Holding on to random thoughts

Slices of adult life
* Slight pain at the back of the head. Then a bit of drowsiness, heaviness in the eyes, maybe because of staring at the computer screen for too long....

* A blogger describes himself as '.....earns his income working as a wageslave to an American Multinational'. Reading this brings a smirk. Why?

* Early evening. I stop working, take a stroll in the warm bylanes, get a pack of groundnuts. Munch as I walk for nearly 25 minutes. Relaxing!

* I raise my voice and as if on instinct, his face contorts. He begins to sob, uncontrollably. I console him, kick myself. Within no time he's back to his usual cheerful antics. Happiness and sorrow are the most fleeting elements in his world. So are most emotions. One minute he's angry, the next, cheerful, then curious, then sad and fearful, and then bored....when he sleeps, it's a delight to watch...he flops and sprawls as if nothing else matters! A child's heart.

I want to be that intense and that much detached with my own emotions!

Childhood

Stories -they never vanish.

'There are two dogs inside everyone of us--a good dog and a bad dog---and both are fiercly fighting with each other, all the time'.

'Then, who wins?'

'The one you feed'

People from childhood--their behaviour, you never forget. An uncle of mine who was a terror, who beat us up mercilessly, who invoked such fear and anguish in us that we once plotted to drop a stone slab on his head from a tree--he's a normal guy, just like anyone else. Now growing old, forgetful, fragile, he comes visiting us once in a way. I cannot shake off that image of him, however hard I try. I can be polite with him, speak casually, joke a bit but it's an attempt to cover up the disgust and hatred that's seething underneath.

Contemplating

'Everyone wants that which they don't have.'

Mmm.... and once they get it?

Then it becomes something which they have and they don't want it anymore. So they now want something they don't have.

Madness, isn't it?

Do you realize it's madness? Really? Is there that strong realization of your own madness?

Yeah, it is.

Passing away

An old lady in our locality, well into her 90s passed away last week. Her relatives had gathered and there was much sorrow and chestbeating for quite sometime. The dust settled. Now there's no sign of that sorrow, that departure, that vaccum....it's as if she didn't exist at all. Maybe I'm wrong. Those closest to her might still be feeling the loss, the emptiness, though not expressing it.

It's not only a human body that dies. Everything dies. Everything. A moment dies. It's gone. Forever, never to return. Friendships die. So do memories. Things disintegrate. Ideas vanish. It's a carnival--things taking birth, shining and vanishing. Some do this act in a flash and some take time to disappear, and some take a hundred years. You and I can label these acts--call them birth, death, passing away. We can attach emotions to these acts. Feel ecstatic over a birth. Feel devastated over a passing away(or the reverse). Or go philosophical and say 'This too shall pass'.

'When you understand death, you know life', He said. The more I try to grasp this understanding, the more silence it brings. Soothing silence.

Future--Twenty years from now.

I'll be travelling in a space ship to a distant galaxy. I'll be able to teleport myself from bangalore to alaska and from there to japan and back to himalayas. Or divide myself into twenty different selves, go to 20 different earths and lead different lives. Living in Utopia.

No. Our earth will be a nuclear wasteland(if not ravaged by floods and famine). We'll be living in a post-apocalyptic world, living like cavemen-with no electricity, gadgets, fastfood, entertainment, employment--things that are taken for granted now. No, even a needle will not be available freely. It's back to the basics. Grow your own food. Find your own clothes and build your shelter. Group together in communities. Share. Survive first and then search for meaning.

A flowering of consciousness will occur somewhere between and within these two scenarios. And that makes the difference.

Looks crazy from here, but I bet, when 20 years pass gradually, it won't be a joke. Life is crazy sometimes.