A season to reflect

For the atheist that I am, following the news means that I am always updated on some of the major religious observances.  Thanks to the Mardi Gras parties in New Orleans, for instance, I know that we are in the season of Lent.  Oddly enough, Fat Tuesday nearly coincided with Mahashivarathri--one could have combined both the religious/social practices and had parties throughout the night ;)

I wonder how many serious Catholics gave up anything tRump for Lent ;)

Soon after the Easter yard signs--with evangelicals reminding even non-believers that he died to save us--are put away, it will be Ramadan.

Of course, this year, too, we can expect the fake-Christian-in-chief, tRump, to stay away from saying anything about the fasting and god, or, at best, he will use that as an opportunity to remind his base that Muslims are terrorists.

But, this year, he will have at least two women across from the White House to remind him that there are Muslims in America.  And one even wears a hijab!

Bush junior, who now in contrast to tRump comes across as the grand old sage of the Grand Old Party, took the higher and correct road even in the immediate aftermath of 9/11:

Former President George W. Bush’s Ramadan message, delivered just months after the September 11 terrorist attacks, didn’t mention terrorism at all. Instead, it focused on the diversity within the American Muslim community, whose members “serve in every walk of life, including our armed forces.”

What a contrast now with the evil simply oozing from the Oval Office and through his 63 million voters :(

And when Ramadan ended last year? No iftar!

Despite events held by previous administrations from across the political divide, this year’s Ramadan – which began on 26 May – passed nearly unobserved by the White House. It was marked only by a statement published late on Saturday afternoon, coinciding with the end of the holy month.
The first White House iftar dinner is said to have been hosted by President Thomas Jefferson in 1805. Guests included a Tunisian ambassador to the US.
Hillary Clinton, when she was first lady, resurrected the event in February 1996, hosting about 150 people for a reception for Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month.

Muslim-loving Crooked Hillary; Lock her up!

For all the non-believer that I am, I consciously think about my existence, and worry about what it means to be human.  "Shit happens" I tell myself.  After all, it is not as if the entire cosmos exists only to serve me!  The cosmos is.  Yet, I seem to consciously mark the passing of time as memorialized by religious days like Ramadan, Lent, Deepavali, ...

Whether it is Lent, or Ramadan, or whatever, I am not ever sure that most of the believers really use that designated time in order to reflect on our fleeting existence on this "mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam," as Carl Sagan so poetically put it.

The impossibility of the pursuit of happiness

Ahab was in pursuit of the white whale.  Javert was in pursuit of Jean Valjean.

What does it mean to be in pursuit of happiness?

The older I get, the more I think that the phrase "pursuit of happiness" is screwed up.  Why did the white, rich, slave-holding founders of the United States refer to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?  Instead, why didn't they go for a full fledged alliteration, for instance, of life, liberty, and love?

One cannot pursue happiness.  It comes from within.

We ought to enjoy the very limited time that we have.  But, we should also recognize that the external pleasure that we seek and enjoy, which we often falsely equate to the happiness that we are pursuing, is fleeting. Momentary.

The Buddha made that simple for us to understand through his Noble Truths.  The point of departure is the truth that "life is suffering and to live is to suffer."  Of course, as humans we share a desire "to be free from suffering."  However, the humans that we are, we not only do not want to acknowledge this, we even actively engage in denial.  We refer to our inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness.

The pleasure and happiness that we seek are often wrong goals.

Happiness arises and ceases based on external conditions that are often beyond my control. What I was really seeking was equanimity, a calm and resilient state that is beyond happiness, and that emerges from internal conditions that are often within my control.

From internal conditions, within my control.  Within you.  It does not come from the number of likes in Facebook or the number of retweets in Twitter, nor from psychedelic drugs, nor from traveling to exotic places ...

One cannot pursue happiness.  It comes from within.

From within, and in the here and in the now, means "to spend time living meaningfully and sharing life experiences with the people we love."

The single most important factor for human flourishing is the cultivation of loving and enduring relationships. The depth and quality of our loving relationships determines how we feel about our lives.

Whether we love or hate, at some time or another, life comes to an end.  Inevitable, as humans have always known.  If at all, we are then in pursuit of death, from the moment that we are born!  The challenge in life is to find that inner happiness when we pursue the end.

May you find happiness and contentment, without pursuing the metaphorical white whale.

Source

Don't save the last dance for me! Heck, any dance!

I grew up in a context in which we listened to a lot of music.  At home, it was a whole bunch of classical stuff.  And devotional too.  Then there were film songs that we listened to--Tamil and Hindi.  And then the pop music from the West.  The high school years were musicals ;)

While the films had a whole bunch of song and dance, and we even did our versions of singing those songs, especially the glorious bathroom singing, dancing we did not do.  Yes, of course, there was that rich heritage of dancing, from the stories of Siva's cosmic dance to even street performers.   But, dance we did not.

In graduate school, when friends got together, for the first time I was in a room when people started dancing.  Even if they couldn't keep time with the music.  People shaking their legs and hands and gyrating out of beat was quite a sight for this fresh-off-the-boater.

I neither drank nor danced.  Often people tried to get me to do both.  My personality has been the same throughout--nobody can make me do anything unless I wanted to.  The more they pressured, the more I wanted to say "get lost" but never did.  I wish I had said that, or more!

Even now, I don't understand why plenty of people think that everybody needs to dance.  Not everybody likes the movies that I like.  Not everybody likes the jokes that I like.  Why then do they think that everybody needs to dance?

I practically hate it when all those people say crap along the lines of "dance like there is nobody watching you."  Why don't they every say "do math like nobody is watching you"? ;)  What is this obsession with dancing?

Face it, there is lots to complain about it, including this stupid idea that everybody should dance!

The author of this essay expresses similar sentiments:

Why do people get so angry that you won’t dance? There’s a desperation in their pleas — no, their commands — which says far more about them than it does about you. No one gets this het up about other activities. Imagine if you were round at someone’s for dinner and declined their offer of coffee after the meal. Should they start yelling, ‘Come on, you’ve got to have coffee!’ while forcing a cup to your lips, you would run from the house as fast as possible and never see them again. Yet bullying someone into having a dance is seen as normal.

Exactly.  As a coffee drinker, I love that situation he writes about ;)

Thankfully, I don't even socialize anymore.  No more being asked why I am not up and moving my ass.  If anybody does, I think I might just about go the essay author's route:

So what’s the solution? Could I take the dance Nazis to court? After all, the manhandling they subject you to would, in any other situation, count as assault. I might give it a go next time. ‘Get back on the floor, or I’m calling the law.’

Just beat it!