Hey hey!
Hope you had a great Deepavali or at least used it as a solid excuse for a long weekend and lots of food and chilling. I certainly did.
On to the 3 posts for today,
on traditions and Deepavali. Should you burst crackers? Should you pollute? What about the dogs and the noise pollution? And where do these crackers come from?
3 quotes, as always. With a book recommendation and a movie recommendation.
scales and beats. You start with basic drills and you keep doing it and you get better, and then you start putting things together. That’s how most skills work. Including music. Including fitness. Including fat loss.
on Deepavali and traditions
The only day I used to wake up at 4 am for
A day to celebrate the triumph of good over evil. That's the legend, anyway. But it does not matter today what the actual reason is. Over the past hundreds (thousands) of years, Deepavali is a tradition that is celebrated by the vast majority of India**.
Deepavali is just an excuse. If you are atheist or grew up in a different religion or practice a different one, replace it with a different word that makes more meaning to you. In this article, I will use the word "Deepavali".
Long, long ago, before waking up at 4 am become the norm in my life, Deepavali marked the only day when I'd wake up at 4 am. After the initial grumbling and whining, the first few hours of events and rituals are deeply embedded in my memory. The oil. The bath. The new clothes. The crackers and fireworks. Being together as a family, with the uncles and aunts and grandparents and everyone. In particular, having my grandmother assist me while I burst crackers - her job would be to close my ears as I ran scurrying back after lighting one.
It is a day and tradition that has a lot of fun and joyous memories. I am sure you have a day like that as well. Or quite a few days. Quite a few traditions.
Whataboutisms
As you grow up, you realise that the noise is horrible. You never truly cared for it. You enjoyed all the other aspects around it though.
You've heard about child labour but are confused about how that can be a thing, coz you go to school and have whatever you need. Privilege etc are things you are oblivious to.
Your dogs are petrified of the noise. They shudder and huddle in corners of your house, under the bed, refusing to eat. It is a nightmare for them. You start to despise the crackers.
Then there's the climate change aspect. The smog and pollution created by this one tradition, while hard to quantify versus the pollution we create by existing, is a bit ridiculous and overwhelmingly obvious as it is visible during and immediately after. You see the streets littered with the aftermath.
All of these factors combine in your head and you decide you are against all of this.
Where do you draw the line?
But what do you stop? Do you stop buying fireworks? Do you stop celebrating? Should you do more and raise awareness about child labour? Is that still a thing, in this digital age? You realise you remain a wee bit oblivious in your cocoon.
And of course, the plight of the street dogs running away, scared and trying to find a place to get away from it is obvious as you drive around.
A spectrum
As I think about uncomfortable things (finally!), it comes down to what helps me sleep at night. As self-centred as that might seem, that's what it is.
What are my values? What is my stance? On what all?
This is never black or white. It is crude to say if you are not against child labour, you are for it. The spectrum instead can be construed as
I don't give a shit. I've always burst fireworks and I am going to continue.
I cannot carry the world's problems. I just want to have my fun.
I am confused and I don't know what to do. I'll just carry on doing what I normally do but maybe tone it down a bit.
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I am unsure but I can see that (a) pollution is a factor and (b) I love dogs. So, I will not burst crackers.
I am well informed and I'll ensure that my family and my immediate community make informed decisions.
This is horrible! How can you be blind to all of this? It is my job to yell it out from the rooftops and create change.
The black (#1) or white (#7) has a spectrum in-between. And most of us fall somewhere in between. Even though the world (which falls in between too) keeps trying to put us in one camp or the other.
Where you fall is up to you. Going from 1 to 4 is a big leap. I think we make movements along the spectrum only i.e. step by step. You need to figure out what your values are and take a call. And while as a dog person, I cannot fathom how someone could be in #1, that's just me being silly.
Keep the tradition. Drop what does not make sense.
There are a lot of wonderful memories associated with this tradition. Throwing all of them out, and throwing out the possibilities of creating new memories is not the answer. At least for me.
Dissociating the bursting of crackers, the noise, the waste from the tradition and crafting a new tradition for you and your family and your friends is an option.
Lunch with family. Gifts. Dinner with friends and kids. More gifts. Spending time together. Creating new memories. Creating new traditions, built on the old ones.
I am a person who is not big on birthdays, today. But what birthdays were as a kid - cake and gifts and all the fuss is about you - need not be replicated. Today, birthdays can just be an excuse for me to hang out with friends or family, or to buy the 39 books that I have on my wish list. Using the tradition and putting a new spin on things is totally possible.
Rewrite what does not make sense. Keep what makes sense.
Maybe it means you have dinner and drinks with friends. Or maybe it means you quit your job and invent a new type of firework that does not make sound or pollute. Or you invent ear muffs for dogs.
Above all, know your values and do your best. If there is something that can be "not okay", ignorance and being oblivious come close. Don't stick your head into the sand and pretend all is fine.
I'll end this by quoting someone who is a far better writer than I am. From Jordan Peterson,
Every rule was once a creative act, breaking other rules. Every creative act, genuine in its creativity, is likely to transform itself, with time, into a useful rule. It is the living interaction between social institutions and creative achievement that keeps the world balanced on the narrow line between too much order and too much chaos. This is a terrible conundrum, a true existential burden. We must support and value the past, and we need to do that with an attitude of gratitude and respect. At the same time, however, we must keep our eyes open – we, the visionary living – and repair the ancient mechanisms that stabilise and support us when they falter. Thus, we need to bear the paradox that is involved in simultaneously respecting the walls that keep us safe and allowing in enough of what is new and changing so that our institutions remain alive and healthy.
Note **: Because the country is primarily Hindu, the festival is celebrated by the majority of the country. Some of the smaller (in size of community) religions celebrate it as well.
3 quotes for this week
We all do crazy stuff with money,
because we're all relatively new to this game
and what looks crazy to you might make sense to me.
But no one is crazy -
we all make decisions based on our own unique experiences
that seem to make sense to us in a given moment.
– Morgan Housel, from The Psychology of Money
A great book. You should definitely read it if you haven't already. He writes so well.
Replacing money with fat loss or fitness could work just as well.
We all do crazy things. My evenings with the ab-belt that gave you electric shocks are a memory that makes me laugh.
Throw yourself into this entirely. Find what you love and let it kill you.
– Derek Sivers, talking about the music business.
Obsessions and diving into something can turn into paradigm-shifting events. Not everything turns out into a great story you read about in the papers or made into a neat movie (seen My Octopus Teacher yet?)
Many times, these can be just between you and you.
Caution in concentration -
Concentration is a form of exclusion,
and where there is exclusion,
there is a thinker who excludes.
It is the thinker,
the excluder,
the one who concentrates,
that creates contradiction,
because then there is a centre from which there can be
a deviation,
a distraction.
– Bruce Lee
What?????
That was my reaction the first time I read this, years ago. I understand that the words were English, but nothing beyond that.
The most confounding parts of my baby steps in meditation are the exercises where one looks for who/what's looking. So, in theory, I understand what these words mean now. Progress :)
On scales and beats, and rolling and crawling
Babies learn to use their heads, then roll, and then crawl. From there, the progression proceeds to walking.
When you enrol kids for music/singing lessons, they start with scales. And from there, they learn to keep a beat. From there, the progression proceeds to songs.
Simple.
Oh yes, there is that little bit about thousands and thousands of conscious repetitions. You keep repeating the same thing and you do it marginally better. You flop around. You try to roll and fail. You try to hit a scale and hit 3. You get better. But it is not consistent.
It gets boring. It gets annoying. And then you do something cool and it is suddenly a lot of fun. And this repeats.
As long as you keep at it, you get better.
As long as you keep pushing at the edge of your skill level, you get better.
This is how it is. And you know it.
Fixing your diet or losing fat is no different. They require you to master fundamentals, like eating vegetables, planning your meals, chewing your food. They require you to go to your training, learn the movement vocabulary, and be coached.
I am obviously biased towards coaching because a good teacher can make all the difference in your journey. But you can do it by yourself too. As long as you stick to the process.
To get good at something, you keep doing it. You keep perfecting old ways of doing it and you come up with new ways of solving problems too.
That's why the quick-results gang will always be searching for quick results. Every few months. And unfortunately for them, they will succeed. Which tells them they are right and I am an idiot.
But unless you learn habits, unless you learn maintenance, unless you figure out your principles, you will keep coming back to the same problem. And pretend it is a different problem.
Thanks for spending a few minutes from your day with me here. I’d appreciate it if you can share your thoughts/feedback with me, or share this post with ONE person.
