Recording our emptiness

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.
~Khalil Gibran

A-Z Book List: P for Prophet

Again a non-fiction. Again something related to Philosophy. Again a very small book. But it packs a punch. Without much further ado, let me introduce you to the book for today’s alphabet.

Name: The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

Genre: Poetry, Philosophy, Classics, Spirituality

I guess most you must have heard of this Author and this Book. Because this is used mostly for the beautiful quotes. This is a photograph of the love quotes that I had written down much before I bought the book and read it fully. (There was an entry for Marriage and Children too… Wonder why I just chose those three… well, it must be the hormones. I was in my late teens you see 😉 ) I remember seeing them somewhere (I don’t recollect where) and that was the time when I used to write the lines I liked in my diary, so wrote them down and saved those words.

I was so awed by those quotes and they did have a big impact on me. I am one of those who uses other’s quotes whenever and wherever possible. And this book is full of them. I am glad that I have a copy of this book with me and I will have it wherever I go.

I could have picked up any other book for P, but this is one book I am very fond of and wanted to share it with you. This book even overrode the ‘Pride and Prejudice’ , enough said about this book already or the ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, which is another wonderful book.

PS: Check out the rest of the A-Z Book list here

Invention of Love – Touching

After having completed a book (a fun read..nothing too great) I was just browsing and for some reason, did a search on short movies in YouTube and among the ones that got listed I got intrigued by this short animation movie (I love animations) titled ‘Invention of Love’. Can love be invented? Is it invent-able ? What happens when we try to do that ? That is what this movie is about (at least that is how I see it)

I am not a fan of these ‘day’s’ like the Valentine’s day or Mother’s day or Father’s day etc.. but its really funny that I get to watch this movie by random pick today of all days :). Just Perfect. How much it matches closely to our current life, surrounded by all things electronic and purely mechanical in nature(just like our day to day life..at least most of our lives). Just today morning my friend was complaining about the monotonous nature of our lives and how it sucks at times. How we are not able to hold on to something very pure and natural like love and it withers away just like that flower. How we try to replace it with materialistic stuff and try to console ourselves that this would be enough. We do not realize what we have unless we lose it, especially if it is love. It hurts a lot. But can you replace it just with something else ? Never.

The 10 min short movie was amazing and very very touching. The colors used, the way the emotions were shown. I was so absorbed in it. Beautiful.

Ending this post with my very favorite Khalil Gibran quote on Love

“Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.”

[Update: A post I wrote exactly 2 years before. Reposting it. It is not meant to be discouraging in any way 😉 just to reiterate the fact that there is no easy love.]

together, yet not too near

Let me start with this: I don’t believe in love-at-first-sight (except for in the novels,which I absolutely love to read, if written well) and I don’t think work place romance or office romances are good. Recently office romance was something I kept hearing from various sources and that prompted this post. A few weeks back one of my friend told me that he fancied a girl in his office. Even before he could continue, I told him ‘It’s not that I am discouraging you from romance of any sort, but if you ask me, I won’t encourage office / work place romances. If you really want to find that someone, try finding her outside of your work place’. His argument was that since he doesn’t go out much, he could get to know about people in the work place much better and what was wrong with that. Well, nothing wrong with that, unless the people involved are matured enough to handle things in a decent manner if things don’t go that well between them. Also there are lot of policies that you need to adhere to while at work place, which makes it all the more difficult. Honestly, that is a bit too daunting if you ask me.

Let alone romances, I personally don’t feel that a couple should work in the same company. Of course, I have been proved wrong by a lot of couple’s who found each other in my company and have been happily married and are still here (and I have been in this company for more than a decade now, so yeah, I have seen quite a few of them right from their initial stage of romance). Even in my first company, one of my close friend was married and I didn’t know that her husband worked in the same company and in fact in my department, while she was working in another department. I knew about it only because she mentioned him. I would have never guessed it. They hardly saw each other, never acknowledged except for a ‘hi’ , treated each other just like another colleague-from-another-department. When I asked her why she wouldn’t want to hang out with him, she said ‘its more than enough that we have only each other at home, otherwise it would get very boring’. I agree with her on that totally. Imagine looking at a person and being in each other’s space 24/7. I am sure to go mad after a couple of days. I remember Khalil Gibran’s quote

     You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

….

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

I have seen the downside of a couple being in the same organization. In my first company, when it got downsized, they had a policy that they will allow the couple to choose on who is going to remain in the company because they rather retrench from the set of couples instead of keeping both of them in the company and letting go of others so as to be fair. I am not expert on human resource stuff but from a couple’s point of view, just imagine the kind of pressure on them. Also recently, one of the companies has announced that they are closing down their offices completely.  If a couple is working there then at a single shot, both of them will be out of work. Its just not easy. Especially if they have kids, loans and other commitments.

So yeah, no office romances, no couple working in the same organization and no love at first sight. Hmm.. I thought I was romantic!