Rarely does it happen that on a chilly-foggy-December-winter-morning the first thoughts popping in your mind while sipping tea are about something as cold as death. Strange. I mean one could have thought of romantic aspects of the weather-the freshness of dew on flowers, the mystical foggy woods etc etc. Or, just like normal days, about what schedule of gym to follow that day. Or, just like on rare occasions, even thinking about the morning jog- you in your track suit, tearing through the fog blanket and braving the spine-chilling wind, (acknowledging school going children perching out of bus windows), just for a nice stroll on dew-y grass of the park nearby- is understandable and legit. Hell, if nothing else, you have the fresh newspaper to feast on. But death?  I beg your pardon, either you have to be terribly depressed, obsessed with the idea, or you are researching on it. Well my case was rather a mix of all three possibilities.

11pm the previous night:  The cosy quilt, the laptop playing nostalgia-heavy playlists (made in high school), as well as churning out warm breeze from its exhaust indeed induce you into slumber. There’re no worries of pending work, no deadlines to meet, and no exams, just what a typical winter vacation night should be. But the mind is still not at peace. There’s too much going on in there. Lectures series by a young enthusiastic astrophysicist -on how universe originated, how we’ve managed to know what all we know about it, how different theories have all tried to don the Unification theory cap  and have consequently failed to do so, how there might be an upper limit to what human brain can digest about the secrets of our universe, the possibility of multiverses, parallel universes, extra dimensions, the space-time warping, fancied ideas of wormholes, time travel etc - are all too engaging for a brain that has, for quite a while now, stopped caring about the details and become more of a consumer of useless informations(more about this in a later post). Soon enough it gives up, calling it a day, with laptop following suit.

                     I don’t remember when was the last time I thought about death. Maybe it was while watching some documentary on History channel about the ruthless Roman Empire. I was never afraid of death, never paid any heed to it (though I perfectly knew its seriousness), because honestly I never had many things to be possessive about. I used to have small aims, one at a time, if you like. So the fear of leaving life incomplete was rarely there. But as we grow up, our ambitions take shape and these shapes cast our future. You start imagining a bigger collage of your life where you wish to sleekly edit anything that lessens the aesthetics. Possessiveness leads to insecurities and the fear of death increases proportionally. Little deeper introspection clears the air, revealing those truths that most people-running full throttle in their goal chase- would prefer not to talk about.

But it still cannot explain why a sane person-in prime of his not-so-difficult life- would wake up and out of many exciting propositions, thinks about death. I mean there are many contenders for tea-time-thought-brewing, who are way more exciting and fantastic.

 I think the problem with the attitude has to do a lot with one’s surroundings, support system and the outlook. Even when am still engaged in writing this blog, one fragment of my mind has already started the guessing games of what impression this post might have on its readers. This over cautiousness is bound to cause tension and pointless expectations. Why is it so hard for a person to remain original? Maybe it’s the peer pressure, of different sorts and in different disguises that affects your decision making. Maybe it’s the difference between the anticipation and the reality. We all want to behave in a particular way in some particular situation. You weigh-in all the deciding factors-the situation, the people around you, the stakes involved. Your mind does the math and you come up with the most befitting set of actions that will justify your personality. But it’s a myth that all those things are good for your business. I mean good for business yeah, probably, but bad for you, in the longer run. Being natural is seemingly difficult. But it’s the same thing, originality, which will take you all the way.

Now few may argue that being natural and being adaptable are things having no truck with each other. Yes, one doesn’t affect the other, true that. Few might even come up with the sweeping “it-all-depends-on-situation” statement, and this too might fit in here. But the point is when we lose our touch with the true-self, we’re headed for a rough patch of mundane life, which can be something like living life in someone else’s shoes. You might achieve what you once jotted down on your bucket list (which you made when you were a teenager, again under “inspired influence”), you might be striking things off the things-to-do-before-i-die list, but soon enough it will dawn on you that things have changed. The time has moved on, so has the society. But renewing that list never crossed your mind; because perhaps you were too busy running, with the list in your hand, out in the worldly supermarket, still in someone else’s shoes.

But that’s what you find in most of the “Best sellers” in the “Super Achievers” genre, don’t you? They depict the scenario just like this, using most realistic imageries and brilliantly apt metaphors. And no matter how many books you read, unless you are dumb smart enough to follow one such book religiously, you end up with very little to gain and almost nothing to implement. I admit, it is difficult to take a leaf out of these books straightaway. More so in cases where ‘you’ yourself want to remain in that gravity well of negativity, at times making half-hearted attempts (this blog-post for e.g.) despite knowing it won’t help a bit. Now this case is something exceptional, it’s more tiring than reading astronomy books in bed just after a heavy workout, more depressive than any other emotional pangs known to man. Because here the soul simply refuses to lift itself up. Feeding on pity, whiling away precious hours in the name of taking-it-easy and shying away from responsibilities, it all becomes viciously addictive (strange it may sound, people do seek emotional support in the name of ‘being depressed’, not that it’s bad; am not judging). It’ll come up with weird explanations for incompetency; it will cite examples of previous achievements to justify its future actions. At extreme stages, if you were ever intellectually sound in past, thoughts of ‘giving up’ will cross your mind several times- the idea of death becomes THE trouble-shooter. This whole live-your-life thing becomes tiring and the thought of leaving earth for good satiates the soul’s innumerous-unanswered-questions about life (which every person asks at some point of his/her life). Then who plays the spoil sport? After all, the show must go on. You guessed it right, tis Death itself. Extremist thoughts are normalised, and fear of death surmounts (God’s way of telling: Son, life is precious, don’t just throw it away, it can be beautiful). It’s very depressing, to say the least. The whole loop is so tiring and time consuming, apart from the intellectual-bashing-of-a-lifetime that it gives. But it is nothing like other patches of life. Because if dealt with seriously, and I mean SERIOUSLY, this one is capable of beautifully shaping the intellectual side, reinstating the values on which your life will thrive and acts to bring meaning to your life. For how long and how deep you remain in this trench decides your fate. Some get into it early (for myself at age 19, I’d call it early) and might get out late, whereas others might be lucky with a last in first out. It’s all p & c.    

(This post was written hurriedly over a notepad just few minutes after I woke up one fine morning in December 2012 at home. Apart from the grammatical corrections, I never bothered to edit the content per se. It was probably the outburst of the “miserable” past few months-the intensity of which had started affecting even the dreams. That morning I saw the thresholds of sorrow.  So it was like painting the dream itself, sans the colours and brushes. Or maybe it was some sort of a help from the almighty itself, because after that day I was much happier, with following of a chain of events that ensured the happiness lasts. And that was the first step in my wisdom creating a what I call: Charter of one’s life, more about which in next post)

Adieu.