Leaving identity behind

Theres a great difference in knowing what is right and doing what is right. There are incredible amount of books with beneficial wisdom, films that can change lives and advice from well-meaning and well-informed friends that go to deaf ears when it comes to actual implementation. We value learning but are terribly skeptical of applying learnings to our own lives. The rigidness of our identity becomes our true weakness.

Applying a new learning to our lives is a risk worth taking, not taking it, is in fact more dangerous. The raging identity overzealous in guarding its boundaries needs to take a break. Taking ourselves out of our own way makes us into more wholesome beings and not regurgitations of what we were all this while.

Busy ‘ness and being valued

Being busy is considered being of value by many. Having no time to enjoy the gifts of life is merely a sign of being disorganized.

In the culture we live in, having time is something to be looked down upon. We are used to denigrating people who seem to be having time for themselves and for others. As a result, we are more likely to hide behind our screens or our files or whatever it is we work on, for much longer than is required. Not only to show outwardly importance but to gain a value of our self by staying away from free time. Free time somehow should always be unjust or rightly earned by spending crazy amounts of time ‘working’ to compensate it.

While we stay glued to our screens, our friendships wither, our relationships are ignored, a fine time that is worth living for is lost and our body ages and crumbles through it all. Divorced from living, the work we are capable of doing is bereft of meaning for oneself and others

Life isn’t a support system for art. Its the other way around. - Stephen King

Stick to the Beat

For a bunch of musicians to be able to jam together, the most important thing is to be able to stick to the beat. Almost all kinds of freedom is rewarded otherwise, if one can stick to the beat. Everyone sticking to the beat keeps the band tight and brings the various hands and minds playing different instruments to form a single, cohesive, piece. If one is not sticking to the beat, they create a parallel noise that threatens the music.

This is true of every collaborative project. There is always one ‘constant’, one promise, one commitment in the whole array of things. Each team member is an artist who is allowed to take his own detours as long as he keeps to the beat, the primary commitment. The band or the team can be small or huge but there has to be a single point of agreement that everyone signs up to.

One can work towards a deliverable time, a particular vision, profits or a cause. But this has to be clearly defined at the outset, without any contesting ideas, for the team to be able to dedicate to it.

What is that one commitment in your current project? What is your beat?