Monday, October 19, 2009

float

I wonder how life has its strange ways of reminding how small and insignificant you are to the larger scheme of things. The funniest part is it comes from your own making.

The elaborate scheme that you conceive ends up consuming you and you try your best to break free. All your plans, your shrewdly, meticulously planned best schemes fall flat on their faces when the time comes for execution.

You realize that everything is in the larger scheme of things and you are allowed to move within a standard deviation range. As long as you are within that range, all your schemes are “perfectly planned and efficiently executed,” as soon as you deviate too much from the unidirectional flow, you are forced back again in the grand scheme of things and your shrewed plan reveals itself as nothing but a collection of most obvious flaws and people ridicule your 'quixotic' endeavor.

There could be exceptions. Or are they exceptions really? Are they something like the first atom shot in a particular direction to which the entire mass should eventually follow? I don’t know.

Of late, some great things have happened in my life in a very short span which has illuminated me and held open the book of life like no amount of book reading and visuals have done. I was carrying a great weight of expectations, a weigh so heavy that it was sinking me in the abyss, in a deep, dark trench without me knowing so. I was sinking deep, deep and I was happy until somebody snapped the rope that was tying me with the great weigh and like a bubble, like a cork I am rising up now … I could see the darkness of the deep slowly giving way to green-blue-emerald forms .... It may not be a mistake if I think I could see a silver sliver turning wide as I rise up. I am rising very fast, without caring for being patient enough to glimpse what’s around me. Like a cork, I am sure about my destination. It’s up, up and above till I see the sun face to face. I can’t and I will not attempt to breathe till I smell the salty air on the surface.

I want to float with the waves, the weeds and the dead fish till I am momentarily stuck at a place and wait for the tsunami to wash me again.

I don’t care about spirituality. Spirituality doesn’t care about me. I know whatever is around me is here and now and I have to smell and touch everything possible to get a feel. I know as soon as I am dead, everything is ash and that’s it. I cease to exist, my feelings, my senses are separated and lost from one another. Just like a hedge fund buying a complete business and selling it part by part until the name of the establishment is erased from the minds of the people and the parts became establishments or part of other rising establishments themselves. When I cease to exist, my senses, which are held ransom in this troubled body will find new houses of their own. My touch may find home to a tiger cub, my smell might go to a pig, my vision could go to an ant , my taste might go to a hungry emaciated dog and my hearing capabilities may reside in a conch-shell so that when you press it on your ear, you hear the sound of sea.

Scattered, the ‘I’ in me will be lost.

It is but a fortune that my senses have decided to be with the ‘I’ in me and I should celebrate that. I should feel everything around me when I am adrift on this vast blue ocean. Yet, I must not rub myself too much to get a mark on me.

From this point, let life be a celebrated journey of nothingness and let it come with its own gloom, doom and cheers. Yet, now having getting the knowledge that I am just but a part of the larger scheme of thing, let it be just a cork on the vast blue ocean. Amen.

9 comments:

Vincent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Vincent said...

Forgive my last (now deleted) comment. I like the way you have depicted your state in an extended metaphor of descent and resurfacing. Very happy to see you back again in such good form.

Vincent said...

Reinstated comment:

Amen. According to Albert Camus, in his Mythe de Sisyphe, you have discovered the Absurd.

Sisyphus has been sentenced to an eternal torment by the gods. His task is to roll a heavy stone up the hill; but as soon as it gets to the top, it rolls back down again. He goes down to fetch it and the cycle repeats.

I've been attempting a translation from the French, unsatisfied with the English version generally available. Here is an extract:

"It’s at that turning point, the moment of pause at the summit, where Sisyphus interests me most. A face that toils so close to stone is pretty much stone itself. I see him go back down, his step heavy yet even-paced, towards torment without end. That’s the hour of respite, as fixed, as guaranteed, as the hours of hardship; that’s the hour when he lives consciously. In those moments when he turns away from the summit, and wends his way back down to the gods’ base-camp, that’s when he transcends his fate, overcomes his rock.

"If there is tragedy in this myth, it lies in its hero’s awareness. Where would be the torment, if every step was buoyed by hope of success? His tasks are scarcely different from those of labourers in our current world, waking up each day to the same toil. Their fate is just as absurd as that of Sisyphus, but touch tragedy only in the rare moments when they’re fully conscious of their predicament. Sisyphus, this pleb in the pantheon, this powerless rebel, knows the full stretch of his miserable condition, which is the topic of his contemplation, on his way down. Such clearsightedness should overload him with torture; but it crowns him with victory too. For there’s no destiny which can’t be vanquished with the weapon of scorn."

Anonymous said...

very morbid ghetu..

Vincent said...

I've just read this post again, and I don't think it is morbid at all; but I'm full of admiration for the wisdom and quality of the writing.

ghetufool said...

vincent, sorry for not replying to your comment. your example from Camus, about Sisyphus is prompting me to read the book now. thank you very much. thank you for saving me from anon's allegation. cause it's really not morbid.
if you think the writing has some quality, it is nothing but a cause of jubilation for me, cause i look up to you for language.

Anonymous said...

wah mast post mehul... great going... keep it up... mujhe pura vishwaas hai ke tumhara dimaag kharab ho gaya hai...
gurdeep

ghetufool said...

hello gurdeep, it's not mehul. but i can't deny that he doesn't have some influence on my 'dimaag' :)

Anonymous said...

Hi!
You may probably be very interested to know how one can make real money on investments.
There is no need to invest much at first.
You may commense earning with a sum that usually goes
for daily food, that's 20-100 dollars.
I have been participating in one project for several years,
and I'm ready to share my secrets at my blog.

Please visit blog and send me private message to get the info.

P.S. I make 1000-2000 per daily now.

http://theinvestblog.com [url=http://theinvestblog.com]Online Investment Blog[/url]

Of Cricket and Other Sports

I have started playing cricket after some thirty years. I can't claim to be the best bloke around in cricket, far from it, but I am one ...