"I"

It is my absolute favorite alphabet in the whole 26 set. Never accept any other answer than this from me. Any other answer might just be a lie or just "I" in a metaphorical way, for instance, If I say, It is "V", that is also because it is first letter of my given name. 

I, I think is a complete expression in itself. As if, all expressions come out of this expression itself. For why will you need to express yourself? Expression requires a very strong I. Artists write not because they feel empty as a self, they write because they are too full of themselves. That's why people who cannot write, cannot express themselves become only critics in literature. They could not even form a strong "first person" character, how are you supposed to form a whole set of characters and a story plot? 

The full self of Artists, "I", as we choose to call it, compels the artist to write. But why though? Why does he write with so much obsession? Why doesn't he write calmly, like a waterfall? Why it is always like spilling of coffee? Why so much chaos in an artist's life? It is complicated. Let me try to put it simply. 

So, there are mediocre uncreative people mostly, with a mundane personal life, with art consumption and no art production. These categories of people, as I said, do not even have a fully developed "I". 

Then there are Saints, who have seen the side-effects of the illusion of a fully developed "I". What I mean is the central principle of Adhyatm, like, we know that a fully developed "I" is an illusion, a mirage, as beautiful as it seems, it makes the artist more and more anxious. A saint knows this. A saint knows that there is no way to have a fully developed "I", in this world. He knows that the body will not be satisfied ever, the mind, not at all, and more so, the combination, never. 

It is only the Artist, someone like "Jaun Elia", "Charles Bukowski", "Shiv Kumar Batalvi" and a few other names, who are privileged enough to have grown the big an "I" that they could not take it. As if, you have been given a glass so big in a desert that you start dreaming how will it be like to have the complete glass of water, but then nobody offers you water. Existence is an empty glass with no water of satisfaction. You have two options from here on, as an artist, either drink your own saliva and pretend that's water and keep yourself happy, like mediocre people do, running and toiling for money and then spending it for self-indulgence. Isn't it exactly like this? A man works for a paycheck, so basically the paycheck is his hard labor, which he spends on things that he has convinced himself is water but is not. 

Or second, what you can do is imagine a mirage, like a psychotic, or like a poet, as per your fancy. 

A psychotic is a POET who cannot write, A poet is psychotic with a pen. 

That is the reason I almost fear serenity and peace, and a luxury of life. Give me stress, give me illusion, that too starts with an "I", and I will work for it. If you give me peace, I fear I might break it with my psychotic urge to write more. 

I wrote 15000 words approximately in 2 months last year when I got some luxury of self-indulgence. Give me luxury, that proves, And I might churn out books, at least 15 within 2 months. 

That is how Artist lives, In a constant urge to be satisfied. I constantly ask myself, What else is left? Why not now? Why not get it over with? I have no issues. I have no worries. I have no anxieties. I am so full of myself that barely other person's life bothers me, barely do I even look outside of myself. 

As Jaun Elia writes, 

"Kisi Dum, Chain pad jata Mujhe Bhi, 

Magar mai khud se dum bhar ko Zuda nahi...!" 

 

or Oh! I wish I would have been satisfied, but I am too full of myself and non-separate from myself to be satisfied. 

I am so much me, that I cannot be happy. This phenomenon might be called, "Too Intelligent to be Enlightened". 

Intelligence is a funny word. That too starts with an "I". As if people really are intelligent. A funnier word is Artificial Intelligence. As if, there is something like a "Natural Intelligence". 

How is it natural when there is a coding involved here, a permutation and combination involved here, a sophisticated programming logic is involved. Just because you cannot find a human programmer to your brain's software, you will start calling yourself naturally intelligent. What a jerk! 

I see no difference between an "I" and an "AI". 

Biology, Sociology, Psychology and economics are really different programming interpreters that interpret our code. Like, it compiles them for us. For the first time when I read Consumer Behavior in Microeconomics, I felt exposed. I felt if my desires and my choices are this much controllable, It means the concepts of free will, and freedoms and fundamental rights are all a facade. 

Actually, by these words we keep ourselves busy in debates while programmers do our programming. MBA people, people who manage profits for firms, people who make ads, they code us in effect. 

And in retrospect we think, oh my desires are not mine; they were given to me. That too, is a privilege of a person of very high self-awareness. Yes! Finally, a word which really is of importance and not a funny word. Self-awareness is the real intelligence. That is the real knowledge. Rest everything is consumer behavior, you can consume facts and concepts like you consume Ice-cream. 

The more you are self-reflective, the more you are present in the moment, the more you are responsive to the acts that you do in real time. Self-awareness is not that facade where you commit all kinds of acts and then come at night and write a journal and recall what did you do and where might all that be coming from? 

Self-awareness is therapeutic in real time. You instantly notice a particular thought or action in real time, a particular emotion arising out of you, even without expression, you feel certain things. On a good day, I can even control it. My heart beats go up on my will and they come down on my will. Not always but sometimes. 

So, Intelligence is a Facade, hence IQ is a facade. Self-awareness quotient, is that a thing? No, not really! I think Awareness is a flow variable. How can you keep a quotient of it, if just flows. You need memory to have an IQ. Without basic memory, IQ is meaningless. 

So, all words that start from "I" are like "I" only, a facade. That's why, I find myself most happy in works where I alienate myself the most. Like give me a task of closing my eyes and sit for an hour or two. I am happy. At least, I got an option to disconnect from myself. "I" is the internet whose data pack never ends. And I hope, one day I just throw the phone away. 

"Oh The passions of desire! take me away,

Oh the laughs of the sire! take me away,

For I am too much for myself to bear, 

For I am so much more to tear! 

the world cannot look me in eyes, 

The world has secrets that it hides, 

For my friends pretend something they wanna be, 

For my enemies came by, and gave up on me, 

I am just too full of myself to be! 

How much more I was to them, I can see! 

I do not want to bother anyone anymore! 

Bore me you all, and your life I ignore! 

"Oh The passions of desire! take me away,

Oh the laughs of the sire! take me away,"