resolution 1

I cant be hanging like this for a long time. I need to come up with some resolutions to these problems, and live life.

Lets start:
- with whatever I am, whoever I am, with all of my problems, deficiencies, incompetencies, and bad behavior patterns, I am a person, I need to live a good, happy life, and spend a nice time with my friends and relatives. I have to take care of myself and lot many other people - my parents, my siblings, my cousins, my to-be family, etc. I need to learn how to live a good life, and live it. I need to be hard, strong, and fight life out. I need to find ways out of problems. I have to take life as a responsibility, a difficult one at that, to live life out. Lets smile and be ready for the battle with a renewed spirit that never goes down, and keeps fighting against all odds and ends. The spirit of life - the determination to live a happy life.

Laugh, listen to melodious songs, and continue.

normal

How I wish I could be socially normal as other people. Another part of the brain says: Shut up, dont even try, you can never ever be.

work

Its just not about acceptance and fun and recognition, its about work too. You should be serious and do work sometimes. Get things done. And be practical and live a nice life.

social conventions

Heck people have so many particular ways of doing things, that I have to make to a huge effort to just be compliant and I usually fail.

I don’t know how other guys do it.

I guess I think a lot before doing anything, whereas other people are just "doing" and not thinking. And their "without thinking" has closely aligned with social conventions over time.

But for people like me who view social conventions with questions like "why" and "how did it originate" and "why does it continue to be", etc, social conventions become like a "thing" and do not become transparently actable. They have to be "acted."

going blank

Sometimes I will just stare blankly at empty space...and my thoughts will keep revolving around one tiny thing. Mostly about what people think about others. Mostly about taking decisions - if I take this decision then what will people think about me, what image will they have of me, if I do that, then? Mostly they are frustrations. Since I cannot act immediately in present time, because of my absent-mindedness or a very slow brain, many of the actions that I actually do are not what I really wanted to. So I recall situations, and think - if I would have done this, then they would have thought of me as a better person - and then I go on imagining pairs of my actions and their reaction to that in terms of formations of an image of me, and thats it.

This is it.

These kinds of thoughts, keep revolving around my brain, and almost bring my brain to a paralysis.

And these has become such a normal thing, that I very often tend to go into this state. And then I have to tell myself to come out to this real world.

But at other times, when I am in the present, and happy, I tend to behave quite normally; though, I cant make anyone believe that I am completetly normal? You will always find quirkyness, absent-mindedness, etc even when I am in the "normal" mode. But this is still bearable, and that much quirkiness is fine.

And yes one more thing - I noticed this - "going into a blank state" behavior during my 7th std. I dont know why. I suddenly started liking to think and started going to blank states.

Now lets get back to work. :)

wanting acceptance and recognition and attention

if people give me some sort of attention - like praise me, like me, sympathasize with me, or something like that, I feel good. I feel that I exist. My ego is stroked. Because otherwise I have a lower sense of ego. I tend to do a lot of self-sacrifice and have masochistic tendencies, which hurt "me" and myself. Thus I unconsciously resort to other avenues to feel the sense of ego - like wanting people to praise me or sympathize with me.

But basically it is just a ball game of attention and self-defeating acts. Pure NPD. Pure madness.

madness

My life is a waste.

With so many streaks of madness in my mind...where in my mind consists of nothing but madness.

I found that we people in our family were always behaving in a notably abnormal, mad way. There were big signs of dysfunction. We used to fight and shout at each other. We used to sometimes shout at my mother, and say, something of the sort - "When I will die in these circumstances, then you will see". This statement indicates that the sayer wants to say that he is in a state of utter despair and distress, and that his goal is not to solve that problem but to show the world how bad a state he is in. His act of death will not be important due to the act itself, but in that it will generate some image/thoughts in the onlooker. (Strangely, it is in the very same vein, I am writing my blog here. I am trying to show that I am in such a bad state, and I am trying to "feel good" by generating emotions of sympathy and pity in the reader - I think this might be the unconscious purpose I am writing this blog for. Man. What an embedded behavior pattern. Why do I have to have all these mad behavior patterns? In fact, another part of my brain probably thinks: the world will watch what I write here, and I will become famous, everybody "will see" my utter state of despair and praise me for writing such a nice blog, they will have a lot of sympathy and pity and they will call me smart, since I expressed my deeper anxieties and fears, which nobody usually does publicly on the Internet. This is another embedded mad behavior pattern. I havent even talked about it. It is related to Narcissistic Personality Disorder(NPD), which I and my brother, sister, and primary my father has. NPD actually brings to me many negative self-defeating, mad, behavior patterns )

Continuing back, I was saying that most people in our family are mad. My father, my mother (both actually in different ways), brother, sister, all family on the side of my father i.e. father's brothers and sisters, and their children too)

Strangely, even one of my aunt (who is the wife of one of my father's brothers) is also mad. She is mad in a more deeper way, actually. Their children have the elements of both kinds of madness, our family's and hers. (Her whole family is mad too, in her way).

One of their daughters (my cousin) ran away from the house to marry a person who was not culturally acceptable as a bride for our family (given the social pressures, which are especially high, because of our high social visibility, and because we are very rich in the town).

We all dont know how to talk. Most of our talk is silly, illogical and absurd. We dont know what we want. We all are purposeless, or lacking any direction. We dont know how we can be happy. Actually we *cannot* be happy. These are all not due to external circumstances but completely internal to us(in the brains, actually). In fact, our external circumstances are pretty good. We are rich, have a high social standing, have a good network of relatives, have a nice house, lots of amenities and facilities, more servants in the house as there are members, etc. Me and my brother have somehow found a way to use this madness as a weapon in our studies, and our performance at school has been pretty good. My brother was first in the town in his 10th grade, and I think one of the top in the 12th grade. He went to top 10 school in India. I had good performace, not as good as him, but pretty good. A lot of people in my life consider me as smart, though many consider me as very stupid and mad. (they truly recognized me as dumb and dull; for the rest: I have been able to successfully feign smartness for a while)

Its strange actually why are we successful. My father is pretty succesful, and my brother and myself as well. My father has a good business, and my brother is quite successful academically, he plays synthesizer very well, he has a good job here in the Bay Area. Even I would be called moderately succesful - coming to the US and doing a software engineer job in a successful firm. When we are so mad, why are we succesfull at all? Seems like if you have certain type of skills, then they might in certain circumstances gives you good survival advantages even though in most others you might be lacking. (like some kind of logical skills, and other kinds of madness like NPD). But there are problems though in this too. I am having a lot of problems in my job right now, I dont know whether I will be able to continue. I might be fired soon. All three of us waste a lot of money....because we are dumb.

to continue...

outlook

If you think that you are dumb, you dont have anything interesting to say, you are a failure, you wont be able to avoid social rejection for one more moment, etc... then those things actually happen. The only thing that prevents these things happenning to normal people is their belief in the contrary.

frustration

I need to do my work properly, else I become a lot of frustrated, and a sense of defeat sets in. Wherein, it feels that I am not fit enough for this. And really, maybe that is the case.

Life is such a complex activity that I cannot handle it cleanly. It is a lot of pressure.

It comes up heavy on my brain, and my poor little brain cannot handle it.

Life involves so many things - you have to get up, get ready, eat, go to office, office involves so so many tasks, then you have to take care of your lunch, you have to take care of relationships within the workplace, you have to take care of your dinner in the night, you've to pay bills, you've to remember so many things and keep track of so many things - you have to take care of so many people - and you have to take care of yourself, you have to remember to pick up the tickets, file for vacation, wash your clothes, cook food, purchase groceries, call up friends, call up relatives, clean your house, maintain your house with so many chores, you have to keep track of world news, you have to keep track of technology news, you have to keep learning in your job, you have to take care of a lot of people when you get married, you have to remember so many tasks and activites daily that are so easy to forget, you have to take care of so many chores which are necessary for yourself - you have to keep your academic records organized, you have to maintain legal status, for which you need to keep track of legal rules, visa, etc; you have to rest, now I havent even mentioned the desires yet, you have to read books, you have to see movies, you have to meet friends, you have to hang out, you have to visit places, you have to do activities, ..... i believe i didnt even count half of what actually happenns.

Utopia would be a place where you do what you want to, whenever you want to.

Does this smell like freedom is utopia? It shouldnt be.

personal existence

No sense/feel of personal existence. Just a logic, thought and NP bag.

Personal Existence: a particular outlook, a particular direction, a particular preference for a way of life, a confidence that self's way of life works, exposure of the inner unreasoning self out in the open available for interpersonal relationships and connecting with people, a life plan aligned with promotion of self survival and happiness.

What its all about

Its not about thinking that I am not good enough. Its not about thinking that I am inferior. Its not about thinking that I cannot ever be a normal part of society. Its not about trying to become more important. Its not about becoming different. Its not about being depressed.

Its about laughing. Its about enjoying yourself. Its about having fun. Its about having fun with everybody. Its about thinking that you are part of this society that are all trying to do the same thing, having fun in one way or another, and your ways are also acceptable and normal. Its about wanting to do certain things. Desires are not bad. Desires give your enthusiasm and direction. Its about listening to songs, its about watching movies, its about enjoying work, its about enjoying friends, its about planning for enjoyment, its about having joint fun. Its not about thinking what others are thinking about you. Its about loving people. Its about loving yourself.

Feedback loop

Mode 1:

One part of me wants to compare my value with others ALWAYS, FOR ALL THINGS. I obsessively keep thinking about what others are thinking or feeling about me given my any action. I think about this so much that there is hardly anything else that comes in my mind at many times. [ Now this helps introspection in some sense because then I can use my conclusions about what others are thinking about me in developing theories about my own behavior and thus "introspect". ] This happens basically because I probably want to calculate my value...my worth. This is because of my fear of actually being worthless or valueless. This happenned due to a lot of teasing, laughing or plain rejection and isolation that I got earlier in my life when I tried to behave naturally. (D&D)

This value estimation gives me exaggerated results most of the times. My self-estimate of myself keeps jumping from very high to very low and vice versa very quickly. Both are states that one would not like to be in. When my self-estimation is very high, then I tend to "act smart", telling others that I am smart through all of my actions. I almost become arrogant. This is repulsive. When it is low, then I tend to go very down...almost like clinical depression. I feel that I have lost in my life, and that there is nothing that can save me. I am about the most dumb/dull and hopeless person in the world. I withdraw completely at that point.

In both of these states, I behave such that nobody would want to even talk to me.

There is one more thing I realized. Practically whats happenning is, that when I start thinking about what others are thinking about me, I tend to slow down, and not do anything, and this reaction further generates something in their brain, which I now try to guess, so again I start thinking, which further puts me into inaction, and this again provides more food for my thoughts of what the other person is *NOW* thinking about me. This forms a positive feedback loop, and saturates my brain. And my brain falls dead, and I cannot think about anything now. My brain just stops. At this time, I really become very dumb/dull. Thus, this whole mode is very repuslive, and this makes me very unhappy.

Mode 2:
My mode 2 is the best part about me. Here I am my true self. Sometimes, when I am almost not quite reached the "arrogant side" mentioned above, I go into other modes - which lead to a Happy Gaurang - here I behave like a normal person, who will do things like most other people. This mode is particularly a mode where I am not divided at all. I feel like being in everbody's body. I love all other people. Really love. And that time, people actually dont mind speaking to me. I love everybody and people like that.

Listen

Dont try to be the best person in the world. Dont expect that everybody in the world should like you. Dont expect to be a person that the whole world admires. Dont try to be a person who will stand out from the rest. Learn to be happy with just being an okay person. With problems, with bad habits, with problems, but have the desire to be good and better. Learn to be happy... and try to increase your and other people's happiness in whatever way you can, whatever it is in your capacity. Dont be angry with your problems. Dont be very harsh on yourself. Whatever you are, you will have problems. Just look at what you have, what friends you have, and be happy with them. Dont forget how to enjoy...Just enjoy. ENJOY.

Enjoying is a big word. It is contagious, and attractive. It is nice.

Enjoy, and have fun. Dont think much. Dont delve too seriously.

Learn to live light......be light.....light with fun, and love. Thats it. Thats the keyword. Light, fun, and love.

Dont value "value". Value of a person is not his most important characteristic. It is hardly important. Dont compare value. Just have fun. Having fun is the only constant denominator and the most important characteristic of a person - his having fun...and the ways he has fun from. Even those ways should not define value. Value should be separated out....and *removed*. People are not better or worse, smart and dumb, good or bad....only the ways they have fun differs. And this can hardly be used to compare "value" of a person.

Just enjoy.

Be light, have fun, and love people.

And take care of yourself.