individual human beings; it encompassed the whole cosmos.  When he said that "there are only two ways to live your life” one of which is “as though nothing is a miracle” and “the other is as though everything is a miracle,” his love for the cosmos is what came across.  The cosmos was a miracle for him.  He loved it.  His love led to his theories born out of his ardent desire to understand what he loved so much. 

Novelist Joseph Conrad could not have mapped the dark depths of the human heart had he not been inspired by love of human beings.  “Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness,” he knew.  But he also knew that men alone could seek themselves in the work they do.  What makes a man great is not the work he does, Conrad would have said, but discovering himself in the work: “for yourself not for others.”

I would couple the above two views to analyse what inspires me: an urge to understand my world (the whole cosmos) and my self (my microcosm).  The world fascinates me with its beauty and horror, compassion and cruelty, its resplendence and its obscurity.  All of them are present within me too.  You don’t know how much effort I require to control the demons within me.  My writing is an exercise in that process.  I wish there was more love in it than anger. 

PS. Written for IndiSpire Edition 198: #myinspiration



Comments

  1. Pranju chakrapaniDecember 8, 2017 at 11:44 AM

    That makes you a human, to control the demons present within. Of course, most of them don't realize that. The effort to bring the best from within is inspirational.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 8, 2017 at 3:55 PM

      You're right: most people don't even know their inner demons. They think only others have the problem. Most religious people have that attitude.

      Delete
  2. AbhiDecember 8, 2017 at 4:31 PM

    Beautiful. As they say , Love heals. True love heals completely.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 9, 2017 at 6:57 AM

      No doubt. The world is always eroding our love, however. That's the challenge.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Country where humour died

Humour died a thousand deaths in India after May 2014. The reason – let me put it as someone put it on X.  The stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra called a politician some names like ‘traitor’ which made his audience laugh because they misunderstood it as a joke. Kunal Kamra has to explain the joke now in a court of justice. I hope his judge won’t be caught with crores of rupees of black money in his store room . India itself is the biggest joke now. Our courts of justice are huge jokes. Our universities are. Our temples, our textbooks, even our markets. Let alone our Parliament. I’m studying the Ramayana these days in detail because I’ve joined an A-to-Z blog challenge and my theme is Ramayana, as I wrote already in an earlier post . In order to understand the culture behind Ramayana, I even took the trouble to brush up my little knowledge of Sanskrit by attending a brief course. For proof, here’s part of a lesson in my handwriting.  The last day taught me some subhashit...
11 comments
Read more

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...
4 comments
Read more

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...
10 comments
Read more

Violence and Leaders

The latest issue of India Today magazine studies what it calls India’s Gross Domestic Behaviour (GDB). India is all poised to be an economic superpower. But what about its civic sense? Very poor, that’s what the study has found. Can GDP numbers and infrastructure projects alone determine a country’s development? Obviously, no. Will India be a really ‘developed’ country by 2030 although it may be $7-trillion economy by then? Again, no is the answer. India’s civic behaviour leaves a lot, lot to be desired. Ironically, the brand ambassador state of the country, Uttar Pradesh, is the worst on most parameters: civic behaviour, public safety, gender attitudes, and discrimination of various types. And UP is governed by a monk!  India Today Is there any correlation between the behaviour of a people and the values and principles displayed by their leaders? This is the question that arose in my mind as I read the India Today story. I put the question to ChatGPT. “Yes,” pat came the ...
11 comments
Read more

The Ramayana Chronicles: 26 Stories, Endless Wisdom

I’m participating in the A2Z challenge of Blogchatter this year too. I have been regular with this every April for the last few years. It’s been sheer fun for me as well as a tremendous learning experience. I wrote mostly on books and literature in the past. This year, I wish to dwell on India’s great epic Ramayana for various reasons the prominent of which is the new palatial residence in Ayodhya that our Prime Minister has benignly constructed for a supposedly homeless god. “Our Ram Lalla will no longer reside in a tent,” intoned Modi with his characteristic histrionics. This new residence for Lord Rama has become the largest pilgrimage centre in India, drawing about 100,000 devotees every day. Not even the Taj Mahal, a world wonder, gets so many footfalls. Ayodhya is not what it ever was. Earlier it was a humble temple town that belonged to all. Several temples belonging to different castes made all devotees feel at home. There was a sense of belonging, and a sense of simplici...
35 comments
Read more