Of Telling, Missing, Grey's, Hitchens, Atheism, and CAT Result...

Long time no see..I have so many things to write about but don't know where to begin..

The last week M told me that one of his friends was going through a very difficult phase. The problem was that that his friend liked somebody who was already committed to someone else, but still M's friend wanted to express her feelings to her special someone. M advised her not to go ahead with it because in the end, only she will end up disappointed, and things might get a bit weird, so ultimately whatever friendship is there will also be affected. When you know, there is no hope for the future, why to tell in the first place. I have always been a supporter of the opposite view that one should always tell the person you like him/her as telling things will prevent you from feeling any regret later on. But there is one pre-condition - if you are telling, you should never ever expect any reciprocal feelings. If you are strong enough that you can live by it, then I don't see any harm in telling. But if you think that you cannot face rejection, and start behaving as if your life depends on it, then you are better off not telling because in the end you will end up being hurt. But it always feel nice when someone tells you they love you. Like in that Friends episode, where Rachel tells Ross that she is still in love with him.

Monica: Okay, Rachel, do you have any idea how painful it is to tell someone that you love them and not have them say it back?

Rachel: Yeah, I don't care.

Rachel: Okay. Ross, you know what, there's something that that I have to talk to you about and everybody's saying that I shouldn't tell you, but I think they're wrong. I mean, and you know how people can be wrong. Okay, I think I'm just gonna-just gonna say it. Just gonna say it. I'm still in love with you Ross.

Rachel: Oh God, do you think that you just forget that I told you this?

Ross: Well, I kinda half to. I mean, because the thing is…

Rachel: The thing is know, that you're married to Emily.

Ross: That is what the thing is.

Rachel: Ross, things aren't gonna be weird between us, right? I mean was that just the stupidest thing, me telling you that?

Ross: No. No. No, I'm glad you did. Look, if nothing else, it's always great when someone tells you they love you.

Rachel: That's what I said! Thank you for being so nice. 

Ross: No thank you for..Thank you.

So, you think one should tell or not?

You know last week, A wrote a sweet mail to me and she wrote that there is no one to talk to now and she misses me. And D sent me a message saying "I might never have been as close as H and A, but I still wanna say that I miss you and it would be great if we ever work together again." And it was very sweet of R to send me this message on FB "My Dear Pankaj... I read your blog today after so so many many days... and some of ur posts just brought a tear to my eyes...! I could not be there on your last day at TSC... but I can just say that.. u ll alwayz find me around... if I can be of any help to you ever! God bless alwayz alwayz. Cheers!" And yesterday, S sent me an e-mail, "I missed you very much today. I was listening to To Zinda Ho Tum and Bin Tere. How much we both liked it…I miss making those aimless conversations with you." It always brings tears to my eyes when I read such touching messages ya..makes me feel so loved and so not alone..that someone is there. I think after I have left office, as D told me that your popularity has increased. But seriously, I have never thought of myself as a person can be missed..because I don't speak much..so mera hona na hona ek barabar hai..doesn't make a difference..but it is always always nice when people miss somebody..Thanks so much ya. I also miss them all. We will always be in touch :)

Continued with watching episode 7 on Grey's Anatomy (Season 8).. Teddy just did the most amazing thing for Christina..she taught her humility and how to work in a team by telling her to go back to the basics..You cannot be the best unless you learn to be humble..so she makes her perform surgeries which a first year resident can perform like Appendicitis or Angioplasty rather than giving her the toughest of cardio-thoracic surgeries. What a brilliant scene that is when she finally explained to Christina that she is done..she has learnt the importance of team work..She says,

"I want you to make a list of every surgery you have ever dreamed of performing. Shoot for the moon and I will try to get you some. Because we are done. You have graduated. This is your present. At the beginning of the year, you nearly killed Alex in that OR because you just had to get in there...you had to be the best. and you had to be first but today I saw a different surgeon..every bit as good..every bit as advanced you were willing work on a team..today you put the patient before yourself and that was who I wanted to see, so you're done. Make a list!"

I like Teddy a lot! Grey's is awesome..learnt so much about medical procedures from it..in the last episode, they performed a penile transplant! And they are trying to find a cure for diabetes and Alzheimer's Seriously, watching it makes me feel that being doctors is so cool..(which is not true in reality)..they actually do life changing work..amazing it is..above all, Grey's has taught me so much about life..to learn to live with loss...that humans are imperfect..that death is just a second away..that life can change in seconds..too good it is..

I have been reading about Christopher Hitchens, who died last month. As an atheist, he simply hates the idea of religion. Though many would disagree, but his contrarian views on religion as so sound that it is simply too difficult to dismiss them. He says,

"I suppose that one reason I have always detested religion is its sly tendency to insinuate the idea that the universe is designed with 'you' in mind or, even worse, that there is a divine plan into which one fits whether one knows it or not. This kind of modesty is too arrogant for me.”

"Why, if God was the creator of all things, were we supposed to "praise" him for what came naturally?"

"If Jesus could heal a blind person he happened to meet, then why not heal blindness?"

"The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason."

Very true..how can we disagree with him no? But as he says, we distrust anything that contradicts reason!

And talking about athiesm, I remeber reading a terrific post on Amit Varma's blog on atheism. He says,

Some people think that atheism means believing that there is no God. This is a flawed perception. The primary meaning of atheism that most dictionaries will give you, though there are secondary meanings that have evolved from bad usage, is of “disbelief” in God or a deity. That means that atheists are not people who believe that there is no God, but people who do not believe that there is God. The difference is huge.

The conviction that there is no God is irrational because one cannot prove a negative. (How do you prove that something does not exist?) However, it is entirely rational to not believe in something whose existence has not been demonstrated. 

It is a common mistake to view belief in God as running along a continuum in which we have theists (who believe), agnostics (who are undecided) and atheists (who don’t believe). This is based on a misunderstanding of agnosticism, which doesn’t deal with belief at all, but with knowledge. The word ‘agnostic’ is a combination of the Greek α (without) and gnōsis (knowledge), and refers to a person who believes that the truth about something, in this case the existence of God, is unknowable. It has nothing to do with believing or not believing.

Indeed, it is possible to combine agnosticism with either theism or atheism. A believer may choose to believe in God while accepting that some things are fundamentally unknowable. An atheist may agree with that view. I see myself as both an atheist and an agnostic: an atheist because I do not believe in God, as His/Her/Its existence has not been proved; an agnostic because I believe that on this matter, we may never know the truth for sure.

The complete must read post is here. Seriously, people are so brilliant! How succinctly he has explained the difference between atheism and agnosticism.

And this week CAT result also came out...am so so happy for H and A :) I seriously hope they get through. I remember A saying to H "this is going to be our year." I seriously hope it is their year..they deserve the best in life. I did not give CAT..it's not my cup of tea ya..or as they say meri aukaat nahi hai..hehe but I feel sad for people who inspite of getting a brilliant percentile didn't get a call because they didn't have marks in 10th and 12th..so sad..ab bhai a student in Class 10 doesn't even know what MBA is..but there is so much competition..but maybe agar main thora sharp hota to mujhe atleast Class 10 and 12 ke mamle me itni fight nahi hoti because I scored 92.6% in Class 10 and 95.4% in Class 12 and 81.6% in engineering. :) Yes, I was a good student...Anyway, as I told H, thora ladkiyon se dimaag hata kar pad lete to IIM A bhi call de dedeta..anyway, wish them all the best :)

Phew..kaafi lambi post ho gayi..I still have so many things to write about..will save that for next post...

Dialogue of the day:

You have to go back to the beginning to understand the end. - Dr.Teddy Altman, Grey's Anatomy