Life as I see it...

Shouldn’t life be a celebration of all the good stuff that happens around a person? We spend so much of our lives whining about small stuff, fretting about traffic jams, a program missed, a negative comment from an acquaintance and so on and so forth. It is amazing that every single day beautiful things happen and I don’t have the presence of mind to note them, cherish them and remember the joy. But if ever I do take the time to stop and look around, there is so much to see; nothing phenomenal or huge, just small details that I tend to miss normally. It might be a small, colourful, happy butterfly. It might be a beautifully shaped, fluffy, white cloud. Then again it might be the deep, unending blue of the afternoon sky, the fresh green of leaves, the glowing sky at sunset, the velvety sky at moon rise, the thousands of twinkling stars! And as if the beauty of nature is not enough, I encounter so much beauty in the people in my life. The unconditional acceptance from friends, the friendly gesture of an acquaintance, the pleasure of someone respecting my opinion, the unexpected smile from a complete stranger or the naughty grin on a child’s face! More often than not, these are perfectly uncontrollable expressions of the other person’s own sense of joy…perhaps that is what makes it even better…the fact that nothing is really expected in return, it is completely unconditional…leaving you free to respond in whatever way you desire.

A Few Moments from the Life of a “Would-be” Graduate Student

The incessant worrying about getting an admission into a graduate program somewhere…please! The actual applications and then the unending series of written entrance exams (does anybody ever prepare…ha! If only!). Horrible thoughts about the questions you attempted to solve and all the rest that you did not even bother to read. Waiting (the nail-biting phenomenon begins) for an interview call. Finally a letter does arrive...what does it say??? Most are rejections cloaked in words meant to imply the schools deepest sorrow at being unable to find a place for you…come on guys, get real…why can you not just state the plain truth??!!! A few schools do deign to let you know that they might like to consider you for an interview (blessed wonders), asking you to present yourself at the interview venue on so and so a date. So you leave for the interview all geared up and bottling in your tensions, fears and stress. The D-day dawns (Ah! An alliteration). You get all dressed up, neat and tidy but the stress still makes you look like you are over 40 and have been deprived of sleep for your entire life. The wait for your name to be called begins; you wonder why you were ever eager to face the (execution!) panel. The nail-biting continues. People go in and come out of the interview room at an alarming rate. Some lucky souls still have the remains of a smile on their faces even after the ordeal. You wait…knowing your turn will come, it is inevitable. In you go, smile at the panelists, and hope they ask you the simplest question, one that you can answer real quick; but no such luck! You get lost (in the question itself, so why bother to hang around?) and confused and plain fluttered, stammering, making the silliest of mistakes and generally goofing up. Your opinion about yourself sinks to the deepest abyss ever. And then you discover that wonders never cease, they have actually selected you. There still is hope for life!

At times you need to ignore what the world tells you, and what you have grown up believing as right. You need to just go out and do exactly what your heart desires. There is pleasure indeed in the madness, the freedom and in the impulse of the moment. You are just restricting yourself because your beliefs have stopped being your own and are now simply the conditioned responses that are expected of you. That precise mad moment might just bring you the very freedom you were longing for. The fact that you can shock someone with one tiny unexpected action brings such joy that you may very well give up living up to other people's expectations and start doing every single thing that you ever wished to do. A little selfishness is not such a bad thing if it makes you a happier person, capable of a lot more creativity and if it imbues you with the confidence that nothing is ever really impossible, it is simply a matter of believing enough and not being bogged down by other people’s doubts.

Meanderings…

She was lonely. It was a strange feeling, considering the fact that she had just returned from a marvellous evening spent with her closest friends. Perhaps it was simply the blackness of the night, the gentle breeze or the silvery silhouettes of the trees shimmering in the moonlight. Perhaps something in the cool night breeze brought along this tremendous loneliness and incompleteness, a feeling that there must be much more to life than the mundane business of just living each day as it comes along. Life perhaps deserved a little madness, some wildness and definitely a lot more passion.
For quite some time she had felt that her life was too safe; nice, but well, just a plain, regular old life, where everybody always did exactly what they were supposed to in an orderly fashion. Nothing adventurous or extraordinary ever seemed to happen in her life. There had always been this dream of the exquisite, yet unattainable and nameless future. But she usually managed to shake such melancholy feelings away; they were disturbing to her peace of mind, her routine. They made her long for things unknown, leaving her dissatisfied. But today, after the gaiety and the mindless rush of yet another evening spent pursuing meaningless pleasure, she knew she could no longer ignore the call of the wild.
She had to get out of this rut that life had become. She needed to meet other people, people who might help her put meaning back in her life, show her that there was much more to life than earning one’s living and being satisfied with one’s fate. She needed to accept challenges and take risks. Dissatisfaction was an essential, longing for the unattainable was inevitable. They had to be the constants henceforth. She must find something, someone that might complete her…perhaps a mission, perhaps just someone for whom she could make life better, or who made life better for her. This might help her stop being lonely in the midst of crowds, or then again it might not; if you stopped longing for something more, something better, something different, you might just as well stop living.

It utterly amazes me as to why and how people spend their time thinking bad stuff about other people. In fact I am not sure whether such behavior deserves pity or disgust or utter surprise! Time is so precious and if it is spent plotting someone else’s downfall and thinking about ways to ensure that same someone else’s failure, what better way of wasting, in fact, losing time out of your own life! I wonder if such people really believe that they can spoil another’s future. I am a firm believer in the triumph of good over evil, naïve I know, but nevertheless true. It’s so much more preferable than being cynical and never finding any beauty anywhere. Ah…am not sure if I wish to venture into any philosophical meanderings so am signing off! Adios!