If not me then who...If not now then when...?
Midnight.......The building next to my house is due for inauguration in another 3 days, so the final work is still going on, even at this hour. I browse through 'Radical simplicity' and pick up the above sentence, and begin applying it in my own context-- regarding my faltering meditations and unsure career growth. This book, which appeared damn boring and pedantic just yesterday, now looks wonderfully interesting--I was horribly out of mood yesterday. There are urgent lessons for me here. Maybe for others too.
Last week I rummaged through my dusty cupboards and spilled out all the books and dust that'd accumulated there for the past two years. Then I rearranged the books, divided them into those I've already read and will never touch again, those I've read once but will probably go through a few times more and those that I'm yet to open. Amidst all the jumble, I found a small bunch of sheets I'd scribbled nearly 7 years ago.
Those were the days of unbridled carefreeness and aimless living--and these notes reflected every bit of that mentality-- melancholic, slightly irresponsible and a tad worried too.
With my ears on the silence of the night, I glance at this paragraph from 20th sept 2000.
'Drizzle outside. The song from the radio mingles and loses itself in the whistle of the howling winds outside my window. A slight pain shooting up my spine. A distant rumbling of an approaching vehicle. Worried about tomorrow. An uncertain today. An eternal defeat.....
'There's a strangeness everywhere, wherever I look. Maybe all of this is an illusion! My attempts at creating fiction, my failures because of a gradual erosion of my personality, my pursuit of success, these rains, this moment, this night, a face that comes to memory over and over, a loss of innocence---what if all of this is an illusion? Then what is reality?'
That moment will probably never come again. It's a piece of eternity, momentarily glimpsed but remembered and recorded in a few sentences. And it has a very deep significance and importance, at least to one person on this earth---me. I wonder at all those other moments that were captured in such hurried scribbles--that were lost forever when I threw many of those sheets away...... Man!
Organizing one’s books can be a stimulating experience. I must do as you did soon: I have a few hundred stored at my mom’s house and she is selling it. Somewhere I have stored about 30 volumes of a journal I began writing about 40 years ago. I wonder if I have the courage to read them?
ReplyDeleteYes, I had organized my books earlier this month. I kept some on the shelf and others I stacked in the closet. Cycles, I suppose. I too discovered some books that were not an interest before that became an interest. It seems that all these books, the ones read, the one thumbed through, and the ones that collected dust were all a part of the search of me. I like that: "If not me then who...If not now then when...?"
ReplyDeleteAll the journals I had kept through the years I shredded and let go. I looked at then and I pondered now. I basically wanted to get out of my 'poor me' attitude. :)
I truly enjoyed this reflective post of yours, vishwa (as well as all of your other writings). You are a wonderful writer in revealing the substance of the soul.
By the way, I love the bird picture. :)