Were you paying attention?

Once again my thoughts are unclear. I once explained to a friend that you must let an idea form completely in your head before jotting it down albeit with the warning that not all ideas make it that far. Ironically, I have been grappling with that problem recently. I feel like I am losing important thoughts and that is why I have been trying to jot down those abstract and slightly malformed ideas. I am generally a fan of clarity but maybe capturing the abstract is the next step in learning to write. Only you can decide if this will make any sort of sense at the end.

I like to believe that I am a keen observer. And I guess if you pay even the slightest amount of attention to what goes around you then you might have wondered about the complexities of human motivation. The multitude of factors that push and pull us in all sort of directions are indeed interesting but what really astounds me is what goes on inside the mind before a decision is reached. I say this because of what I feel and go through every time I try to come to a decision. Yes, there are the snap judgements but when you sit down to weigh the pros and cons of doing something, so many things come up. In fact its an oversimplification to say that you just weigh pros and cons; you weigh so much more.

Observing is born out of curiosity. There is a distinction to be made here. There is the curiosity that killed the cat and then there is the one which does not lead to any end result. I am talking about the latter. Plain and simple curiosity. I try and use it to learn. There are so many things that one can learn just by paying attention. It is my opinion that "paying attention" is a quality that is being lost slowly but surely. And this brings me to my original thought. People are complex. Their motivations even more so. If you don't pay attention and more importantly if you are not patient then it is very possible that you will make gross misjudgements about people as well as life in general.

Linking this further, we stumble onto another ailment of the society. Their over eagerness to pass judgement, to brand and to stereotype people. It is crazy how passing judgement is now considered a sign of being forward thinking. Your personality and your convictions are questioned if you are not forthcoming and stinging in your judgements about everything under the sun. What does it achieve? So not only is it totally pointless to brand human beings that possess such multitude of motivations with a single brush, it is also rash. There is every chance that our judgements would be wrong simply because its hard enough to understand a single human being. Here we are claiming to understand hundreds, thousands or even millions of them.

A set of people can share goals and motivations, of that I have no doubt. They can be very similar but in my humble opinion they can never be identical. If I just look to my siblings, I can see so much difference. We have lived through most of the same stuff but so many little things are different. The eldest child is treated different, the smallest is treated different. And sometimes we take different paths from the same crossroads. This signifies two things. Firstly, that in identical circumstances people choose differently highlighting the power of what goes around in the head and secondly how two seemingly similar lives can be so very different.

Recently, my thoughts have been revolving around the little things and I guess this writing does that thought better justice than I have been able to do before. what I wish to highlight is that the little things are often what make the difference. Again taking the example of my siblings. In broad terms we have had similar luxuries but little things have had such profound differences on our personalities. In our haste brought about by this nonsensical rat race, we have slowly tuned our minds to just look at the highlights. The problem is that the "devil is in the detail".

We live in broad definitions as well. Big house equals success. The fine print that says a big house with happy people, living people, loving people is a success is no longer visible. We must at least aim for something tangible, something that makes sense. I try to explain this to others that when I look at the details something does not make sense and they stare back like zombies. When you have lived your whole life avoiding the fine print then off course it is going to be impossible to comprehend it now. We must have a goal that survives a detailed examination otherwise all the effort might be for nothing.

So much more to say that is floating around in my head but to wrap things up, do you know why you are doing what you are doing? If you died today or tomorrow, would you die happy and satisfied? Or is it that you are going to keep striving towards some abstract idea because you missed the fine print in the beginning and now you cannot bear to stop and re-evaluate? Have you touched other peoples lives in a way that matters? Or were you so concerned with the next paycheck that you forgot to pay attention? Have you ever tried to be compassionate? Or have you lost all track of compassion in your quest to succeed? Is there room in your life for sacrifice? Or do you subscribe to the global definition that "you must always snatch what you want"?

We live in a world today that is grotesque and twisted. There is proof out there that bulldozing your way through life works but my question is - Is it worth it? Is it enough? Were you paying attention or did "life" just pass you by?