Singularity of the word becomes
baffling for the serial offenders of discipline, eaten up by their guilt for
not sticking to it but always carrying the ambition to stick to it. So, is it
important to be disciplined? Or its monotony jeopardizes the creativity of
every act once you have repeated it for a week in the name of discipline. It’s the elephant in the room and that room
could belong to an athlete, a politician or a writer. They all talk of the
importance of it, battle lines are drawn between sleeping hours and sleepers,
between gyms and potential fitness, even between a Buddha and the enlightenment
in the lighter sense of the word. Once you have noticed the elephant and taken
it seriously, it is going to ram you against the wall until you ride it and
riding it on a daily basis could be the biggest ambition of the entire mankind
and womankind. To refuse to eat those golden french fries dipped in red tomato
sauce, a match seems to be made in heaven, could be the toughest task an Adam
or Eve could face looking at their history with a healthy apple.
In the era of internet and you
tube this beast has grown to an extraordinary size because constantly we are
more and more aware of the competition and resultant comparison in every wake
of life as the smallest achievement can be shared, flaunted and sold at a price
tag that depends on the common sense of the reader or the viewer and how
seriously they take the information or how well do they know themselves. And
then, everything related to discipline could be bifurcated in to doing few
things and absolutely not doing the others. You have to get up early so you
should not remain awake till late. You have to exercise to be fit and not eat
sugar. You have to sit and write this column and not check your phone or you
tube to write it well. Every distraction comes so cheap and handy that it
requires an iron will to stick to anything and that makes it some sort of
achievement. Hence the facebook pages are full of celebrations about beginnings
which seldom accomplish anything and those hundred likes which are marks of
reciprocation almost all the time, do nothing to help.
“Whatever distracts is evil” says
Kafka. So it could all be the work of Devil himself, otherwise why would
someone knock at your door with a box full of sweets just when you have quit
eating high calorie food items or your close friends whom you can’t refuse
anything would invite you for a late night party just when you have resolved to
get up early in the morning. The devil must have appointed a special set of
demons dedicated to derail the divinity which discipline could invoke. How
split up we are in a constant state of torment, bingeing on all sorts of ideas
of fitness and perfection which are in air with all the distractions. Only if
there was no choice in lots of matters, like a car which runs on petrol has no
option to be on diesel. As much as having no choice sounds immoral in today’s
day and age, in certain matters it could work miracles. If we had no choice of putting
the alarm to snooze, if we had no choice but to practice our craft each day, if
we had no choice but to have those holidays once in an year. It all starts from
there, because after struggling with routine day and night we reach at some
deep understanding about certain activities which then become the most
important, leaving no choice to be careless regarding them.
After all there is no choice once
one knows that one has to reach office by ten. There is terror about this and
not understanding. But thinking and understanding the depth of few things or
activities could work as holy water against these Demons which we all need to
exorcise.
