Friday, February 01, 2008

Of intent...

It's been such an awful time, and work has managed to camouflage it all really well. My mum waited a few days to talk to me cause I was either sitting on the seniors' side of the floor and couldn't talk beyond a whisper or cause it was too late my time by the time she got out of her signal disrupting local train journeys in the evening. And there's others who tried getting through, got told i'd call back and never did.

But there's still others I'd make time for. Not even people I manage and get paid to make time for. But people that I have the "intent" for.

Like the Penguin. There's always one random conversation through the day that we do on the phone. There's times I tell her i'll call back, and sometimes 5 hours pass by the time I do, but I do. I call. Cause the intent is there.

Or N, who sits across the floor from me, also on the seniors side of the floor. And even through my busiest days there's still always 5 minutes where I walk over and sit cross-legged on his desk and take the time to catch up. Intent.

Too many friends who went to b-school have demonstrated how they get sucked into a warp of activity. That little zone of familiar people, of busy days and schedules that makes the outside world fade into oblivion. That delusion of being in a society/ neighborhood for life.

Unless there's intent of course.

People have made relationships survive even through these phases. And maintained friendships. Not cause they could. But cause they wanted to. And of course various commitments took up various degrees of time and energy. But it always took intent to fuel any investment of either.

While in b-school, I once asked my future telling friend how long my closest friend, SP, would stay in my life (cause I'd started to see how I was pushing her away as the terms progressed, and it bothered me that I seemed to have little intent to keep our once wonderful friendship going) and he told me "As long as you'll want her to".

It really was as simple as that. Intent. Ironic that S is today in the same bschool I went to, and we're going through a role reversal of sorts, and now having wised up to this bschool routine, I'm just calmly biding my time for the day that she indicates she's ready to have me back in her life. It'd be so easy to doubt her intent, had we not had all that time together before we parted ways. But now, we've seen enough to inspire faith in me about my place in her life.

What I think I started out saying, and lost somewhere in deliberate meandering of prose, is that regardless of how busy, how stressed or how crazy we think our lives are, if we're not able to accommodate some people, it's likely cause we don't want it badly enough. (No, I don't enjoy the conflict ridden conversations I have with my mom these days, and let me not even get into the issue of the "other" people I'm 'avoiding').

Conversely, if we're constantly making space and time for some others, even looking forward to investing that space and time in them, it's a sign of something bigger, hopefully better. We're lucky to feel intent at all. And for that, I hope we're being thankful.

14 comments:

Viraj Datar said...

agree with you on the intent part.... waiting for space and time to be created in someone's life sucks though....

if one strips down all logic to bare bones, fact of the matter is.... if one really wants something to happen, one ensures it gets done .. somehow, anyhow.

unpredictable said...

V: I know what u mean. But then again, not waiting makes you wonder for a very long time if ur patience couldve held fort somehow, some more ... so ur doing the right thing :)

nutty said...

To a certain extent I agree that most people that we lose touch with it's mostly a case of not wanting to stay in touch badly enough.

But if it were all about intent, I would be on the phone all day with all my friends from past and present and not work for a minute. But that's just not possible right?

So I guess the other side of the coin is that as you move on in life some current situations take priority over past relationships. Intent as you say, can change. Daily phone conversation can become weekly, then monthly then you call when you just really miss the person .. And so sometimes no matter how much you want to, you just don't stay a part of each others every day life.

Thats just the way it is!

unpredictable said...

Nutty: :) Yes i buy that .. but imp thing to note is who you keep close and who you leave behind is a function of your own choices, not always of circumstances .. im sure u still have friends back home who u keep updated on your life .. frequency is a mutual comfort level defined variable ... but keeping them in or out is a matter of ur own intent :)

Anonymous said...

Eh I am not an ignorer ya please, why you said like that? :(
Some things and stuff are occur. Thassoie. Can we tring tring today?

Anonymous said...

Touched ya I am :-) But in addition to intent, I like to think that it's my entertainment value that keeps you calling me. Every day :-) Hope you're having a good time on the trip!

Anonymous said...

amazing post. Why do I sometimes feel u're my alter ego?

See the latest I have written....close!

Monsieur K said...

i believe in this - wot one gets/achieves depends a lot on how *desperately* he/she wants it.
be it relationships, friends, family, success - just anything.

if u have tht desperation, then finding time, making effort, et al - everything else just follows...

coming here after quite some time - like the new look :)

Monsieur K said...

on another note,
when it comes to friends or rather - really close friends - i guess u connect with them/him/her instantly when u meet even if you stop being in regular touch...

sending b'day wishes... or calling him/her without waiting for his/her call... just one of those things of that may fall under *intent*
but they go a long way in maintaining tht bond :)

the mad momma said...

hmm... neeyat honi chahiye!

the mad momma said...

hmm... neeyat honi chahiye!

Eastertide said...

I know. Totally totally true and perceptive. This is a tit or tat for that post of mine :-)

New Post please :-)

Anonymous said...

what happened? why silent? YOu are disappointing your fans lady!! Hope everything is alright with you! Hugs! :-)

unpredictable said...

Mbo: Tring i did, u didnt pick up. Ignorer.
*Cough sputter cough some more*

Penguin: Entertainment indeed inspires intent!

Chandni: I feel the same!!! :) I was to catch up with you on my india trip except now Delhi got shelved and now im all bah! I don't know when i'll meet you!

Ketan: We've done this before in an earlier post :)

MM: LOL!!! The Penguin and I associate your word "neeyat" with an earlier context you introduced it in. We ROFL everytime it's mentioned :)

Eastertide: See latest post. Cough cough!

@: Thanks sweetie! :) hugs to u too! Will be back soon !