Patterns

In the years that I have been alive, I have learned to spot the patterns. The patterns that would go from curiosity to engagement to obsession to vindictiveness. Life has taught me that we are all adults who eventually say:

“Angoor khatte hai” i.e. “The grapes are sour”

So, what does that mean? As a kid I was told a story about a fox who was really hungry and came across this grape vine. The grape vine is lustrous and juicy. He jumped and jumped but he could not reach it. He tried all the possible cunning and erratic ways to get those grapes but he couldn’t. Eventually, he just walked off saying: "The grapes are sour”. He convinced himself that the grapes are not worth the effort rather than feeling the disappointment of not reaching them.

That way of the fox is the way of my life.

Over time, I have spotted things that I have desired and worked tirelessly for them. When I fail to achieve such goals, I tell myself that the goals are not worth the effort. It is the same way as people say: “The timing wasn’t right” or “It was not meant to be” or “There will be something better out there for you”. Now, granted these words have often used for people in heartbreak or emotional pain but the argument applies to if you wanted a job and you couldn’t get it or, if you wanted to buy a home but it falls through.

The thing that we often soothe ourselves with are all all nothing but a lie.

Going forward, I plan to try a slightly different strategy. This won’t be the usual business jargon on failure: “Every failure is an opportunity for success” but much better than “I deserve better”. The thing that nobody ever tells you about unachieved goals is that it hurts. It is hateful and unpleasant and the emotion gnaws at you until you can barely breathe. The more you wanted something, the greater your disappointment would be. Truly, that is the mark of finding whether you cared. You could have built your life around this one thing. All your plans may have evolved around it and then it is all gone. Poof. Just like that.

You are supposed to give up and walk away. What the actual fuck logic is that?*

So, let’s get back to the point of what the better way to phrase it could be:

“I hate this situation. This sucks and I will sulk and mourn and be grumpy but I won’t give up on chasing dreams. I only give up on chasing this one.”

The thing nobody understands about the story of the fox is that if the fox didn’t give up and walk away, he would have died hungry under the vine. He would have tried again and again to get the unattainable grapes and would have been unsuccessful. The things we teach kids are such contradictory lies. We teach them the following saying too:

“Only under great pressure diamonds are formed”

“Only by erosion from rivers, do rocks get polished”

The thing that we always fail to teach kids is when to keep trying and when to let it go. That is complicated and no one wants to teach that. We want to randomly teach morals and never the complexity behind it. Why should that responsibility exist on adults?**

We do not want to teach kids that hard work doesn’t necessarily pay off. We do not want to teach kids about the unpleasantness and take away the innocence. We feel good as adults to be able to keep their innocence intact. We protect them from the world that would eat them alive. Good job adults, eh?!

This is so problematic.

No wonder so many young people need therapy in their 20s/30s. We are conditioned into believing things about the world that are just not true. We are randomly taught opposing morals and we learn the ones that gives us the most reward***. A lot in my life that I have believed is what I have been conditioned to believe. A set of opposing morals were thrown at me like spaghetti to a wall. Some stuck and some didn’t.

If I start to list out my values as to why honesty is important to me… It would literally narrow down to “I was punished for dishonesty that’s why and rewarded for honesty”. Once you start seeing these flaws in your own psyche and thought process, you realise that only certain things about you are unconditioned.

The things that you choose to love. The way that you love them. The way that you destroy them.

Your adults didn’t influence your interests. They may have tried to guide you in the direction but that is your skill and not your interest. Your interest belongs to you. The things you love are the core of who you are first. That’s why the whole part about: “The grapes are sour” is so misleading. The grapes are not sour if you were interested in chasing them, they are merely unattainable at this instance in time. There are other grapes that you can go and get. Someday you might forget about these grapes completely or you might actually be smart enough to get a ladder that would let you reach higher. Either way, simply standing below the grape vine isn’t helping you get them.

All these things, like the person I am are contradictory. I do not deal in absolutes anymore because anyone who can is kidding themselves. All I deal in with is the present.

Right now, there are certain grapes I want (curiosity) and they may or may not be attainable (engagement), I will try my best (obsession) and I will try to not hate them (vindictiveness) if I can’t get them.

The reason that pattern is what I noticed and want to break is simple: There is no reason ever to hate the interest you loved. You need to identify that what you hate are the unpleasant feelings that it leads to. There is anger, pain, fear, insecurity and so much more but this is good. This is what makes you human. In the famous words of Navagat to me,

“I am a human, I cannot give anything but love”

*Again, this is how you feel but given that the feeling is completely acceptable. Go and feel it.

**Oh wait, yes it should (roll eyes here)

*** Credit on that is to Navagat Prakash for his insightful thinking