I do not know what to name this post. Whats common between clothes and perfumes on the one hand and words, a cynic would say they both can embellish the truth, and that would be partially true. A high flying optimist would say that both clothes/perfumes and words can add a sense of sophistication/class to a person. Maybe true, maybe not, its all a little dependent on personal taste I guess. The reason I say this is that, you observe people all around you who enjoy using words with abandon, they may have read a word or sentence somewhere and they will use it everywhere, irrespective of whether it belongs there or not. I have always felt clothes and perfumes don't make a person look sophisticated or classy, quite the contrary, its the person (and who/she is and how they feel about themselves) which make every other thing they do look good. I think our opinions of ourself are reflected in everything we do, most notably in our speech. There are people who like to make disparaging remarks about other people at the drop of a hat.

(I think at some level, all people have this disease, for every man, he is the only man on this planet who is succesful albeit against terrific odds, he is the only man to be thinking what he is thinking, he is the only man to have done or experienced a million things...., Its a nice feeling to think you are 'exclusive', 'the chosen one', gives you a false sense of security, makes you feel less mediocre, less 'ordinary' than you really are, but maybe all it does is makes you more self-centered and delusional, and probably nothing else, but who cares, well frankly nobody does, including the people who make such statements, which is the pity of it all. If I loath myself so much, even the best-intentioned people out there, can't help me. But being self-loathing and self-delusional is a terrific combination) There are also people who talk one way and behave another way, thus reflecting internal contradictions. If we don't take what we say seriously, nobody will. And that doesn't mean that we cannot have a change of heart about certain issues, as we think about things in greater detail, we see facets to an issue which we weren't able to see, in our urge to quickly over-simplify something. Its just the way words are abused often that amazes me. To give an example, the way the word 'cynic' is used everywhere is quite interesting, who is a cynic? Is it specific individuals we refer to or is it a pattern of behavior to refer to somebody whose demeanor reflects hate/anger/depression etc.. (and who doesn't have all these elements to varying degrees inside them, to my mind every human-being does, what identifies a cynic), basically somebody who finds difficulties everywhere maybe reasonable to define a cynic perhaps. There are people who say, cynics are people who are negative towards everything, true at a level probably, but thats over-simplification, a cynic as I can see it, is somebody who finds negativity in every experience and hence becomes a negative person. There is a strange irony which I will mention later. A similarly abused word 'optimist'. Who is an optimist, somebody who only sees positive or somebody who to the extent humanly possible finds oppurtunities in every difficulty and uses them as stepping stones for growth. And these two versions of being optimistic are very different, the second kind of optimist is the more meaningful kind of optimist, and such people are very rare.
Its funny how people who have lived in slums, under terrible, sub-human circumstances, are always smiling, they are always positive, they seem to be really positive, upbeat, as if they had something besides grinding poverty to look forward to, and in their minds they do which is all that matters to them, they dream of a way out of that hell, which has been their life, that dream no matter how irrational to many is what sustains them, or they could have as well gone insane or died. These are not people who have read books about poverty and imagine things, but people who have experienced what nobody would ever want even for their worst enemies and they would like to progress out of their hell. And on the other side, there are people whose lives have been much easier, much less hassled and difficult, who are always unhappy, always complaining about others (some people don't even know that they are negative and have no reason to be that way.). Understanding the value of what you have, helps you value what/who you are, who you've got in your life (friends and family), how blessed you are, and makes you feel more humble and thankful to god. It transforms you, your thinking, your view of life, I say this having seen that to an extent in myself. I am not completely transformed, but finding something awaken in yourself always helps make that leap.


We all have great potential to grow and a great resistance to grow (and be stuck somewhere), all at the same time. When I was a kid, when people (particularly those who cared for and knew me) criticized me, I used to get very angry and react in a way that reflected my maturity at the time. Even after so many years, criticism still hurts, as it should, but I try to learn from it. Not everybody's critique is one we need to take seriously, but we know who is well-meaning and who is not, thats not too hard to figure out. Divinity manifests itself in all of us, and I feel that there are 6 billion gods walking the planet, its a pity most of us don't know where to look for it and how much good we are capable of.