I wish I could say...

I have been thinking of topics to write about for a long while, but nothing is coming to me. I am groping for words to keep myself afloat in the blog world! My English skills have been going from bad to worse mostly because I haven't read many good books lately, also the use of the language has been dwindling.

I am seriously at a loss for words lately, I happened to use 'precisement' in stead of 'precision' with a friend which was sadly shameful! But as it seems that precisement is actually french for precisely, with accents of course. Whatever! The fact of the matter is I am quite cross with myself for not doing anything about it.

So, on that note I want to start a discussion about randomness. You must have heard people say that life is a grand plan of the master above. I do not agree. There is absolutely nothing orchestrated about life, in a word it is the most random thing there is. We very often try to plan and manipulate situations and actions but most of us fail miserably.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that you shouldn't have a plan but do not get upset when they don't work out. A plan is necessary to go by when the randomness hits. It should be used as a solution and not become the cause of a problem.

We are big planners. We plan (mostly travels) to the tee. We actually love to plan trips, they constitute 50% of the fun. Even if we actually don't end up getting there we have enough information and deals that can make a travel agency go out of business.

But we absolutely do not plan our life. Believe it or not, we have been in Dresden for two years and we still live in a fully furnished apartment. Every time I get tempted to move into an unfurnished one and get my own furniture and kitchen (unlike US we don't get kitchens fitted here) I think 'what if we don't stay here for long?' which of course means that we have no plan as to where we are headed.

The uncertainty can be worrisome at times but exhilarating. My only reason for being sad is that I don't have my choice of bed. I haven't had a perfect bed in a really long time. Since I moved out of home I have been laying myself in less than perfect beds; so when I stay at hotels the only thing I look for is a good bed, sometimes I wish I could take them home with me.

I like random, unlike the philosophical explanation of random being different from unpredictable I believe it IS unpredictable. I love random conversation; something that I wasn't expecting to talk about is random conversation and when I can immerse myself in it, I feel triumphant. When I can keep up with the randomness around me I am a star in my own mind!

Randomness is really all around us, as much as my writing this post now. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to write about and how it would end. I know now; quite randomly found.

I am going to end this with a random quote I just happened to come across and found to be an 'absolute truth' that no one can deny!

"There are few things so futile, and few so amusing,
As a peaceful and purposeless sort of perusing
Of old random jottings set down in a blank book
You've unearthed from a drawer as you looked for your bank book."
--- Amy Lowell






Comments

Kuntala said…
hmm, jotil bishoy. I would like to think that everything is random, but sadly my favourite pastime is to hold myself responsible for everything that is happening in and around my life.........:(
July 16, 2010 at 9:55 AM
Deepanjana said…
oh no... don't get me wrong. This randomness has nothing to do with responsibility. What you do with your life is completely up to you and there is nothing I agree with more. Blaming someone else for things going wrong with your life is the coward's way. I was just talking about nature. How things in life are altered no matter how much you plan. For eg the delay/cancellation of flights, missing the bus to work/home. someone falling ill/emergencies. these are absolutely not in you control. This is what I was generally tlaking about.
July 16, 2010 at 11:41 AM
Dreamer said…
Couldn't agree with you more. Way too much planning leads to much heartbreak when these plans get derailed - something that often happens to plans. "Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.” That's one of my all time fav quotes, by no less an authority than Winnie the Pooh :D
July 23, 2010 at 10:13 AM
Unknown said…
Dear thanks for remembering me and leaving that welcome note....love to see you again....

LOved your article....very similar to my life...We are staying in USA for almost 4 years but every time we think we have to go back....we see so many wonderful things but we can't buy because lastly when leave the country we have to trash them all....so the four years almost passed with the minimum requirements that a life needs to live....your are absolutely correct that we can't plan about our life...because in my life every time I plan about something it just crashes down miserably....
July 26, 2010 at 6:18 PM
Joy Forever said…
I am a big planner, and while I do agree that too much planning often causes heartbreaks (happens to me frequently), to me planning and the randomness go hand-in-hand. I mean, say you are going somewhere. "We will land early morning, then do this, then do that, etc." is only a half-baked plan and will get derailed by a flight delay. A proper plan is, "If we reach on time and land early morning, we will do this, otherwise if we have a delay we will do such and such." Such a plan has less chance of getting derailed because you are trying to cover more scenarios in your plan. Of course, things like earthquakes cannot be planned for, but then they are thankfully pretty rare.
August 2, 2010 at 1:26 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And when white moths were on the wing

The best thing about good movies are that no matter how many times you watch them there's always something new that you had not noticed the previous times. It's like peeling an onion only much more pleasant. This time it's The Bridges of Madison County : Robert and Francesca discuss Yates and a while later Francesca goes and pastes a note on the side of the bridge, I could never read what was written on the note because it fades away to quickly. This time I paused to read it, it had a quote from The Song of Wandering Aengus. Aengus is an Irish Mythic character and "probably a god of love, youth and poetic inspiration" and Robert Kincaid is of Irish descent. I think there was a connection made with that poetry and the story of Kincaid. He is an old man and finally found the woman he has dreamt of all his life, tired of all the wandering a being a "citizen of the world" he wants to settle down with this woman but he can't have her. It's a beautif
Read more

Benimadhab Benimadhab

Never in my worst nightmares have I ever imagined writing anything titled "Benimadhab Benimadhab". Bengalis who listen to modern bengali music must have already guessed what this could be about but I have a story to share. Didibhai used to listen to a lot of music, especially the radio back in the late 1990s. So naturally I had to listen to a lot of music she liked. She was the one to introduce me to all kinds of music that I associate my memories with. I never quite liked the bengali songs she would listen to. Anjan Dutta and Suman and Nachiketa, the cult music of the time. I was too young to appreciate it, I never understood what they were singing about. Today I can appreciate them even if they aren't my preferred choice of music and I believe not my didibhai's either. It has been more than a decade since Lopamudra's famous song Benimadhab aired for the first time on FM. Didibhai bought the cassette but I failed to understand why such a funny old-fashioned name
Read more

Dhobi ka Kutta!

Image
Many of us who live outside our motherlands study at universities abroad, mainly the USA and UK, and Germany is also a popular destination for engineers and Mathematicians. Very often than not we need a certificate of knowledge of English Language in the forms of TOEFL or IELTS to pursue education in these countries. I have never given much thought to this procedure as I understand that English is after all the 1st language in US and UK and it is their mother tongue. But recently while searching for programs in German Universities I realized that most courses are taught in German, therefore to study them you need certificate of knowledge of German Language and for the courses taught in English you need a TOEFL or IELTS certification; it suddenly struck me that we (especially Indians)do such injustice to ourselves India is one of the very few countries that has a very strong background of English language knowledge in spite of it not being OUR mother tongue. Some of us actually speak be
Read more