Beautiful

Life is a bit silly sometimes. You get what you want and then you realize that what you wanted in the first place was just a shallow, silly version of what you really wanted. But how was I to know that what I thought I wanted was just a shallow version of what I really wanted and didnt know was what I wanted!! There... it does seem silly. A good example is that of a girl who is just average to look at and thought she would be happier if people just thought she was attractive. She ranted and raved and finally somehow managed to make herself superficially attractive based on what she read in fashion magazines only to realize that she was still not happy and would never be truly happy because what she really wanted to be was Beautiful!

Maybe...

Its Saturday afternoon and as I sit on my balcony and watch this beautiful tree person swaying in the wind, I wonder. Of course, for the record, I always wonder. The wondering never stops and I never try to stop it. Am I happy?? Why does this one question bother me so much? Is happiness just believing that you are happy and must be because you know that you are better off than so many more people you know? Is happiness really personal? Or is there a formula?

I have tried doing the 'Gandhjii' thing you know... You remember that message from Mahatma Gandhi we all had in the first page of every NCERT text book we have ever opened - "If you are feeling lonely, sad or low.. just try to remember the face of the poorest and hungriest person you have ever seen and you will feel all your sorrows melting away"!! At least that's my version of his message. And it always makes me feel better about my life. I say Better consciously. I do feel better because I am not that person and I wish I could do what I could for that hungry person and I do try to do something after all. But none of that changes the fact that I am not happy and thinking about his face does not make me happy.

So what is the formula? I once asked a friend of mine ... "Would you be happy if you thought that you were with somebody who was 50%+ perfect for you?" and he said, "of course"!! That of course, made me feel very ashamed of myself (and he was just being honest) 'cos I have more than 50% + perfection in my life. But I still come to this balcony once in a week and wonder. And I wonder.

No angel...

I seem to be on a roll today. Wonder why there is a spurt of pointless writing and yet continuing with it when there is not much in my mind. But I do want to place on record that my thoughts and consequently my ramblings on this blog are very personal. They are not meant to dole out gyaan or to be worthy of any award (though Booker's would be nice) :D. I write when I cant talk. When there is nobody to talk to. Or when it is in the middle of the night (or day as applicable) and I need to blurt out a few truths (or lies, as the case maybe) in the silence and comfort of my very own random digital diary which is safely locked away with a Username and Password in the depths of the innards of some random blogworld. I cherish the anonymity. I used to think, that I was somewhere inside of me, dying to be a great writer but I am not. I am RANDOM. The musings are even more so. So do not expect to be enlightened or mind-mollycoddled (in a warm way that we feel when we read a feel good book or post or article) or to catch a philosophical turn of mind in action or anything. This is for me and no one else. And if you choose to read- do so at your own peril.

But thanks anyway for dropping by... :) Appreciate it mate...

Gosh.. it was a pause!

And I was obviously right. It was merely a pause. I have started moving forward again. And though its slow and tough going, its not the end that I thought it was doomed to be and that makes the "slow going" worth it. But there are still gaps. I am not looking for perfection (though I do not understand what people have against perfection) - I am just looking for harmony. Harmony is good. Harmony is being in sync and if I am trying to understand a person's need to herd everybody into our private space to contribute to global pollution, I certainly dont understand why I cant paint the walls alone. Doesn't make any sense, does it? These things never do. Look at the balance? 30 people V. one bucket of paint. Who wins? Obviously the heavy weight.

I just want to paint? Why can't I? Is my life so pathetic that people can have grand gizmos worth a month's salary but I cannot have my day of paint and painting and walls? When have I ever stopped you? Why stop me? Everything is not a "Unit's" decision. No, thank you.. Sire!! I do not want to be just the other person in a "two"some! I am an atom. I am the quark. I share myself with no one. There is me and there is you and then there is US. Us didn't come first.

Strange...

I think its broken. The strange unreal hold seems to be over. There is no feeling. At least not much involved. The demise is enlightening-ly anti-climatic. No shower of sparks or an eclipse or an explosion. Just a fizzle. A quiet death. Weird. I would have thought that this event would shatter the world around me. And I would have to be dragged out of here screaming and crying and ranting and raving. But how very quiet it all is. Surprising!!!

I hope to God that tomorrow when I write again, this storm has passed and what seems to be an ending is merely a pause. Have mercy.

Leaf-thoughts

There is so much to write and no sense in gathering my thoughts. They are like autumn leaves on a windy day. All over the place. No rake is strong enough and now that i introspect - do I really want to gather them? I would rather walk like a loner in a park, looking at each leaf-thought individually. Pick them up and see the lines that makes each leaf-thought special - let each one tell me its own story in its own language.

I walk along and they swirl around me. Its actually kind of liberating. Like there were a million butterflies in my mind and now they have all just flown out. Beautiful. A profusion of colors and the soundless whoosh of fluttering wings. Silent somehow... and surreal.

I see myself retreating into that quiet place in my head. Where nothing hurts. Nothing matters. I had forgotten what it feels like to be vulnerable. Does not feel that great. The space in my mind is my park - green and fresh, its my very own cathedral - dark, soothing, confessional, cool and spacious. I do not see the Cross or the priest. But I do feel God there.

It is like watching myself from inside. My mom says that there is grief and sadness in this world because it is only in those times that we remember God. I agree. When I am happy, I never come to this place and it is only here that I feel that presence. Where I find myself. untouched, unadulterated and absolutely separate from the world. Untainted by anybody. I guess I have to get out soon ... but for now I am happy here.

Personal Legend... I have lost mine.

It is too complicated now. I cannot change anything.

"Personal affection is a luxury you can have only after all your enemies are eliminated. Until then, everyone you love is a hostage, sapping your courage and corrupting your judgment" - said Orson Scott. I agree. Seems to be the premise of my life - I can speak for no other.

I am what I am, I have what I have and I have come too far. Nothing can be changed and nor do I have the power to change anything. I realize that the flaw lies within. I shall try to amend. This is the best I can have and life has proved that time and again to me. Whenever I have been arrogant enough to just try and save myself from the insanity of others, life has shown that it is inescapable. I do not have a choice as I cannot allow myself to have a choice.

Life is strange that way. You can try and veer from the path that life has set for you and for a while you find yourself meandering down valleys and plains and paths that make you believe that you have successfully set your own course and then Wham!! Life has smacked you right in the face and you open your eyes and see that you are back below the same old tree from where you had started running. You can cut down the tree but the question is - do you want to?

Ha ha... that's Life quietly chuckling at the foibles of us mortals - that we silly sentient beings even have the audacity to think that we can outrun him.

So as I stand below that tree and believe Life's mean and caustic laughter is real... I wonder if I will take a chance again? Try to run again? Maybe I will but that day is not today. Today I am tired and weary and beaten. I cannot fight anymore. And now that I think about it... its not that bad right? Nothing is ever that bad.. Its just about the way one chooses to look at it.

I wonder what happened to my Personal Legend....

What is Love? Baby dont...

What is true and complete companionship?

Could it be that one finds it (or should I say stumbles upon it while going about one’s good, old mundane life) as the fairy tales would have us believe… magically??? Love at first sight!! Though the characters involved have absolutely no idea that this it – they eventually figure through what I call the “missing shoe” syndrome. Remember the missing shoe? The One Thing that Cinderella leaves behind as a sign from above for her Prince Charming. We all have our versions of the shoe… the One Thing that makes us realize (or at least our endorphin influenced brain would like to perceive as “realization”) that this is the One!! My soulmate a.k.a “the one I was meant to be with”. As soon as the One Thing is revealed, we think back to how “we always knew somewhere in some cobwebbed corner of our sub conscious mind” that he/she was the ONE.

Could it be that true and complete companionship is only as magical as one wants it to be, one makes it out to be? Is Love just a hormonal reaction? A Survival Instinct for mankind? Are we truly monogamous at heart (or to be clear psychologically)?? Is Love what keeps us from wandering away from the ties of commitment? From looking, evaluating or window shopping again for a person of the opposite sex (or in many cases, the same sex) in “that” way? Do we need Love to keep us alive?

It is a very fundamental and interesting question for me. I believe it is. I wake up in the morning smiling because I believe I am in love and that I am equally loved (hope against hope). Love gives me a reason to get through my day and get back home. It gives me a reason to cook - hunger is also a good enough reason but it does not inspire me to cook exotic things – whether the exotic experiments end up (sadly) charred/undone/unset/wobbly or just plain bad. It makes me write long emails with love song lyrics which describe the state of my heart on that day. It makes my heart thump with joy and makes me break into a smile for no reason. It makes my day, my night and every weekend worth waiting for. It makes me want to be beautiful ( to whatever extent a clumsy, shy and awkward person can be) – hey, hey I didn’t say that I manage to be successfully beautiful but it at least makes me want J Basically all said and one and no matter how pathetic it sounds, it makes me alive. Makes me aware. Makes me desire. Makes me better. Makes me introspective. Makes me emotional. Makes me adventurous. Makes me!

What more could one ask for from life in terms of love that is? It might be love for a person for me and love for sports for another. Which brings me back to my first question. What is true and complete companionship? Does it have to be with a person or even necessarily an animate object? Can it be books? The Internet? Sports? TV?

Before I found this extraordinary love that I have gone on and on about above, I lived my life through books – more accurately because of books. Without them to keep my sanity – I would have been a mental case (Ang Jolie from Girl, Interrupted type) a long time back. I could even go the extent of saying that books are my one true and great love (no offence to the love of my life). I have loved them from the day I learnt to read. From that day I realized that my life is not ordinary, I am not ordinary as long as I am in somebody’s else’s world. Or I am ordinary as I wanted to be. I found my Terabithia. Everyday a different one though J I grew up in a relatively boring world with relatively boring (but kind and loving) people. I wanted adventure. I craved it. I wanted to be a different person each day and my wish was made true by any book I read. So you will understand me (and pardon me as well if you are a lover of non-fiction) when I say that fiction is the only reading material I like. I want to have nothing much to do with reality when I am in ‘my world which is not my own’.

I go to bed night after night dying to read. I want to get back home to read. I wish I could carry a book around to fill up gaps in social occasion when I am bored out of my skull (I used to do it as a kid and my mom used to scold every single time) J There is also this person I love. Who is fun, funny, charming and loving. He is the one I am going to spend the rest of my life with and the one I want to be with (of all the human beings I know). But even he is unable to fill certain spaces in my life which only my books can. I was upset about it to start with (the upset bit started ‘cos I was worried that I was dissatisfied with the relationship and sat down to evaluate myself) and then I realized that I was just being healthy!

I was obsessed with finding my soulmate and now that I have found him, I am obsessed with perfection. I was. No more. Now I just channelize (unconsciously till now) my energy back into other things which makes me happy. Like books and taking care of myself. It is in a way, the demise of an entire thought process for me. Because I believed that I was born to love a Person. One cause. An all consuming passion for one thing or person. But I guess I was wrong before and I am happy I was so. Because when I look back on how I used to perceive love – I realize it was unhealthy. Just an obsession with being obsessed. Thank god I have found normalcy (though before signing off I would like to say that somewhere in the darkest, deepest recess of my mind – I still hope that I find that one passion – one single thing that can contain me, reign me in, control me and obsess me)!! J

Maybe I will.