Rather a mouthful, that title... Maybe too much of a burden of words for the singularly evanescent feeling I'm trying to describe.
I had a thought about 'work'. Sitting near my window with the breeze blowing onto me and my music turned up as loud as it will go (loud enough to wake the whole world), I suddenly had a memory: In was in Goa for New Year's Eve a couple of years ago. My friends and I planned to go to what I very economically told my parents was a 'party'. Bless them, they didn't press the issue, but 'party' was about 1000 times too tame a word. Well, they needn't have worried. My asceticism - and what I learnt there - would do them proud if I told them about it. This is what it was like:
Hundreds of people, a large number of them stoned out of their minds, or drunk. All my friends were with me. The press of people everywhere. Pulsating, wordless music so loud you could feel your insides shaking. Dark starlit sky above, deep deep sea below. Only Goa can be like it was that night. And yet, in the middle of that press of people who one could argue were as debauched as it is possible to be: drunk, stoned, sexed up, on the prowl, a small ray of innocence and beauty - I found out what it is to really dance. Not a single cigarette touched my lips, or a drop of alcohol, or drugs of any kind. My only beverage was mineral water. People tried to dance with me - they soon gave up, I wouldn't open my eyes to acknowledge their presence. Someone came up behind me and put his arms around my waist. He soon gave up too. You can't dance with a girl who is simply not there, 'at' the party. And yet, I heard every single sound around me, underneath the music. People's feet. The sound of my friends voices. For one incredible second, even the sound of a cigarette flickering to life and the click of the lighter that ignited it. My friends bought me a bottle of water and I drank some of it mid-dance. I didn't stop once. I danced. Flew on the wings of that music, tirelessly, without a single thought, all night. Sometimes as fast as my body would move, sometimes standing perfectly still with my eyes shut, but still somehow caught up in movement. At one point I felt like bursting into tears, but didn't. I never once wanted to stop from either tiredness or boredom.
Complete. Total. Absolute. Unthinking. Release.
The purity of those 10 hours has stayed with me since - I only have to remember it to feel it's grace. I want the long hours I want to spend on this PhD to feel like that.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
02:37 - 24/April/2007
I'm not really working flat out, but I'd rather be here than anywhere else, and I'm wide awake. Better to be working intermittently and slowly than not at all, eh?
Observations at 2:37 -
People returning from International Night. Can hear assorted languages, in assorted volumes. But mostly laughter, the stray drunken shriek or howl. A group of girls shouting goodnight and 'I LOVE you' across the grass to each other. Probably pissed out of their minds :) Music from people's apartments.
The lights in Colchester.
Halogen lamps on campus, shining like soft globes of gold in amongst the trees. I always imagine that they'll fall off their posts and bounce softly onto the ground. Dead silence in the department. Am I the only person here?
My boyfriend online. He says a cat has gotten in to his house tonight. I wish I was that cat. Or rather, that a cat would get into the office and curl up on my lap. I have a picture of Pasha (my ginger tabby, away back in India) on my desk. I can't take my eyes off him, he's so gorgeous. Even in a little 4 x4 picture frame.
Would never stop reading, or working, just so it could lie there undisturbed. My little ivy plant on my desk is probably asleep. (Does light disturb plants sleeping?)
I want to be here until sunrise and watch those golden lights outside turn off one by one. Or maybe they all fall asleep together.
Funny I'm not hungry. Must be all the smokes. I bought a chicken dinner before I got here. It'll have to be breakfast.
2:45.
Am here until 5, and I'm off just as the birds start to wake.
Lonely Owls. I should start a club called Lonely Owls.
Observations at 2:37 -
People returning from International Night. Can hear assorted languages, in assorted volumes. But mostly laughter, the stray drunken shriek or howl. A group of girls shouting goodnight and 'I LOVE you' across the grass to each other. Probably pissed out of their minds :) Music from people's apartments.
The lights in Colchester.
Halogen lamps on campus, shining like soft globes of gold in amongst the trees. I always imagine that they'll fall off their posts and bounce softly onto the ground. Dead silence in the department. Am I the only person here?
My boyfriend online. He says a cat has gotten in to his house tonight. I wish I was that cat. Or rather, that a cat would get into the office and curl up on my lap. I have a picture of Pasha (my ginger tabby, away back in India) on my desk. I can't take my eyes off him, he's so gorgeous. Even in a little 4 x4 picture frame.
Would never stop reading, or working, just so it could lie there undisturbed. My little ivy plant on my desk is probably asleep. (Does light disturb plants sleeping?)
I want to be here until sunrise and watch those golden lights outside turn off one by one. Or maybe they all fall asleep together.
Funny I'm not hungry. Must be all the smokes. I bought a chicken dinner before I got here. It'll have to be breakfast.
2:45.
Am here until 5, and I'm off just as the birds start to wake.
Lonely Owls. I should start a club called Lonely Owls.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Rust and Stardust indeed!
A question I often ask myself - as does everyone interested in environmental issues does, I think - is: To what extent is degradation an inevitable process of the ongoing experiment with civilisation? Or to put it another way: did we get to the state we are in (both the glories of it as well as the darkness) unconsciously? And so, how on earth are we going to begin learning our way out of it?
A related issue is: What difference can I make? Or 1000 people like me. Or a million. Can we really do anything at all? Of course, I have often heard that the answer lies somewhere between yes and no. No, we might never change anything. Yes, we already have. No, we might never change anything. But Yes, it is important to keep trying. And keep trying we will. Some of us will give up, some of us will not, and some of us will give up and then resume.
On a deeper note, though, I can't help but think of all those who talk about the essential illusion of reality. By that I don't mean the absence of circumstance or cause and effect. These are Are, of course. But underneath them, there is this thought, repeated endlessly through the ages, but particularly well put by H.P. Blavatsky:
"The Universe is the periodical manifestation of (an) unknown Absolute Essence."
So, at the deepest levels, we do not know what turns the cosmic wheel. And, as Stephen Hawking put it, to know why it turns at all would be "to know the mind of God".
And yet, we all know that: "Yet, the Universe is real enough to the conscious beings in it, which are as unreal as it is itself" (another one by Blavatsky).
Is this enough of an imperative for continued action? That the universe is real enough? That is an open question and to some extent irrelevant in the everyday workings of environmentalism.
Yet, in opening the deepest basis of action itself to scrutiny, it paradoxically opens a path towards remarkable balance and perspective: The Universe is real enough to the conscious beings in it - which as unreal as itself. What are the tiny things that keep us from the 'deepest driving desires' which the Upanishads say form our true essence? And if the preservation of nature (read: beauty, wholeness, truth, whatever words you want to insert) is, as many have felt, a deep 'driving desire', perhaps the rest is really just rust and stardust.
Incoherent or simplistic as this may be as a justification for continued blood, sweat and tears, it is a thought that has shone one small white shaft of light into the dark place inside me that is filled with doubt.
And for that, I am grateful.
(On a slightly irrelevant note, and just to dispel some of the existential confusion the thought of not actually existing might have engendered (I do flatter my own post, I know), look at the talk page on Wikipedia's article on the Upanishads. It seems that these people could do well with reiterating to themselves the basic philosophy of the writings they so hotly debate: the rest is rust and stardust!! The 'divine hand' that prompted the scripture in the first place must be laughing its sides out.)
A related issue is: What difference can I make? Or 1000 people like me. Or a million. Can we really do anything at all? Of course, I have often heard that the answer lies somewhere between yes and no. No, we might never change anything. Yes, we already have. No, we might never change anything. But Yes, it is important to keep trying. And keep trying we will. Some of us will give up, some of us will not, and some of us will give up and then resume.
On a deeper note, though, I can't help but think of all those who talk about the essential illusion of reality. By that I don't mean the absence of circumstance or cause and effect. These are Are, of course. But underneath them, there is this thought, repeated endlessly through the ages, but particularly well put by H.P. Blavatsky:
"The Universe is the periodical manifestation of (an) unknown Absolute Essence."
So, at the deepest levels, we do not know what turns the cosmic wheel. And, as Stephen Hawking put it, to know why it turns at all would be "to know the mind of God".
And yet, we all know that: "Yet, the Universe is real enough to the conscious beings in it, which are as unreal as it is itself" (another one by Blavatsky).
Is this enough of an imperative for continued action? That the universe is real enough? That is an open question and to some extent irrelevant in the everyday workings of environmentalism.
Yet, in opening the deepest basis of action itself to scrutiny, it paradoxically opens a path towards remarkable balance and perspective: The Universe is real enough to the conscious beings in it - which as unreal as itself. What are the tiny things that keep us from the 'deepest driving desires' which the Upanishads say form our true essence? And if the preservation of nature (read: beauty, wholeness, truth, whatever words you want to insert) is, as many have felt, a deep 'driving desire', perhaps the rest is really just rust and stardust.
Incoherent or simplistic as this may be as a justification for continued blood, sweat and tears, it is a thought that has shone one small white shaft of light into the dark place inside me that is filled with doubt.
And for that, I am grateful.
(On a slightly irrelevant note, and just to dispel some of the existential confusion the thought of not actually existing might have engendered (I do flatter my own post, I know), look at the talk page on Wikipedia's article on the Upanishads. It seems that these people could do well with reiterating to themselves the basic philosophy of the writings they so hotly debate: the rest is rust and stardust!! The 'divine hand' that prompted the scripture in the first place must be laughing its sides out.)
Sunday, April 22, 2007
The Rest is Rust and Stardust
and the rest is rust and stardust.
something painfully simple, honest and clear written by Nabokov - in Lolita, I think. and as a follow on to my thoughts through the day on embracing silence, i think this is the perfect way to come to terms with silence, solitude - and even start to like them again. (i say again because they were once my best friends. growing up tends to make you forget how to handle them, i think.)
so: at the end of this day of quite a bit of academic as well as personal thinking (and some thoughts that merged the two!), here is what i have discovered re. my 'solitude crisis'.
this is a PhD programme - in most respects, i am a university student, working to deadlines (not very efficiently, as you can see. most of my time is spent in staring!) and having set goals (supposedly). but. when i first came here, what was it i wanted to do? not necessarily gain the 'Dr' title (i still can't believe i might gain that!), but instead, find a creative answer to a unique question. find some meaning in an apparently unconnected series of information-points. find the pattern that connects. how can that come if i am - as i am at home - constantly surrounded by a gaggle of giggling friends (bless them, i miss them like a wound). yes, conversations help clarify insights. but before those insights come, the rest is rust and stardust.
now, Zareen, to work. think. for God's sake, forget everything else and do what you're here to. think. so every time i forget, the magic words to remind me are: the rest is rust and stardust.
something painfully simple, honest and clear written by Nabokov - in Lolita, I think. and as a follow on to my thoughts through the day on embracing silence, i think this is the perfect way to come to terms with silence, solitude - and even start to like them again. (i say again because they were once my best friends. growing up tends to make you forget how to handle them, i think.)
so: at the end of this day of quite a bit of academic as well as personal thinking (and some thoughts that merged the two!), here is what i have discovered re. my 'solitude crisis'.
this is a PhD programme - in most respects, i am a university student, working to deadlines (not very efficiently, as you can see. most of my time is spent in staring!) and having set goals (supposedly). but. when i first came here, what was it i wanted to do? not necessarily gain the 'Dr' title (i still can't believe i might gain that!), but instead, find a creative answer to a unique question. find some meaning in an apparently unconnected series of information-points. find the pattern that connects. how can that come if i am - as i am at home - constantly surrounded by a gaggle of giggling friends (bless them, i miss them like a wound). yes, conversations help clarify insights. but before those insights come, the rest is rust and stardust.
now, Zareen, to work. think. for God's sake, forget everything else and do what you're here to. think. so every time i forget, the magic words to remind me are: the rest is rust and stardust.
Embracing Silence
Orientation week for research postgraduates should have had a compulsory module entitled Embracing Silence.
Eager-beaver PhD hopefuls should have been tested on their ability to sit long hours without saying a word, tested on their ability to remain sane under pressure without the comfortable social pillow of rants with classmates about upcoming deadlines. After all, there are no classmates in a research programme. Especially if you do not work in a lab, are not affiliated to an existing programme of research and are basically the only one who seems to know what on earth you are researching (and even this is not always so clear). Those lucky enough to have started during the autumn term have it easier: offices are warm, no one wants to be outside. There are no barbecue smells wafting in from the lakeside. There are no sounds of: giggling, birdsong, wind in the trees, impromptu football, ice cream fights, bumblebees, music, bicycles whizzing along sun warmed stone, friends gossiping. Life.
For those of us (read: me) who started during the spring term, the office is a space of silence, the outside is a cosmos of sounds reflecting a fast awakening summer. For those of us (read: me) who started during the spring term, there is the twin hurdle of overcoming the seemingly instinctive magnetism towards sunshine and the apparently insurmountable urge to share it with friends. Looking at the sunshine dappling everything with green and gold outside does not compensate. Having friends at a distance (read, over the Internet, away back home) does not compensate.
Embracing silence.
Yes. If I ever get this dratted PhD, and am ever talking to 'new' students, this is what I will tell them is the hardest thing to do.
For now, its a couple of hours of reading and writing before I succumb to the sunshine.
Eager-beaver PhD hopefuls should have been tested on their ability to sit long hours without saying a word, tested on their ability to remain sane under pressure without the comfortable social pillow of rants with classmates about upcoming deadlines. After all, there are no classmates in a research programme. Especially if you do not work in a lab, are not affiliated to an existing programme of research and are basically the only one who seems to know what on earth you are researching (and even this is not always so clear). Those lucky enough to have started during the autumn term have it easier: offices are warm, no one wants to be outside. There are no barbecue smells wafting in from the lakeside. There are no sounds of: giggling, birdsong, wind in the trees, impromptu football, ice cream fights, bumblebees, music, bicycles whizzing along sun warmed stone, friends gossiping. Life.
For those of us (read: me) who started during the spring term, the office is a space of silence, the outside is a cosmos of sounds reflecting a fast awakening summer. For those of us (read: me) who started during the spring term, there is the twin hurdle of overcoming the seemingly instinctive magnetism towards sunshine and the apparently insurmountable urge to share it with friends. Looking at the sunshine dappling everything with green and gold outside does not compensate. Having friends at a distance (read, over the Internet, away back home) does not compensate.
Embracing silence.
Yes. If I ever get this dratted PhD, and am ever talking to 'new' students, this is what I will tell them is the hardest thing to do.
For now, its a couple of hours of reading and writing before I succumb to the sunshine.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Where I am now
The pattern that connects? That's a laugh. That was such a mouthful to think out, it kept me away from writing for half a year. Slowly, though, it is beginning to come back. As I take my first baby steps along the long path to my PhD.
I plan to use this space to talk about the patterns I find as I go on this journey.
For a background:
I'm here at the University of Essex's Department of Biological Sciences, in the Centre for Environment and Society. My supervisors are Prof. Jules Pretty and Dr. David Smith.
After my Masters here, I decided to stay on and continue with the same research as I began for my dissertation: researching people's participation in sustainable development (an even bigger mouthful than 'The Pattern That Connects'. I am a glutton for difficulty, it seems.)
Anyway here I am, and here are my stories. Some of them small pictures, some of them questions and some, just vague feelings that PhDs seem to bring.
Here are my patterns.
Here I am.
I plan to use this space to talk about the patterns I find as I go on this journey.
For a background:
I'm here at the University of Essex's Department of Biological Sciences, in the Centre for Environment and Society. My supervisors are Prof. Jules Pretty and Dr. David Smith.
After my Masters here, I decided to stay on and continue with the same research as I began for my dissertation: researching people's participation in sustainable development (an even bigger mouthful than 'The Pattern That Connects'. I am a glutton for difficulty, it seems.)
Anyway here I am, and here are my stories. Some of them small pictures, some of them questions and some, just vague feelings that PhDs seem to bring.
Here are my patterns.
Here I am.
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