The state of zero

Dear Students,

I have always been fascinated by zero. The state of nothing. The position of zilch. Spanish call it "nada".

I had written about it in one of my previous posts that how life was blissful only in the state of infinity or zero. We all try to chase infinity and are unable to attain it, thats the root cause of all sadness. Hence, zero state is much easier and probably Buddha and many other philosophers prescribed the same.

Now carrying that discussion ahead, there are two ways of attaining zero or rather going back to zero. (Lets be assured that we are all born zero and we all die zero. So today I reveal to you about attainment of zero while we are still alive or say we are in the midst of our lives.)

First way is to stay at zero and not move and the second way is to move and come back to zero. Let me give you an example. One day, you wear your favourite dress and you "think" that you are looking fabulous today (Mind you, its just an assumption of your mind). A beautiful girl comes to you and does not compliment you. Thats the first zero.  Later, another beautiful girl comes to you and says "Hey, you look fabulous today" and then she follows it with a highly sarcastic smile which erases her entire statement. You don't know whether the girl really meant that you were really looking fabulous or was she just sarcastic and meant it that you had overdone it. So its like she wrote a line with her words and later rubbed it with a sarcastic smile. Thats also zero.

Another example, you are a girl madly in love with this guy. You had a void and were zero (relatively). Now this guy has come and filled the void. He is filling your heart with feelings and emotions. And like all love affairs, this also ends. Now your heart aches and is sorry. You aspire to go back to void. You want to take him out of your life, throw away his pictures and gifts so that nothing takes you back to him. You aspire to go back to void/zero. And one day, like we all, you will eventually come back to normal and you acquire that state of zilch. (Mind you , you will still have that nostalgia which will make you happy about the time you spent with him. Thats why Tennyson said that its better to have  loved and lost and that to have never loved at all).

Anyways, think about it. The two examples which illustrates ephemeral zilch (and not a permanent state of zero). The lecture is to attain a permanent one. But like all professors I have started with A B C D and will finally teach you how to dream of lost vocabularies that might express some of what we no longer can*!
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*Expression from Jack Gilbert's The forgotten dialect of the heart.

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The heartbreaker

There is a positioning of every person's life in this world. His positioning was that of a heartbreaker. He did that all the time- breaking hearts. He grew over women and they fell for him like a trap. They were aware that he was a heartbreaker but somehow falling for him was like some subliminal power act and as much inevitable like the birth and  the death. Hence the fall and the pain had to happen. He was a part of the most important learning in their lives. In short, he was not a heartbreaker but a prophet.

The transience of his every act and living-in-the-moment philosophy of his made him what he was. His heart did not lie at one single place. He was a traveler with only his journey being permanent. The journey of his love also had no destination. Like an ideal traveler , he always traveled light. No baggage except only the quintessentials. Hence he reached a place, treasured the sunset, grew over a woman with his charm and moved on carrying no baggage (feelings) but only the quintessential (nostalgia). In short, he was not a heartbreaker but a traveler.

He was not in the realm of happiness and sadness but only magic. Happiness and sadness are always outcomes of ambitions and goals. While magic is altogether a different dimension. When he talked to these women, their pupils would expand and shorten like a magic being run over them. They never listened to him with their hearts and minds but felt him with their spines. And then when he left, a part of them missed him but they were happy as they knew that he was but just a moment of an extraordinary energy which had grown over them. In short, he was not a heartbreaker but a magician!

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