Never Give Up

While playing Racer, a racing game, I learnt a simple truth. I had played this game over 100 times but could not clock it. Then, one thing changed and I won. The one thing was a switch in mindset:

Do everything I can to win. I am not going to take it [the alternative].

This principle applies to other areas too. I thought about it today as I was running. I was physically aching, my body felt slow and my feet seemed to be dragging. I asked myself the question, am I going to give up or am I going to do everything I can not to stop.

Winston Churchill summed it up best when he said: “Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”

At every corner, do your best. There is no complacency, it's not a race to survive. You are there to win.

Kamikaze

The news of the Fukushima nuclear plant employees battling to cool the stricken reactor from meltdown is extraordinary and disturbing. It brings to mind the depths of the human spirit.

These workers who face near certain death from radiation likely understand what they are putting themselves under. However, they continue to go through with their ordeal, knowing they will live the remainder of their lives in such brutal and inhumane conditions and die in suffering.

What state of mind causes people to do this? To place country over self, the lives of others over their own. I cannot answer this question, perhaps it was forced upon them, perhaps it was an obligation of their work, perhaps it was a higher cause. This incident also brought home the thinking that go through suicide bombers, matyrs, soldiers who sacrifice their lives and in many cases what a tragedy it is to see life cut short.

Requiem For A Dream

In the quietness of the night, I enter psychological breakdown. It all started earlier when I attempted to clearly define my dream*. Then the questions appeared.

Time just passes. Tick. Tick. Tick.

{**} I am becoming deluded. Paranoid.

There's no time to hit the pause button. It is a constant go. A whirlwind rush. Playing with the mind can be more dangerous than playing with the body.

Don't feel. Don't think. I think but it's not me. It's me in this system.

Do I feel sad? No. Do I feel happy? No.

I am content. But it hides trouble.

I hold my head in my hands. Finally some reprieve.

It has been forever since I had a break. Yoga provides temporary respite.

I have let myself down. Partly because of the issues stemming from (It Wasn't Meant To Be Like This (2)), partly from the time and effort I have pored into the business and work.

But it is not my dream.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. Pent up despair. I know I can't keep doing this to myself. But I do. Where I slowly self-destruct. Short term craving***. Long term aching.

What happened to morality? To having a clear head? Seductively clear, but not clear.

To my dream?

Striving. Striving. But what am I working towards? What is my dream life? What can I do now to live it [slash] work towards it?

Lyrics play. I need you to rescue me from my destiny. Interlude. Life is what we make of it.

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* I have to live my dream everyday - there is no other way to live.

** time shift to years

*** for money