The Cart Before The Horse

Times have changed, Cheeniya. I already feel like a fossilized dinosaur in this rapidly evolving social climes when I talk of conventional mores. There's been a tectonic shift since the beginning of the century in civil liberties and social constructs.

Today, no one really cares what you do with your life. Again, society at large does not exist. Only society at near exists. Your immediate friends and family are the ones who impact your life. I am sure the only thing that mattered to your brother's daughter was how her immediate circle perceived or aligned with her choices. Society at large is a humbug that we needlessly worry about. I keep telling the same thing: does not matter which era you are in, or which country you are in, or what your circumstances and situations are, what matters is which people you are with. As long as you are encircled by tolerant, sensible and liberal people, you are a practitioner of your will and values. People matter! They matter a lot, the lifestyle changes are brought on by these people who are not rebels, in fact, they are reactionaries who refuse to be assimilated into the larger society because they feel secure, happy within their close-knit group of compassionate associates. I sometimes feel it is awesome to be living in these networked times where you don't go about seeking permissions but only confer information. I am just doing this ....not .... Can I do this ...(any more). Having the right set of people in life (family and friends) matters the most in life.

 

I am wary of such renegades who abstain from creature comforts under the guise of salvation or liberation. I am okay with the discipline factor but that too is dubious because cannot one discipline the modest “soul” with calorific diet and decent clothing. I like Henry Fielding who parodies the works of Samuel Richardson. When SR talks of “virtue”, “devotion”, “piety”, “righteousness” in Pamela, HF criticises such ideals in his caricatures of practical living in Joseph Andrews. Personally, I am circumspect of anyone who mouths yawn-inducing terms “virtue”, “valour”, “dignity” and such high-maintenance words in the same sentence. I run away miles from them.

My mom once took me to a meditation centre which dispenses satvik living tips: how to lead a life of greater and better fulfilment. You know, sometimes my mom is very funny. What all she does to inject “buddhi” in me which invariably back fire on her. I was bored to bones with those sermons. I had to rush to the loo multiple times on the pretext of a tummy haywire to avoid the headache from such grandstanding. I don’t think I am wired to tune to such lofty ideals of life. These look good only on posters or greeting cards. The real life is Darwin’s oft-abused ‘survival of the fittest’ in the arms race and may be dressing up to visit a bank.

 

You know me also, usually such receptive feedbacks startle me like a klaxon. What? You get me. You mean you really get me and then I would scratch away a page-length excitement. These days (1) I am mindful of the strain in your right eye (2) Duh! Not finding time for IL, hence keeping myself focused to only a handful of people/posts in IL.

Have you observed, usually sculptors and artists are predisposed to this perfection madness than writers. Writers wallow in their subdued crotchets, but artists surpass in agony, in that, their work is overt for criticism which induces self-doubt.

Artist: Is my form catchy for the eye?
Writer: Is my style captivating for the mind?

When an artist aspires for “catchy”, he has to arrest your attention with the immediacy of his work. Whereas a writer can obscure away his writerly intentions in deferred and pile-’em-up layers of interpretations. Few months ago, I was investigating “perfection” in sentences when I came across a blog that alluded to Gary Lutz’s essay titled “A Sentence is a lonely place”.

“… The words inside the sentence must behave as if they were destined to belong together—as if their separation from each other would deprive the parent story or novel, as well as the readerly world, of something life-bearing and essential. … There needs to be an intimacy between the words, a togetherness that has nothing to do with grammar or syntax but instead has to do with the very shapes and sounds, the forms and contours, of the gathered words. This intimacy is what we mean when we say of a piece of writing that it has a felicity—a fitness, an aptness, a rightness about the phrasing. The words in the sentence must bear some physical and sonic resemblance to each other—the way people and their dogs are said to come to resemble each other, the way children take after their parents, the way pairs and groups of friends evolve their own manner of dress and gesture and speech. … The impression to be given is that the words in the sentence have lived with each other for quite some time, decisive time, and have deepened and grown and matured in each other’s company—and that they cannot live without each other.”

That definition is too sublime, however, it masterfully elaborates on my concise saying earlier: You know it when you have it. If the sculptor of Sir Thomas Munro's statue in Chennai were to replicate Gary Lutz's “perfection”, he would defend his work not only as Munro in the element but Munro in the most natural form of equine cohorts that is bareback riding. The sculptor should have consulted with critics like us before ending his life. What say?

I wonder what is the identification of a “perfect rambler”. Is linearity or integrity in thoughts the quintessence of a perfect rambler. As you started with a cart and jumped on to a Nilgiri toy horse and then turned the cart around and wound it to Sir Thomas Munro's horse, you are light years away from a “perfect” rambler with such horse play in your knockabout frivolity.

I shall catch up with your other posts, parenting, moral imperatives and newer threads over the weekend. And that fly in the White House too (I haven’t forgotten). Ta-tum!

 

Dear sir,
When your daughters were little you were playing the role of dad. But now with grandchildren it is the role of tatha which is different from dad.
My parents used to behave in the same way. At that time grandchildren's parents look like villains!!!
Syamala