Over-Involvement!

When we willingly get involved into doing something, we feel the effort, strain, drudgery etc to be far less than when our involvement is forced upon us. When I look back at my childhood questions, I am reminded of how I tried to deal with ‘over-doing’…..! I do not propose to interrupt myself with adjudication-breaks (like those commercial-breaks), while I re-wind the ‘thought-process’ of childhood innocence!

“Don’t over do it”, was the piece of advice given by ‘wiser’ ones around. That was a period when everybody felt it convenient to pass on any advice that occurs to them, because I was a sitting duck, quite receptive, wide-eyed to listen intensely to anything that was ‘conveyed’ to me. An ever-intense-listener usually ends up as a sitting duck, for somebody to fire his ideas at!

Then what is that ‘over doing’ something? It took some time for me to get some idea of ‘over-doing’. Unfortunately, the ‘trial-implementation-area’ of this precaution of avoiding ‘over-doing’ was applied at a very wrong place. Caught up into the ‘convention’ of studying only on the eve of test-examinations, early preparation or deep study was never in the agenda. Somehow finish the homework, and be done with it. So, I tried this ‘don’t overdo, when I was required to do something very ‘intensely’. Here again, I had to first ‘feel’ the intensity, to then avoid ‘over-doing’ it! In all innocence, ‘intensity’ got ‘hooked’ to the concept of ‘tolerance-difficulty’. That is how it boiled down to looking at that ‘examination-eve’. The convention ensured that there is ‘over-load’ on the exam eve, to study well, to even pass! The time available, to even somehow commit to memory, the ‘portions’ of ‘marked’ areas of the text book, was less. Any unwarranted reference or glance at the unmarked areas was deemed to be ‘heights-of-stupidity’ on an examination-day-eve! What a crude way to get a feel of the concept of ‘involvement’! As a child, I never could ‘feel’ it when I was really involved, but had to wait for the ‘strain’ of “getting” involved to have the feel of what ‘involvement’ was like. So here was the solitary occasion to feel the strain of getting involved to know how it feels like when we are involved! Wait, till the time constraint makes the task almost impossible, and then ‘try’ to get involved intensely, in vain, and then feel the strain. This feel of ‘strain’ gave me a chance to implement that ‘don’t over-do’ piece of advice. The stray incidents of somebody getting mentally ill ‘due-to-studying-too-much’ came in handy to support my resolve to implement this not-over-doing, for a ‘noble cause’, ‘with good intentions’, etc. There was no ‘structure’ in place, to voice our opinion to elders and get our theories ‘verified’. And so it seemed to work well. Grasp of the academic lessons became the prey! Fortunately for me, the ‘subtle’ unnoticeable ‘involvement’ during the class took care of ‘minimum’ knowledge to sustain the demands of ‘average’ level of school-education.

I am yet to talk about ‘over-involvement’, the caption of this narrative.

So, let us get back to present. Even in our dreams, not just in wake-state-situations, we desist from extending intense situations. We apply brakes! We get annoyed when somebody shakes us to wake up, when that dream was a smooth ride! But when the dream sounds horrible, we shake up ourselves, in a jerk, sip a little water, go back to bed with a ‘cautious’ mind, to avoid getting back into the same dream-story! Please see, it is only in a “very good movie” we do not mind the hero going through all that life-torture till the end! Our own ‘vision’ of a ‘good-smooth-comfortable’ life would ensure a 100% ‘flop’ movie-story! Are we not getting ‘enslaved’ to that basic instinct of self-preservation, a bit too much? That seeking of ‘sense of security’, are we not trying to do it too much? Could this be called ‘over-doing’? Our focus of involvement gets shifted too much, and quite unnecessarily towards ensuring self preservation, extending it too much towards that extra-comfort-zone. We get involved into ‘seeking’ insurance beyond our needs. Here comes the ‘over-involvement’ factor. We tend to become unmindful of the other person’s need,(lack of fellow consideration, lack of empathy, etc). We tend to become unmindful of even preserving the planet! We try to ensure least effort for the comforts, so ‘use and throw’ almost anything (even human emotions)! Please look at the fiery, charged speeches of politicians, they ‘use’ our emotions to get votes, and then dump us later! Like we litter the whole planet with non-biodegradable garbage! It is very difficult to ‘market’ any ‘comfort-oriented-item’ to a person who voluntarily adapts to simple life-style. It is our ‘over-involvement’ towards seeking the ‘items’ of insurance for self-preservation, that gets us enslaved in many ways, with things, situation, people, emotions, and what not!
When we are intensely involved, we become less conscious of that ‘basic instinct of self preservation’. Children at play become more prone to injury. They even tend to forget ‘themselves’. We have to ensure that their games and toys are ‘risk-free’. As adults, our main activity is around making life more comfortable than ever, not just risk-free. There is a distinct shift in our very attitude.
Suppose a classical singer during performance, avoids the ‘risk-prone-area’ of variations of tempo, rhythm, etc, how does the rendition look like? It takes a very keen, sharp, alert and focused mind, to keep that subtle theme of ‘raga’ of a song intact, while demonstrating the expertise, versatility-capability of straying into vast areas of variations, like ‘aalaap’, ‘mano-dharma-swaram’ prefixes and suffixes of ‘swaras’ , deliberate omissions, timings, tempo etc! Maybe, this is why we had the culture of teaching a little bit of singing to children. Then, as a student at academics, they have an ‘embedded’ software of not losing the main purpose or theme of the subject. The girl children especially, were insisted upon to learn singing, perhaps due to the far-sightedness that they would eventually become multi-taskers (prone to go astray from the theme-raaga! That movie-example, ‘Sankarabharanam’, the hero’s daughter loses track of the main raga, when asked to sing during that ‘girl-seeing’ ritual for matrimonial alliance).
Spirituality does not find any place when ‘self-preservation’ is the primary need, yet to be fulfilled (Religion cannot be taught to a person on an empty stomach, was the message given by Swami Vivekananda). But when this primary need is stretched to become the only main activity of the mind, beyond the need of a physical activity even, then the same rule continues to apply for spirituality! We need a de-addiction-program, now, to get us into the groove of the main raaga of life(unless, we ‘refuse’ to look at life as anything other than just eating, sleeping and procreating in the most sophisticated way than ever)!
The ‘freebie’ is the incidental benefit that the very process of inward journey makes the handling of outside situation far easier, effortless, and comfortable (not just comfort-seeking!).
With fully involved regards,
Psn(3rd January, 2010)

A tail-piece—Now we can guess, why our family-folks ensure that we do not get toooo much involved (“over-involved”) into ‘Yoha’/spirituality/etc! (I call it ‘family’ folk, to avoid getting caught into ‘gender’ issues!). Even the word ‘Yoga’ is perhaps deliberately referred to mean as ‘aerobic-exercises/health-maintenance/stress-releasing/pastime’ and such other ‘less-harmful’, less risk-prone things (See, even more of alcohol-contents in most of those medicines, tonics never led to any kind of drinks-addiction, despite regular use!). Any significant dent into a spiritual path can happen, only when we remove the ‘safety’ nets below those circus-trapeze-artists!