Carpe diem

The first time I heard about this phrase was as a code name for a project in one of my previous organization. I thought it was a French client and when I googled about them, realized it was more of a phrase. Took a really long while to remember the meaning and even longer time to understand. But the phrase got stuck in mind. It has a really nice ring to it. And as a concept, it never made more sense than at present, literally and figuratively. Every previously known walk of life has been thrown off its rails and no one is sure of what to expect. The question as to where you see yourself in 5 years’ time would probably be scorned at in any interviews for surviving the present day, escaping the pandemic is priority numero uno. The disease happens to have its origins definitely in communism (the fact that its rumoured to be from China is a mere happenstance), for it is a great leveller, knocking of super rich and super poor with equal vengeance, barring the degree of suffering. Kindergarten students don’t know how their schooling is going to take shape, for their foundation years have already been lost. Teachers of middle school are dreading the day when schools re-open to accommodate the incomplete/not started work of the previous classes. Senior secondary kids are fearing/couldn’t care less about their graduation into college. College goers are equally clueless as to where their life is heading, having neither the enjoyment of college life nor the pressure of studies with no guidance on what happens next. Same goes for people in jobs, in between jobs, out of jobs, starting their own business, not knowing what do with the business idea that just germinated. If you take a breath to count, the letter “no” might’ve been omnipresent on this post. But why all this panic? What is causing this negativity? Why do we never feel good with what we’ve and always worry about what we don’t? The thought of saving for better tomorrow, to have a better tomorrow, to protect the tomorrow has always been drilled on our minds that, today, as a concept, exists only to safeguard the tomorrow. And when that tomorrow does arrive finally, it is unrecognizable or goes unnoticed as yet another today.

Probably this pandemic is nature/god’s way of reminding that there are actually 3 tenses and we need not necessarily get tensed over the future one alone. After seeing the rapid monotony with which we were making a real robot of ourselves, the pandemic has thrown out the rule book of how to live or work out of the window. And no one really knows how it is going to take shape. As per the well accepted statistic, the 2% of the population that thinks and sets the way for the rest to follow are yet to figure it out. Till the time, it an either be chaos or do whatever you want to. There is no course or tool or trick that is pandemic proof to survive the next decade or to help you outlive this situation. The only way this can be beaten is by stop thinking ahead and start looking at present to see what we can do, one hour at a time. The long awaited slow motion button on reducing the pace of life is finally here. Do things that were never planned. You literally have to live like its your last chance. Make full use of it, yet be sensible in not getting either yourselves or other infected. 

The phrase carpe diem is actually a part of a bigger sentence that makes absolute meaning in present day world. 

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero -  seize the day, put very little trust in tomorrow