Intellectual Isolation

Few months back , a friend of mine used to tell me about the vacuum she feels around her working environment and used a phrase innovated by herself, I assume, to describe it -" intellectual isolation"

Time to time we all have to face this extrema feeling of loneliness in the professional capacity. She is in an entirely different field than mine yet I also feel that phrase has something related to me.

I am trying to finish long waiting work despite my physical weaknesses these days. I got sick after long hours of talking without much break during last weekend and still recovering. This is my work and I have to do it. But "sharing " the progress is like a part of my work-in-progress. I know the work I am doing is correct but I know it is not perfect until friend of mine showed me tiny dots which I might have forgotten to erase.But my colleagues are busy with their work and the absence of 'sharing' has reduce my energy level & loosen my interest. Finally called my friend who introduced me to this phrase , at least to share the experience.She of course understood the situation -being the inventor of this professional disorder.We talked about the feeling of being isolated in professional or intellectual capacity, which is more difficult to bear than personal isolation. Anyway I wonder whether its only me who suffer from this "II" in my profession.

Do "what I want" Vs " what make me happy"

Happy to see the new life options, freedom and interesting challenges waiting for our young generation. Many young people I know will have an appealing future in the materialistic measures ; but some of them may not see the beauty of life. Inner beauty is not a thing sensed by some of them.

Some are constrained in to limited life style selected by or imposed on them and would not wish to see the world beyond their pre-defined structure; If you are a programmer , you are a programmer and no need to think why your father look pale and unhealthy these days ; If you are a network guy , you may need not to concern what is going on at IDP camps vauniya these days.I wonder whether the lack of diversity bundled with lack of appreciation for nature and art has make their lives narrow as well as selfish.

In a society where no high-tech communication media was heard about , we brought up with nature, people and books which all contributed to shaped our lives.I can remember I bought "Amma" novel while I was in grade 5. The love for freedom as well as caring for the whole not the individual was in blood of many of us. Our generation later has to reached the adolescence with background of crucial political conflicts in my motherland.We had to spend aimless years, stuck and struggle much to find our path in life. In spite of all the pathetic incidents, there are things which I can still admire about many of my peers; We represented the desire to move forward with whole , while respecting the individualism. We are different from each other, yet collectivity has some value as well.

The amount of focus on individualism by our young generation is shocking. "I want to achive what I want at any cost" is the motto of some of them. The "right" comes first with little attention to "duty". The "right" to be "myself" but not "right" of the society as a whole. It is great to see the courage and the confidence of them. But where have gone the youth who dream about a better society where everybody gain something , who does not hesitate to make a self-sacrifice and go out of the way to help others ,who holds a big heart to offer kindness and caring ? When people go old, it is said that many of these qualities vanishes. But when these qualities die at very young age, what would happen to them when they grow old?At age of 19 , somebody can declare that he want to stay rest of his life abroad and will not bother about what does it meant to his family. Of course what you want to do has to be decided by you-but can anybody decide everything completely neglecting social factors and considering himself only as an individual?

I wonder whether we can try out another option as well when deciding our life ; do what we want instead of do what make us happy . Doing what make you happy need you to analyze yourself and see what really make you happy. Then comes the problem of sensing what make us really happy. By accumulating or by giving, by being rigid or being flexible , being selfish or being kind ?After a careful analysis we might found that at least some things which have demanded by us as "need do do" may not actually make us happy or make our hearts lighter in the long run.

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Cultivate the Habits of Friendship

an interesting article on managing relationships

Young Professionals: Cultivate the Habits of Friendship(by David Maister 2005)

http://davidmaister.com/articles/3/47/

Human Relationships

I feel that human relationships have something valuable than what we have used to believe. Everything is about creating and maintaining relationships. Its not only outward but inward too. If we can maintain a good relationship with ourselves, it would help to add little fragrance to relationships with others too.

Recently I got a chance to look deeper in human relationships. I was shocked to see how I was affected by a small change in a close relationship. I am a person believing on different relationships which may have lot of overlapping in general terms(friend, sister,brother, student, colleague, companion,son, ..threewheeler driver, lecturer,office assistant, CEO, simply a human being just like me )therefore I am lucky to have close connections with different sort of people in harmony.

We do relate to people in different manner at different levels but wonder whether we have time to pay attention to tiny strings that weave different bonds even without our knowledge. Of course I was not let down by my partner;This is something different and this different helps me to dig deep inside our emotional world.We were no longer resonate in same frequency and the music was faded and only dull sound lasts. Then only I realized how much a relationship would have meant to me.

The best part of this incident is the insight it gave to me. I did my best to understand "WHY" it has disturbed me? How our emotions work ? How do people become close to each other?What maintains a good relationship? Why do we get hurt when people move away? ( feeling of let down,worthlessness,loss of sharing,+...).I came across even interesting articles about different relationship models experts have developed and it helped me to learn that there are people really worrying about these "minor" things and taking them seriously. I am not alone.

I feel we are used to the word "think" too much and its like there is nothing called " I feel" , "I sense" exits anymore. I know that people have difficulty in expressing their feelings.But do they know they have feelings in the first place ? or in the hectic digital life of modern era does "100% logical reasoning +0% emotions" is the recipe? It is always better to increase the awareness of our inner world, our emotional world even though we do not want to share them with others. The self-awareness would help to increase the bond with ourselves. Once we know ourselves, be-friend with our emotions , it is easy to reflect the same towards the outside world also. After all , many are willing to live in community not in isolation. Our close links may be with single digit circle of close human beings. More we can let the other person to be himself,more closer will be our relationship.But how can we let another person to be himself when we do not know to be ourselves?