I am writing this blog in a wretched mood right now. It is because I have only now found out that I behaved like a fool not for weeks or months or years but for decades. I have figured out the reason why I was victimized as I keep complaining.
The reason was that society or maybe only some powerful people were offended by me and wanted me out of India or at least Mumbai.
How could I have been so blind that I did not see this for so long?
One reason was that I was not guided properly by anybody. I don’t want to criticize my family unduly because I owe them everything I have right now. Roof over my head, food on the table, clothes on my back, my education, the opportunity I have had to read good books and practice spirituality. All this I owe them and more. They have saved my life when I would have died otherwise more than once. But it is a fact that I was not guided properly by them. Or at least not in a way that I was able to understand. As Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War it is the responsibility of the general of the army to make sure that his orders are understood.
A second reason is that I was unwilling to admit my mistakes to myself because it was too painful for me to confront the truth. More on this subject is explained in the blog below:
Also because of trauma I lacked the confidence to leave when the opportunity came. I gained confidence only when I had figured out what had happened in my life.
Also I have a scientific or maybe a philosophical temperament. I like to research topics of interest to me and finding out what makes them tick. This temperament has been on display in this blog and you must have noticed that I am something of an intellectual. So I have spent more than one decade analysing my life and the philosophical reasons involved in what happened.
This may not have been completely foolish and I think I have come up with some insights that are useful to society in this blog. But as the saying goes:
The mind is a good servant and a bad master.
I was not a master to my mind for all these decades. And I have paid the price for it by missing out on the conventional life of having a career, social life and family.
I will end by describing what would have been effective in guiding me. I will quote from the novel, For Kicks by Dick Francis. The relevant extract is below. The owner of an equestrian facility wants a particular employee to quit. The foreman is advising the targeted stable lad:
The boss has taken against you I am afraid. You won’t ever do anything right for him from now on. Best thing to do and I am telling you for your own good, mind, is to find a job somewhere else. The boss gets these fits now and then … You can work till you are blue in the face but he won’t take to you anymore. You don’t want to get bashed up anymore now do you? All I am telling you is that if you stay here you will find that what happened so far is only the beginning. See? I am only telling you for your own good.
And there is no point complaining to the cops. There is no evidence that will hold even if the cops are interested in prosecuting which almost certainly they won’t be.
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