Life, or something close to it.

‘A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets’ -Napoleon Bonaparte.


How far astray can someone wander before he is deemed unsalvageable?
There is supposed to be a fire in our soul that rages with great fury whenever a situation calls for a revolution, an uneasy feeling that gets stronger and keeps getting stronger till we have found the courage to stand up for what we believe in. But somehow I am unable to find anything in mine, there are no enraged flames, no stirring of soul. I have become a docile pet to society, my soul has become obedient and calm. I can see that a change is needed and yet somehow I am able to dig out excuses to not be a part of that change. I can complain, that I do very well, but how is it that my heart is not furious, that my blood doesn’t boil when I see what I see around me? All I can muster is a sense of disappointment and a few words of pity. And yet the books I read want to help me free my mind and songs I hear want to help me strengthen my heart. How wrong is it that I do not follow what I know is right? Were it not for acceptable hypocrisy, perhaps I wouldn’t even read or listen, because if I am to be honest I know I am doing great injustice to those who write what needs to be written. A writer wants his ideas to be understood and acted upon. What good is a life changing book if you don’t change your life after reading it? What good is a revolutionary song if it doesn’t strengthen your rebellious intentions after you hear it? Is it fair to the writer, that I appreciate what he writes and yet do nothing what he says?
Che Guevara was a great man, to me the greatest. His thoughts were profound and his actions courageous. What he wished I wish the same. What his thoughts were, so are mine. But what he did I never have. I have wishes and thoughts but no actions. And actions are the most important. If I do not act on what I’ve read am I more than a punk who thinks his duty is done if he puts on a Che Guevara t-shirt or gets a Che Guevara tattoo? That was not what he wanted. He wanted to inspire revolutions, not marks of the decadence of our materialistic civilization.
When he said, “I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.” he understood that he was no more than a soldier and the revolution was bigger than him. It should not end with his death. If such a time should come in my life will I be able to give up my life for a higher cause. Will my selfish self even let me believe that there is such a cause? Will I be able to pick up a pen to write when it is imperative that I write? Will I be able to pick up a gun when it is imperative that I kill? Right now as I sit in my cushioned chair, with a warm cup of coffee to my left and a cellular phone to my right, I would have to say no. I will not. I am a product of my society, my civilization. I worry not about the blisters that I will get on my foot if I walk too much. Such savage days are behind me. I am now accustomed to the backseat of a four wheel drive. I now worry about the air condition in my new car. The injuries I am afraid of are not a torn muscle or a fractured bone because of a hard day’s work. I am no longer a barbarian toiling under the harsh sun. I am now diseased with asthma and numerous other allergies, the allergens to which I helped create and branded it a side effect of development. What is it that I’m becoming? A slave to technology, a placid example of a good citizen, a follower of everything that I am supposed to follow? I know that a burning desire to do what must be done isn’t enough. One can’t dive in headfirst into an enterprise on the whims of a wronged soul. But to begin such an action that will lead to profound reformations there has to be that immense want to say “Something needs to be done and it is I who will do it.”
It is bad to be a conformist. To accept everything without asking a question, to compromise whenever faced with adversity, to accept weakness, to be an indifferent passenger waiting for someone else to create the changes and ready to accept such changes even before they are a faction of reality, to not have opinions and ideas, to easily accept self-imprisonment. But what is worse is to be a renegade in soul but a conformist in body. To understand what must be done and yet not do anything about it, to vehemently oppose every wrong policy in our hearts and yet obey all they tell us with insignificant murmurs of dissatisfaction, to know what is wrong and yet do nothing to right it, to know the taste of freedom and yet accept the prison of slavery and be disgruntled about it and to accept such blasphemies under the excuse that it’s the way everyone else does it. What good is being an educated student only to later become an impotent annoyed citizen?
But what reason can there be for me to be writing all of this? Shouldn’t I be doing what I say everyone must do? The books I have read apparently aren’t enough to raise in me such actions of great revolutions. I still have many books to read, many thoughts to sort out, many lives to understand. And all that I have read and understood till now compel to me write this small article just to realize that these thoughts are circling in my head, that I know what needs to be done, that I cannot plead ignorance anymore. But to you its different. You can use this insignificant little piece of writing anyway you want to. You can mock my hypocrisy, you can just go through it and not give it a second thought, it could be your first step towards becoming the liberator your soul has been waiting for or it could be that final push that sends you over the edge into the immense possibilities of unknown freedom. It can be whatever you want it to be. And I leave it incomplete in a hope that if I have a conclusion that ends in failure, may it not be the same for you. May one of us have a triumphant end that brings back things to the way we know it should’ve always been. May there be an absolute victory. A victory for you and me. A victory for our unborn revolution.
Che said, ‘Hasta la Victoria siempre, (forever onwards until victory).’ May it be so with us.

“I am not a liberator. Liberators don’t exist. The people liberate themselves.” Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara de la Serna.(1928-1967)

A hundred years since the sun went down,
Yet still I wait for the ray of light
That’ll save me from this cold darkness,
A glimmer to help me pass the night.

I walked, I was pushed, cajoled, enticed.
Now I hate where I have come.
I still don’t know where I am going
I wish I didn’t know where I am from.

The black dogs bark and they growl,
They know the smell of a defeated prey.
My body feels weak and my legs tired,
I think I’ll let the black dogs take me away.

Yes let the smoke of my torture rise,
Let the darkness smother me whole,
Let the cold dark night be my truth
And let my misery drown my soul.

For I see my happiness beyond the horizon
And hope is just a shameful lie.
Just a small doubt keeps me breathing,
Maybe living in misery is slightly better than to die.

So I’ll continue to preserve this wasted existence
And from the abhorrent I’ll myself restrain.
Till freedom is returned to my soul
Or till my fragile mind goes insane.

If only I could escape my hatred
From this town filled with soulless ghosts.
But where do I go to leave myself behind?
For it’s the man in the mirror I hate the most.

Now I see a flutter against the fluorescent glow
And my thought makes me question my birth.
Was I born to live this life
Where I have begun to envy a moth?

"Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved."-Victor Hugo

I do not believe in fate. It wasn't fate that stopped my alarm from going off that wet monsoon morning making me too late to catch the early bus to college. I was late because I had forgotten to recharge my cell phone's batteries the previous night. But whatever the reason, cosmic or trifle, the result was that I had to take the next bus. And I could've been forgiven if I'd let go of my skepticism and allowed myself to believe in fate just this one time, because from the very next stop she got on that 'next' bus. Suprana. She stood about a meter away from me, holding onto a seat, her clothes drenched, her body swaying with every turn the bus took, with every pothole the bus conquered. In between us was the irksome obstacle of a man or was it a woman or maybe a child or a metal pole, I can't remember. I saw no one else after that. Only her. Her red shirt that clung to her body, her black hair wet and wonderful, her irate gestures on being pushed around by the zealous morning crowd, her eyes that tried to hide under the cover of her glasses. When she got down, I followed her. It didn't matter that this was not where I was supposed to get down, it didn't matter that my stop had come and gone about ten minutes ago. All that mattered was she was out of my sight and I couldn't allow that. I offered her shelter under my umbrella. She hesitated. I insisted, said her books were getting wet. She agreed. Her college was five minutes away. Five silent minutes. For some reason, I became a mute. Either there was nothing for me to say or there were so many things that I couldn't decide what to begin with. So, all the noise that came was from the pouring rain crashing against the nylon of the umbrella. Soundless we walked, she wishing a quick end to this awkward journey, me hoping for a change in the laws of physics which would make it possible for me to equate five minutes with eternity. Her wishes conquered my hopes and soon the five minutes were over.
Five excruciatingly fast minutes.
It was hard to understand her beauty and it's harder to describe it. But it was enough to make me miss the early bus the next morning and the next, and the next. I was late for college every day after that. And with persistent self motivation, one day I was able to strike up a conversation.
She was in her final year in college, I was in my first. Had we been in the same college, a relationship between a junior and a senior would've been difficult to fathom but outside the walls of our academic institutions, the difference in our ages was unworthy of a mention. We weren't the couples that would've graced the pages of Shakespearean literature. We weren't the ideal examples of what love can be. In fact if love is only limited to such notions of ever lasting relationships and inseparable hearts, then maybe what we felt wasn't love at all. There were no promises of perpetual closeness, no expressions of unbearable misery due to unavoidable distances, no statements about the impossibility of life if we were to be without one another. We couldn't reach that edge of poetic love. We never wanted to. Some days the bus journey together would suffice my need for her, some days spending every moment of the entire day with her wouldn't seem enough. It just felt good to be together. And there was nothing more we needed. We shared our sorrows, I used to hold her as she fought her tears that streamed down her gentle cheeks having failed an inconsequential class test, she used to console me, I having lost a game that she would've said was pointless. We used to share our happiness, a kiss for every paper I passed, a hug for every basket ball game she won. We found our escape from the world when we were together. We would spend hours silent, just enjoying being close, away from everything and everyone else, lost in the moment of tranquil breeze and serene sunsets. We accepted that we weren't perfect. Our many imperfections were abundantly clear but it wasn't enough to keep us apart. And in each other we found a friend who would listen to all that was difficult to tell anyone else and who would not judge our mistakes but accept us for who we really are. We drifted further and further away from the world and closer and closer to each other. We missed lectures, classes, parties, celebrations and some other meaningless occasions. We were lost in another world, where time held no meaning. We left the world behind as without consequence morning turned to noon, noon to evening, evening to night and while everyone hurried from their homes to their jobs and back to their homes we danced in the horizon between the realms of reality and dreams. In each other we found our solace, our utopia, our love. It was wonderful being around her.
We were together for a year. After which she was gone.
Like we both knew she would. College was over, now came her struggle for independence and she had to be wherever her future needed her to be. It was an inevitable ending we were both expecting and wishing it would stay as far away as it possibly could. But time never stops. There were no tearful goodbyes, no heartfelt apologies, and no hollow promises because none were needed. There were no explanations necessary because that would just mean what we shared in that one year wasn't enough. I wished her the best of luck for her future, told her to remember me whenever she visited Kolkata again and wished her a safe journey. Her bus left at 4:17 p.m. on the 24th of September. And i stood there under the same umbrella, once again silent but this time alone with no one but my city and her rain. The rain was relentless that day, the Kolkata monsoon's heartfelt wails pierced deep into my heart. She said I was not alone. I closed my umbrella and i let the rain wash away all the sorrow. She made me realise the cathartic rain must in the end give way to the barren wind of the fall. And just like the monsoon, she came in my life for a short time, she made me see happiness can be found in the smallest things in life and then she was gone, just like the monsoon would be, just like everything in life would be, just like life would be. Suprana. Loved and lost.
It was over. Just like that.
I do not know, how people can feel love to such an extent that it would be impossible to live without the person they're in love with, how love can render everything else secondary, how they can promise complete devotion for eternity. Such extreme definitions of love make what we shared rather insignificant but I don't want a reasonable definition for what we had. I believe it was love. And love not because we would be happy forever after in a far off romantic land after we had found a way to compromise between our ambitions and our need for one another. But love for love's sake. We had no reason for being with each other except we wanted to. We were together sharing a bond that we knew would break as soon as she ended her academic adventures but the eventual severance didn't stop us from enjoying every moment that preceded it. We didn't promise eternal alliance because we didn't know what our future held. Our pasts were far apart and there was every chance that our futures could be too, what was close together was our present and we were intent on enjoying the time we had together. There were no questions of 'what could've been' lingering in our hearts, (well not enough to change anything), because we had the world to explore. There simply was so much to be done, we couldn't be tied down with one another just yet. There were people to meet, places to visit, mistakes to be understood, principles to be changed, questions to be answered, thirsts to be quenched, souls to be searched and self discoveries to be made. No matter how wonderful a time we had together, the temptation of a planned future where we would spend our lives blissfully in each other's arms wasn't enough to deter us from the promises of an unknown future of incredible possibilities that lay ahead waiting for us. We were just too young and there was so much to experience, we didn't want to miss out, not on love but life. Because love we had already known. And after she'd gone away, there were no regrets haunting my conciensce, all that there was, was a sense of disappointed acceptance that it had ended a little too soon. A student of literature, she would've said, 'all good things come to an end.', and indeed they do but for there to be an unwanted ending there has to be a good thing preceding it and what we shared was more than good. What would happen after she went away? It would be hard to completely lose someone who understood me so well. And we would continue in any way we could, mostly with the help of modern science, to stay as close as possible but slowly as she dived into her new life, our directions would further repel one other. Our intimate conversations would turn into futile small talks about the weather. Soon we would be exchanging greetings of 'hello' and 'how've you been?' and eventually we would be constrained to a fond memory of a distant past. And then just a small story to share.

Charity begins at home. That statement is not a fleeting collection of words that I was able to come up with for this specific article. That statement is a very well known and symbolic idiom. Symbolic, because it is the epitome of our selfish nature. For us, charity does begin at home and so it should. We need to see that our wishes are looked after properly before we think about helping foreign lives recuperate and blossom. It isn't essential that we be god parents to the entire world, generous and kind to everyone else while we ourselves suffer great misfortune with brave stoicism. That is not how we are. To be diplomatically correct, that is not how most of us are. Our principle of self preservation before all else, shouldn't bear any inherent guilt. It is not a wrong principle; it is a rational and accepted principle. And yet it drains away the essence of generosity. It is good to look after our needs and try to make the world better place for ourselves before we try to make it a better place for everyone else. But its strange how easily we confuse needs with wants. Its not an obligation, and I believe it's not even our duty (moral or otherwise) but its just a voluntary gesture of humanity everyone would expect a human to show. We can be kind and generous with respect to our own fortunes, we can help others in a lot of different ways but still something keeps us from offering that simple but significant help to someone in need. We could easily offer a few things, that in real calculations of our lives would seem superfluous but we don't. I can't understand why. I do not wish to implicate the whole of mankind in this theory of ungenerous souls, this is more an exposure of my wicked heart that somehow has become rather resistant to alien plights and maybe a way to understand and explain such instincts.
Recently, like so many many other times, I was in a rickshaw, stuck in a traffic jam. My theory is that the traffic signals and the traffic policemen have somehow conspired to always make me spend an eternity waiting for a red light that just won't turn green and a whistle bearing arm that just won't wave me through. Such stationary occasions are just the sort of gatherings beggars exploit to earn their living. Now a rickshaw is a very open vehicle, and very suitable for (unwanted) conversations between the individual on the vehicle and the individual on the road. There were no windows for me to roll up and hope the beggar would get the hint and move on and search for someone else to tell his sorry story. So, a beggar approached. He was old but not too old with teeth stained red and a body so thin he seemed to be emaciated. In one hand he held an inhaler for his asthma, his other hand was free, ready to accept anything that was on offer, if there was to be an offer. There we were, him pleading for just a small ounce of kindness and me looking away, the needy and the temporarily deaf. In god's name he asked, show some kindness in God's name. I said your god doesn't know me. But I said it quite softly and I don't think he heard me. Then he showed me his inhaler 'I need it for my asthma.' he said. I told him sorry but I couldn't help him, which wasn't entirely true. I could've helped him. I could've spared some change if I actually wanted to. But I didn't. I had absolutely no desire to offer any kind of help to this less unfortunate human being. Why? I do not know. It was the exact opposite of what I was taught to do. From as far as back as I can remember, I have been taught to help people in need and it has always seemed to me like a rational advice. But the thought that this man is in need and I have the means to if not eradicate but at least alleviate his misery, didn't even come to my mind. It wasn't judgmental. I myself am a parasite, feeding on a rather meager parental fortune, so I have no right to be judgmental. Apparently I have lost my instinct of generosity or I have forgotten generosity and allowed my instinct of selfishness to resurface. All I could think of was the red light that just wouldn't budge. When it did, the rickshaw pulled away, I was gone and he was left standing there, with an empty inhaler in his hands and a bitter confirmation of human cruelty in his heart. But to me all that mattered was that with a simple change of colour from red to green our unpleasant confrontation was over. Now, this is not an outcry of my righteous subconscious, asking me to show some kindness to poor old men, it's just a question of a wondering heart, asking where could I have lost the simple lessons I was taught? Were the lessons right, or am I right now? I do not know, what reasons others have for giving or not giving what they can to the people in need, but for me there seems to be no reason at all, just a lack of desire to be helpful. Maybe this is a frailty of the entire human kind or maybe it's just a sign of an individual's greedy and selfish nature.

"When I was a younger man, I wondered why I chose atheism. My parents were religious, you would've liked them. They wouldn’t be proud of me now, at least not of my religious views. They taught me all things come from God and all we do should be in praise of him, which quite frankly seems unfair. I mean I want to get something for myself out of my life. But under their shadow I experienced many religious practices, that didn’t seem right to me to be honest. Some of it was even ridiculous but I wasn’t allowed to question. No one was, not even my parents. It was a cultural heritage that had been continually passed on from generation to generation and I guess it was my generation’s turn next. So year after year, I followed what I was expected to follow and did what I was expected to do. No stray steps, no sacrilegious queries. Back then, what my father said was final and what my mother said was infinitely wise and I was a little ignorant idiot who understood the foolishness of his inquiries. Hence, I kept quiet like I was expected to.
But slowly the reach of my parents shadow began to weaken and I began to explore the world little by little. And let me tell you the world is a vile and disgusting place. It’s not like your church with a clean garden and a paved road to the gate. No sir. If I knew what the world was and is, I would’ve declined the offer to be born. Things happened that made me question the existence of the Almighty. And when I was a confirmed atheist I came to a conclusion there were two reasons why I left the holy path.
I don’t want to label it the main reason, so I’ll say the first of the two reasons was: my life started becoming a miserable and deplorable affair. I flirted with depression, well not flirted, to be more precise I fell in head over heels with depression. Every day was every day. I didn’t know what day of the week it was because I didn’t need to, they were all the same. What I did the day before would be the same thing I was doing today and the thing I was doing today, I would be doing the same thing tomorrow. I was alone, desolate and seriously wronged. I mean I felt I was wronged. This wasn’t the life I deserved. This wasn’t the life anyone deserved. It felt like I was being punished when I had done no wrong, at least nothing wrong enough to deserve what I got. But then I looked around, there were so many of us, living the same life with the same complaints. And it couldn’t be that this was the big plan God had for all of us. This couldn’t have been my destiny, to rot in a meaningless existence, doing things no one else cared for, decaying more and more as each day passed by. God didn’t answer my prayers. He left me stranded when I had no one but him. No one can be that cruel. And when I asked people who were supposed to know things, they said, God works in mysterious ways. My life made no sense, I was trying to find reasons to continue living, I was looking for some answers, a hope to hold on to, something, anything. Anything at all and they said, God works in mysterious ways. The best that they could come up with to help me save my life was GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS. Well, I guess at that point I had an epiphany of sorts. If God had forgotten about me it shouldn’t bother him much if I forgot about him and so I did.
It wasn’t the unexplainable wrongs that were happening in the world that caused my deviation. I knew about Hitler from the time I was little. It didn’t seem to bother me that God gave life to such a person when my life was good. Floods, fires, tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes everything was happening long before I became an atheist. And though it seem absurd that God would allow such things to happen, I didn’t really look much into it because He was kind enough not to include me in any of those. Everything the religious people said seemed plausible to me. Had someone asked me why God would allow such things to happen, perhaps even I would’ve answered, God works in mysterious ways. I didn’t become a nonbeliever because of the unfair human suffering the world had to go through. No, they were just points that I could throw at people in an argument about religion. I didn’t care too much about the six million Jews Hitler killed. I agree it was wrong and it shouldn’t have happened, but I only came to know about it after watching a movie. I mean, in the Bible God kills the entire population of the earth except one human family and a few animals. If God is capable of such barbarism, it wasn’t hard to see why Hitler got his life. But once my life took a turn for the worse, everything changed. God became an imposter. It’s strange really, it didn’t bother me much when six million lives were allowed to perish without reason but when my life, a single soon-to-be useless existence, became a tad difficult, everything about God became a lie. I know it’s a selfish approach but…… well I really can’t find something to say to make that sound a bit more acceptable.
My questions didn’t go away though. And since God wasn’t answering I had to look elsewhere. So I began to read, searching for my answers in books. There I found the second reason for my atheism. There were so many things religion couldn’t answer that books could. I read in a book the most amazing questions. It asked, if our children commit the most heinous crimes, unforgivable and inexcusable, will we have the heart to punish them by sending them to a place that uses the most gruesome torture methods imaginable? Is it possible for a father to do such a thing to his child? So, how can God, whom we decree: our kind and generous Almighty Father, send us, his children, to burn in the fires of hell, not for a day or a year, but for eternity. Here on God’s green earth we make a big issue if a father lays a hind in his son, but God has the ruthlessness to condemn his children to hell? Doesn’t seem right.
Books made me see this life is mine and I should do what I wish with it. I have to admit I didn’t do much but I did what I wanted to do, mostly. Though many disapproved, I lived my life, not the way God intended but the way I did and I think it’s acceptable since it is my life. There were so many answers and so many more questions. And slowly, my conviction that I had chosen the right way became more and more strong. I mean we used to believe child birth was a blessing from God not too long ago. We used to burn witches, we used to use shamans to cure diseases. We did so many things because we believed it was what God wanted us to do. Even now, all terrorists believe that what they are doing is God’s work. We can’t even figure out which God is the right God. If Christianity is the correct religion and if the Christian God does exist, then will the Muslims and the Hindus and the people following other religions suffer the same fate as an atheist? Will they burn in hell too? And the people that have never been and will never be exposed Christianity, the people in the small villages of a Muslim nation, are they already condemned without having been given a chance? That doesn’t seem like the workings of a fair God. There are so many things religion can’t answer. The more I read, the more I came to realize there is one rational answer that satisfies all queries and it is the lack of God’s existence. If we were to believe that God doesn’t exist, then everything becomes explainable. The reason behind Hitler would be that bad people exist, they always have they always will. The reason behind terrorism would be people take advantage of blind beliefs to get their dirty work done. Everything would then become simple. Everything would have a rational reason. There would be consequences, I know. Dostoevsky said, ‘If there is no God, everything is permitted.’ I guess the idea of God is necessary to keep certain factions of our society in line. It seems we believe that human nature is inherently inclined to depravity and is in the need of a system that will keep things in check. We have lost faith in ourselves but not in a supernatural being. Religion asked from me something I couldn’t give. A blind and unquestioning faith. If I am to believe in something to save my life and salvage my soul, I will need some proper convincing and religion just didn’t offer that. All my questions remained ignored, they were blasphemies not to be touched. So, religion didn't work to well with me. And unable to fulfill their criteria of unquestioning faith, I became an atheist.
But now lying in my death bed, I have begun to feel apprehensive about the idea of hell. I mean, I don’t want to burn in hell because I was too stubborn to relinquish my atheist beliefs. What if I’m wrong? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been wrong. So, I have a proposal to you mister priest. I have amassed quite a tidy sum over the years. And since I’m about to die, I don’t really have much work for it. I’ve decided to donate it all to your church’s orphanage. But in return I want complete forgiveness for all my sins and I want you to tell me that I will not go to hell. I know you need the money. I’ve been to the orphanage and it is not in a pretty condition. And before you accuse me some devious insinuation let me clear out the air by saying yes, this is me taking advantage of your situation. But you have to look at things from my side. I had to choose between making you feel guilty or burning in hell. The choice was pretty obvious for me. Isn’t it good enough that I’m offering all my money to charity or does it have to be that, it should be a sincere I-hope-for-nothing-in-return kind of offer? You can give the children the best meals of their lives tomorrow if you give me my ticket to heaven. So are you willing to offer me my salvation to feed your poor children? It’s your choice. If you say no, you have a clear conscience and the children stay the way they always were, I get another priest, no hard feelings. If you say yes, the children are happy, you get to be the good priest and get a peaceful death. I still can't let go of my atheist beliefs but if God does exist, I just want to have an argumentative point to offer when I have to explain why I deserve to be in heaven. Don’t you think God will be willing to overlook this small transaction to give you the means to feed all those hungry children? He surely won’t punish you for such a trifle misdemeanor when it results in such great happiness. Will he? Well you understand God better than me. It’s all up to you. So what’s it going to be?”

I am the modern man. Cradled in the lap of luxury, I lead my life in blissful ignorance. My wandering spirit is blinded by my monetary pursuits and I am willing to accept such blasphemies, for I am not a nomad. My spirit can be set free, to roam the wilderness in search for unanswered questions, after my body decays. I am plump, fat, and indulgent. I am an image of today's acceptable gluttony. I worry, not whether my next meal will be but rather what my next meal will be. I have a delicate palate and my body doesn’t know how to digest the common garbage. I am insatiable. I want a better phone, a better car, a better of everything I can think of. I think that's not too much to ask. I do not care if the world is burning outside, when I’m inside I want the weather to suit my needs. Desire may be the cause of all human sorrow, but the fulfillment of desires is the cause of most human happiness. And its suits me well that most of my desires can be bought. I do not wish to see the reason behind spending billions of dollars on big fat machines. Technology is not for the pursuit of scientific knowledge, it is to make my life easier. I do not care how a phone works, all I care is if it’s the latest model and can I afford it. I have judged my dreams to be an irrational proposition and my slavery prudent. I have rendered myself impervious to the temptations of freedom. I accept the cycle of mediocrity. It offers me the security of regular income. And when someone says, why you don’t try for a better job, the first thought that comes to my mind is: better salary. A better job doesn’t entail an escape from the dreary routine that I follow, a better job means I do what I always do but I get paid more to do it, so I can buy that car that always teases me so. My society equates pecuniary abundance with greatness and I am in complete agreement. If I want the things civilization offers, I should be willing to follow its rules. I am content with the way I live. Though my questioning soul says otherwise, it always feels that either I’m too young or too old to be chasing transcendent illusions. My soft and well lotioned hands and my sun screened skin need not face the undeserved punishments of nature. Even now when questions scudder through my unforgiving mind, I have the means to tame it so I can follow the secure circle of society. And though I have allowed myself to get lost this crowd of everyday life and though I have strained my freedom by my own choice and though I push myself away from escape every chance I get, no one seems to think I'm crazy. I figure that's because everywhere I look around people are doing the same. I'm not hedonistic or bohemian. I've compromised my lofty goals for mediocre aspirations to save myself from the possibilities of sordid outcomes. I am normal. I am the modern man.

I do not wish to scale the highest mountain. For then, what do I have left to climb? Once I reach the tallest peak, even the smallest of steps that I take next, will mark the beginning of my decline. I do not wish to cross the widest sea. For then, what do I swim across next? Will then the water that set me free feel the same again? I do not have a set objective for life, neither a definite goal nor a divine purpose. I am not in a resolute pursuit of the ultimate. I am apprehensive about a wholehearted devotion to a singular cause that is supposed to hold the meaning of life. And though I am scared of being a complete and abject failure, I am more fearful of any abrupt success. Because if I somehow fulfill the purpose, that I have prepared my whole life for, will I not be then doomed to a life of glorious reminiscence and regrettable future? If I prepare my whole life to climb the tallest mountain or swim across the widest sea, and once I complete it, will I be able to climb any other mountain with the same passion? Will the sea hold the same sense of freedom she once did? All I have in life are just these, my questions. And all I want my life to be is a defiant pursuit of answers. A pursuit of neither the riches of the coffers of Hades, nor the romantic blessings of Aphrodite but just a simple yearning to pass this life in a journey where on my way I manage to collect a few answers and I wish the answers I do receive lead me to more questions, and my thirst keep increasing, till I reach a point where either I feel comfortable with the answers my life has offered or my quest overwhelms me and renders me motionless. But if I do feel content on having learnt all that I wanted to learn, if I do feel satisfied that I know all that I wanted to know, if I can decree my thirst quenched, I will consider my life fruitful, my purpose complete and I will welcome my death. But for now, I wish for courage to never forget what I am and not give up my pursuit of the unknown.