Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May

Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May
(To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time)
By Robert Herrick

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:And this same flower that smiles today
To-morrow will be dying.
.
The glorious lamp of Heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run.
And nearer he's to setting.
.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Outliving

You know some words suddenly keep expressing themselves in myriad ways, both implicitly and explicitly. At this juncture, the term outliving has suddenly started to speak to me.
I consider this true in three major discussions.
Sachin, Apple Inc and relationships.
When my bro-in-law, who prides himself as a Steve Jobs fan, was fanatically trying to get me agree that Apple isn't done yet, I was wondering if I can explain to him with an analogy. Its the same story with Sachin's fanboys. Both cannot agree that their God/faith/religion, whatever you might want to refer it to, is finished.
I do agree, Apple is much better placed that Tendulkar and it being a firm and hence practically an unlimited life time so to speak, it will certainly bounce back or the probability at least is higher.
Apple is coming out with a cheaper I phone as we speak and it might turn its fortunes. Even if it does, this isn't the Apple that we knew of.
Jobs' firm was unique. It catered to a niche segment of the market. The fundamental difference between Jobs and Gates' firms, to put it very blatantly at the risk of a flawed understanding is between quality and quantity.
Jobs' vision was to create a dent in this universe and I think Gates was pretty happy with creating a ubiquity of his brand more than a niche. He wanted quantity, he wanted numbers, he wanted more PC users than Mac users, simply put.

Coming to relationships and specifically those which outlive their life expectancy, when do you know that it is dead? Do you resuscitate it, keep it on a life support and hope it gets back on track, or just be a mute spectator and watch it struggle till its last breath? And in the end, do you just say, life or death of it, was the deserving winner of the bout?
But then, even the best of relationships do go through a comatose don't they? To do or not to do might be the most common cliché anyone would come across. I'd say, Life is a cliché if that's your vantage point.

PS: I have taken the life support out for now. I shall mutely watch the bout. May resolve win over death.

Flustered..

Currently reading a blog on Zen habits. Trying to pick up all the good things mentioned. Minimalism, sticking to habits, writing everyday-even if that means a sentence a day, rising early, staying fit and also something on how savouring food helps us eat less.
With all due credit to the habits, I'd say all these habits mentioned aren't something we have hear d for the first time.
But then that's the beauty of our lives. We punish our mind, body, soul, push them into a corner and torment them till they finally give up or if strong retort.

Why? Why do we make such earnest efforts to go against ourselves.
My life would include smoking, relationship woes as the most predominant occurrences in the physical and mental spheres.

I have no answers, though I honestly seek one.

Unwired

I am always wired. I can picture it as a press conference where I'm facing a swarm of people and I'm dying to get my views across. Worse comes next. Assume that right next to you, your friend is also holding one such meet. Another beside him. And so on. Few of you will overhear and interject you- they are obviously closer to you, physically in this context and metaphorically otherwise.
In this mash up of opinions, comments, likes, check ins, tweets, retweets, what is the end result? How much have you filtered, digested and gained out of this whole exercise?
Sure, this is supposedly social networking. And yes, I wish to be a recluse now.
I intend to get off the dias, do away with the mike set, shut my ears off others' views and stay in my own world.
Is that as scary as it sounds? I'm heading to find out.
Hoping one serene morning walk through the woods in solitude kind of an experience.

PS - It triggered with a Zen post about lesser networking and the very same day, observing how my colleague couldn't talk to me without taking her gaze off her phone.

Market news- 1

You just can't let go an opportunity like today! Been cursing myself since the time I saw gold price shoot up today.
Clearly, investors had nowhere to go, with bad news from Europe- Rajoy's charges, Australia, HTC, Hitachi bad news pouring in, they would have turned to gold and I missed this wave!!
I've made three mistakes in my short, exciting stock market stint mostly borne losses.
1. Sold off a stock as soon as price dropped by a bit more than what I was expecting. While I knew there was good news in the offing and would definitely take the price upwards- Jet.
2. Holding on to another worthless stock and never selling it off though its past its green zone. Its now languishing at 10% red- Unitech.
3. Today's mistake of missing out on Gold!

Learning in case you are still dreary at 9am, just have a look at the Asian markets, if flat, go back to sleep, else time for some action!1

From Doomsday, We March On..

Well, after the much hyped Dec 21, 2012 passed rather peacefully, I'm still very much alive a fortnight after the supposed Doomsday.
And with this fortuitous existence comes the responsibility of living the life ahead. What better a timing than NYE.
I wouldn't really term my To dos as a bucket list nor would these be bracketed under resolutions, but i would really want to make these happen. If not this year, then never, may be my response to a deadline per say.

1. Driving- A two wheeler and four wheeler licenses are a must! I have been admonished very much for the lack of these but never gave it a serious thought until I landed in Goa with my girl and had to embarrass myself when nobody would rent their bikes to me since I didn't have a license at all. And yes, all my Friday nights have been mostly spent in my friend's car travelling to Rasta cafes or places no lesser than 20 kms from work and the poor chap whining that he couldn't drink because he was driving. Not to mention my recent trip to Chennai(my Uncle expired) where I was the butt of most jokes around not being able to assist in the daily chores due to my lack of driving skills.
For now, I have joined a driving class and hopefully soon, I shall chip in with my help whenever, wherever required.

2. Guitar- To demonstrate my woes, Quicker- the e commerce site, has an ad out on TV. It shows the wife taunting the husband that he has hung his guitar just as an exhibit as he doesn't know how to play it. He succumbs and sells it off. I'm not giving up yet but not learning it is still haunting me.

3. Career/Study- A career move to a different firm/location along with a certification is the need of the hour. For one, I just cant stand my current boss. That would be too stupid an excuse to be a driving force. Not to worry, it isn't. The drive to study has always been inherent. The ordeal lies in keeping up the effort focused towards getting a certification. My study on the other hand ended up like a light newspaper reading very soon after the initial enthusiasm doused.

4. Reading- I have moved to good reads site now! That's helping me a bit in keeping track of my to-read list. My Nexus tab is helping me as well. E-books are pretty easy to read from a tab as opposed to a laptop I think. I had completed Life of Pi e book in a fortnight, which was a week after the movie released in India and felt blessed to catch the best of both worlds when I treated myself to an amazing 3d experience of the movie. I haven't mentally set any book count as a goal for the year until I came across someone on twitter who set 200 as his goal. I was blown away. I felt insulted. I envied him. I pitied the degree of respect I gave my time. How much I wasted in trivialities. That said, the goal stands at 25 I believe.

5. Tattoo- The desire to get inked is stronger than ever now. It is being finalised as to whats best suited to represent me. Something that 5 years down the lane, even if I don't feel the same way that do now, I still shouldn't regret. I do live by the philosophy of do and regret rather than regret not doing. One of the 3 shall be finally inked onto me- Nothing Else Matters, Carpe Diem, Taurus- Bring it On.

As the year 2013 zooms ahead, of all things, I shall touch 25- the age of quarter life crisis, my relationship shall hopefully stabilize and materialise may be! I shall hopefully encounter newer challenges and take learning out of them.
When I look back at the just concluded 2012, I realise to let bygones be bygones. I have learnt a lot.
I have learnt how not to study, how not to play around with people, how hard life is when you break trust, how valuable love is, how easy hatred is, how nearly Utopian it is be truthful, how to break the shackles of laziness and travel, how not to be possessive..
As Pi Patel says, Life is all about letting go..

I shall endeavour to keep learning new things everyday.. Whats life worth if you didn't learn a new thing each day.
From History to Spiritualism, I'm all ears, Ladies and Gents.
Let the knowledge flow.
Wishing a great year ahead to you and me.
Cheerio!

PS - All that the Judgement Day robbed us off was a part of Sachin..