As Sticky as a War !

I saw the question "Is World War 2 over?" posted on Y!A yesterday.
Could any war, once started, ever be truly over when the physical fighting ends?
What's done cannot be undone. What's gone is gone forever.
Could the emotional and spiritual pain inflicted on all victims of the war be wiped off without a trace?
Would their children and grandchildren not "do something" to ...
And is it possible for human beings not to engage in war as a means of resolving their disputes?

Insurance Mask ?

Is the mask an insurance against specified loss of social status and material gains, in return for paying the premiums, which is to become a hypocritical person?

During my younger days, my playmates and I loved to make paper-mâché masks, out of old newspapers and glue made from flour and water. We were quite creative and innovative then, and ended up with a sizable collection of masks of all types of weird shapes and colours in our stock of self-made toys. We would often choose our masks based on the theme of play for that particular day, and wear them out to 'harass' the neighbourhood. We derived lots of pleasures from having a unique identity as the masked kids, and being different from others.

I never would have thought that we weren't that dissimilar to everyone else. In fact, everyone is wearing a mask of some sort, most of the times. We wear different masks when we slip in and out of the different roles that we play each day. For some people, the most frequently used mask has meshed with their actual faces. It has become their dominant and permanent mask, and all the secondary masks are worn over it. Makeover and cosmetics makeup are also a type of mask to create a false or distorted sensory experiences for others, and especially for the wearer. You may argue that it is not presenting something which is never there, but it is bringing out something or quality which is already there but remain hidden, dormant or undeveloped due to one reason or another. And I agree. We are evolving creatures, and any obsolete and worn-out mask should be replaced with a more relevant and effective one.

It is fun to wear the masks of some famous characters to attend some carnivals. It is necessary to wear the masks to perform some tribal ceremonies. It is 'cute' to wear a funny mask once in a while to tease someone special. But it's despicable to wear those 'masks' that look down on your fellow men because of your superiority and advantage in social and financial status. Otherwise if you so choose, to wear a mask for absolute privacy in your personal life like I do, it is okay - I guess. And here is my 'lovely' mask :)

A Sticky War: No Ending!

Wars are sticky !

"All wars eventually act as boomerangs
and the victor suffers as much as the vanquished."
-eleanor roosevelt

"After victory, you have more enemies."
-cicero

"An eye for an eye
makes us all blind."
-mahatma gandhi

"War creates peace
like hate creates love."
-david l. wilson

"Peace cannot be kept by force.
It can only be achieved by understanding."
-albert einstein

"If you want to make peace,
you don't talk to your friends.
You talk to your enemies."
-moshe dayan

We ain't Paper Snakes !

A mighty dragon cannot crush a Native Snake.

So "dragons",

look before you leap,

for Snake among sweet flowers do creep :)

And even if a Snake is not poisonous,

it should, and will, pretend to be venomous!

Slide Fun

When I was a little kid, I loved to ride down the slides at playgrounds. Now that I am a 'childish' grown-up, I still love to play on a slide, if I could just muster up enough courage, to infiltrate into a playground community, without being identified as a misfit by their onlooking nannies!

Why do I enjoy the sliding down? Adults, like me, should prefer climbing up, and staying on top of the world, instead of gliding downward. Because I've height phobia! Then why do I get up onto the slide repeatedly? Because that is where the fun begins! And by the way, you shouldn't be staying on top of a slide or anything else in life for long. There are many different interesting slides elsewhere to try out. You'll miss out all the fun if you stay stagnant at where you are right now. If there is still a hidden or out-of-bound stairwell up there for you to climb even higher, you may stay on to work on it. But if there is none, get down! You could go down the way you have come up or jump down directly from the top. But I would recommend the sliding method. If you've to descend from anything, you might as well do it with lots of fun and joy!

Now, lets analyse why I love to glide down the slide. I think it's about going with the flow and going the path of least resistant. So, it's effortless and I feel like I'm harmoniously in tune with everything else, and the nature agree and support me wholeheartedly.

During the sliding down, my body senses the rapid changes in many subtle attributes of the reality. Sad or unpleasant memories, which are almost static, are momentarily thrown behind me as I zip forward. I get a glimpse of myself in the present with no attachment to the lingering emotions stored in or engraved on my mind. As my body travels through the 'contorted' time-space, I feel energetic and relaxed at the same time! And I'm refreshed by the ethereal and blissful breeze that brush lightly over the surface of my skin, but massage my soul deeply. Part of all highly-charged emotions, and heavier matters like stress, are left behind as I go from region of high to low potential energy. You would love the sensation, and would quickly move over to join the queue, many times over, to do more sliding!

Penalty Shootout !!!

Penalty shootout is the most exciting part of a football match.

That is, if you don't support both the teams on the field. You're just a neutral fan for that particular 'Beautiful Game'.

But you would still feel your heart pounding, stopping and skipping a beat during the game of 'Russian roulette'. You could almost empathize with each penalty taker, suffering from the agony of missing his kick or heaving a sigh of relief for being lucky that day!

So, just imagine what I was feeling when my adored football club or national team was there in the centre circle! It's too devastating to lost the match this way, and especially, if your team is usually the underdog and it will take them a long time before getting another stream of good luck to come that far in a tournament again. I would then avoid, for the time being, any contact with all possible sources which would remind me of the defeat.

Even if my team has survived the ordeal, the joy of winning just won't sink in as much and as soon as when they had emerged victorious by a clear margin during the normal time. I would still retain a sense of uneasiness. The distress from this trauma would only be alleviated on the next day when the triumph is echoed back to me from the reports on newspapers, TV and radio stations. By then, I would be checking out the date and time of the replay on the sports channels.

In football, there is no place for Win-Win. Either you're booted out, or you get to live another day to face the next 11 gladiators and their million fans, who pray for the referee to shower your team with lots of yellow and red cards!

What goes up must come down

"All conditioned things are impermanent."

"Everything can be compared to a Rainbow.

Although most things last longer than a rainbow, the way they exist is similar:

• they arise due to the coming together of different causes and conditions,
• exist for a while, and then,
• again due to causes and conditions, they go out of existence.

So, like a rainbow, they are illusory, empty of permanent, independent, substantial existence."