As I look back at my life, I have been accused of being impractical (I am), a dreamer (I am) a wanderer (completely), the famous comment ‘you treat life like it was just play’ – yes I do. ‘Act your age’ – I can remember forever. People have said I have an over active imagination (yes, completely), that I should be more serious about life (I agree, but I do not know really know what they mean). The point I have been making is that while I have always accepted these accusations, I have lived under the burden of guilt of all these accusations. I have consistently tried to change them, but neither have I been able to change myself, nor have I been able to be free of considering myself somewhat an irresponsible human being…
… so there is something about our social system or our education that does not recognize that some of us just are completely right brain people. I am, and when I start to try and make decisions that are not emotionally based, or completely left brain decision I am so engulfed by doubt that I land up not making any decision. However if I make those very decisions from my right brain, somehow the decision making process become different. I do not somehow actively make the decisions in as much as seeing them through step by step, but if left in that space, somehow things get done without being an active participant in the doing of them.
I am not making a judgment here about the value of the right brain. But simply that is who i am and I have achieved less in my life, by not accepting my right brain tendency as a strength.
Well, it is never too late to change. To give your self to the emotionality of the right brain and the exist in it freely without doubt and with complete trust,
shekhar
Dear Shekhar Kapur Babaji ki jai ho!
Now Shekhar Kapur says “I have achieved less in my life, by not accepting my right brain tendency as a strenght”
BOSS! if i can achieve even half of what you have achieved I HAVE ARRIVED!!! more alive and kicking and who cares about this left and right brains?
I am also accused of being impractical, dreamer, scrizophenic (see this spelling i cant type well), lonely wanderer and when it came from near and dear ones…i was like am i OK? but in all these times…i realized i am also numb, dumb, and the best part of it is numb to their sensitivity which is actually great! log toh kahenge…just because people say this is right and wrong and i will change my life because of their perceptions i think i will lose myself, reach nowhere…so then i try to enjoy what i am…sometimes irresponsible, confined to solitary, doing the things i want and not bothering…
So at the end of the day who cares? why … we come alone, go alone…being visitor to this planet its perfectly all right to be so…sometimes near and dear ones worry and their worry actually affects but at the end of the day do they know whats going on with your being? I really do not think so man! and yes…despite they say for days i worry and then again that being comes to me…so all this right-left brain actually is defeated because again being alive with all these people who finally give up on you becomes a way of life…i wish there was a club..LOL…you know…a club to this kind of people…
ha ha ha
Go by your instinct. If you are happy with your decision everyone around you would be.
Love is the only thing there. If you have love in your heart, no matter what happens is fine. Love is the only thing that matters in life. Love is the only thing that matters in life.
If you are hurt or angry, but you have love in your heart, you will get everything you need in life. Love is the only thing there.
dudeeeeeeee…
i completed the SHOOT…and the way i wanted it to be…
6 days schedule was there…i completed it in 5 and half days… but later i came to know that its costlier… hahaha… fuck…production is a dirty business and my production guy was very experienced and like my elder brother…he cut the cost as much as possible… but i am happy because i did it the way i wanted it to be…and funny part is that i was the only guy who was most inexperienced on the set…yet every one was happy…i could feel it… the whole crew had sleep less nights because 1 day shift got extended 4 days prior to shoot ( Cinematographer insisted and i realized as shoot progressed that he was right by asking me to extend the shift…Film making is not a joke) … 🙂 shooting is fun… its hectic… but its fun… now first thing i am going to do is the tele cine… once the exposed cans go to lab i will be at peace…
kedar
Congratulations Kedar,
RISE AND SHINE!
Smiles
Dq
shekhar……..it has dawned upon me that a guy who is feeling SO MUCH already…….does not need ‘bodh’……..moral support…? yes…here…swish…..! you got it……..:) i just sent it ! affection…….? LOADS……! but gyaan…….it is already deeply embedded in you !
so i give you what you need……..
MY CONFIDENCE IN YOU 🙂 !
Dear Shivani,
I liked your post and the only thing that I’d say is that it’s never too late to start whatever you want to do – the whole world is open for you. Look at Deepa Mehta, she made her first film at 41 and now at 57 she is famous for her beautiful films. Now, we don’t even think about how far back she has been actively working because when you have arrived nobody cares about when you actually started or what your age is now. So do whatever you want to right now.
Best Wishes,
Himanshu
dear himanshu, thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful words. also the example you site is so apt. thank you….wish you all the very best as well, shivani
ty Dq
Pleasure all mine dear@Kedar…
Aapna khayal rakhna..
Hugsss
Hugzz@Shekhar!!
Dear Shekhar,
As you said, “it’s never too late”. All of us can be happy people if we just followed our destined path and didn’t struggle with it. The destined path is the one which comes most naturally to us……for which we don’t need to think.
So, if you’re more right brained than left, you don’t have to fight with it. It would be foolish to fight with it. Accept who you are and live your life the way you want to. That’s the only way I know to live.
Cheers!
Navin
Your thoughts and the burden of accusations you mention is echoed by millions of people worldwide. Mr. Kapur – I dont know about you but my response to such allegations/accusations/expectations is simple. I do whatever I think is right/convinient and does not make me feel guilty. The world out there wants to criticise – even if I do things to please them, they will still find something or the other to criticise in me. So, all I do is follow my heart and mind (whichever suits me at any time) and forget that anyone else beyond me exists. Selfish? Well… personal peace is more important than anything else. If I am not happy and at peace- I cant make others happy/peaceful. Life is a quest for self improvement. I carry the burden of accusations too – but also the happiness that my life is after all a sum of my decisions.
How does one act his age?
The last few days I have been doing some research in the most exclusive clubs in and around NYC (I mean the old money clubs/resorts and not the party ones like Bungalow 8) and found two that quite impressed me. The bathing corporation of Southampton is probably the most exclusive club in the Hamptons, and it was mentioned in the documentary born rich by Jamie Johnson (the heir of the Johnson and Johnson clan). I saw Jamie’s second documentary “The One Percent” at the Tribeca Film Festival 2yrs back and both films are a great insider and unbiased look at the lives of the top of the heap – the second one is more international and interviews people like Adnan Khashoggi, granddaughter of Buffett etc. and is quite funny. The bathing corporation is like a huge green club with dreamy country sides just like Switzerland where people play golf, tennis or just relax. Tom Wolfe fictionalized the bathing corporation club in his 80s best seller the “The Bonfire of the Vanities.”
In NYC there is a unique club that I have passed many times on 5th avenue walking towards the Metropolitan Museum close to the Frick museum and it is a men’s only club where the old worldly come for their cigars and cognac – although I just enjoy as much being at the Pierre next door where it is amazing with the live piano and it has a ballroom that can put almost anything to shame. The Hamptons bathing club prides itself for how difficult it is to get entry into that club and even in the Knickerbocker you have to prove direct lineage to the original Dutch settlers of the 19th century to get admission. Another club that is probably very classy and one where I’d love to be a part of is the Metropolitan Club next to the Pierre. It’s the city’s grandest palazzo and was organized by J. P. Morgan in protest against not being admitted to some of the city’s other exclusive private men’s clubs.
Sometimes when I walk on 5th ave. blvd in front of it I carefully monitor my thoughts, to see what am I truly thinking about the grand place – Do I want to be a member here?, Do I want to just enjoy the facilities here? – I surprisingly don’t think those things at all – All I truly think is that I should own this building as it will make a nice home, will decorate it wonderfully, and I can walk to the Met each morning and evening, and read a great book sitting next to the huge window looking at the park.
Just felt like writing this to you today, Shekhar. I hope you are having a wonderful time on the Upper East Side.
Best Regards,
Himanshu
Dear Shekhar,
I must thank you for
I have started to understand a
lot of things i never understood before…
All i can say is that..
You create…You are an Artist..
Being right brained…impractical, dreamer…
these are basic nature to an artist..
Its a privelledge..like the sufis..
who live in their own world..
Filmmaking is also like being a Sufi
“JOGI”…
enjoy your state!!!
Best
Anku
Dear Shekhar:
While we are reveling in the knowledge of having our mental facilities at our disposal, often famously so, while we exult in the seamless interaction of our brain’s two sides and thus enjoy the endorphin-producing state of a well-functioning intellect there are less fortunate ones among us. Reading the fascinating book “Musicophilia – Tales of Music and the Brain” by Oliver Sacks it allows me a frightening glimpse into the dark abyss of brains gone haywire. One such episode described in the book is the scary story about the eminent English musician and musicologist Clive Wearing who in 1985 was struck by a debilitating brain infection (herpes encephalitis)that had robbed him, a brilliant mind, of his memory and had left him with a total retrograde amnesia. In essence, his memory bank of the past had been deleted from his inner hard drive and the ability to process, or in staying with the computer analogy, to save new memories to this inner hard disk was forever impaired. There was no clawing back to neurological normalcy as had so fabulously been demonstrated by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor and there was no redeeming moment as it was for Swann, a character in Proust’s book “Swann’s Way” when he woke up in a strange room unable to determine where, who and what he was. And yet his memory had returned “like a rope let down from heaven to draw me up out of the abyss of not-being, from which I could never have escaped by myself”. Clive Wearing had no such luck, there was no rope from heaven coming down to him. The only things that had survived, miraculously so, like some overlooked bytes of information in the otherwise deleted memory bank of his brain, were his speech, the ability to sight read music and to play such music on the piano and recognize his wife and his children. When he was playing music, there was a heartbreaking normalcy that pervaded the moment, as though all was well and sound when in realty all was desperately unwell. His ability to process and retain information for more than one second was impaired. Looking at his wife meant that every time he blinked with his eyes it gave him the impression she had just walked into the room with the attendant joy of seeing her after what he thought was a long time. Over and over and over. When Oliver Sacks watched the 1986 BBC documentary about Clive Wearing “Prisoner of Consciousness” he reflected in his book that “Clive showed a desperate aloneness, fear and bewilderment. He was acutely, continually, agonizingly conscious that something bizarre, something terrible, was the matter.”
This story has no happy ending. As Oliver Sacks concludes “It has been twenty years since Clive’s illness and, for him, nothing has moved on. One might say he is still in 1985 or, given his retrograde amnesia, in 1965. In some ways, he is not anywhere at all; he has dropped out of space and time altogether. He no longer has any inner narrative; he is not leading a life in the sense that the rest of us do.”
I just wanted to share this sinister story with you and others, and we all may want to express our thank yous that we have providentially been spared such unkind fate and that we can travel through this beautiful landscape of our lives with our minds capable of registering every single, precious moment of it.
With kind regards.
Horst
thank you, Horst. that was beautifully written and shared, shekhar
Dear Horst,
Thanks for the wonderful and touching story of Clive. It is a wonderful post, but I must say that I have never been able to derive any happiness or feel superior by looking at the physical miseries of people.
I much rather enjoy the feeling of discontent by looking at people who are superior. That Himanshu has a IQ of 151 and there are people in Mensa whose brains go upto 180s, so how do I get close to them. That process of setting goals and always looking at people superior to us keeps us going towards glory, even though it gives discontent. As Deepak Chopra says “Discontent is divine” and the starting point of all creation, so I try to follow those truly wise words from him.
Regards,
Himanshu
Dear Himanshu:
Thank you for the kind words.
I believe that our sights should always be aimed at a higher consciousness which does not necessarily have to coincide with a greater intellect or a Mensa IQ. I think divine discontent goes deeper than just being a metaphor for our earthly aspirations. The story of Clive was meant to convey that life is a whimsical creature that rarely listens to our commands and that one terrible moment can forever alter the masterplan we all have smugly worked on to implement. Deepak Chopra said “Respect your mystery. Nothing is more profound but pursue it ruthlessly, trying to rip the veil away at every second. This is what makes life rich, that it has more to offer with each clue it reveals.” Clive must for sure have tried to pull down that incongruous veil only to see it replaced by a new one, getting merely a fleeting glimpse of what lies behind the veil, losing the memory of that clue in an instant.
Stay well.
Horst
Dear Horst,
Thanks for your reply and I totally understand what you are saying. It is indeed very hard to live with just a small sliver of time to stand on and without knowing anything about the past. What is really shocking is that Clive feels such deep emotions about himself but can’t register them in his mind for more than a few seconds, so he can’t even come to terms or understand his state.What is really heartening is that he does recognize his wife but every time he sees her he behave as if he has seen her after ages.
I found this documentary that BBC made on Clive and it is quite nice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDNDRDJy-vo&feature=related
Regards,
Himanshu
@ Shekhar – Guilt and irresponsibility… so true! We keep on living as the “ugly duckling”, not fitting in anywhere, until one day we realize that we are a beautiful swan!
@ Himanshu – “when you have arrived nobody cares about when you actually started or what your age is now”! God’s ways are strange… you get answers, courage, motivation, inspiration and encouragement from the most unlikely places! Thanks!
Dear Shekhar,
What i read is like reading myself.
That’s one thing has made me think
manytimes. I feel accepting it is the only solution.
regards,
Sunil27
only from india can we get such inspirational dialog. please check out DR JILL BOLTE TAYLOR on ted.com. regarding her STROKE OF INSIGHT: her experience of being completely in her right hemisphere after a heart attack. amazing. the source of true happiness is the bliss of the right hemisphere. shekhar, thank you for bringing this to our attention.
i dont konw
it does it for me