Something of Myself
Monday, November 01, 2004
Loss, Life, Lust and Dreams.
What do you do when you are driving your car at around 120 miles per hour, on the M4, and suddenly it begins to jerk and simply stops? Do you throw it at the scrapyard or do you try to fix it? Or do you get someone to fix it?
Life's like that. We drive, we pull the brakes, we accelerate and then suddenly out of the blue the engine gives up. Some get rid of the car, get a new one and others try to fix it. I wonder which group I belong to.
Loss is central to life, or so I think. We lose so many things - time, money, people, socks, papers, bills...can you think of anything that you will not end up loosing or haven't lost? I think loss is crucial to our existence. Yet, why then that we fear loss? What is it about loss that breeds a sense of insecurity in us?
Why do we feel insecure? Is it because we are attached to it? Or is it because we like life to be organised and start freaking out when one of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle goes missing? I don't have many answers right now. I have come to a stage in life where I start apprehending the losses. Perhaps that's why I am writing this post. Sometimes, it's a gut feeling you see, one just knows that I am going to loose this or that. At other times, you have no clue, you look back and it is there no more. Is everything elusive in our little lives? Is ANYTHING permanent?
The nature of blogs disallows us to write that which is personal. After all you never know who is going to read it. Does it really matter? Pray, if I were to write about the affairs I have had in my life and my mum ends up reading it, would it matter? I guess not but still we want to hold on to these bits of our existence which we can call our own, our very personal. But at some point of time we end up sharing them too, don't we?
There is a burning desire in me for a lasting companionship. Something that will see through the test of time, something that will transcend the boundaries of time, something that will define itself beyond the litmus test of life. I don't know if that's possible - life's a compromise they say but I know this: You live and you learn. We meet people, we love them, hate them, we invest our time, money, efforts...everything that we have in the hope that it is going to last. Why can't we be like Anand (Hrishikesh Mukherjee) and live life by the moment?
It takes guts to do that. I don't have that courage. I lust for peace, comfort and permanence knowing fully well that even this life of mine is going to die an untimely death. But somehow that dream is there - the lady with the pink saree, neatly pleated, cascade-like hair and of course the cup of tea. She stands by the bedside and I tell her about my day. She listens patiently and then says what she has to. Her presence makes it a beautiful dream. A dream which I want to dream over and over again.
Reality makes dreams temporal - the act of dreaming seems endless. When you dream, when you see what you desire in a sub-conscious state of mind, time has no meaning. In life, with flesh and blood time seems to be a killer. Loss is inevitable.
I am a dreamer - wouldn't want to live life otherwise. And I am going to live my dreams - of course, within the framework of time 'cause too much is at stake. This life, this dream and this me - forever pining for what is not...a tender touch, a sweet smell and a morbid sense of the ungettable.
What do you do when you are driving your car at around 120 miles per hour, on the M4, and suddenly it begins to jerk and simply stops? Do you throw it at the scrapyard or do you try to fix it? Or do you get someone to fix it?
Life's like that. We drive, we pull the brakes, we accelerate and then suddenly out of the blue the engine gives up. Some get rid of the car, get a new one and others try to fix it. I wonder which group I belong to.
Loss is central to life, or so I think. We lose so many things - time, money, people, socks, papers, bills...can you think of anything that you will not end up loosing or haven't lost? I think loss is crucial to our existence. Yet, why then that we fear loss? What is it about loss that breeds a sense of insecurity in us?
Why do we feel insecure? Is it because we are attached to it? Or is it because we like life to be organised and start freaking out when one of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle goes missing? I don't have many answers right now. I have come to a stage in life where I start apprehending the losses. Perhaps that's why I am writing this post. Sometimes, it's a gut feeling you see, one just knows that I am going to loose this or that. At other times, you have no clue, you look back and it is there no more. Is everything elusive in our little lives? Is ANYTHING permanent?
The nature of blogs disallows us to write that which is personal. After all you never know who is going to read it. Does it really matter? Pray, if I were to write about the affairs I have had in my life and my mum ends up reading it, would it matter? I guess not but still we want to hold on to these bits of our existence which we can call our own, our very personal. But at some point of time we end up sharing them too, don't we?
There is a burning desire in me for a lasting companionship. Something that will see through the test of time, something that will transcend the boundaries of time, something that will define itself beyond the litmus test of life. I don't know if that's possible - life's a compromise they say but I know this: You live and you learn. We meet people, we love them, hate them, we invest our time, money, efforts...everything that we have in the hope that it is going to last. Why can't we be like Anand (Hrishikesh Mukherjee) and live life by the moment?
It takes guts to do that. I don't have that courage. I lust for peace, comfort and permanence knowing fully well that even this life of mine is going to die an untimely death. But somehow that dream is there - the lady with the pink saree, neatly pleated, cascade-like hair and of course the cup of tea. She stands by the bedside and I tell her about my day. She listens patiently and then says what she has to. Her presence makes it a beautiful dream. A dream which I want to dream over and over again.
Reality makes dreams temporal - the act of dreaming seems endless. When you dream, when you see what you desire in a sub-conscious state of mind, time has no meaning. In life, with flesh and blood time seems to be a killer. Loss is inevitable.
I am a dreamer - wouldn't want to live life otherwise. And I am going to live my dreams - of course, within the framework of time 'cause too much is at stake. This life, this dream and this me - forever pining for what is not...a tender touch, a sweet smell and a morbid sense of the ungettable.
4 Comments:
everything is so relative ... IF you lose ur CAR ... that which was facilitating ur whole journey ... thats a HUGE parallel.
anyway - if you lose ur car - u can take buses (temp sol) till u get another car or - IF u really wanted THIS car and NO OTHER no matter what ... then go thru whatever amount of time / effort / impossibilty it takes to fix this car ...
but, everything thats broken is not fixable. then what do you do with a) the broken pieces? b) the gap left by what broke off? keep it as a momento, and move on? fill it with something else? or throw away the whole of which the part flaked off ... or wait for it grow back ... just in case it does?
Yes, crucial difference about the "facilitating the whole journey" bit, but, then again, it is me who decides the route and the journey, not the car, right?
My problem is like you said - what do we do with the broken pieces - the fragments? Well, I look at them, tell myself that these pieces, at one point of time, somewhere in the near past, made a whole...that moment, that time was when I drove it like a Harley Davidson. Great feeling - after all, not everyone has a Davidson! And now, it is not there anymore, so? Move on.
Whether I will get a new car or whether the new car will "substitute" the old is beyond the boundaries of my imagery. You like a car, you drive it, it breaks down, you move on...you get the idea! ;) But thanks for your comments...helps putting things into perspective. :)
But truthfully what you lose is usually garbage. There are imperishable things. Latch on to them.
Thanks Larry, good to hear from you again. x
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