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Faded Jeans at 64!

Discussion in 'Cheeniya's Senile Ramblings' started by Cheeniya, Mar 15, 2007.

  1. iyerviji

    iyerviji Finest Post Winner

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    My dear Anna

    I think because you are young at heart and like to enjoy life to the fullest and never think of age has brought us close and made us brother and sister. I am also young at heart, like to enjoy life and I have more of young friends than my age I like to go for Poojas and also for any other celebrations where you can enjoy. What you have written about health and education is true in my case. I like to tell in details about my health and also that education is not becoming a graduate but learning by experience. Now in IL only I get to improve my writing and learn so much.You are the Role Model for everyone in IL
     
  2. Srama

    Srama Finest Post Winner

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    Dear Cheeniya sir,

    I have read this snippet a few times earlier but never responded, don't ask me why. Let me just assure you that today I am in the mood to talk jeans, faded ones at that. So here I am! You mentioning your receding hair line reminds me to tell you what happened yesterday. We were at a restaurant for dinner and you know how DD loves to leave her hair had worn a band. Well my DH who shares the virtue of receding hair line with you in all manly fashion wanting to encourage her to continue doing that was all praise for the lovely band only to hear "well appa, I promise if you had long hair I would have let you use my band at least once. I mean it!" in all seriousness and a deep shake of her head.

    You make a point in mentioning that your attitude and general view of life style have stayed put for over four decades. It is amazing how we can come to a stop and not realize it until only later. Perhaps we should all make a habit doing a system recheck every now and then and adapt accordingly!
    When I read this, I was like "Voila!" Here in this one sentence Cheeniya sir has hit upon how to solve all the relationship problems! Now I wish the all the superannuation folks, yes I have generalized for men and women, working and non - I am not the one to call anyone by their age you see, should remember to feel young at heart or all the youngsters should simply remember that their actions are forced because of their age and that will solve the relationship problems of the world I think unless of course the said folks are in faded jeans then we have to revisit and come up with another solution or there may be no problem then. Oops what I am doing? Now, I know precisely how problems do get created - it is all in the mind! Who knew one had to age like that and do all those wonderful things to act their age - it was indeed interesting to read all that you have mentioned with a smile all the while and then immediately there was a bee line of uncles and aunts who fit the bill! Now it is so easy to spot one, put it down to their age, knowing that we may reach that phase soon even if in a variation and move on.

    Now adding a few more years to that birthday you celebrated so many years ago and having celebrated another one a few days ago, I do know that your spirit is ageless. My worry is only about those jeans! Are you donning them still? If not, you should go back and despite earning the wrath of aunty, I promise you that the line of those friends, of the opposite sex I mean ,online will only continue to increase!
     
  3. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    My dear Srama
    You know very well that I am a Sufi at heart and believe in the concept of Eternal Now. This involves elongating the moment we live now, which in normal circumstances lasts only for a nanosecond, for an eternity. Just imagine! If the great moment of joy that is smothering us at this very moment is made to last forever and ever, we have reached the stage of Eternal Now of the Sufi mystics. Dr.Deepak Chopra's Inner 'I' and outer 'I' concept is based on this Eternal Now thought of the Sufis to a great extent. It involves our ability to shift our existence from the time bound flesh level to the Timeless level of our Spirit. Our normal process of aging is time bound because we have all reconciled ourselves to a flesh-based life span.

    We talk loosely about being young in spirits without knowing that this is the only answer for all age related issues. I have a friend who is close to 90. If you give him a battery operated car, he would dismantle it and see what really makes it run! It is this childlike curiosity of his that keeps his spirit eternally young. And others of his age group keep looking heavenward for the arrival of Yama with a rope in his hand! While being childlike is one way to remain young in spirit and delay the onset of senility, Sufis suggest spiritual training to remain young in spirit. But for the people who have no time or faith in such training, the least that can be done is to keep our thought process from aging along with our physical body. If I think and act like a 30-year old, it would certainly make me feel half my age but the public criticism of my behavior would make me feel twice my age! Look at this great irony. Everyone wants to live long and the technique of making it happen is well within reach. But people keep telling us ‘Be your age’ and only hasten our aging process!

    My mention of ‘Faded jeans’ is only to symbolise this classic problem and tell people to leave the old folks to be what they are! We read Deepk Chopra ten times and go and tell our impish grandpa to be his age! What a great anomaly this is!
    Sri
     
  4. Srama

    Srama Finest Post Winner

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    Dear Cheeniya sir,

    I agree with what you have to say and I could not help but to think more about it. I think as we age, along the way we do tend to hide this true spirit of ourselves and project a different image and get used to it ourselves as well. We have just set the stage for others to perceive us without realizing. When after the obligations are all done and we sit back to think about our lives. While the luckiest ones would have retained that spirit anyways, the luckier ones do tend to realize that that spirit is indeed intact and learn to be their true selves. But by then, possibly the others do not see that, for they have begun on their journey after having accepted the image we have projected. It is when we cannot reach to that spirit at all we tend to become rigid in our perception of others and unfortunately of ourselves and insist on proving this is how one should be! A truly realised person will see the other for what he is, the spirit of that existence! How many of us are there sir?

    I don't know why I am rambling, I always believed it is your prerogative! Anyways, I was reminded of a Sutra from Yoga Sutras which speaks of the Seer and the Seen becoming one and for some reason I think of GOD and the way we perceive. I think it is because of our inability to perceive that almighty in it's pure form that we end up giving form to that spirit and further adorn him and beautify the way we want to perceive. Nothing wrong with that really for it gives us meaning may be to our own existence for we see ourselves in that form - it gives us the much needed energy and faith! But, when seeking truly, we will be able to see that divinity and beauty anyways, in a stone a blade of grass and what not! I believe it is that seeking alone that makes people rigid, till they understand what they are truly seeking! So I believe it is not the Seen but the Seer and the way he chooses to see!

    I am not sure why I wrote all this, but thank you for allowing me to take up some of your space here!
     
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  5. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    My dear Viji
    I have been awfully busy for the last 3 weeks and could not spend as much time in IL as I normally would love to do. I am sorry for this delayed response. Thank you for giving me the status of Role Model but I wonder if I really deserve such an exalted status. I am quite an ordinary, plain man who is well into his evening. The only thing that I can claim as my virtue is that I believe in being highly transparent. When I interact with people, I want to make sure that they are quite comfortable with me and that I have no hidden agenda. This alone is not enough for anyone to confer the title of Role Model on some one.

    It is nice to hear that you are young at heart and that you enjoy life, your concept of enjoyment being attending poojas! Now I understand what it is for an old person to be young at heart! Many old people who claim to be young at heart think that it means visiting discotheques and pub hopping! I need to study this concept of enjoyment and its orientation to the age of a person!
    Sri
     
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  6. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    My dear Srama
    I had written a thread on the famous Berkeleyan theory that things existed only when they had an observer. When I first encountered this fascinating proposition of Berkeley, my mind would wander endlessly over the possible consequences of this theory. I would finally come to the question of the existence of God. Does He exist only because we keep thinking of Him and observe Him in our mind's eye? And when we progress in our understanding of Him and reach the 'Aham Brahmasmi' stage of non-duality, does He cease to exist because we, the Observer, and the Observed become one? Then I realised that it was not He that ceased to exist in that stage of my spiritual evolution but I ceased to exist. Interestingly I see that you have raised the same point here in talking about the Seer and the Seen. You have indeed made a profound statement here that the Seen is absolute and unchanging and it is the Seer who deludes himself into believing that what he sees is the real thing.

    One of the pitfalls of aging is nothing physical but mental. A child always remains true to its age. We start building up a façade the moment we grow out of our childhood to suit the demands made on us by our social and professional interactions. In some cases, the difference between the real self and the cultivated one becomes as harsh as that between Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde but in most cases, we start believing and becoming one with the cultivated self. It is at this stage, we lose our true identity. And ironically we start lamenting how we wish the childhood days are back here again.

    The problem with most of us is that we never use our speculative faculty to look within particularly when our conscience troubles us when we do anything that does not receive its approbation. All that we need to do in such trying circumstances is just to ask ourselves, 'Is it the real me that did such an abominable thing?'
    Thank you, Srama, for this FB of yours. It helped me a lot.
    Sri
     
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  7. shyamala1234

    shyamala1234 Platinum IL'ite

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    Dear Sri,

    I like the comparison of Jekyll and Hyde...everyone has a streak of both. Sometimes they overlap each other and it is all utter confusion.Yes, cultivated personality has the upper hand as we spend most of the time..either at work place or people around us we project cultivated personality. Then where is the real "!"? With my little knowledge (no way compared with your knowledge!!!) we ask the real "I" to shut up. After some years we get frustrated with ourselves and start looking for real person.....everyone has their own path and may be successful to some extent. As we grow (age wise) we stop caring too much for people about their opinion and we expect them to accept the real me. We do not care much about criticism of people as much...if xxxx doesn't like me I don't care attitude comes and I like it. Some may like the real me. That's fine with me. At least let me be honest with myself. Living in the moment....I can never understand. No yesterday, no tomorrow...is it possible to live like that. I can't. To me past and future are important though I do not know what is in store for me in future. I want to try (may not be successful always) to be myself as much as possible.

    I guess it is all confusing. I could not project myself properly. But tried level best.

    Thank you for making me think.

    Syamala
     
  8. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    My dear Syamala
    In my early days in State Bank,I attended a programme in customer psychology as part of our customer cultivation programme. There was an interesting case study about an air-hostess who had won several accolades for her customer friendly attitude including one for the best smiling face. This hostess turned out to be an extremely mean character in her family circle and this took everyone by surprise. Talking of putting on our cultivated personality in our professional circuits, there can never be a better example than air-hostesses. They are given special training to keep smiling even against the gravest provocations. There is no greater pain than keeping a smiling face when it is not backed by your mood. Most of us would have felt it some time or other in our life. For the air-hostesses, a smiling face is mandatory and this would make the job of sitting in a boiling cauldron and skimming through the rapes of the day in a newspaper a much easier job!

    Considering the trying environment in which these girls work, it is not surprising that they need to take it out on their own people as an antidote for all the meaningless smiling that they need to do in the normal discharge of their duties.Keeping the cultivated personality on for an eternity is both impossible and undesirable and when we are compelled to do it, the ugly self surfaces from time to time like the Eno fruit salt after a heavy meal. This neutralises the pain of having to behave better than what we are capable of.

    Post retirement, we are under no such compulsions and our natural personality comes to the fore strongly. That is the starting point of all the Senile Rambling!
    Sri
     

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