A Life of Spontaneity and Chaos

It is quite easy to lose yourself in your life...the life you so ambitiously created and have been possessively nurturing for the past years. One fine day you are talking to a new-found friend and in sharing your story you realize that you are not even that person anymore.
And while you may be perfectly happy with where your life is presently at, this realization disturbs you. Let alone wondering about existential questions like who we are and where have we come from, you are left brooding about where have you lost yourself?
A rendezvous with old friends, reading a blog from the past, watching old pictures of yourself...every single thing takes you back to a time when you were so sure what your future will be like. When everything important was yet to happen.
When you could confidently maintain that you will life on your own terms and you will love every minute of it...
But your terms can be pretty boring after a while... You may not even like your own terms once you have lived by them... You may desire for completely new terms every now and then...
Terms that could be life changing yet at the same time will reconnect you with your old self. A life path that is progressive and retrogressive at the same time... A life on terms that allow you to be you but doesn't allow you to lose yourself.
A life of spontaneity and chaos...
A life with no plans and only impulse decisions...
A life that is only meant for the callous and carefree child within you... One who never wants to grow up and be a more responsible version of you.

My dream is Me!

The sand of time is slippery yet leaves a distinctive granular, wounded trail in its wake. Every birthday is a reminder of how much you have achieved and how much you have failed to...A string of birthday party photos of years past, makes you realize the potential in you that continues to be unrealized. Somewhere along your mid 20s, you suddenly get attacked by "maturity" and life's priorities change. 

Staying fit and being comfortable in your own skin doesn't remain on the top of your list... 

Being happy gets crushed under the burden of being responsible... 

Spontaneous adventures give way to planned, risk-free trips...

And you morph into someone who keeps on getting a cryptic comment like "You have changed a lot!" from your old friends and acquaintances. Nobody ever cares to explain the perceived change and even the die-hard optimist in you lands up interpreting the worst possible meaning of this comment.

The years don't show...yet 20s are your physical prime after all...But instead of waiting like Michele Pfiefer for that 'One fine day' when your life will change as if George Clooney has entered it, why not take charge of the present and turn it into a true birthday gift?If there is anything to be learned from the showbizz, it is this - "Its never too late to get HOT!"

The universe doesn't sit around waiting for the Alchemist to realize that it is time to realize his destiny, even though it is the prime conspirator. So why would it wait for you to get on top of your game and become who you really want to be.People go to great lengths to realize their one true dream. And if you haven't realized what your dream is yet, why not make yourself the ultimate dream?

It takes patience. 

It needs effort. 

It requires dedication. 

It demands sacrifice. 

But the final prize is worth every moment that you spent in front of your mental 'Mirror of Erised'. The haunting desire of your heart shown in the mirror will one day become your reality. And that day, the sandy trail of time won't seem as corrosive as it does today. The lines of maturity will fade, the sparkle of spontaneity will return to your eyes and the flab of responsibility will ripple like toned muscles of joy!

The Moribund Ambition

The first time you hold a microphone and enthusiastically croon the tunes of ‘oye oye’ from ‘Tridev’ for an avid audience, your central nervous system isn’t even developed enough to retain the memories completely. Then you grow up to qualify for choir singing and soon the nerve to face the crowd alone wanes out of you. However, past adolescence, in the nascent stages of adulthood, you start harboring the dream of becoming a pop star. It doesn’t matter to you that only little girls are fans of ‘Hanna Montana’, you are happy to be in your late teens and yet admire the perky-optimistic lyrics of ‘Best of both worlds’! So this time you don’t sing in a choir, you are up for grabbing a rocking identity on stage.

You struggle, you fall, you rise again yet you crawl… until you hit the wall of limited audience and tiny scope! Soon you realize that your voice is not made for the microphone. The nasal twang in your voice is not appreciated by anyone and you should focus more on management than on music. Alas, when hope is crushed, you don’t see any leftovers, all that remains is emptiness. Miraculously however, then comes the time of ‘Himesh Reshmiya’ and twang is the buzz word in the music biz! So you rise to prominence once again in your own happy-to-laugh-at-parodies lot. But it is too late… that point in time is gone when you could have chosen music as a life path.

Yes, the dialog in ‘Jab we met’ does make you think once again that life is still not over and music can still be a direction for you. But somehow, the comfort of not struggling with a guitar and not subjecting yourself to ridicule in auditions has become the norm for you. The talent fizzles out…

Years pass, you are only a bathroom singer now…at times friends coax you into singing, but that is it. All that remains is a moribund ambition which flares up when you see people auditioning for American Idol or when you see kids still performing on stage with a hope in their eyes which nobody can squelch out… yet. The guitar gathers dust and the tonsils swell up to comfort. You are breathless 10 seconds into the melody and soon, singing will be a forgotten dream. But was it meant to be this way…can you find your sound one day?

Is there a ‘Tara’ to go to…where you can remove yourself from the everyday mundane and tell your singing heart “Tomorrow is another day”?

The Cake Dream

The sight of dark swirling chocolate with whipped creme in front of you and the scent of hot cake wafting from the oven behind. The slow rise of batter visible from outside, every glance stolen. Bubbles on the surface telling you, it's going to be perfect...fluffy, scrumptious, warm and tender... Then the focus shifts back to the icing...it has to be perfect too...the dark, rich brown of coco hiding the pristine white of creme...
Then you shift and wake up!
Damn!!!
It's morning and there is no cake cooking...it was just a dream.
In zombie fashion you walk to the washroom and get fresh. Somehow the residual sleep is magnified after the  trip to the loo. Dragging your feet to the kitchen, you fix yourself a brown bread sandwich with soya spread and nutri. So much for the cake dream!

Sifting through the daily mundane activities, and the oh-so-heavy dose of reality, the cake keeps visiting you from time to time. Sleeping is not required anymore, you can almost sense its taste and richness in your daydreams. The fantasy turns to the haunting! Ingesting some more yellow-food you fantasize about the dark coco color of your imaginary friend...
A friend, yes...The dreary reality makes the fickle dream seem like such a friend. It doesn't apply rules, doesn't expect, doesn't judge your actions or other thoughts...it just lingers...like an emotional support to your battered psyche. You ache and long for the chance to drift back into the dream world when you can actually taste your magical creation of the night before. The idea doesn't occur that the dream may not continue (its not "Tivo" up there, after all!).
By the time its the hour to hit the sack again you are so obsessed with the cake that you can't shut your eyes long enough to fall asleep. Every cell in your body seems to be vibrating, dying to transcend into an alternate reality which can take you that much closer to your cake! 60 minutes of tossing in the bed later, you get up.
Pick up the phone.
Dial a 24 hours service.
Place an order for your dream.
And then the reality hit you again... there is no cash in the wallet.

Damn!!!
You pick the phone again.
Dial the same service.
Cancel the order.
Hit the sack.
This time, sleep doesn't evade...it comes and engulfs you in the scent of your cake once again...

Freedom...j'adore!

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. :) :) :)

Fear of fear

Fear.
It is probably the most detested word in the dictionary of mankind. The emotion is as pathetic as it can be and then some. Poets have scorned it, authors have mocked it, bards have condemned it and artists have shunned it in all their creations.
But fear has stayed on...for it did not need anyone's praise or acceptance. It knew when to creep in and corrupt someone's psyche. Fear is more self aware of itself than any other emotion and it gives the possessor an uncanny capability to survive. For without fear, there is no fight.
It's not my favorite vice...I would rather avoid it and if it surfaces, I try to master it and get over it. If someone even implies in some hypothetical situation that I may face fear; I rush on to prove that fear will fear me...I am that brave!
A more accepting mind will admit (to self) that fear is as much a part of one's existence as the need to survive. Bravery to the extent of being daredevil is nothing but denial. It is astonishing, how it takes someone's brave struggle against extreme pathos to make one realize the potential of fear.
We are what we make ourselves and not what life makes of us, but this fire to make something out of our own ashes and rise again like a phoenix comes from nothing but fear.
Without fear of failure, there is no extra effort.
Without fear of loss, there is no reason to protect.
We build ourselves in anticipation of a future which may not always be what we fear but which may be so. The desire to improve and get ahead of oneself doesn't just come from ambition but from fear as well. It maligns the most positive of notions and brings a notoriously bloody flavor to life.
Sometimes it's important to be not brave, to not stand and fight but to fear the nemesis and make an exit strategy. Sometimes the only thing holding you back from giving your 100% is the lack of fear.

It hasn't been easy to accept the potential of fear, but the idea has made its mark.
Still, I fear, admitting that I am anything but fearless will take me a lifetime...

Little life...

A little sweet...a little sour...a little close, not too far...all I need is to be free...


The lines are stolen for sure but the feelings are closer to home than they can ever be.
To an outsider, the other side of grass always seems greener but what if the grass isn't even grass and merely a mirage...
Those who perceive you as the ultimate person are unable to comprehend your lacks and wants. Those who are envious of you can not value their own  blessings. All the philosophies ever written in the world are a writer's attempt to convince self of a greater sense of being and a way to wait for a better purpose in life. Philanthropy for instance is raved about by many, but at the same time scorned for the hypocrisy that propagates it in reality. Now someone missing the trait might glorify it as it is something that may be highly coveted while someone who has 'done that and been there' may be able to tell for a fact how a good deed can go down the drain!
However, truly ingenuous is the persona that makes you want to be like that yet makes you realize the impossibility of it...a life that you want to have but can't have due to the sheer nature of 'you' is what dreams are made of.
Some of us search for these sweet and sour flavors of life in a sheltered and unsurprising life...others, try the unknown to taste freedom! Some of us like the harmony of routine while others like the challenge of chaos! Some of us like to be spectators and some want nothing more than being in the spotlight. Contentment is hard to get by; but then again who has ever told a great story by being content with life?!
It's the dissatisfactions, the restlessness and the unease of being incomplete that drives people towards greatness. (Its sheer abuse of time that drives people towards writing philosophy...NOTE TO SELF - write a story next time!!!)
In the end, life may seem a drag when the hours of the day are ghastly and hard to pass...but it is in essence shorter than the oscillation of an electron and should not be wasted wanting and not getting. It should rather be wasted (Err...Utilized) getting and wanting some more. 
The little life we all get is to live and to be alive...to be or not to be is never an option...its just and illusion of an option!