Timely Thoughts

Sitting in the dhaba outside the campus I can’t help but feel a bit restless and irritated as time ticks by while I wait for my order to arrive. It’s become a new affliction of sorts that I seem to suffer from. Some days I can sleep all day, doing nothing, almost as though I’m in a state of hibernation without a worry. But some days I can’t sit still and tend to get terribly annoyed and frustrated if I can’t find something to do. Compounding this problem is the wide area of interest that I’ve cultivated over time and the unruly chaotic mass of the variety of ideas and techniques I’ve been planning to implement in each of my varied interests. Add to this the varied deterring circumstances, back-to-back classes and that nefarious, unwelcome guest called the ‘writer’s block’ and you have a recipe for a nuclear meltdown of me wee little head.

So I twitch and shift continuously in my seat thinking about why I’m afflicted by this strange new ailment and I suddenly realise, maybe it’s because all those quotes, articles and books have finally penetrated the dense, thick fog of silliness and general idiocy that surround my brain like a protective blanket, preserving the innermost cogs that drive my craziness from corruption and corrosion from any external agents and have begun their sinister work.

Perhaps for the first time I truly appreciate the quote that my English language professor, Dr. L Kavitha Nair has displayed on the walls of her cabin. It goes somewhat like this “To put days into life is ageing but to put life into days in living.” And perhaps I now appreciate why Richard Dawkins stresses the fact that contrary to what people say to discredit atheistic people, that their lack of belief in divinity is but an excuse to shirk the responsibility of living a good life, the fact that you don’t believe in an afterlife, in some continuation of existence or in rebirth means you have this one chance, just one go at doing what you want to do and doing it right, this one chance to play whatever role you choose and actually making a positive impact, for there is no other life for you to repent for your sins and balance the scales of misdeeds of one life in another life or realm. Talking in terms of biology, he explains how that one sperm in a million that got through and made us may just as easily have been another out of those same millions, and thus being the lucky one out of those million possible people to actually exist, we have a greater responsibility to live up to our true potential.

I prefer putting it in slightly easier to understand terms. The responsibility that he says we are supposed to live up to gets multi-plied manifold when you consider the millions of people out there in the world who don’t have the same chances and choices as you do, to live their lives to their fullest potential. Forget freedom, many of these unfortunate souls don’t even get a chance to live due to diseases, wars and numerous other causes that run them into the ground. Very few amongst them find a chance to be truly happy, even for a brief moment in time.

In light of all this, I feel that moping and wasting one’s life away is not just an act of wanton self-destruction, it is gross negligence bordering on the criminal and an insult to the freedoms that are you possess. Freedoms that millions, nay, billions can only dream of. Not that I’m expecting every one of you to become the next Mother Teresa or Van Gogh or Mozart. No, expecting that from everyone, or from anyone for that matter, would be just plain idiocy. Instead what I request is that we make our lives better, that we actually utilise what little freedoms we have instead of leaving them on a shelf as a display piece to show off to those who don’t possess them. Live your life to the fullest, become a musician, become an artist, a doctor, a lawyer, just another worker in some big company or be whatever else you may wish to be. Do whatever you wish to do, be it ordinary, mundane tasks or something different and exciting. Whatever you become, whatever you do, utilising your freedoms and your skills is up to you. The only thing I’d ask is at the end of your life you shouldn’t have reason look back and think with regret those thoughts starting with “If only…”. For even the simple act of actually living as opposed to ageing will be a sort of a tribute to those who don’t have a chance.

Perhaps it is these thoughts spinning through my head that now war with my off and on, depressed lethargy, that get me so keyed up and bouncy all day. Perhaps one day I’ll learn to control these thoughts and channel all this jittery, frustrated eagerness and annoyance into something constructive, use this as a fuel to drive me on further down the paths I choose to take.