A lot of the angst you feel against the world has much more to do with you than with the world at large. For what it’s worth, the sole purpose of being alive is to accept, from time to time, that we were mistaken earlier. That’s about it. There is no way you can progress without acknowledge that the bricks you’ve built your life on need to be replaced again and again and again and again. During my conversations with youngsters, I am amused by the certainty in their outlook. As if they have figured out the godforsaken world we’ve inherited based on the merit of 9 books that were penned between 18th and 20th century. But then, this is how it is supposed to be. We are meant to walk through the motions of denial and acceptance and denial and then acceptance again. When somebody says “life sucks”, what they genuinely mean to imply is that “life is a mischievous trickster of the highest order”.
When you work with a reward system in your mind, you are doomed. This applies to both the material as well as the spiritual side of things. Slogging hard hoping to win that corner office within a few years? Fasting with the benign wish of bagging the visa for heaven? Childish, if nothing worse. The only reason we must ever do anything—in personal space or professional—is to seek some sort of respite. Otherwise, the whole process turns into a thick blanket of stress, set to the tune of a chase that cuts us short and leaves us far behind where we even started. A simple question one can ask for any temporal gain could be “FOR WHAT?” And if the answer fills you with joy, then go for it.
Once upon a time, there lived a marvelous short story writer who didn’t care much about accolades and adulation. He stayed away from the limelight and kept writing, because that’s what made him happy. The act of typing his heart out upon a cranky typewriter in front of his window. To him, the results of his process weren’t his headache to deal with. Whether his readers appreciated his work, or his publishers saw merit in reprinting, or what the critics had to say in the press—he didn’t care. His energy remained invested in that tiny space between thoughts and words.
A human being, by the faults in our stars, is supposed to full of contradictions. Just like there won’t be a day without the night, or a high tide without a low tide, there can’t be a person without a few troughs and crests in being. To seek perfection in others is the folliest of all follies. If anything, we must learn to accept everyone for what they are, and not what they really want to be. Many a time our pretensions escape ahead of us and we are left behind wondering who are we at the end of the day, with no clear clues to figure out.
An ecosystem exists for a bigger picture. And that is true for the recognition as well. Take any field you like. Be it literature or arts or cinema or design or sports, awards are handed out in tandem with the so-called favourites. When Time magazine announces its Person of the Year, there is a method to the madness and a sophisticated agenda behind it. Nothing is random in an ecosystem. Here, even the accidents are a function of the bigger picture. It’s not a 100-meter sprint. There are creases to be ironed and cogs to be oiled, and then, when all the dust has settled amicably, we are have a winner worthy of print space and clickbaits and whatnot. Of course, this doesn’t mean that awards are worthless or awardees are just guinea pigs of attention. That said, as far as quality of existence goes, it doesn’t matter how many Oscars you win. But yes, it’s very important to win your first Oscar.
My pappa is at that age where it’s painful to hold a conversation with him. He is bound to say something snarky, just so he can go back to watching some lame content on his phone. The other day, I tried getting him to agree for an eye checkup, as he is facing issues with his glasses.
Me: “It’s just a short visit, won’t take more than a few minutes.”
He: “I don’t care. I don’t need to see anymore. I’ve seen enough in life.”
Imagine coming across a magician who shows the same magic trick every single time. Same shit, same day. Won’t you be disillusioned easily? Yet, this principle doesn’t apply to porn. For reasons more primitive than we care to admit, a majority of men remain glued to fantastiscal mode of carnal desire. It doesn’t take long for anyone with two ounce of brain to notice that porn is fake. But still, porn-consuming men—yes, female consumption of porn has been on the rise, but this paragraph is interested in the greater consumers—are alright with attending the funeral of logic, for a few moments of fantasy. In a way, this behaviour reeks of innocence as well as desperation.
Lionel Messi might play club football for a few more years but he won’t be vying for a shot at World Cup again. Qatar is his last chance and going by today’s dismal performance againt Saudi Arabia, is it a hyperbole to suggest that Argentina won’t be going very far in this tournament? At least in 2018, they had the honour of being the only team that led France (the eventual champion) at any point of the competition. Things felt shaky today, despite a very promising but heartbreaking number of offsides in the first half. To top it all, their 36-match unbeaten streak ended today in a terrible manner, thanks to 6-minute of magical football by the Saudis. Let’s see how what happens next.
Your true genius lies in how you deal with an underwhelming situation. Anybody can be a beacon of light when things are going fabulously well. It’s when you are down and out, that’s when your intelligence matters the most. If you can pull yourself up, good. If you can pull yourself up as well as others, great. Devastating moments happen rarely in life; a large chunk of a lifetime is spent on the fence of boredom. Something remarkable happens to you, nice or worse, because time is suddenly intertested in you. You are welcome.
As a little boy, I missed having a sister. All my friends back then had one whereas I was stuck with a younger brother who I wasn’t very fond of. I thought of this recently while watching the Belgian movie Playground (2021) where a little girl wants to protect her older brother from bullies in the school playground. But things get so messed up that she ends up disowning the one person she loves the most. The camera remains focused on her face throughout the film. To observe such a young talent’s brilliance has to be a cinematic bliss. Almost as incredible as that Lebanese boy’s performance in Capernaum (2018). Childhood, you see?
Those who know me know that I am a cynical piece of shit. But they also admit that I can occassionally turn into the most optimistic lamp of a creature. During those rare moments, the sun takes a break from the solar system. You can expect profound truism and so much faith in you (by me) that you are bound to doubt yourself (as well as me), and walk out of the room feeling like you can conquer Beijing. Well, my ultimate goal is to stay as a positive encouraging man who sees and says nothing bad about the world around him. Until that point, tolerarance is the way to go. Thank you for attending my sed talk.
You're my favorite human being Shakti. Keep going!