Loosing the plot?

 Since the last couple of months, life has been hectic - more than usual and very much lopsided.  It has been a whole lot of wrangling with legal processes, around courts, police stations and related matters.  Not that I'm unwilling to take it head on or am sceptical about the results.  It is just that the time, energy and concentration these matters drain makes me feel unable to envision and pursue the bigger picture!  It is as if, I'm struggling to see the ultimate why of it all.  At the same time, I know it is relevant and important.  

Journey or the destination?

 There's often the debate whether the journey is more important than the destination; or the other way around.  I'm more prone to agree with the former.  Nonetheless, I think there's another dimension to this debate as well.  It is about relationship; or company during the whole process.  What makes the journey really pleasant and enriching, among the many other things, is the company we have all along.  The same can be said about reaching the destination. Achieving a milestone is relevant and thrilling when there is someone with whom I can share that experience.  That experience is going to differ depending on whether I have with me those dear to me or  some total strangers or none at all.  

Restarting...!

 It is after two years and two months that I'm getting back to writing a blogpost!  The last I posted anything on this blog was in January 2022. 

Much water has flown under the bridge!!!  Even for me to try to recollect, what has happened since then, takes me long.  Not that much has been achieved or great things happened, but certainly quite a few!  

Anyway, reviving this blog was something that was somehow cropping up in my thoughts and prayer during the season of Lent and all the more during the Holy Triduum.  So here I am putting my thoughts and resolutions (and prayers) to paper! 

For the last three months, I've been in and through so many legal procedures (courts, lawsuits, police complaints, reviews...) of different kinds, in different places and for different issues, that I've not been through in the whole of my life so far!  I never imagined myself reading through lawsuits and legal complaints, leave alone drafting and signing them myself!! But yes, that's an experience in itself.  

But what strikes me most is the fact that, even after us being such an extensive organisation with so many well-wishers us their expertise and help with these legal matters, we still are no better in most cases - literal cases!  What then is the state of those individuals who are really helpless when similar things (land grabbing, rental occupation and dues, unjust criminal cases, false accusations, blatant bullying, exorbitant bribes to close a simple ordinary open and shut case, being treated as a tennis ball between bureaucrats...) are dropped on their head? 

I dream of all the "illegal" methods used to bring to justice the crooked and corrupted... prefer the second half of Khosla ka ghosla! 

Knowledge and wisdom

 Knowledge and wisdom

That tomato is a fruit and not a vegetable is knowledge. 

Not including tomato in a fruit salad is wisdom! 

Options and choices

Options and choices are not always the same. Options are possibilities, while choices are responsibilities. And the more choices I make (most often bad ones than the good ones) the better I am as an individual.  My difficulty has been in accepting choices as my own.  The tussle between obedience as a religious and my own personality leaves little room for exercising in a more carefree way ones choices.  The present situation I find myself in, is precisely because of my inability to own up a choice.  And right now, I am not even so sure of all the reasons for that inability!

Up to what?

Torn between doing something worthwhile and doing nothing... never thought the fight would be down to this!! 

The past few months have been one of real boredom ... boredom of doing nothing! Yet can't get myself out of it. At times there are sparks of interest and zeal, but never really fan out into anything more than dying sparks! 

Willy said it right: "I've to be either passionate enough to complete the task; or be humble enough to leave it and say this is not my cup of tea!" And right now, have neither the passion nor the humility! 

Re-installing el Capitan on an iMac (early 2008)

Wrestling with an old iMac (early 2008) which I bought second hand on ebay... 

After spending almost 24 hrs trying to merely re-install the macOS (el Capitan), learnt quite a few lessons... the hard hard way! 

Learnt the hard way that you need an apple ID for everything!! 

But after you are forced to create an ID, you need to validate it. 

Fill in your payment and billing details. 

No matter on which system you created the ID, you then need to open one of the apple services (music, itunes, ...) and login and fill in your details again!! 

After all this you get the message that the application (installation) is temporarily unavailable... that's because if you've not downloaded any OS before using that 'new' account, then you cannot download the required software! It requires the ID of the one who purchased it! 

So you're left with no option other than use a usb to start a clean install... easier said than done!! I thought Windows was a nightmare! Apple was worse!  Perhaps it would have been easier if I had another mac system - which I didn't.  So had to juggle between my all-time favourite Linux and Windows. 

By this time discovered a similarly distressed soul who had chronicled his struggle: 

https://blog.dhampir.no/content/reinstalling-a-used-imac-20-inch-early-2008

Using the office Win. 8.1 edition system created a bootable usb. (Downloaded the el Capitan disk image file - not the rar type!!, then loaded that onto the usb using techmac or something). 

Inserted into the first usb port of the backside of the iMac (when viewed from the back). 

Restarted it, used CMD + R to boot from the usb. Learning from the previous site, changed the date to the present time. Got a new error message. Surprise??? 

Then found another apple forum which said, you don't need a usb... just change the date to mid 2017.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250793420

Tried that!! No success.  

Then did a mix-match ... changed the date to starting of 2017, restarted it to boot from the usb... and lo and behold!!!!!!  

Have el Capitan up and running on the iMac!! HURRAH!!! Thanks pretty much to the two websites and their useful info! 

One down, one more to go! Hope apple does not spring any fresh surprises! 

The Church: Euro-centric?

 The Church is often viewed as European or Euro-centric.  Even among those who see Christianity as a 'foreign religion' they view it so because it is 'from Europe'.  The white man's religion! This is something quite taken for granted.  But we forget - very easily and comfortably - that Jesus and the early Christianity were all very much situated in the middle-East.  Jesus was born and later carried out his whole ministry in Israel. Though it is true that the apostles did cross national boundaries, it is actually with Constantine embracing Christianity and making it the state religion, that Christianity spread far and wide.  That Rome has played a central role in the development of Christianity as a popular universal religion can never be questioned.  But it all began in the middle-East - not in Europe!! 

The universality of the Church and of Christianity is not a quality of it being present in most of the world, and predominantly in Europe.  Universality is its virtue to be able to embrace the world - not the world embracing Christianity.  

The Ichthys

 For the early Christians, the cross was not the first choice of representation.  The cross was still too traumatic and tragic.  It was more a sign of oppression and tool of death, rather than salvation.  What was actually and most widely used as a symbol of Christianity was the Ichthys, the fish.  

The catacombs do not have a cross. Instead what is found in them is the image of the fish.  This represented the meal, the gathering for which Christians gathered, especially in hiding in the catacombs and in private homes. It represented the Eucharist!  

Perhaps it is with Helena bringing the cross from Jerusalem, along with the soil, and its exaltation as a basilica, that devotion the Cross gained popularity.  I suppose by then the Romans had given up using that means as a punishment (but not sure of that). And as time progresses, the cross soon replaces the fish as the symbol of Christian faith.  

Would Christianity have a different outlook or identity if we would have persevered or chosen to stick to the fish rather than the cross??  I believe it would have had significant impact on how we perceive ourselves to be!  For one, more Eucharistic, for certain!  

Sunshine

The English obsession with the sunshine is well-known.  Summer is the most looked out for season of the year.  Not only because it is the season for holiday but because the sun is out.  Most preferred holiday destinations are places where it is warm and sunny.  And the best holidays are those that are spent in the sun - even if it is just laying down basking in the sun!! 

As an Indian, I find this fascination with the sun - often bordering obsession - quite amusing.  At times, I wonder what's so special about the sun.  People like me and others from Africa, will do everything possible to get away from the sun!! So seeing others crave for the sun appears a bit weird.  

I guess it is a cultural thing.  I'm sure it is the same feeling the Brits have looking at us amazed by the snow.  Anyway, each of us has our own peculiarities and eccentricities!!  And each one seeks for his or her own bit of sunshine!!