Life | Suresh Dinakaran's Blog

Being An Employee Of Our Own Myth!

We are all frauds.

Creating is hard for every last one of us( including those from the allegedly superior Aryan race). Yes!

Coal mining is harder. Do you think the miners stand around all day thinking about how hard it is to mine for coal? Certainly not! They simply dig.

Throughout life, you collect data points or dots. And you probably don’t have a clue as to how these dots will connect in the future. As Steve Jobs said, you can connect these dot only by looking backward. But you have to collect them moving forward.

Without the mistakes we make, the decisions we regret, and the experiences that didn’t live up to our expectations, we would be woefully short of material and ammunition for our creative work. These things are all ingredients for your soup, material for making meaning and creating art.

The creative life, just like the creative process isn’t linear. We don’t know how each of our life experiences will impact us down the road. With each step forward, the landscape differs, the view changes, and the most insignificant experiences of our lives at the moment can serve as the most informative ones in our future.

Our creativity is not something that someone can give to us or take away. It’s always something within us. Happily domiciled. Whether it’s the degree we earn or the job we hate, every experience provides us with seeds to plant for the stories we tell.

Life doesn’t pause to make room for our precious creating time.

” There is an unknown room in the soul that is constantly turning the stuff of daydreams into myths for us, helping us to get at meaning we can’t get to through the front door “- Phil Cousineau

ENDS

The HURRY Cane in our lives!

Caveat Emptor

I am not making a compelling emotional and spiritual case against hurry and in favor of a slower, simpler way of life- but writing as someone all too familiar with ‘ hurry sickness ‘, I desperately needed this salve. Some of you may as well. Hence taking the liberty.

” Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished “- Unknownymous

” Don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens – The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away “— John Steinbeck

Everything which you can conceive and accept is yours! Entertain no doubt.

Most of us seem to miss the wood for the trees in our pursuit of pleasure because of the breathless haste in which we go about, we hurry past it. Irony! As Lily Tomlin beautifully articulated ” The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat”.

Burnout is not a badge of honor.

When Marcus Aurelius( Stoic philosopher and Great Roman Emperor from 161 AD to 180 AD) spoke of his own impending and inevitable death, it wasn’t to remind himself to squeeze in as much crap as possible–it wasn’t about picking up the pace. It was to remind himself of what was important, of the standard to which he needed to hold himself. He said, “Do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life.” That is: Do it right. Not do it as quickly as possible so you can say it’s complete.

Yes, it’s true, we will die. It could be tomorrow, or it could be fifty years from now. Which is why this very moment is so important. And why we can’t let anyone rush us through it.

You’re in a hurry. To get to the office. To get through this meeting. To get to the restaurant. To get the kids in bed. To get to go on your vacation. We rush because we have somewhere to go, something we want to do more, stuff we want to get over with.

But it’s worth asking, as the Stoics did, what were we really rushing through? And what we are doing it at the expense of the present moment. We tell ourselves that the future—the thing we are after—will be better. But the truth is, it’s not guaranteed. The only thing for sure is now. What is lived we never get back. We are dying every minute, every second. When we hurry we are speeding that along.

That’s the purpose of memento mori—”remember that you will die.” It’s purpose is to make you slow down. To not rush through this moment but to exist in it. To be present for it. Even if it is mundane. Even if there is something else you’d rather be doing, even if what may come next is likely better.

The practice of memento mori has the profound potential to wake us up and breathe more life into our lives. The whole culture is telling us to hurry while the art tells us take your time. Listen to the art. And the heart.

Patience doesn’t mean making a pact with the devil of denial, ignoring our emotions and aspirations. It means being wholeheartedly engaged in the process that’s unfolding, rather than ripping open a budding flower or demanding a caterpillar hurry up and get that chrysalis stage over with— Sharon Salzberg

Time for us to slow down. Or the other option is to Hurry up and wait 😄 !

Sorry got to go. The next ‘ shiny object ‘ beckons. And I am all taken in by the ‘ thrill of the chase ‘ and the potential ‘ after glow ‘.

It’s worrying..or hurrying???

ENDS

One Picasso A Day?

If one were to ask what is the most loyal thing in the world, it would be the ‘ bodyclock‘. Time after time, day after day, it never lets you down in waking us up. I guess, that too, is a creature of habit.

Being an old schooler, waking up and writing down the ‘ to do task list ‘ of the day is de rigueur. And on the rare occasion, the list falls shy of occupying a full A4 page, disappointment gets writ large. After all, ‘ Men are from Mars ‘. And Machiavellian abilities for Herculean tasks are expected to go hand in hand. How remiss!!

We have been hardwired to think that working is productivity. But, is productivity working? After all, the map is not the territory. Nor is noise, the signal.

“ Distraction is the only constant “. How things have changed! In an on-demand, 24/7 society, where distractions cost millions of people relationships, health , peace, productivity and profitability, it’s time to pay attention to what matters most.

We are living through a crisis of distraction. Plans get sidetracked, family and friends are ignored, work never seems to get done. And that in the wake of first love and passion being firmly put long ago on the back burner, be it music or sport, travel or discovery, reading or writing..not worth it.

To create extraordinary lives, we can (re)learn to “unplug” from the constant barrage of disruptions and “plug in” to the tools, strategies, and mindsets that will allow us to harness our attention to reach our highest potential.

You sit down at your desk to work on an important project, but a notification on your phone interrupts your morning. At home, screens get in the way of quality time with your family. Another day goes by, and once again, your most important personal and professional goals are put on hold. Story of our distraction fueled, notification driven lives.

If we can prepare ourselves to be as indistractable as possible, zero in on distilling the vital few from the trivial many, and be prepared to look in the ugly mirror, we can stop running on the treadmill of mediocrity. Not just that. With high focus, extreme prioritization and unflappable emotional labour, we can all get to producing our ‘ one Picasso for the day .’ What do you uniquely do that matters the most? After all, you can only do one thing really well at a time. SIP by SIP. Engage in some Mutual Fun!

Most big, deeply satisfying accomplishments in life take at least a few years to achieve. This can include cultivating a loving relationship, writing a book, getting in the best shape of your life, raising a family, building a business, and more. A few years is a long time. It is much slower than most of us would like. If you accept the reality of slow progress, you have every reason to take action today. If you resist the reality of slow progress, five years from now you’ll simply be five years older and still looking for a shortcut.

Where’s your paint brush? The canvas and the easel awaits. And your version of the Guernica.

So, time to offer a serenade to life, in all its terrifying and transcendent uncertainty, sung in ink, watercolor, and wonder.

WANTED: Editor-in-Chief: For LIFE!

I was never even mediocre at either math or arithmetic. Hence, if this fails to add up, I am completely at home with it.

” So the writer who breeds more words than she needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads ” – so said Dr. Seuss.

Every year at the Oscars, the award for Best Picture gets all the fanfare( this year, of course Will Smith had other ideas). That may be stating the obvious. What might be not so obvious is in contrast, the award for film editing flies under the radar. But you may be surprised by the correlation between these two awards.

Since 1981, only three films have won “Best Picture” without also being nominated for “Best Film Editing”.

Why is editing so crucial in filmmaking?

A good film editor removes distractions by eliminating trivial or irrelevant things. She uses deliberate subtraction to add life to the ideas, setting, plot, and characters.

The best films are exceptional not because of what we see but because of what we don’t see.

We can draw parallels here. And use the same principles to edit our own lives. We might be from Mars or Venus but on Mother Earth our never ending to-do list need not be a perennial match for our Herculean, Machiavellian competence and calibre that we seem to have been willy nilly blessed(cursed?) with. Probably there is a space to begin by ‘ separating the vital few from the trivial many ‘. The over ignored practice of essentialism.

Mind you, this is no easy task. To distill and rein in our incorrigibly elastic task list. How will we answer our ego? Or camouflage our insecurities? We find comfort in “keeping our options open”. But having too many options leaves us without direction. Having a few focused options gives our life a clear direction and makes decision-making easier.

Eventually, every cut we make brings joy. Maybe not in the moment, but soon we will realize the time we have gained can now be spent on something better.

We, as people, systematically overlook subtractive changes, instead following our instincts to add. There is nothing inherently wrong with adding. But if it becomes a default path to improvement, that may be failing to consider a whole class of other opportunities.

The paltry rate of subtraction in our life or organizational-improvement journey is appalling. To improve a redundant piece of writing, few produce an edit with fewer words. To improve a jam-packed travel itinerary, we hardly remove events or places to allow us to savor the ones that remained. To improve a Lego structure, we hardly take pieces away. Whether we are changing ideas, situations, or objects, the dominant tendency is to do so by adding.

In an increasingly attention starved, attention craving economy, subtraction has a noticeability problem. When we add things, apparently it gets noticed. But when we subtract..we seem to miss the point.

Life has a way of taking over. We start running on auto-pilot especially when we are overwhelmed, in over our heads, or simply worn out from all that life is throwing our way. And this year, life is throwing more than ever our way.

After a while of trying to keep all the balls in the air, we stop paying attention and simply start reacting. Amidst all the chaos, we know something has to change, but we don’t know what or how.

When was the last time ‘ nurturing our heart and soul ‘ was part of our to-do list? It hardly makes the list of things to take care of during the day. If we prioritize the nurturing of our heart and soul, by taking time to listen to what they want, by engaging in soul-soothing activities and by using them to guide our actions, we can get our life back. We’ll remember who we are(otherwise in the stage called life, we are all practicing ‘ selective amnesia ‘) and begin to attract people and projects that are a perfect fit for the real us.

So what is the take away? Yes, you guessed it, take away, to make way!

BEGINS

Die Empty!

Caveat Empty..sorry Caveat Emptor: The caption of this piece is inspired by Todd Henry‘s seminal book of the same name.

Look no further. The wealthiest place on the planet is just down the road. It is the cemetery. No, I am dead serious. And it is a matter of grave concern.

“ The graveyard is the richest place on earth, because it is here that you will find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, the cures that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry out their dream.”- so said Les Brown. And what a telling commentary that is on the ‘ ground reality ‘ .

Most of us live with the stubborn idea that we’ll always have tomorrow. But sooner or later all of our tomorrows will run out. It is finite.

We have: One life to live. One life to die. One life to learn and practice what you have learnt. One life to learn multiple skills, arts, hobbies, sports…multiple professions. One life to experience joy in what you perform. One life to share, give, pass on, teach and donate so that you die empty but Rich every which way.

Look within. Let’s define it as WINtrospect(there is no such word in the dictionary, yet). There is a gold mine waiting to be explored. But, all that we seem to do is exchange ourselves for fear to trade on a silver platter. So busy short changing ourselves. As they say, ‘ ideas are plenty but ideas without action are regrets ‘. No need to die before we die. That is called living empty. If power dynamics were to come into play, go empty to the graveyard. Prepare to disappoint it.

Eckhart Tolle has beautifully articulated that the ‘ present is a present ‘ in his book, The Power of Now.

‘Could have‘, ‘might have‘, and ‘should have‘ must be classified in the ‘Must Not Have‘ category of life. So, instead of being afraid your life will end; be afraid that it will never begin. No calendar is going to tell you when to live your life. The greatest loss is not from rejections and failures, but comes from what dies within us while we live.

Discovering your voice is rarely a linear path, but instead is the culmination of a lifelong process of observation, course correction, and risk-taking that eventually leads to the recognition of a valuable contribution.

You came to the earth with loads of inspiration and influence. Dare to offload them out of you before you die. Give out all you carry along into the world and when you are ready to go back, go empty handed!

So, do what lights you up! Day in, day out.

ENDS

The incredible power of AWEssibilities!

Dear Us:

It is an annual ritual to glance over time’s shoulder each year and reflect on what has made it most livable and worthy of living — always the clearest mirror of what irradiated and perturbed our hearts and minds as our uncommon planet made its steady revolution around its common star.

Inevitably, patterns emerge that were not obvious in the moment-by-moment experience. Inevitably, those patterns reveal that however tumultuous the ‘ seasons of being ‘ might feel — and what a tempest of uncertainty and disorientation 2021 has been for all of us in the world, the things that make life most luminous with aliveness are variations on eternal themes, impervious to our passing perturbations.

Here’s to the stubborn symphony of aliveness, the immense power of gratitude, the significant strength of collective hope and the power of incredible AWEssibilities for a wonderful 2022 to you & yours.

Stoically always