Savouring Life

We all need challenges to enjoy life. 

Challenge gets our adrenaline flowing enabling us to either fight or take flight, and this in turn creates stress. Some level of stress is in fact healthy and even essential for  us to live exciting and interesting lives. However stress can often become addictive. As with all addictions we need greater and greater doses of excitement to get the same high.

One of the greatest stress creators is modern man's, need for speed. Our lives are running faster and faster, yet rarely do we arrive anywhere meaningful. 

Time is money we are told. Money for whom and what will you do with that money if you have lost your health, your sanity, and your self? We often have no time to enjoy life, nature, our families, our friends and precious moments we live. If we ever do realise our folly, it is often too late in life to do anything about it.

Life is not only to be lived, it has to be savoured. Unfortunately we have come to believe that only through money and power, can we enjoy life and be happy. That too if we have lots of it.

Many things in life can be enjoyed which money cannot afford to buy,  The love and company of family, friendship, sound sleep, good health, mother's cooking, wisdom, etc. etc. 

The sounds and smell of nature, the sun, rain, the breeze, the song of birds and the mischief of youth, the joy of play, music and dance, all these and many other things we increasingly miss in our lives.

When we travel fast we hardly ever notice the scenery and therefore can never admire it or the company of our co-travellers in life. When we zip through life we journey from cradle to the funeral pyre or grave, we hardly get to live. Mere existence is not living, its just existing.

Many years ago I went through a catastrophic personal and business setback. I struggled and I struggled and I struggled, until there was nothing more I could do. 

When all worldly doors close we seek a higher self within our own being. Through the doorway of our soul we seek to find answers and solutions. Eventually, exhausted, I surrendered to God's will. I stopped struggling and that led an awakening.

Now I had time to look within. I now had time to do all the things I should have done all my life, and somehow forgotten to do because I was 'too busy'.

I found I had time to reflect, meditate, pray, go for walks, spend time with my loved ones. I learnt to chew rather than swallow my food. Help out at home, guide and play with the children, read, listen to music and hymns, share stories and fantasies and a hundred other things. I had done many of these things before but grudgingly or almost robotically. Now I savoured them.

I do not regret the years I spent working very hard, for I learnt many things,  achieved some spectacular results, numerous setbacks and  discovered my potential, my flaws and essentially myself, but it was always to be greater, reach higher, move faster. It was always more and more of everything.

I met many fascinating people and worked with amazing colleagues who taught me much. Many liked me and some even loved me but I was too busy and oblivious of their affection.

I still work hard. I teach, consult, and mentor individuals and organisations,  and many other things, but all with greater meaning. No issue is too minor, nor is any relationship too demanding.  A joy fills my being, for I no longer live life but savour it.

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"The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.” 

 - W.M. Lewis

Females make me nervous

                     
                             















I grew up in an all boys boarding school, and went to engineering college  where there were almost no girls. All the teachers were men. 

My interaction with females was very limited except for my mother a few aunts, my  two elder sisters and a few of their friends who only thought of me and my brothers just as little boys. For me females were alien.

I grew up with two ridiculous and extreme views of females. One they were pure, angelic, goddesses  and the other learnt from naughty books and magazines, that they were mere sex objects.

I made friends with girls but could never sustain a friendship with them because I could not understand them therefore unable to sustain a meaningful relationship. Those that I put on a pedestal as Goddesses usually found me dry and boring. Those I treated as objects mainly thought me uncouth and obnoxious. 

I thought I was an exception but many male associates, friends, and former classmates usually from God fearing, religiously inclined, good families held the same sort of stupid beliefs. Our noble opinions are shaped by romantic novels and romantic movies, history and literature.  Nowadays magazines, television, internet and cinema usually portray females as conniving, petty minded evil creatures. 

We men dehumanise females by either idolising them or by being dismissive of them.

Educationists and religious zealots may think it is good idea to separate males and females but it is unnatural and unhealthy. 
Boys and young men from segregated environments inevitably encounter difficulty in relationships and marriage. The most natural thing of engaging with women as colleagues, clients, and as friends always remain a challenge. They avoid females, and even if they do engage with them its often in a dehumanising manner. They cannot be respectful because they know nothing about the other half.

What can be done to build healthier societies?

Young children up to age 9 or 10 should all go to coeducational schools and playgrounds. It is sexually safe, and emotionally healthy. 

Young children are brutally frank and in these early years of their lives they are inquisitive and open. They have no hardened opinions save those planted in their innocent minds and hearts by teachers, parents and priests.

Just before the onset of puberty girls and boys may be separated until they are ready to go to college or go to work. Sexual attraction will be there, as it is perfectly natural, but it will be healthy, respectful and friendly. 

We talk of love, and building a better world, but how can we love humanity when we cannot be respectful or friends with half of humanity? 




Where there is no understanding there can be little respect. Without respect friendship is not possible. Love can blossom only if there is respect and friendship.

p.s.
What do I know about the problems and challenges that females from segregated backgrounds encounter? 
I don't know, I feel too nervous to ask them.

What does teaching mean?

Sept 5th is celebrated as  Teacher's day in India. On that day Rohan an earnest young student friend of mine, telephoned to thank me for teaching him and changing his life, by my writing and our interactions.

I thanked Rohan for his kind words but clarified that crediting me with his learning was in my opinion unjustified. 

I should have been flattered or at least touched by his sincere greetings, but I wasn't.
I asked myself, "If it was not arrogance I felt, then what was it?"

He asked me "If this is not teaching then what was it?"
I had no reply but I had many questions. Questions, I had to seek answers to.

Today, October 5th, is World Teacher's day. I can offer the following thoughts.

Teaching and learning are two sides of the same coin. Unfortunately the two have grown so apart that they are effectively disconnected. No doubt, nowadays  there is a lot of teaching and even more testing but it is doubtful that there is much learning taking place.


As John Lubbock said about modern teaching, "We strain the memory instead of cultivating the mind."

Why is it said that? "A student is not a vessel to be filled but a lamp to be lit"


A vessel when filled cannot absorb anything more, in fact it rejects anything that is additional or new. That is why most students cannot retain much of what they are 'taught'. At best they retain information only for a short period of time, sufficient duration to get them through the tests.

On the other hand, once lit the lamp provides illumination wherever it reaches, thus dispelling the darkness called ignorance. A lamp also helps light other lamps. Learning demands more learning as a fuel, just like a lamp demands more oil to keep on burning. The greatest learning being 'learning to learn'.




This is all about learning but then what does teaching mean?

It could be said that -

    

Teaching is the art of assisting and facilitating discovery.

Once we set off on a voyage of discovery, life becomes an endless adventure.


On this adventure called learning we will discover many things and experience many relationships, not all of them pleasant or useful, but in the end like Rohan we will hopefully discover ourselves.