borrowed time - re-imagine, re-live!

curiosity. it is at the heart of human exploration. since when did we start banking more on simplicity, security and peace of mind while slowly giving up and finally trading in excitement, thrill and adventure almost completely? since when did we switch to searching for adventure in life instead of the other way 'round? throughout adolescence we are taught to make tough choices - but all within the relative safety and comfort of well established bounds and guidelines. anything out of the ordinary is coined as rebellious. how long do we have to shun the rebel before expanding the acceptable boundaries to include these; and in doing so define new boundaries...? 

we live and breathe our passions on borrowed time. time borrowed from more pressing urgency - the urgency to live. "no time to stand and stare..." - very aptly said indeed. at the dawn of civilization, we struggled to sustain. then, at the peak of prosperity, we explored new worlds. satisfied the innate hunger for curiosity and adventure. today we simply sustain; arguably very comfortably, which of course comes at the price of toiling away for the most chunk of our day. we drown our passions in the hope of living them in some distant tomorrow. of course, there needs to be a balance between weaving a good base for a comfortable life and taking the time to actually live that life to the fullest. either extremes on their own are disastrous; but more often than not we find people around us everywhere who have terribly lost that balance. 

step back for a moment and find that balance.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

There are times when you feel like expressing much more than you believe are capable of. Then again simply surrendering to this notion leaves a burning desire inside. I don't know what is funnier - the fact that this post is a result of deep yet totally wrongly-timed thoughts for many long days just before finals or that finishing watching all the seasons of "Friends" was in a way an impetus to writing this!

Seldom while meeting people we ever think of the way in which they are going to affect our lives. People we meet through other people, people we meet through shared interests and people we meet and get acquainted just plain randomly. Of these hundreds of people whom we choose to call friends, generally for a lack of a more appropriate term, few are the ones we inadvertently give the power to truly affect us - to characterise us and shape us, to love us and heal us, to hurt us.

We all have a set of closest friends; we all define them in unique ways surely, but we all have them. Differences and arguments, likes and dislikes, tastes and opinions, all these become simply too shallow and inappropriate when it comes to these buddies.

Although "Friends" has been one of the landmark sitcoms of our generation and appreciated worldwide mostly for its sheer humour, it has a much deeper appeal to me (and I'm sure to many others). The relations, interactions and emotions portrayed are not much removed from reality and yet the characters survive it together. Although our lives may not be television sitcoms we all tend to relate to the situations in one way or another.

Buddies, the closest ones, have an unsaid understanding; to love and accept unconditionally. We are all individuals and have infinitely different reactions to the same situations. What matters the most is that we learn to put every presumption aside, every mistake, small or big, every misunderstanding behind and appreciate the bigger picture. That is moving on; even if it means fighting with yourself to keep a bond unbroken.

It is not rather difficult to shred apart a deep relationship. Faith is what builds the walls of the fragile fortress of a long and enduring friendship, one that is as strong as any kinship. Faith, which by definition comes from experiencing something, from believing in something with even the slightest crevice of logical explanation.

PS: I don't know why I am writing this (maybe one of those things I would feel nice about reading years later) but I owe a lot to my dearest of friends and even the thought of drifting apart from any one is disturbingly painful...

Existence

This has bothered me for quite some time now and so it's only appropriate to put it down somewhere in words; after of course eating a few of my friends' heads over this!

I somehow just cannot find the point in everybody (except a few maybe whom I'm yet to meet) being so obsessed with having kids! I'm not talking about how many or anything but just the concept of producing life; rather reproducing. And the 'continuing the race' argument is just too stale in my opinion.

So what if the mighty human race just comes to an end one day! It would, in fact, be much better for all the other millions of species on this planet! We anyway keep discussing and debating on how we have basically screwed up the 'balance of nature' and how we are now struggling pathetically to reverse those effects. Our understanding of the universe, from the smallest atom to the largest starts and everything in between and beyond has only shown us how insignificant our very existence is.

However, we all, and of course I am not an exception, are selfish beings and so we want to live our lives as best as we possibly can. But picture this - if all the present humans on the planet stop having kids, just live their lives (in the best possible way) and then die, after some time our species would be extinct. Now where's the flaw in this? Or rather what is the problem if there's just no 'next generation'? And the argument of being selfish in the sense that 'you just want to live and enjoy and not let others (ie the future generations) enjoy' is inherently flawed because there is no 'future generation' until it is in existence, and so basically how can you be selfish with respect to someone that does not exist?!

It should be kept in mind that I'm not a misanthrope or the like, I just feel we are going nowhere by simply having more and more people being produced without any real meaning to our existence. I'm neither being naive nor over-philosophical by implying something like 'we don't know the meaning or purpose of our existence' and hence we should all stop living. On the contrary, what is the harm in all the existing people living in peace and then letting it go...

We exist, therefore, we protect existence.

Perspective

School kids in uniform - right from the elementary all the way to high school... teachers explaining lessons in the typical loud and clear tone... water coolers, playground, tiffin boxes, lunch breaks - 'recesses'... school buses lined up just outside... and of course the buildings... school buildings. Some years later college students - 'guys n gals', seniors, juniors... profs... lectures, pracs, submissions, exams, grades and everything in between...

Not many days back, I dropped my friend to her little sister's school so she could come home in her sister's school bus. She had to show the driver the route to her house on the first day of school. We reached a little earlier than the school got over.

The familiar classrooms, long corridors, painted railings.. everything was so... familiar; though this was not my school, it strongly reminded me of mine. Then again, I guess it's just school time - that time, that environment, that very world of our own in that age! As school kids we are all in such a protected and limited environment; in a comfort zone; in the company of so many peers, friends and teachers; no doubt then that it is our second home indeed!

In our childhood life is simple, life is easy - well for the most of us and barring the lesser fortunate ones; so much so that we are truly unaware of what life is! I'm sure many people, much older than me, would probably say we - people of my age group - are still yet to find out what life is. This is, however, not completely true; and definitely not a function of age. Life is not some kind of a mirage behind which we run all our lives. The mere transition from one phase to another does not and should not warrant us to believe so. So what if our environment and our very idea of life changes from a toddler, to a school goer, to a teenager, to an adult, to old age and finally to death; the very path of life remains unchanged throughout. What this means is simply that we all have to, and will 'figure it out' someday; that we all will gain the 'right perspective'. And how do we know when we have gained this perspective? well, we just know it; we know it when we can, honestly 'look ahead' and know where we're headed.

Having the right perspective does not, in any way, mean that we don't screw up things, that we don't get into trouble or that we don't damage ourselves. It also doesn't mean that we don't stray away from our goals and ambitions, that we don't mess up our relationships or most of all that everything, everyday will be hunky-dory.

In the end, life's a roller coaster - a monster one at that - you can either choose to sit and puke in it or open your eyes and enjoy the ride, or at times switch in between the two; whichever one you choose, when you feel you've seen the entire coaster ahead, that's when you've got it - the right perspective!