March 5th is a date i wouldn't forget in a hurry. If i make a list of top ten days of my professional career where i felt low, this would be right on top of the pile. The news that came in that day, was cushioned a bit by the other discussion that happened earlier that morning. It was as if, your heart would give in at 5 pm and you get a new heart for transplant just hours before that news break. Off late i've been thinking a lot of my post life situation and scenario for no reason and that incident made me think even more of such possibility. Eventually we all have an expiry date, which as Rajini says in a movie, "Saagara naal terinjitta vaazhara naal naragamaaidum" (if you know when you will die, every single living day could become hell). And if people realize that we are all eventually going to die, the amount of crimes and wrong things they do will definitely come down. But if we keep looking at that target date, we will forget to live and that universal thought process is what driving many people towards all those things that they do in their life, thinking they will outlive every one else and this is a race where the person who is the richest when they die, wins!!
I kept thinking about how much savings i've at this moment and how much would be required for junior's studies and for the family's survival and eventually it hit me that, more than morbid, that thought process in itself was flawed. There are only uncertainties in life and assuming anything as fixed, only skews up the thought process. When it is anything goes kind of a scenario all over the world, with literally a dozen countries are currently at active war with one another, dragging more into the scene with each day, there is nothing that we can take for granted to make any assumption. By the same logic, it doesn't make sense to penny pinch and hoard as well. The mental balance that is key to live each day, when disturbed even slightly, makes every day an ordeal to survive. Even with possibly the best hand possible of the miserable situation, where one is considerably better placed than the vast majority, turning back to look at the number of people more miserable than you doesn't make one any happy. If that becomes true, it will lead to a tribe of sadistic people who would simply make others suffer to enjoy their pain. Hopefully, humanity hasn't descended or found that depth yet.
I keep my dad and his parents as benchmark when it comes to life expectancy and in what shape they left their family and their struggles, when alive, in ensuring proper life for their family. In fact such extremely negative thoughts have kind of had a cathartic effect on me, where in i find myself to have calmed down a bit in my daily life. I've begin to ignore my OCD level criticism of simple things and have begun to see things a lot more from others perspective. Each time when i feel like i am going to hit the reset button, i remind myself of that day and try to remind myself of the blessings that is around me. This post may not make much sense, like every other post in this space, but hopefully if someone at some point of time, does slip in here and if it throws a bit of light for them, so be it. Hopefully, something great and monumentally big will happen soon that can get me a good night's sleep, waking up afresh the next day morning. Cest la vie.
Comments
That Rajni dialogue is indeed a deeply philosophical point. We can only be sane if we don't know when we are going to die. And it is a survival instinct built into us that even though we well know that one day we have to go, we can live every day without that thought ; else we will go mad.
As you say, we are all very blessed, even though when facing some particular difficulty, it may not appear to be so. Just think of a parent or a child in Gaza, or one of the Israeli hostages there and we know how fortunate we are. But again , as you say, that is no consolation.
You are a good man Gilsu. You have a great set of values, you are precious to so many people. You do much for your family and friends and can be proud of yourself anyday. A blip here or there does not make an iota of difference. In fact if there were no blips in our lives we will be profoundly unhappy, for to appreciate happiness there also has to be some sadness.
Gilsu is at his best when he makes "pheelings" posts !