The TED talk that introduced me to myself

 

This is based on the TED talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

This really rang a bell some where. It made some thing in my life clear to me. It rarely happens at my age and at my stage. that's why I am thankful that it has happened and I would like other people to know about this.

750words.com, the site I use for writing my diary, rates this writing as self important. I am sure, it feels like that so take the things below with a pinch of salt. But I think these thoughts are important for some people I want to reach. Especially some of the dear friends who have been with me and really know me. I want to get them thinking in the same direction. I am just hoping they will find this at some point in time in some dusty unvisited corners of the web and then they will understand and learn. So I am daring to publish this .

Expressing myself has always been a passion to me. This was from a young age. I found myself to be an excellent performer when I found that the subject mattered to me. At this point, I would be so involved with the subject, that it will be one for me to think about myself OR think about the subject.
One such thing happened today which took me back in to the early days of stand up mimicry in my school. I just built on day to day stories I was exposed to. I used material which I found on my way to school or day to day materials in use in school or at home. I took the Belan, I took car lining and built wonderful stories out of these. Most of the stories were impromptu. In fact I failed when I tried to practice before. Those were the days I was blessed by the stage goddess. The audience danced at my fingertips. If I remember it correctly, I continued doing this for around three years. It could have been a speech competition, it could have been an one act play or any thing else to do with standing in front of people and doing my stuff.
One thing I know now that I was always considering the forth wall to be opaque. That means that I would never consider and work for the forth wall, which in performing arts jargon is the spectators. I would be in the bubble of my own in front of a crowd of multitudes. And that was my key to success.
Several important things happened in life. These included matriculation, cut throat competition in college, movement from a small town atmosphere to a fully cosmopolitan environment like my engineering college.
The fun of performing and the ability to succeed has been visiting me on and off. On my best day, I would be the best programmer, I would be the best thinker, I would be the best designer and the best student. Thankfully for me some times it happened at the right times. I was at my puzzle solving and thinking best when these two opportunities arose, in terms of my first job and in terms of my most important jobs till now, that is MS. I did so well in the projects I liked. I sucked royally in the project which did not please me. Apart from far basic, physical limitations: for example, my pronunciation in case of English theater and enunciation and lack of thoroughness in understanding the interplay of emotions and convey them properly in my body language in case of Marathi theater; it was always my intentions and involvement that decided the extent of success or failure.
So I notice that my pleasure and my expectations have a great part to play in my success. Any thing, however easy it may be, can fail if it is not pleasing to me OR I am not interested in doing these.
But the most important thing I notice is that  I always failed when I did things to impress or please some one. Even theater gave me less pleasure when it was done to impress some one. Only when I did it for myself I liked it a lot. It is something like the TED talk I am referring to. Some higher entity would stay in the abode of my body and soul for these moments.In all these cases, I now notice that I never played to the gallery. The best / the ideal came to inhabit me for some fleeting seconds when I was the most dissolved in satisfying myself with the pursuit.
Now that this thought is complete, I am relieved. I am not a software engineer who draws a huge salary. I am not even the best coder and designer. I am not the best actor that ever was there. I am not the best stand up comic.
This is what I am. I am just a conduit to all these higher forms. My day to day life is blessed with comfort because I allow all these entity to reside in me from time to time. I keep my body and my thoughts clean for these higher life forms, which may be mine, but are short lived. I should do every thing in my capabilities to ensure that my body,mind and thoughts are clean to receive these. I should always ensure that my body is flexible,supple and strong enough to achieve greatness when the greatness comes to it.
Otherwise I am just a middle class small town boy. That is the reality and I should live this reality as profoundly and clearly as possible. Any deviation from this reality will not achieve anything else but just drive the djinns away who perform through me.