“You are already naked. There is no reason why you shouldn’t follow your heart.” ~Steve Jobs
As a human and quite normal one I was very much fond of the question: “What would I like to do when I grow up?” Each time my mind came up with a new profession in which to endure, and every time I was filled with ecstasy as I tried to live it through my young mind. These wide ranging options from a spy to a scientist from code words to cancer treatments. I’m sure these ranks must have played a jingle in your mind too and not just once or twice.
Now look at yourself, what happened? The time passed as many would say, and what society deems it to call it, we “grew up” and began to tie our dreams to materials, killing our vivid lives for fancy watches and cars with drivers, setting ourselves on the well-paved but heavily trodden path. This house and that bike, this car and that place. No longer were we provoked by the action of giving something, rather we transformed ourselves very comfortably into structures which are based on the action of taking things. We restrict our lives to sharp edged cubicles and flat tables. To glossy powerpoints and business class washrooms. We restrict ourselves to daylight conferences and midnight homes. A story of such a man is who had his future ‘secured’. Until he met his old friend one day, only to know he died on his way home.
We live in a reality where we believe there is ample amount of time to be happy, but just not today. Because today we have to work, store, pay and one fine day, when we are decorated with grizzled beard and white mane, we can spend the rest of the time like kings. This is the best plan ever to be constructed if someone was to assure you that your world won’t part into two, ever. That the building you’re working in won’t blow up, that the person you may find next you won’t have a desire to kill you. Only if someone would assure you that you won’t die in a simpler way such as a car crash.
If you ever have the opportunity to ask the dead, did they know how much time they were left with? Let’s say somehow how you survive, somehow you make it up to sixty, and somehow you are healthy and fit. Somehow everything goes according to ‘the plan’, but what good is a king who never learnt to rule as a prince?
When we start living in a distant future we stop taking life as a blessing and more as a curse. We numb ourselves today in hope to feel better tomorrow.
Let’s go back to our childhood, and then a little further.Why did we stop dreaming all together? For the chattels the society offered? Did we surrender our lives to these inanimate things? Or are we just too afraid of them, considering how flawed we are? Or are we afraid, realizing the number of people who have failed on their way? Are we so sure that there is no failure on the path we have decided to travel? Perhaps, already travelling. It’s called being delusional, isn’t it? Believing our fate is more blessed?
Dream. Chase it and fail. Fail and understand what caused that failure, come in terms with it and for once try to learn something new again. Even failure feels like an intense victory when we learn something out of it and we do what we love to. I believe we are just out of the habit of learning something new since the day we put on those uniforms and tried to be like everyone else. Knowledge is important but so is learning.
“Life is a roller coaster ride,” you probably must have heard it before. But have we ever thought of it like this before? A roller coaster ride, very much like life, with its ups and downs, and if you have ever taken the ride you would know that none of them lasts forever.
There are two kinds of people who take that ride, one who buckle themselves up to the front seats and the others who bury themselves at the back, waiting for it to get over. A good possibility says that the ride might break or you might fall off. But the whole point of it is having fun. Using life’s unpredictability and your own fear for your own good. Enjoying the ups and downs, this is guaranteed only when you do what you love to. When the ride ends both are unknown how it finally came to a stop, one emerges with a smile and the other one with a failed heart. We can scream, laugh, cry, have fun, or we can sit back and be scared through the ride.
If you still think this is the way life was meant for you and this is exactly what you should be doing, then why does it ache? Why does the stress come into play? Why the silent cries and frequent lies?
Everyone agrees to the fact that we leave everything behind. Everything we acquire, whether we reach the heavens or our bodies disintegrate and breathe peace with nature, it’s pretty logical to live it the best way possible, for this is the only time where you are allowed to feel and breathe. Often we encounter this question, “Hey man, if I’m going to die and leave everything behind, then what’s the whole point of living?” The best answer to it lies in the question itself. If we are supposed to leave everything back, behind in this world when we die, shouldn’t we work on things or the ideas which, after we are gone, will in this world stay? I’ll leave you with this thought.
“If you are not busy being born, you are busy dying.” ~Bob Dylan.
This is a guest post written by Sasmit Powale. Sasmit is a science student from Mumbai, India. He is a budding writer and a poet. His other interests lie in philosophy, stories and music.