Of the changes I keep choosing to experience, the one that has begun this year is the most liberating one! Freedom without independence (yet!) can be quite unnerving and for a change, I understand now how the people of our nation must have felt on 15th Aug, 1947. The idea is not to compare my life to the country but to simply cherish the idea of comprehension which has long since escaped me. I detested history lessons about our freedom struggle with an uncanny passion; not because I am not patriotic but because they were the same for 5 whole academic years!!! And I still couldn't figure out what was all the big fuss about...
So basically my own lack of empathy bothered me beyond expression.
But finally I have caught up.
Freedom is something so dear to revel in that it doesn't matter how often you talk about it, you will not be able to do justice to the feeling in itself. Sleeping without an alarm clock, eating when you want to and not because it's the lunch hour, lounging (read lazying) around with your favorite book and going out when the weather is actually worth enjoying. That's a little piece of heaven...right there...on earth!
You don't need to die to get all that.
You just need to kill the independent chic inside you!
For independence is a different story altogether. It makes you responsible and sneakily build shackles of its own. You start depending on yourself and before you know it, you are proud of yourself. Pride that is based on the shaky grounds of consistently holding a job and sustaining yourself. Pride that helps you hold up your head and walk into a store and use your plastic money to buy some form of happiness and of-course, experience some very expensive retail therapy. Pride that affords you meaningless nights of intoxication just so you can have a hung-over Monday, earning yourself some more independence. Pride that makes you look down upon those who chose the easy life and didn't bother to enter the rat-race. Pride that eventually turns you into someone you hoped you will never be...a slave to your independence.
Been there...done that!
And now that I have opened myself to experience what is so fleeting in it's essence; I don't want to let go. A childhood dream of becoming a pirate one day does come back and appeal horrendously to me. But then again, may be it will take some more life to finally be ready for an adventure of that proportion. For now, I have to satisfy with feeling free to do with my life what I wanted to. Be selfish and not proud. Be free but not independent. Struggle a little against the norm and renounce the "Stepford" routine once and for all.
And while it's possible...live a little. :) :) :)
So basically my own lack of empathy bothered me beyond expression.
But finally I have caught up.
Freedom is something so dear to revel in that it doesn't matter how often you talk about it, you will not be able to do justice to the feeling in itself. Sleeping without an alarm clock, eating when you want to and not because it's the lunch hour, lounging (read lazying) around with your favorite book and going out when the weather is actually worth enjoying. That's a little piece of heaven...right there...on earth!
You don't need to die to get all that.
You just need to kill the independent chic inside you!
For independence is a different story altogether. It makes you responsible and sneakily build shackles of its own. You start depending on yourself and before you know it, you are proud of yourself. Pride that is based on the shaky grounds of consistently holding a job and sustaining yourself. Pride that helps you hold up your head and walk into a store and use your plastic money to buy some form of happiness and of-course, experience some very expensive retail therapy. Pride that affords you meaningless nights of intoxication just so you can have a hung-over Monday, earning yourself some more independence. Pride that makes you look down upon those who chose the easy life and didn't bother to enter the rat-race. Pride that eventually turns you into someone you hoped you will never be...a slave to your independence.
Been there...done that!
And now that I have opened myself to experience what is so fleeting in it's essence; I don't want to let go. A childhood dream of becoming a pirate one day does come back and appeal horrendously to me. But then again, may be it will take some more life to finally be ready for an adventure of that proportion. For now, I have to satisfy with feeling free to do with my life what I wanted to. Be selfish and not proud. Be free but not independent. Struggle a little against the norm and renounce the "Stepford" routine once and for all.
And while it's possible...live a little. :) :) :)
Nice blog Palak
ReplyDeletethis hints that did u leave ur job?
every path has its ups and downs as every coin is compulsorily two faced...so yes..freedom also is two faced after all!!!
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