It's that time of the year again

Of life and death

I’ve been thinking, is there a fixed number of smiles and tears that are spread and shed in this world? Or is there such a fixed number for each life? Is it that for every hour that you spend smiling and being truly happy, there’s another hour in the offing that has to be spent being angry or perhaps regretting, even crying?

P.B. Shelley did write “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” His purpose may have been to give heart and hope to those who needed it but I have come to know from experience, that the opposite is equally true. After every bright, sunny day, the cold, dark night is but moments away. Happiness and melancholy seem to be alternating… Even as many like to believe that leading a happy life has a lot to do with destiny and one’s karma , I can’t shrug off the feeling that maybe, just maybe, there’s a pattern to this randomness. It is not simply about luck, people’s behaviour and outlook towards life but something more. Something none of us have been able to put a finger on.

I know it’s a pretty surreal, almost obscure thought, but it seems to be leading somewhere…I don’t know where. It seems to be one of those life’s unsolvable mysteries, another one of which is what happens after death. Is there life on the other side? Is it a better life? Philosophers, religious leaders, saints and sadhus all have their own version but how does one know the real one? One can’t.

I guess that’s what life is: inscrutable, indecipherable and ever-changing. And I believe it’s best left that way. The more one prods, broods, questions things that clearly aren’t meant to be known, and not even that important, the unhappier one is. Ignorance is bliss after all, and some knowledge/power is just not worth it. Yes, I’m thinking of Dr. Faustus too.

A suitable price, please?

He says write only when you have the urge, otherwise don’t waste your and other’s time, and don’t kill trees. He also says there are no rules and that as a writer, you make your own rules. He is one of the best I’ve seen, and one I look forward to reading. Sadly, the last bit isn’t going to happen in a hurry. Firstly because I’ve more or less given up reading; and secondly because his books are way out of my wallet’s reach. It seems almost like a conspiracy to make literature elitist, a domain exclusive to those high-headed, arrogant intellectuals who are too full of themselves to be tolerable.

I concede that it may be an ill-founded accusation but I believe I should be excused for I feel so let down, betrayed. We know it’s not a fair world-there’s unequal distribution of wealth, happiness and just about everything else-but this common piece of knowledge doesn’t make the fact any easier to accept.

It sucks that I can’t buy a book i so want to buy/read/get signed. It sucks that i have to spend my parents' money and don't have enough of my own. Also, it sucks that i can't see things through to their logical conclusion and lose the drive mid-way, much like this post.

Isolation.

I've always wondered what it is that we all really want in life.

I know it's different for different people but i imagine there have to be a few "needs" common to more or less the whole of humanity. There is, of course, the usual- food, shelter and sex. Perhaps being born and raised as social beings makes us emotionally cripple as well, hence making us the weak creatures that we are. That seems to explain our obsession with love, marriage, family and friendship-- that is, the relationships that we are born into and the bonds that we forge over time.

I struck out romantic love as a reliable source of emotional succour pretty early in my life. It's all very awesome while it lasts but ultimately it is ephemeral. Here today, gone tomorrow, it doesn't exactly make for a stellar example of consistency. With marriage too, one can't predict when the bird of love will go out the window, to greener pastures.

Even as i maintain that there's nothing sinful or wrong about love evaporating over time (people change, we change and we can't expect the feelings to stay the same), the fact remains that it hurts like shit. Change may be good, but it's rarely easy or painless-almost never so in relationships, especially my relationships.

To make matters worse, lately, family and friends have taken to disappointing me too. I am still undecided if it's me or them, all of them. It could just as well be me; maybe I am the one with unrealistic hopes and expectations from people. Or maybe i've just got every thing wrong. 

Existential me?

Lately I’ve become disillusioned with life. Not my life but life in general, the concept of being born, living, striving and dying. I don’t see a point anymore. No reason sounds like a good enough reason to live.

I try to remember what made me want to set a goal and work to achieve, to excel, to live. I remember having that fire in my belly until a few months back. I remember how it felt to be motivated, to want something from life and to know it was enough to want it and nothing else. I remember feeling hopeful and positive.

I don’t anymore and though it perturbs me sometimes, I don’t care much. I don’t see the point behind becoming a doctor or a CEO to make my parents proud. I see how their pride has more to do with the way society will see me, the CEO: read, a virtuous girl raised perfectly by perfect parents. I don’t see a point in becoming a Journalist and changing the world or being creatively satisfied. It’s the same, one way or the other.

Maybe a lot of people started feeling like this and made religion their opium or came up with “society”. Institutions like religion and society made them believe that life is indeed meaningful and that doing something is more lucrative than doing something else. However, i refuse to use any of these institutions as my crutch. If anything, I’ll probably self destruct and do the exact opposite of what is expected by religion and society.

I’m not sure how and when I became so cynical, I have my own fancy ideas about the same though. My graduation has definitely been a mind-fucking/eye-opening experience but there have been simultaneous events.

Maybe if everything in everyone’s life wasn’t ruled by religion and society, I would be a happier person. Maybe if I could get what I really want, I won’t be so anti establishment. Maybe if there was even a hope of getting what I really want I’d probably be happy. If someone else also wanted what I want and said it, at least to me, perhaps I’d be happy. I don’t know anymore. Maybe it’d help to figure out what I really want after all, because clearly, most of the time, love just ain’t enough.

Desires and dreams. Part 2.

I was thinking about what i wrote in the last post about dreams and how everything leads us to its realization. I still stand by it but there's a dichotomy, a complication rather. Actually there are many, i just want to concentrate on this one particular issue that has been gnawing at my insides for quite some time now.

You see, we all have many dreams. And more often than not, these dreams clash with each other. How do we reconcile this with the fact that all our life is about making our dreams come true?

In my case for instance, i want to earn "my own" money and do things for my friends and family, like they have done for me. I don't want to marry. I hate the idea of compromising and adjusting and giving up what i believe in-which is what marriage translates into, in my society at least. Some like to call me a radical, a feminist, i wouldn't call myself that but some of my liberal ideas do come under the gamut of feminism. I do not want to give up those ideas and i refuse to cook and/or rear babies while my husband goes on tours, works late night and shuts me up by saying he's doing it all for me.

On the other hand, i thrive on the image of spending my life with my knight in shining armour. I dream about waiting for my guy, seeing him walk through that door, straight to me and hugging me after a long day at work. I love the idea of eating with the man i love, cooking for him even. I hate the idea of being alone or with dogs in a sexy house, though i tell my mom everyday that it's that i really want and will have in my life. I mean let's face it. I suck at being alone and i hate doing what i suck at. I'm a perfectionist like that.

I like to be the best at whatever i do, which is why i give up on a lot of things before starting. Especially stuff like planning surprises and birthday parties, which is why i rarely do it. I understand this is one paradox that should be resolved soon, in my mind at least. After all, it's impossible to get something when one doesn't know what that "something" is.

Anyway, i just thought of another case of dreams clashing head on. I have dreamt of being a journalist since i was in class8. Of course, the dream was smothered, ridiculed, put on the back burner, killed almost, but it managed to survive more or less unscathed over time. After two years of graduation in English, i have a more realistic shot at this dream than ever before.

But then again, i want to be rich and i want to be good, very very good at what i do. The latter is definitely impossible for me in journalism given my writing skills. The former too, is more or less impossible given the current print media scenario.

So what do i do? Which dream do i follow, if any at all. Looked at like this, i think it's more about holding on to something vital for a happy life, than about giving up either of the two or more dreams. It's not about giving up on one's passion for more money but about keeping it on hold. Because there will be a better time, when nothing will light up one's life more than following one's passion.

I can't do journalism after my bachelors because i'm not ready to ignore my dream of being rich just yet. I know i will be an unhappy person even if i exceed expectations as a journalist. Being a filthy rich, high flying executive with an enviable MBA degree, an impeccable track record and an indecently huge bank balance to boot will however, make me a very happy person. For some time at least. And i think i'll settle for that for the time being.

If that doesn't work, i know i can always fall back on a journalism degree and be happy that i'm doing what i love most.

Of desires and dreams

We all want something; some things more than other things, but we want and we yearn. Some say it's our desire that keeps us going in this meaningless world; once you lose the desire to possess, to accomplish, to be - you lose the drive to live.

This funda makes more sense to an athiest existentialist like me than anything else i've come across. I know that everything i do is a step closer to realizing a dream, an ambition. I may not know it then, but i've seen enough to figure out the ways of my unconscious. In hindsight, it all fit perfectly, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Be it my decision to change my school when i did or going to college where i did, or falling in love with the man i did fall in love with.

One can, of course, attribute all these "events" to God. I know because i once did it, but then where's the fun in that? Thinking that everything i do isn't actually being done by me, and that i am but a toy going through the motions pre-set by God, didn't do any good to my self esteem. Seriously, what is the fun in believing that the calculated risks you took after weeks of sleepless nights were meant to be taken by you anyway, and there was no escaping it because God decided it had to be that way and no other way.

I figured the cool thing about belief is that you can believe anything you want. And from the way i see it, we don't need to have excellent, flawless logical backing for believing something, anything. As long as we let others believe whatever in hell they want to believe in, we are free to do the same.

I chose to believe that I consciously make some decisions, most are taken by my unconscious/subconscious for me. All the small and big decisions in life set us on a course that we choose or make for ourselves, and our dreams, desires, yearnings and wishes play a big part in deciding what the course will be.

Our dreams and desires make us what we are, because they decide what we do-with ourselves, and to others.