Think

The Truth is Pale Blue and its Apparent Size is Equal to a Dot

Pale Blue Dot by Voyager 1 Space Probe.
[Source – Wikimedia Commons]

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet

Whose hands can strike with such abandon

That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living

Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness

That the haughty neck is happy to bow

And the proud back is glad to bend

Out of such chaos, of such contradiction

We learn that we are neither devils nor divines  

*

This excerpt is from a refined piece of poem by Maya Angelou which shared then and is sharing still the truth.

We all call a pale blue dot in this magnanimous universe our home, and then we forget. For what else can it be if not weak memory that we repeat the same blunders and invite catastrophes?

We are full of contradictions, we are the chaos, we are neither devils nor divinesand yet we are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world. Why?

Because we can think, we can create, we can sing and dance, we can understand the science behind everything, and we can write a poem to share with everyone A Brave and Startling Truth.

Because deep down all each one of us want is peace. Yes, but only if we remember… if we remember to think.

*

When we come to it

We, this people, on this wayward, floating body

Created on this earth, of this earth

Have the power to fashion for this earth

A climate where every man and every woman

Can live freely without sanctimonious piety

Without crippling fear

When we come to it

We must confess that we are the possible

We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world

That is when, and only when

We come to it.


*

Read Maya Angelou’s beautiful poem, A Brave and Startling Truth here.

Know more about our planet, the Pale Blue Dot.

My inspiration for this post – A Brave and Startling Truth: Maya Angelou’s Stunning Humanist Poem That Flew to Space, Inspired by Carl Sagan and Read by Astrophysicist Janna Levin (a fabulous article written by the fabulous Maria Popova).


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Papa and the Crimson Clouds

The huge tree under a crimson sky.
Image – Pixabay.

Papa said, ‘I am not a negative thinker’. I almost clapped in approval, but then I saw him drinking at 9:45 in the morning. I dared to speak and I did, reminding him of the 80% blockage in one of his arteries. Gulp! ‘No negative thinking’, he advised me.  

His red eyes and newly ignited soul went into the garden to work. After a few hours, I checked the fresh hairstyle of the garden, it was almost bald. Papa said, ‘Plants should grow this way’.

Which way you must be thinking? Whichever way Papa wants to grow it, you fool. He replied so, I am just quoting it.  

My sense of understanding is weak; I am the wrong person to walk left when the right is right.

I am also stupid if I don’t remind Papa, thrice, that he wanted to drink tea, which invariably loses all its piping hotness and turns dead cold by the time he returns from the garden.  

Kindly ask everyone in the street not to stare at me. So what if I look like an outgrown, zigzag tree, my Papa will prune me.

I have the whole life’s agenda, second wise, installed in my brain. I am to wake up early every day and run to the office, work and be good in it and come back home to get recharged for the next day.  

Every hour I am to be alert; I am allowed even to worry about security. I again dared and asked Papa, ‘Security from what?’ ‘That thing… that… something…’ he said.

I understood zilch about it. Patience please, I am a slow learner.  

Every minute of the hour, I am to relish the complexities of the present. It is to be like the dogs, they are so cute and hold only one feeling at a moment – hunger, aggression, love or anxiety.

I reluctantly told Papa about my opinion. He laughed and then shooed me away like a dog is shooed away.  

For your benefit, I am sharing that it is not a wise thing to do. Homo sapiens sapiens can do better. I have read so in a book. Of course, I didn’t say a word about it to Papa. Do you think I am stupid? Ha!  

Every second of every minute, I am to remain lost in whatever shit crazy thing I am doing. This will result in an unhealthy body, but a good position and a reasonable flat after a few years travail.

I am a middle-class being, this means to me what nirvana means to that mad ascetic I once met.  

Do you know what the ascetic told me? He asked me to sit under a huge tree, pointing in the jungle’s (point decimal of what is left) direction. That’s it!

What am I supposed to do there alone, I shouted behind him and he shouted back, ‘Think’.  

Confused, I asked Papa about it one day – a day that showcased crimson clouds from the window. He didn’t say a word.

Crimson clouds. Image Pixabay.

I looked at the crimson clouds once again. Then I stared at Papa. I didn’t know there were four clocks in his room, one on each wall, until that day. I was sweating when Papa suddenly opened his eyes and asked me to get some water for him. He coughed badly.  

He is coughing badly right now. From that day the crimson clouds haven’t left the window. I mostly stay near Papa and only occasionally go to sit under that huge tree.


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In The Wonderland

Living like Alice!
Image from Pixabay.

“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.

‘Which road do I take?’ she asked.

‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response.

‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered.’

Then’, said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland  

*

How true! Nothing matters at all until you know where you want to go. Sometimes we don’t think and we reach nowhere, as that is what we had thought of. Then at times, we think we know where we want to go but we find ourselves cheated or fooled and so we halt. There are also a few among us who don’t stop and finally reach an end of a journey.

Mostly, the circumstances around us influence our decisions and we find that we have become a part of a huge structure. This happens a lot.  

The best thing that we can try to do is to know where to go, uninfluenced by anyone; in knowing one’s way and steadily walking ahead and smiling on the way as it is ‘our way’.  

Knowing oneself is not easy but is ultimate.


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What We Think, We Become.

A small window doesn’t matter if the view is good. A small window doesn’t matter if you are at home. A small window doesn’t matter if you keep smiling. A small window doesn’t matter if you dream big. A small window doesn’t matter if you are alive. A small window doesn’t matter to tell you the truth. A small window doesn’t matter if your life matters more.
Through the open window I choose to see the brightness and follow it.

IF

Let us all think of sunshine!
Image from Pixabay.

If we believe that life reflects what is in our mind, let us all think of sunshine. We should then imagine a colourful picture.

Red-red flowers, blue-blue sky and calm green grass and happy air all around us, with a touch of music in it.

We can all be dancers, dancing nonstop. Our body will be caught in action and rhythm and our soul in peace.  

We can also think of meditating; every one of us on Earth meditating; sending sublime vibrations in the universe and connecting with this marvel.

Our planet will then glow. We’ll be like the sun. A passing alien might confuse our planet for the Sun. Nevertheless, we’ll welcome others to join.  

The best thing is, we all can think of holding hands, the whole humanity, a never-ending long chain. And then we’ll move round and round. We’ll sing and dance and move round and round.  

Why don’t we think so? Why don’t we think? It’ll be fun if we think, I promise that it’ll be.


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Teddy Speaks

Kindly stop and have no fear
Worrying for a stolen teddy bear?
Aren’t you scowling at nothing?
Too much of this and that
Will leave you with half of this and half of that
Teddy’s face haunts you with a smile
And you think you have covered a mile
The path you choose is a treadmill
What you achieve is a dry pill
It is a trivial cold of trivial things
Teddy wishes to say
Think and don’t stray
He feels this to be right
He understands it is better not to fight
Teddy knows but he won’t speak of it
While he enjoys life, you frown after it

What A Fool Sees

Prose Poetry
A fool knows a fool’s way and not of the world’s. He may be right, we may be wrong, we’ll know in the end.
A fool knows that a smile costs nothing and so he smiles. We know that we have money and we can afford to smile.
A fool wishes for nothing and gets it. We wish for a lot, we get some and then we wish for a lot more.
A fool leisurely thinks while we leisurely doubt and because of this we doubt a fool and we think we think wisely.
And so the fool laughs at us and we laugh at him and our story ends here happily. 

Photograph by Jagriti Rumi; Location – Tikarpada Wildlife Sanctuary, Odisha


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