Wednesday, February 27, 2013

What 'is' my life's purpose?

Spoiler alert - I would like to warn you that what follows may sound a bit gloomy though it is not meant to be. I wrote this blog quite a while ago and my wife and I have had differing views on how the reader (that is you) will take it - and more so the conclusions that you will draw. It is only when my son read it and took it the way it was meant, that I have decided to publish it. So here goes: 

The Thought

Let me be brutally honest - I am over the hill both mentally and physically. I know that that is quite a statement to make, and some of you may take offence or even criticise me for saying it - I myself cringed before I put it down - but that does not make it a lie. The truth of the matter is that I am neither going to get smarter, nor healthier, as I go along. I am not saying that I am expecting to die anyday soon, or that all happiness and hope in my life has vanished. It is just that I have reached and passed my zenith, and do not have an issue with coasting on cruise control henceforth.
 

My glory days (if any) are behind me, and I cannot see myself making any great contribution to society in my remaining years. I do not even know whether I want to. There may have been opportunities to contribute to society - through education, charity, and enhancement of other peoples lives. But I always had something else that I wanted to do.


Would I think this way if I was wildly successful? I do not know. How do I even define wildly successful? Lots of money (I guess), important person (could be), powerful (maybe) .. but so what?  

The Past

There were periods of time when I thought I was important, that I was doing something meaningful, but in reality I was just fooling myself. All I was doing was earning a living. Nothing wrong with that, it is just that sometimes I wonder what is right in that?
 

I mean I could have gone back to India, started a school in a village, got into an NGO to uplift the economically backward, but it really was not my life's calling. Actually my life's calling never really called!!
 

Life coaches will tell you that one must do what passionately interests you. But what if you do not have any encashable passions? And if you take umbrage with the term encashable - then I would ask that I love to read but how is that going to put food on the table? I love movies, sleeping, going to the beach - but none of these will pay my bills. I could say that I am passionately addicted to breathing - again, so what?
 

Coming from the background that I did, I first wanted to slake my own thirst. I wanted to be selfish and do the things I could not do growing up - like eat all that I wanted, buy my hearts desires (within affordability), and that left little time or resources for anything else.
 

It took a while for my hunger to abate and in that period I more than made up, through consumption of the worlds resources, for the frugality of my childhood. There were many times when I felt that I was satisfied, till the next titbit came along to entice me.

The Future
 
If I put my mind to it - I might actually think of something that I would not mind doing to earn a living. But more often than not - I envison the end game, not the steps leading there. I see myself in a hammock on a serene beach, a wealthy man - not ever needing to "work" again. But I have no clue as to how I got there, or more conveniently do not see the necessity of applying my mind to 'that' problem.
 

Also there are roots of laziness in those life goals. If one does not have a passion, then one should definitely not work hard - correct? I mean why would I be proud of working my socks off for something that I am not interested in? Imagine someone saying with their chest puffed out "I work long hours cleaning the trash" or "I work seventeen hour days every day, behind a desk adding numbers" - sounds ridiculous (at least to me). How can anyone be 'proud' of working endless hours where they are neither miserable (presumably) nor fulfilled? Ask yourself - if you had unlimited resources at your disposal would you continue to do what you are doing today? If yes - then you are in the absolute minority and you are fine!


I know that Mahatma Gandhi said " Do not do what you love - rather love what you do", but that can be difficult when one is scrabbling for meaning in their lives. The fact that one 'has' to do what they do to survive, is very different from being proud of it. And then how does doing that work define the person? Corporations are very good at giving meaning to meaningless tasks - but that is only as long as you are 'in' that organisation.

The Question
 
So then what is the purpose of a man's life? Actually to bring it closer to home - what is the purpose of my life? Is it the accumulation of money and wealth? Is it to be a lifelong consumer? “Trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches all over your body - George Carlin.”
 
If I do not or cannot contribute or add to the sum total of human knowledge, or enhance the quality of our lives through commerce, art or humanities, what then is my goal?


The easy option would be to embrace this concept of something bigger waiting for us, or that our true purpose in 'this' life is to cleanse ourselves for what is to follow. But even though I am physically lazy, I must confess that I have never been mentally a couch potato. When something seems too good to be true - it generally 'is' too good to be true. To me, this sounds and feels like a child's jigsaw puzzle - too easy to be taken seriously.


And so I come back to my question again ....

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

How (not) to make a Milkshake


Just as a word of caution, both my wife and son thought that I was exaggerating the incident below. But trust me it happened as I have written - and please be alert because “idiots walk among us”!

As mentioned in my previous blog I have been suffering from TMJ, though it has been getting better. During this period I have had to subsist mostly on a liquid diet resulting in some loss of body weight, and of course eating out has been a challenge. In this state last week I inadvertently scheduled separate meetings in offices, which are more than a hundred kilometers apart. Having finished my morning meeting I was looking at over an hour and a half’s drive. With no lunch packed I decided to pick up a milkshake on the way.

Spotting an outlet as soon as I exited the Ajman Free zone, I pulled in to look at my options. It was a mini food-court, and as I entered I seemed to be the only customer around. The sort of place that makes me uneasy as I fear that the food could be stale. There were four outlets, but only one seemed to be manned. Hence having no alternative I walked across and asked for a Strawberry Milkshake. The guy turns to me and says "Sure Sir, but it will take a while as I have to finish the previous order". Having never heard that response from a "Fast Food" outlet before, I looked around to see who he was referring to. I spotted a man sitting afar, and deduced correctly that his would be the order before mine. Since I was in no hurry I agreed, and then decided to lounge around the counter to put pressure on him.

The poor guy was alone and hence had to man the counter, prepare the food, and serve the customers singlehandedly. It took him a while to finish with the previous customer but, understanding his plight, I was patience personified. At last he turned to me and repeated my order, but it was more in the form of a query – like, “Am I sure I wanted a milkshake?” I responded - Yes, and that is when things started going wrong.

He was either new on the job or had not been asked for a milkshake before, because he looked as if he did not know where to start and what to do. I could literally see him frantically trying to recall his training (if any) as he started taking out the ingredients. His actions did not inspire a lot of confidence in me, and I debated cancelling and walking away. It might have actually eased his stress!

Anyway with all the ingredients out in front of him, he opened the blender, took out the stainless steel container, and then decided against using it. This blender is the sort where the cover hinges upwards from the side, and a hanging rotating arm blends the mix, after the container is slotted in. Don't ask me why, but he just put it aside and started dunking milk, strawberry syrup, and dollops of ice-cream into the plastic glass that he would eventually serve me in. Clearly there is a reason why the mixer comes with a container. It was obviously not apparent to him and I just idly continued to watch him. Having filled up the glass he put it in the mixer and then realised that the glass would not slot into place (since it was not made for it). Now he had a quandary - how does he blend the concoction? He did not want to start all over by transferring the ingredients into the correct container - especially with me watching, so he did something even stupider. He decided that he would hold the glass, while the mixer was blending.

As stated earlier, this mixer had a cover that hinged shut when the mixer is in operation, to avoid things splashing out. Obviously with him holding the glass inside, the cover would not close. I thought that this is it - he would ‘have to’ empty it all into the proper container, as the mixer will not work with the cover open. But apparently the mixer was not idiot proof, and it started. Keep in mind that this is an industrial capacity mixer, not the small geeks that we keep in our houses. Compound the fact that the cover was open with the glass he was using already brimming over to start with, and you can imagine the carnage!

I literally had to leap backwards to avoid the literal rain of blended ice-cream all over. The poor guy was of course in the center of it, and gamely hanging on. He was being splattered in pink and struggling to contain the overflow. The mixer had turned into a wet dog shaking off water, and looking at the condition of the counter I could only imagine the state of the floor.

But this guy was not one to give up. After a minute or so of holding on through this deluge he coolly took out the glass, wiped it down with tissue and put it on the counter. At that moment I do not know what got into me, but I asked him to add cream on top, pointing to the photo of the milkshake as advertised. I normally never have cream, but that day I wanted to see where this situation would go. This was a guy who put me to shame in the clumsy-in-the-kitchen department - and that is saying a lot. And some gut instinct was telling me that the story was not yet over.

He clapped his hand to his forehead and apologized for not asking about the cream and started looking for the canister. Opening and closing all the closets and drawers but failing to locate the cream, he eventually walked to the back of the store and returned with a tall canister of cream. On the top was attached a contraption that looked like a cross between a paint gun and a pressurized injection dispenser. He shook the can, carefully pointed it into the glass and pressed the trigger. There was a huge puff of air that came out and nothing else. He tried again with the same result, but this time there was a small splattering of cream droplets around the glass, but not a single drop on the shake itself.

Now he does something even stupider (if that is possible). He turns the can around and looks into the nozzle to see if there is any blockage apparent to the naked eye. And then - I kid you not – while looking into the barrel of that contraption he presses the trigger to try again. This huge dollop of cream spurts out on to his face and cap. He must have been born with the patience of Job, because without batting an eyelid he just grabbed a tissue and wiped his face. If it had been me I would have been gibbering like a baboon by this time. I would have taken that glass and hurled it at the mixer – no - I would have torn the mixer off its stand and thrown it at the customer. Anyway without saying a word, he layers some cream on to my glass, caps the glass, inserts a straw and hands it over to me.

He gave me no chance to ask for any other toppings, just silently handed over the glass with an air of finality. Something in his mannerism indicated that I should remain similarly silent. So I gave him the money and walked out with not a further word exchanged.

And as I walked away from the devastation behind me, I thought that it might be worth another visit to this place when there were actually a few customers around. If this was the mayhem created for a single milkshake, it might be interesting to see what happened when there was crowd.

And just in case you are wondering - the milkshake was quite good!

Monday, February 11, 2013

Suffering from TMJ disorder

I am suffering from TMJ disorder. What the heck is TMJ you may well ask?

You can look it up on the net if you are interested, but the long and short of it is that I have not been able to have a decent meal in almost a week. Add to the fact that I am plying myself with muscle relaxants and pain killers, and it makes me wonder what other damage I am doing to myself.

The pain in my mouth started suddenly one afternoon and accelerated faster than a Formula 1 car. So, that evening in absolute desperation I took an appointment with an unknown dentist in a clinic below my house. As soon as I entered his clinic, his bonhomie and big talk set off warning signals. He immediately, without even touching me, asked me to get an x-ray, and then started on a litany of potential problems that I could be suffering from.

After the x-ray, in my pained stupor he stretched me out on the dentist's chair, and probed for two minutes inside my mouth with an instrument, which felt like a needle but which he stated was as blunt as a bludgeon. By the time he finished I had almost blacked out from the pain. He asked me to get up and while I was staggering up he proclaimed that I had severe periodontal disease. He put up my x-ray and started to point to (what seemed to me) half of the teeth in my mouth as potential candidates for extraction. He flourished a chart in front of my nose, reeling off statistics as to why he would have to cut my gums open under anesthesia, to deep cleanse them.

Before I could even gather my wits around me, he started to list a choice variety of ailments like cancer, heart disease, mad cow disease, joint problems, etc. that I could potentially suffer from, due to this.

Now comes the interesting part!

Here I am staggering around in his little office, reeling from the pain, one palm cupped over my jaw and he starts talking about the treatment. It seemed that I would have to spend a lot of time in the next few years under his expert care. And the only thing going through my mind was - what about today? While he is ranting on about everything that is wrong with my gums, my teeth, my genetics and my life – I am thinking "what are you doing to alleviate the pain NOW?"

Having satisfied himself that the import of his dire predictions and their impact on my health had sunk into me, he launched into his menu of services and costs. Even in my fevered state, the little accountant in me started ringing the mental cash register. And as the totals started to mount, the pain started to recede into the background. By the time he had finished I was looking at starting a new mortgage. By now the alarm bells were ringing stridently in my head, and I was desperately trying to think of a way to get out.

In my desperation I started to tell him that I wanted to start the treatment but not that very day - but he did not let me finish. As soon as he heard half of that statement he turned to his Philipino assistant and told her to get the anesthetic ready to put me under. I imagined waking up from the procedure without any teeth in my mouth. I imagined myself with dentures, having to eat through a straw for the rest of my life. I wanted my wife, I wanted my mother – no I wanted to run! But he had me mesmerized and totally hapless. At that moment I understood what a goat would feel like, when he looks into the butcher’s eyes while he is sharpening his knives.

Even through the pain, my mind was working desperately, but every excuse I could think of seemed weak. I started with a couple, but he just brushed them away. He had me in his grasp and he was not about to let me go without doing something. I remember mumbling something about an important presentation the next morning and wanting to be at my mental sharpest, and he started to probe me about it – what was it about, what time, where? He knew it was an excuse and he wanted to catch me out.

Anyway just when I thought the game was up, I somehow managed to convince him that I 'would' return the next evening to start the treatment, and escaped with only a small hole in my pocket, a prescription for antibiotics in my hand, and all my teeth and gums intact. As I walked out of the clinic I realised that I wanted - no needed - another opinion!

Anyway to cut this long-winded ramble short, I called and went to the clinic of a close friend who is a Dentist. After a bit of gentle probing inside my mouth and a lot of questions, he diagnosed me with TMJ disorder, which as I forgot to mention above is Temporomandibular Joint disorder or in layman’s terms - a severe facial muscle spasm!