The joy in kvetching!

There's a poetry from where the thoughts below arise from. This was written by Michelangelo, one of the greatest painters in the history of mankind and also a wonderful poet. He says this to Giovanni da Pistoia while he was painting the renowned Chapel of Sistine, the official residence of the Pope in the Vatican City.

I've already grown a goiter from this torture,
hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy
(or anywhere else where the stagnant water's poison).
My stomach's squashed under my chin,
my beard's pointing at heaven,
my brain's crushed in a casket,
my breast twists like a harpy's.
My brush,above me all the time,
 dribbles paint so my face makes a fine floor for droppings!
My haunches are grinding into my guts,
my poor ass strains to work as a counterweight,
every gesture I make is blind and aimless.
My skin hangs loose below me,
 my spine's all knotted from folding over itself.
I'm bent taut as a Syrian bow.
Because I'm stuck like this,
my thoughts are crazy, perfidious tripe:
anyone shoots badly through a crooked blowpipe.
My painting is dead.Defend it for me, Giovanni,
 protect my honor.
I am not in the right place—I am not a painter.

 What? Did he just call himself - "I am not a painter?" Was this a form of forced humility. It could surely be a desperate attempt from Michelangelo to keep the modesty in himself alive.
But I doubt that. He is just doing what we humans love to do - complain. Now most of what Michelangelo describes is physical pain he has while painting a ceiling, maybe a very natural trait to complain physical pain. After all, who likes to withstand body aches? But then why the "I am not a painter" in the end? The very fact he says it, means something deeper than what it appears to be.

Your best friend calls you to tell you how big a mess he is in. How his life is fucked up, and how low times are. And what do you feel like saying? "So you think you've had a bad day, huh? Listen to this.."
and you go on telling how a bigger mess you are currently in.

Who said you're probably not enjoying what you are doing? Who says you are complaining out of dissatisfaction or boredom?

Kvetching, has always been seen as the sign of the weak. Mum used to say, "Now don't complain about it." But as I have come to realize, we all need our share of complaining. Perhaps our finest friends are very used to us complaining, they share that joy of kvetching with us too! The trade continues, each of us bothering the other with our so-called sorrows even when we are at the peak. And I guess no one else perhaps will understand this feeling as much as them, for others it'll be just show off.
Imagine for instance, Sachin Tendulkar stands up and says 'I am such a bad cricketer'. What will you say? Mock him maybe. But if he does really have a bad day at practice, doesn't he need an outlet - to complain?

The point being, there is a certain joy in kvetching, a satisfaction of some sort when we complain. It may not be to let down things happening around us, or to be a medium of pure gloat, it really is sympathy. Sympathizing with ourselves, to feel sorry about the state we are in, try provide a rationale to it and move on (maybe?).

I like to believe in the joy of kvetching.

Jack of all trades

I was in the fifth grade when my teacher after reading through a lesson in BalBharti mentions, "Don't be like him, he was a jack of all trades but sadly a master of none" thus introducing us to the new idiom. It was put up as the thought for the day for the rest of the week high up on the blackboard.

I'd read it every morning, trying to figure out which master was I going to be when I grew up. I definitely didn't want to end up a loser like the fellow in the lesson. Confused, yet determined, I knew I would be great at 'something' one day.

Look at me today. I boast of having my own blog, I love playing violin, I am so happy I end up coding well, I can cook decent ( while most of the other girls of my age suck at it), I get above average marks, I sketch portraits, etc.
For people who are acquainted with me, often compliment "You're multi talented!" "Wow! You can do that too!" As I speak of this, I bet you can think of atleast 3 people of similar traits you think are good at everything, all-rounders as they say.

It is only I who knows how brilliant some bloggers exist out there, I play the violin only when I am alone at home to avoid the unbearable tune that follows, I absolutely suck at algorithmic coding (read: actual coding), cooking is something I definitely don't wanna do the rest of my life, I was way better at academics when I was in school, I cannot sketch a female portrait (yes, all attempts in vain).

Left me what? Something I didn't want to be - Jack of all trades, master of none.

For peers, its complex giving only for a while. Its tough for people like me to win in competitions of a particular skill. There are always 10 people who are masters of that art, bagging away the prize rightfully. All we are left with is the so-called great essence of participation everywhere. The metaphor applies to bigger things like coming across an interview too!

It is interesting to note how this phrase was not meant to be a derogatory term at all. Earlier it was the very positive context that a Jack of all Trades was refereed to. I don't even see the reason why:

• Variety is the spice of life, isn't it? Why stick to a particular area and keep exploiting it till you get bored? And when you feel you're done, its too late to step out.
• Steve Jobs was definitely not a better programmer than his Engineering Head. But what made him Steve Jobs was the overall knowledge from programming, designing and marketing fields.
• Jacks of all trades are up for a show anytime. They are far more sporty than a master of one because I bet he would have tried at that performance sometime before in his life.

Well often these are just reasons I keep giving myself owing to the category I belong. The truth is, the world is too specialized to see that. The blinders of their area of mastery allows them to think only in One Direction (No! Not that band!).

In fact, it is not only me or that teacher of mine who sees this as a bad trait. The world today demands a 'specialized' person in every field. Tremendous respect and fat salaries await individuals with a specialization. Practically jacks of all trades are more or less treated as average mediocre crowd with no distinguishing factor at all. They have no reason in the word to be famous as things they do are ordinary.

What is it like BeingAJackOfAllTrades?

Honestly, when its showtime, we know we rule. But when it comes to making decisions, that's where we falter. If we knew what held more importance in our lives, we would left trying to do everything at once and set ourselves on the path to master that 'something'.

Precisely that is what happened when I was supposed to select a 'stream of study' after 10th grade. I could have managed with any field I could have taken. That is what is happening now, I fail to figure out if MBA or MS or No Masters would be the best choice for me. While its so easy for the others to pinpoint their line of action, its with considerable envy I say its too tough for me to decide. And then in the end, our choices, it doesn't even matter. Because whatever we choose, at the same time, somewhere we are polishing ourselves to improvise on the other choice too.

While it sucks to be stuck in such shoes, I cannot help convince myself that the reason why "Generals" in a Military force are called so because they see the bigger picture, innovate, plan, predict and ultimately climb to power the fastest.

When redundancy strikes..

There was a time when ideas were new
They only meant to be nurtured and brewed

Look around, what do you see?

A chaotic clueless crazy crowd

"Big Daddy" is what all are trying to be

I was so naive and gladly joined one

Contributing to the rat race I was taking my run

Turn my back, and what do I see?

A ravenous rapacious rampant rabble

Waiting to outrun and eventually vanquish me

Why so serious? What's the big deal? 

What's in name, what's in the stamp and seal?

Splash some water and what do I see?

A serious senseless shortsighted swarm

Working for ego - the smallest possible fee

We could work together, united make it large

But we chose to get a separate power, our own charge

Open my eyes and what do I see?

A pretentious pompous phony pack

Whatever it will be, their ego will be

That's exactly when redundancy strikes

Nobody cares about what the mass likes

I gather myself from the mess, what do I see?

A floating frantic frenzied flock

Hence they duplicate in order to dodge the mock

Perhaps there people just like me and you

Not liking the artificial bizarre few

Lets get together, what can we hope to see?

A lustrous legitimate logical lot

Who fought the shrewd legacy and harmony was bought

The price to education

Hardly done with the 10th grade when people started questioning me if my choice was commerce or science (Poor arts, always treated as an underdog when it isn't one!)

Oh, science is it? Will you prepare JEE? (Oh my God, it sounds tough already)

Engineering, computers only na? (Extc/Etrx for the ones who missed Computers and Mechanical, oh no you're a girl. And if you happen to mention the other branches, "Oh it is a separate branch now?")

And come second year of Engineering to an end, people are already asking, MBA or MS?

Whaaaaat? Already? Give me a break! Am I supposed to decide it right now? Isn't it too early?

Early, did you say? Look at your classmates, your peers all have joined classes already and you're yet to decide. Huh, not expected from you..

People just come, taunt and go! They'll make you feel horrible for the stupidest and silliest things on earth and you'll keep cursing yourself for something so unnatural. You have got to agree with me, there are countless decisions we have all made just because we saw our peers do them. And often such a decision taken in haste is unworthy and disappointing later in life.

Forget that, have you seen the new trend - JEE preparation from the 8th standard. In that age, I didn't even know what engineering meant. It was some some hosh-posh word to me. And imagine a child's future decided just like that! I have seen kids, literally Nursery kids go for tuition. What do they do there? Practice ABCD?

And my heart just melts to see a similar situation arise here with the onset of GRE and CAT classes. I remember they had tuition classes for Engineering studies too. At times it humiliates me. Either I am overly over confident of my capabilities or this is just mindlessness. Genius mindlessness, I'd rather say! It would have taken considerable efforts to set up a tuition where it isn't needed, right?

Those days aren't far when we will design kids as per needs just like they had in Man of Steel. Decide what the child will do before he is conceived. Perhaps a system like in the fictitious land of Meluha.

Well it roots down to the point, education is no longer a learning process. It has become a money making process. Look at the fee we are being charged, and the Indian parents pay them happily for the sake of their children's future. What thought could be worse? The fact that we are being gladly fooled by this system or that we are unknowingly(perhaps even knowingly) supporting them. How many of us really challenge such high fees or point out the nonsense carried out in the name of "extra" classes? Instead, we sit and join one ourselves.

Don't they call it "Education Sector" while referring to big MNC's in the education field on news channels? We have IPO's of different schools and classes coming up. There was a time when knowledge was divine, considered heavenly to be passed on from one generation to other. Today, it's a paid distribution of bookish knowledge.

Honestly, how many of us remember what was the chemical formula of some big polymer or what is each pin on a particular IC called or what is the integral of arc sine? Simply waste of time and energy, and of course, money in this case. The real purpose of being taught all of that is lost. We learnt the chemical formulae of compounds to ease the remembrance of structures, reproduce them and not complicate our lives by memorizing them all. We learnt about the pins of an IC to understand how they function in reality and not "rattofy" and vomit in the paper. Why did we learn integration and differentiation is still a mystery to me!

You see? Then why do we study? To pass. To qualify our "EXAMS" with good grades. First you give exams which test nothing but your memory power and on top if that later be judged on how well you fared there. I'm pretty sure the first school to hold an exam didn't have this on their mind as they materialized the concept of a test. It was made for teachers to know the grasping power of their students and for students to know how well were they soaking in knowledge. And now, they just humiliate the low scorers. What is the entire purpose of putting up results on a huge notice board? Mindlessness, like I said.

Everyone wants to move forward in the rat race we are made to compete in. And everyone wants a head start! That doesn't mean you start before the whistle even goes off. God knows why all kids want to behave as grown ups, study more than needed when their age suggests them to enjoy. I am not saying one shouldn't be focused. But that focus shouldn't be mistaken for all work and no play.

In the end it is always going to remain a circle, a cycle where you keep thriving to move forward. The path is infinitely long and we, we are unsatisfied, always, whatsoever.
It's like that joke I heard once. In our tenth we were told to study hard so we could enjoy twelfth where we were told to study hard just once more so as to enjoy college. Then at college we are being told to work hard just to get a good job. I'm pretty sure my boss is going to tell me, work hard to get an appraisal. Like I said, in-exhaustive.