Obsessed with the steering wheel
Obsessed with the steering wheel
Growing up is not an event, it’s just a sporadic occurrence. Throughout your childhood, you are told that one day you will grow up as you get bigger and taller and stronger. Nobody taught us the truth. And then something else happens altogether: you realize that growing up had nothing to do with your height or body frame or physical strength. You only get to “grow up” when you earn money, gain financial independence, assume extra responsibilities and try to spend your time on things that are greater than your narrow self. That’s real growth. Sadly, MBA schools don’t bother to teach this stark reality either.
One of the greatest ironies of human species is men are the ones obsessed with their penis size. Since women tend to look at the bigger (no pun intended) picture, for the most part, they simply don’t give a shit (no fun intended). If they find a man who is enough for them, they are good. They don’t go around with a measuring tape before jumping into the bed. That stupidity is best left to men. Poor foolish men. We fail to understand this unique characteristic of our own kind and keep beating ourselves up by staying in the comparison mode forever. For what it’s worth, we ultimately learn to replace our analogies. Since a man can’t do much about his penile size, he starts comparing everything else in forms that can be altered because he can’t change his dick size. Bigger house. Bigger car. Bigger diamond rings. Bigger this. Bigger that. The eternal libido.
The heroine of this paragraph is named Ani. A rather sweet woman who is often caught lost in her own profoundness. You can call her wise but she’d ignore you. Others stare out of the window and see that they notice that they are actually glancing at their own reflections in the glass pane. No, not Ani. She doesn’t: she looks at the changing weather, the fastening crowd on the streets below and most importantly, the utter hollowness of being. A part of her wants to break free and never return to her mundane setting. Another part of her wants to be selfless for her dear ones. In all probability, she will find the way out someday but until that happens, she will keep staring out of her large window.
Chances are you’ve got friends you don’t talk to often but who are always meandering within the perimeter of your consciousness—while watching a TV show as an onscreen character reminds you of them— or subconsciously—appearing out of nowhere in your dreams, basically reminding you to contact them—for reasons you can’t fathom. They are not a part of your everyday life and yet are an integral feature of your existence. Although their friendship means a lot to you, and perhaps yours to them, you are somehow gone radio silent on air. Perhaps this is how lost friendships take birth. And if we don’t work on them immediately, we’d not only lose out on people but also the time we’ve spent on them in the past.
Just like there are different meanings of life, there are different forms of love too. It’s obnoxious to box love into one category. We are a vessel containing various emotions, some within our grasp and most outside our grasp. Thanks to our classic idiocy, we tell ourselves that we understand what we feel for others. People enter our life to teach us stuff about ourselves, not them. However, it’s only much later our feelings show us how badly mistaken we were. Things get worse when we are in the middle of the road called unrequited love. You stand there like the dumbfuck that you are, not knowing which direction to take. Because no matter what you choose, you shall remain empty. And in spite of all these ramifications (my favourite Hindu word), we continue to love in whatever capacity we can. Why? Well, each one of us was born into love even if we weren’t born out of love.
Seeking perfection doesn’t make you perfect. The saddest truth I’ve discovered so far. We all want things to go well; nobody leaves their house thinking that they will end up in a freak road accident. When you break down the basics, perfection is merely surviving for the next day. That’s all. When I was playing chess, I sought perfection: a game where my blunders were negligible and I made all the right moves. Happened seldom but was worth chasing that feeling. The same pursuit now only applies to car driving. If I drive well, avoiding the innumerable potholes, while maintaining safe distances, and following all the traffic rules and still making sure that the car engine doesn’t turn off, I am proud of my perfection. Again, this happens rarely. Now that I am closer to 36 than I am to 35, and am forced to look back at my life, such moments mean a lot more to me than even some of my cherished childhood memories.