Student Life

Dear student,
- don't accept anything without questioning
- ask again and again, do not stop until you understand the lesson clearly
- an hour's study with concentration is far better than several hours of reading without concentration
- don't postpone today's work to tomorrow
- your mind is strong, you can learn anything, if you mind
- obey your parents and elders
- have compassion for old and disabled
- student life is golden life make ornaments from it

On a notebook cover, I found these fundaes for living a student life. Given that after the internship I have found myself as a useless piece of shit living in South Park, I couldn't help but rip apart this lame stuff which is taught to spoil the young minds.

- don't accept anything without questioning
Why the **** should I accept this? I don't understand how did the person who advised this tried to make a self-conflicting statement.

- ask again and again, do not stop until you understand the lesson clearly
What do you mean by this? I haven't understood at all...
Actually, this funda goes much deeper into real life. You see moths hurling themselves against flames all the time. They get the burning shock and immediately revert back. But again they want to catch the flame and they keep on doing this till they die. Man has been finding pleasure and the so called 'happiness' from the things which can never be found. We seek happiness from illusions and try to cling onto them till we get a hit on our head. Our brittle dreams get cracked, the sand castles we build get wiped by the tides, the flights of fancy end up crashing in mid-air... but do we learn then? Naah! Just like the moths we want to hurl ourselves against all the futile pursuits in this world and get cheated all the time until we die like a loser.

- an hour's study with concentration is far better than several hours of reading without concentration
This defeats the whole purpose. You wouldn't be looking like you are studying if you study only for an hour. A real nerd has to study for days long, so remember that concentration is bad! Just like cattle grazing in the field and pigs loitering in the dirt, you should be reading the books.

- don't postpone today's work to tomorrow
This sentence is imcomplete. You should never postpone your work to anytime in the future - Just avoid it altogether! Who cares! Why get the hands dirty in work if its so convenient to avoid it completely. Don't worry, life is pretty short for the things to rebound back to you :)

- you mind is strong, you can learn anything, if you mind
Never Mind!
If you can understand properly, this world is run by some crazy fools who have the power to strike a deal with those who can accept a shit deal. Your mind is strong, you can learn everything, you are a genius, .. But never mind, you aren't a good fit for this place - Get the **** Off! (I have learnt this is how you get fired.)

- obey your parents and elders
Obey your parents and elders. Period. There is nothing else you can do.

- have compassion for old and disabled
Seriously! You are going to be one someday soon. Traveling happily through the stream of life you have to drop down the waterfall some day... Look down there and await for that day.

- student life is golden life make ornaments from it
This is a killer. I cannot help but contrast the two extremes of perception of a student life. Take the student life of a kid coming from a middle class Indian family. He has to slog his way out of all the misery inflicted upon him by the school, institution and society. Every student is academically compared with every other student and this comparison becomes finer as you study further. High grades means you are among the pseud, white-collared ones in the rat race and low grades means you are among the sinners and bane for mankind. For the other end, this pic on the T-shirt which I got from Camden Market in London explains all.


Moral of this story is you make ornaments out of mud-balls but you should be ignorant of ornaments made of gold.


Well, I don't know if I have made ornaments out of my student life till now. But surely, I have made gold out of it :). Even if the destination turned out to be the entrance of a gutter, the journey was through the lake-sides and a beautiful forest!