here is our story...
I was part of the corporate world.
I had lived the high tables in India, UK and US.
The quest for life is not for an anchor, it is for a moor.
An anchorage can happen mid sea too, the moor is always on the shore.
It is the search for a mooring that we journey across life.
Steve Jobs had lived a life. His last statement negates his life as a 'lie'.
So much that today he 'lies' per his last wish in an unmarked grave in a cemetery somewhere in Arlington.
My journey into de-misting my mojo and Ikigai starts in 2014.
I set off as a lone ranger on a mission to understand happiness.
The need arose from my experiments with pleasure and indulgences.
All those in my quest for happiness.
Quite exhausting frankly.
Exhausting because these need replenishing wine, caviar, cheese and journeys, add to it the burdensome wardrobes and the watches and wheels.
I didn't own the master card. i only owed! Master card owned me.
The tail was wagging the dog!
What was i trying to compensate for that i did not already have?
All the saints and seers put together and all the books spoke only of 'SUBJECTIVE' happiness.
Its all about 'do this', 'think like this', 'follow this', 'try this', 'diet', 'exercise', 'oils', 'spas', 'gym' et al!
This wasn't taking me anywhere and there was too much din and noise around all kinds of people and stuff. I was part of those people or stuff around my own self.
i indulged in my cravings, gorged on sloth, greed, envy, pride, and what have you?
In 2019 i took a vacation in Dharmsala. A town nestling in the bosom of the Himalayas.
Next thing.
I shifted to Dharamsala, where the wind courses through the pines and finds an odd bamboo reed.
It then courses then through the eyes of that bamboo reed and turns into melody.
Some call that a flute!
The sunsets stretched the horizon into fuchsia pink as the stars poured into the champagne flute on the deck of this resort where i had stayed.
I extended my stay at this resort and lived there for 18 months.
I started trekking with the shepherds and slept in their shelters in the higher mountains.
Nose has a funny capacity to get used to the smells around in no time and then we cant even smell the BOSS on our own bodies.
This was the smell of sheep.
In the nights when it would get cold, a little baby lamb would be pushed under my head. As she heaved in her breathing, she rocked me to sleep. if my feet were cold, i would stuff them under another lamb and the rest was a night full of starry skies where i could play bagatelle or marbles with the stars and croquet with the wooly clouds.
The shepherds were happy.
Their children played 'Ringa Ringa Roses'.
They sang echoes into the mountains and ran me in circles too.
Thats when one truth came home:
PLEASURE is visceral and can be excreted, exhausted and shat.
HAPPINESS is ethereal.
It just pats the heart gently and you can hear yourself breathe and feel the chest exult.
Thats when Dr. Harold Bloomfield came up to view again after years that we had not spoken. He has written on happiness. Millions of his copies have sold. he now stays a minimalist life in Maui, Hawaii.
He asked two fundamental questions:
"If you were Robinson Crusoe, marooned on an island and had no more than Friday working for you How much would you want and what for?"
Who dosen't want a Friday everyday n life? To get Friday, one would need to be marooned or one would continue to compensate for the elusive search with all trivialities.
A Friday has the excitement that a Saturday expends and a Sunday overwhelms or subdues.
So i delved deeper into the study of the blackbox called 'MIND" and tried to fathom the world objectively.
I played Chinese checkers and Scrabble with my own mind, tad impersonally too, because i was looking for the distillate and crystals of life cutting through the froth, frills and fancies.
I war gamed social media and all the bells and whistles to come up with what is the world's first model of 'OBJECTIVE' happiness.
Do you know, we are all worth USD 400 each to facebook. simple; 1 trillion Dollar Company with 2.5 Bn subscribers. We are being juiced at the NYSE while our search is still on!
...to be continued