Stoking the fire within

Sunday evening. Still feeling dog tired. Have picked up a fever and a nasty cold too. Work has been forced to a standstill, the to-do list is growing faster than ever. The seminar of yesterday was not an absolute disaster, but it came close to being one. The fire in the belly is weaker than the fever that is raging within. All is not well.

Rage is good. Rage can fuel a person into activity when everything else fails. The fire being out inside of you does not mean that you have become a very diffused and peaceful person. The rage is still present, but its totally misdirected. It will be in the blame mode. Pointing fingers at everybody at large, the whole society. Everything and everyone, but yourself; Which is where it ought to be made to point, if you hope to get out of the rut.

Rage, however has a major drawback. Its very exhausting. It can at best be a stop-gap arrangement, much like a shot of adrenaline. To expect to run entirely on rage is foolishness. Rage can be harnessed to get results in the short-term. It can be remarkable effective for a whole night's frenzied activity, for instance. I used just that to get my seminar organized, but the after effects are very visible. I have a fever and don't even have the energy to even sit here much longer.
Rage is not good at rekindling fires, but is quite adept at setting new ones of its own, and that too, in the wrong places, so our original problem of stoking the fire within still remains a problem.

Lots of 'solutions' are being aggressively marketed. Solutions ranging from a cruise in the mediterranean to a spiritual sojourn, depending on exactly how deep your pocket runs. Totally customised solutions, yessir, but how many of them are really feasible for a burnt out student or techie who desperately craves, but in vain, for more rest than the two day weekend provides.

The most practical solution however, is success. Success has the ability to charge up even the most dejected person. Half the reason why a person feels dejected in the first place is because he would have forgotten the feeling of a success-induced euphoria. Do something that you know you are good at, something that you are likely to taste success in. This is not like fishing in an aquarium. Everybody needs to feel good. Feeling good automatically stokes those fires. Im now calling it a day. I hope to wake up feeling better. I intend to start my day doing what Im good at. Solving programming puzzles and problems. Even if they are not related to my immediate work. The high that I derive out of solving a puzzle successfully will go a long way towards rekindling my inner fire.