So all that you see around and describe as perfect, is just an illusion. The wise man plays his dice so well that he extends the awe an observer finds in his strengths to fill out the entire volume of his effort/work, making it look complete, a whole, a masterpiece tending to perfection.
The more adept he is in creating this illusion of perfect, the more can brilliance be attributed to him.
The more adept he is in creating this illusion of perfection, the lesser will the observer ever focus on the things he would not have done justice to.
Hence, the more wise you become in seeing beyond that meets the eye, the better you would be able to generate an understandings of the shortcomings of the seemingly perfect.
Hence, in a better position would you be to convert those shortcomings into your strengths, either through an effort towards improvement, or through the devising of the most spectacular cover-up that would keep that knowledge hidden from the rest of the world of gullible observers and followers.

But because your mind can actually benchmark the notion of perfection, somewhere in the depths of pure thought, the idea of perfections prevails in its truest sense, and every time we look at something ‘prefect’, it causes that same chord to ring in our mind and soul that borrows its elements from the true notion of perfection.

The notion of perfection seemingly is a truth given that every individual, however unrelated, has a similar metric for judging perfection and highness. There is a census that tends to develop in basic human understanding towards the things that pry opening new doors of realizations and revelations, the doors of the treasury of pure thought, of wisdom without words.

So, perfection in itself is not an illusion. But what we find all around us is just an illusive representation of the quality of perfection!

The golden sun over the horizon
A wind that blows it away
A silver moon over the horizon
A sun that pushes it away

The hue of the heaven
The color of the cloud
The heartbeat of a craven
I float into my shroud

With wings on fire
Ablaze with the madness
With fulfilled desire
Stepping on the sadness
I smile an effortless liar
As I float away with gladness.

Down into the gleaming blue
Over the rocks that obstruct
Towards the end so very true
For the eventual self-destruct.

Give me the princely robes and their overflowing capes
And I will tear them down into multiple small drapes
And give them to the poor, unfortunate and naked
And free them from waiting for the weather to be abated.

Give me a castle where the king lives alone
And I will deconstruct it into loads of stone
And give it all to a hundred poor men
And help them make their shelter, their den.

The concept of philosophical thought tries to define the human conduct as an inter-play of three forces, the desire, the emotion and the wisdom. Further, as per Plato’s descriptions, if we are to understand the same, he says that a Utopian society would exist only if the ones who are dominated by desire work in the state’s economy, and be the businessmen, the merchants and the farmers, the ones dominated by emotion lead the state’s armies, be ministers and fight as warriors, and finally, the ones dominated by wisdom, the philosophers, take on the reigns of the state and become the worthy rulers.

But if I try to disintegrate this concept further, I see some six characters which generally interplay to bring better awareness to the seventh, or the true self. All these would seemingly fit somewhere in the three broad categories given in the paragraph above, but that is irrelevant to us as of now.

The first character focuses on the physical needs and the physical well-being. It speaks on behalf of the physical body. The second focuses on living the life within the societal norms, and is primarily driven by material desire. It is the primary doer for the physical. The third focuses on the mental developments and speaks the mind, but of the mind that has been controlled and has been chained to function according to the societal norms. The fourth challenges the status quo and the societal norms, and is the one who asks the questions that make you seek. The fifth is the advisor, who seeks to answer the questions asked by the fourth and tries to probe more into the realms of philosophical thought, trying to marry logic, the reason and the known, with the spiritual, the mysterious and the unknown. The sixth is the one that meditates on in harmony and in rhythm and houses the music of the soul, the peaceful and the calming music of the soul. And finally, the seventh, the true self, is the one that oversees and governs, and favors one or more of the six characters while it tries to acclimatize itself physically and mentally to the workings of a living form. It continues to strive to strike the perfect balance between the spiritual and the material living.

Now, back to the subtle ‘stark’ difference – in the condition of MPD, the true self itself gets divided into two separate entities through a process analogically similar to the biological mitosis, and hence, you are two different people now, with each one of you choosing a different interplay of the six slave characters. There is no single commanding character anymore and hence, you as a ‘one’ are for ever considered irreconcilable by the society.

I am not much interested in the happenings of the medical condition of MPD, but I am very much interested in learning more about each of the rest six characters I possess so that I can better harness their strengths for a perfectly balanced living. I also do believe that none of them is supposed to be ignored, for they all exist for a reason.

Disclaimer: this is all a part of a work of fiction, and may not be confused with any scientific fact or theory!

His beard was over-grown, his shirt dirty and wrinkled, his hair shabby and his brown shoes worn down at the sole with the left one exposing the inner part of the shoe as well. He was sitting on a weak-looking, thin cane-wood chair, with a single cushion to support his back. He had his left leg crossed over his right knee, with his right foot resting peacefully on the red carpet beneath. He looked troubled.

His was a single room house, and as you would enter, you could find the chair he sat on on the right side in front of the window that opened up to the front of the house, a small kitchen like setup behind the chair, with the stove resting on the floor, and its back towards the right wall. Then, on the left were a couple of mattresses that lay there, perhaps to give him, his wife and their only son a good night’s sleep after every hard day they would go through.

His wife was combing their son’s hair, as the son sat cross-legged on a mattress. She looked up at he husband, finding him gazing around the house in search of the satisfaction one would draw from having built a good lifestyle for his family. He found none, as he then looked out the window with a dejected whine, a whimper that is passed on the outside when the heart cries loud inside!

“Are you not going to go to work today? Your customers would be waiting to see those red and green apples that you sell them with that bright smile on your face!”, she said in an attempt of changing the mood.

The man’s gaze returned from infinity to the finite of his house, he turned his head towards his lady, looked her in the eye, and said, ” No one requires them any more. They say the apples are bad, and that I am a corrupt shopkeeper. I am not able to smile any more when I sell, because I know that I am not right in selling these apples to them. They are a stale lot I have left, and I have no money left to buy new ones from the retailers. These apples are all we have left to eat for ourselves as well now.”

Her hands stopped to move, and her son looked up at her as if he was denied service to his most pleasurable activity, only to find a tear trickle down her eye and drop onto his forehead. The son knew it was time that he should go out of the house, and let the parents feel more comfortable. He never liked seeing his father dejected and his mother crying in response to that dejection. His father had always promised a bright future for him, and had always made him feel that things were fine and the family was doing well. But these were times when the understanding, the realization of the imminent bankruptcy was obvious. He slowly got up and went out the front door, only to sit against the front wall, hiding beneath the window, letting that rare tear out his eye.

“I had loved you for your goodness, respected you for your honesty, and hence I had always warned you of the consequences beforehand when you took that decision last year”, she said with a trembling and shaky voice. Her man could do nothing but look away from her in shame, head down, and eyes closed.

“People were buying limited amounts from me, and although we were in profits, there was no increment in our monthly earnings. So, i thought that mixing two different qualities of apples and selling them at the previous rate would not be a bad idea. And slowly, I felt, that people will come to like the lesser apples as well, and then I could sell them alone at the same hight price I already had, without having to invest in the supreme quality ones I used to sell. I was not morally wrong, was I ? But, it was a bad business decision. And, I thought that I would make my son leave the town to pursue his career with the money we’d make.” With these words he started crying, moaning from within, stifled on the outside due to the presence of his family.

I could not bear being in that house any longer, and I left.

Their son was still sitting there, knees up, arms resting on them, and his head buried in them.

May God bless this family with enough material wealth that they start to look beyond soon!

I wasn’t crying though.

There are houses on both sides of this mountain road, quite contrary to popular architecture. but they don’t exactly look like houses, but just 2 continuous walls on either side of the road, independently changing colors every ten feet, with a wooden door stuck in the middle of each colored rectangular patch, and a small window to the left of each door. There is also a two foot overhead roof that juts out just to protect the door and the window from any direct rain. Every door is a bit elevated from the road level, and has two steps connecting it to the brick road.

The rain is making everything so fresh yet empty, as if all the town was a recent settlement, with some houses yet unoccupied. But then I saw a beggar sitting on the steps to a pink house, clutching to his minimal upper body clothing to save himself from the chill that the rain brought along. Strange, that he chose the pink house. There was a light green one, a dark green one, some blue, some red, lots of yellow, some white and a brown one to choose from as well.

He is poor, full of misery and dejection. He could have gone for the brown one, the one that signifies sadness and wistfulness. I wonder whether the owners of the house are sad and dejected as well; anyways. But perhaps, he wants to feel happy about the rain too, despite the rejection this society, and now the weather is tormenting him with.

But then, why did he not go for the yellow house? Yellow is supposed to be a very optimistic color. Perhaps because they say that people generally loose their tempers more often in yellow rooms, and babies will cry more in yellow rooms. So maybe, he has experienced some aggressive or angry moments in front of such houses.

But if he wanted peace, he could have gone for one of the blue ones! The color blue is supposed to stimulate production of calming chemicals in the body, and hence lead to tranquility as well. Perhaps peace is not all that this rain is making him seek at this point of time. Maybe each scorching sun will make him seek shelter in the calm shade of blue, but not this rain. So, blue would be for another mood.

So, what would his mood be right now! He may seek peace, yes because he is poor and has seen troubled times, he may seek positivity, yes because he wants to see the brighter side of his life. But then, the rain today is so beautiful, the sky so dark and heavy that one can not but help get lost in the present, forget the past and stop worrying about the future, just love the present. Yes, that’s it, love. That’s what he might be looking for. But then, he didn’t choose the red house as well. Red is the color of love!

Aaah, I get it. It’s not love of a fellow human being, or love of a wife or a love of a prostitute that he seeks right now. He is probably romanticizing about the beauty of the nature. It is not love literally, but a peaceful, calm, romantic feeling that he has for the weather. He is not worried about his past, not about his future, just trying to persevere through the present, as he always does, but at the same time, trying to enjoy his present existence as well. As a kid, even I used to do that, just get drenched in the rain, not worried about how cold I would get, how much I would be shivering, or how many days of illness I would have to go through as a result of the present pleasure. It was all about romanticizing with mother nature! Tranquility and romance; the color pink!

I rose from the arm-chair, reflecting on the happenings that’d transpired over the last couple of days. I was in regret, deep regret. In a fashion manifesting inner degradation, I approached the door, twisted the knob, and exited that melancholy environment.

In the fresh of the outside, with the dew drops tickling my bare skin, I felt dazed. I felt a lack of purpose, a dying motivation, the sudden lull of the soul and an abrupt heart-beat. I was unable to think anymore. Life had seemingly entered a comatose state, the nearest mine had come to death!

After a few moments went by, a realization set in. The guilt had spoken, and was now gone, pooffed into in-existence, all consumed up. The soul was cold already, the lull was not new. It was my body which was supposed to end this thread, to take the baton from the vanished guilt and run for the finish line. I could not give up now, not forever.

I then ordered my legs to move, and my heart to be strong, as I motivated my mind to prepare for the eventual peace.

I was panting. I was not tired, not tired because of the happiness, not tired of the ways of the world anymore, as I ceased to care about that anymore.

I was crying. I was confident, confident because of the happiness, confident that these are the only tears I will ever cry now, as I had ceased to observe pain and depression.

I was smiling. I was enlightened, enlightened because of the happiness, enlightened enough to understand that this would be my last run ever.

I was living. I was breathing, breathing with happiness, breathing my last breath ever.

Another friend of mine noted while trying covers of the same band, that if you just change one string in the strum pattern and even manipulate the strum pattern just a twitch, you will land up on another song from the same band. That made me realize how much the personality of each individual in the band matters in making music, and further, how much consistency the soul of the band holds.
It made this click in my mind: “Every band is just one song, and its various songs, just episodes of the larger picture!”

I sometimes think, is composing good music a matter of a philosophical mind, or is just the way i look at music, and judge as to which is better and which not?
I guess it eventually is a matter of perception afterall, and the bands I look up to definitely tickle my thought sensation and musical ears in the way I would love music to.

But the I go on to think, what is talent actually, and who can and cannot become a composer of such music. I have an ear and an understanding for a particular kind of music, so shouldn’t it certify that if I may try getting my hands dirty in this, I will surely be able to justify my time somehow?
Further, there is that saying – ” a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.” So, it might just be a matter of jumping into the swimming pool perhaps, and you will end up learning how to swim, if you are focussed on learning it, that is.

I have got my hands dirty in so many things, and have always ended up creating something, sometimes just a learning for myself, and at other times, things that would somehow matter to others. I may as well try my hands at this then!

Waiting for the golden moment when I would.

I call you philosophical because you make me think beyond the visible, the tangible, and make me name yourself so. 

I call you wretched, as you make me feel like a guitar string! I always try to come back to my harmonious self, my eternally stagnant self. But you, you just can’t leave me with my own peace. You have to, it seems, always give me that feather touch that will make me wring again, to wriggle and to shake off some more dust. You want to save me from rusting, I may assume. However, the solace with the rust is not that bad. For, the shinier I get, the more cleansed and illuminant and full of harmonious vibration I get, the more strumming hands I would attract. It is just as if you make me visible to the cloud of philosophy existant in the universe, which strings up with you to create these hands! Further, the more I get strummed, the more I crave for it, as it arouses my intent to bring in that little change in the symphony of the universe, with my sweet yet deep sound.

I like the depth of my sound, and it is addicting I must confess. But more importantly, I feel a strange sense of dual belonging!

For once, I belong to that part of the universe that is philosophicially stagnant, anad living the eternal life, peaceful in themselves, but always craving for a vent for their restless minds. And then, I even belong to that part of the universe that builds and taps into the underlying wisdom of things, the thoughts defining thought itself, and be a dynamic and active part of the orchestra of the sound of the universe.

However, I must also admit that in the stagnant universe, rust comes to a supposed rescue as it helps one rest in the given stagnation, but then it also makes you weak and vulnerable. For, once if you enter into the other part of the universe, the one where everyone is vibrating with their respective frequencies and offering their unique depth to the universe, you would no longer feel unbreakable and everlasting. One strong emotional strum would snap you from your very existence, making you being declared useless, making you insane. You would then forever be muted, with your uniqueness soon to be replaced to maintain the perfect order.
This makes me realize your eternal need in my consciousness as well. And hence, I call you dear.

I would continue to be your voice, as you continue to be my thought inspiration, helping me always to communicate with the other part of the universe and stamp my undying contribution.

With warmest of reagrds
Your tangible self.