finally the will to blog has returned to me. yay!

i've been down with a very high temperature for 3 days now.. severe headache and a sneezing fit as i type. no, i don't have swine flu, as i feared. doc confirms its just a virus that's been going around.. and the low immunity gal that i am, i guess my body welcomed it like an old, long-lost friend. 'ah, yes.. Virus, old pal! how have you been? do come in... make yourself comfortable and please, you must stay atleast a week now...' :-p

and yes, i guess this is what it takes to get me to blog again. extreme boredom and a malfunctioning nose. :D to come to think of it, i dun think my brain's functioning very well either. oh well, when did it anyway..

so, what else has been goin on with me? .. hmm lets see.. i shifted into my new apartment.. its a nice place, but a lot of carpentry work going on, so i'm at my mom's place right now to escape the noise and dust all..

oh, and kirthi, in case you're reading this, i know u've been trying to ping me for a while and i always miss ur pings.. hope you're doing fine, i've just been really busy lately. but aren't we all? hehe..

nice.. im using my blog to keep in touch with ppl.. perhaps i could just start writing letters to ppl and post them here.. hehe. oh well, im just rambling now..

im just running out of thing's to write.. seems like i'm turning more and more private as i get older. one of these days i think i'm gonna start a secret blog and spill my guts out there like never before.. that should feel good.

i desparately feel like shopping for some reason.. and that's new coz i hate shopping. and i need a shopping partner. i usually shop alone coz alone is when i make the best decisions.. but now i find it boring. and all said and done, guys do not make good shopping partners no matter how much they love you. they just get bored and phase out after a while... oh, well.

i'm in the middle of reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time. I havent watched the movies but i kind of know the basic story line. The book is an awesome piece of work, but every one knows that. for some reason though, it fails to keep me glued. or rather, i fail to get glued to it. the amount of detail and intricacy amazes me, but also bores me. i find myself skimming through a couple of pages at a time (that are filled with descriptions) and getting to the parts with a little action. and i also have a lack of appreciation for poetry between prose. it's an amazing book, and Harry Potter is no where near it creativity-wise. yet, in a moment of desperate boredom, i would find myself reaching out to a Potter book and not LOTR.. how childish, i know :D

tea time! cya..

confusion...

a: your posts sound like you're very confused..

me: well, that's what a person would say if they didn't understand..

(to myself: sometimes i am confused..)

the answer (not in exact words) : Confusion is a good thing. It's good that you are confused. It means that you are seeking to know. It's better to be confused than to conclude.. When you have experienced the pain of ignorance, you will seek to know.

i must say, i feel very glad to admit that i do not know anything about God. it's like a great burden taken off me. i do not have a stance. i do not have an opinion. i simply do not know. nor do i want to believe anything. i am just ready to experience, first hand.

dreams...

sadhguru says...

"All dreams come from your mind. dreams cannot go into your soul, if there is one. So it doesn't matter what kind of dreams you have. Whether you see god, or you see a demon in your dreams it doesn't matter. Whatever is utmost in your consciousness reflects itself. Generally, 90% of dreams are just an expression of unfulfilled desire.
Dreams always come from the mind. Do not attach too much importance to dreams. Stop dreaming and start living, it's time."

whenever i ponder over things, i come up with a question. whenever i come up with a question, it is answered within a week. such is the way with sadhguru.

last night i dreamed of my friends. friends, from college.

meenal, neetu, smitha, kirthi, deepthi. and karthik and sid and mouli. and baba..

we were at a table, eating together, talking, laughing.

just a few days back, i was telling murali.. how i wish i had been to Isha before college. so many silly things could have been avoided. now i laugh at myself. even that laugh has a different flavour to it. now it is so whole hearted..

now there is no pain. :-) anywhere. even deep down inside. in any nook or corner. truthfully.

now life is truly beautiful.

there were so many good times.. wonderful times. i don't know if i miss them or not. i don't know if i want them back. i don't know if we can have them back if even if we wanted..

my life has now come to this...

i don't know. i am happy.

the patchwork smile..

Looking into the rear view mirror of murali's bike today, i caught myself sporting a frown and drooping lips. Out of nowhere, my mom's voice popped into my head telling me to "keep a smiling face." Subconsiously, I tried to.. and then I really looked at myself in the mirror and had to laugh.. my "smiling face" looked so fake.

Then I asked murali if anyone's ever asked him to keep a smiling face. He said yes, loads of times. Mostly his dad. His dad and my mom have a lot in common.

I guess our parents or any loved ones for that matter, want to see us happy all the time. So when they see us frowning, they just say.. "Smile!" Haha.. how innocent! As if it's a magic word.. just utter it once and all the things you were worrying about a minute ago would disappear. We could just go around all the sad places in the world where there is suffering, telling everyone to "keep smiling faces." Where exactly to keep them? I have no clue.

But then again, it's not just loved ones. Almost everyone seems to have problems with a grumpy face. In college we used to call it "budda moothi".. a telugu term that I don't really think exists, i guess we coined it somewhere along the way. Having a budda moothi expression was a great crime back then, if someone was caught 'keeping' one, they had to immediately change it or face a lot of probing questions or teasing.. lol!

But seriously, my genuine concern is.. if someone looks sad, does changing the frown to a smile really change everything? Or anything at all for that matter? I just googled smile quotes and these are what I found:

"Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles"
"A smile is a curve that sets everything straight. "
"It takes 26 muscles to smile, and 62 muscles to frown. "

..aren't these literally teaching us that no matter how we feel inside, if we smile people will be with us, everything outside will be fine and additionally, we would be using less muscles? What about what's happeing inside of us? How long does a smile last anyway, if there isn't any happiness inside to fuel it?

I suppose this is the wisdom of the ages. These quotes have decended upon us since God knows how many ages, and we keep using them blindly.

I want to start a new quote. Well I'm not so good at writing quotes, but its a thought.. and please, if it makes sense to you, make use of it and spread the thought around.

It's just this:

"When u feel like frowning, frown. When u feel like crying, cry. Don't go by what's on the face, the face is only a reflection, an indication. Look deep inside and fix what's troubling you. The frowns will change to smiles on their own."