Today I was talking to one of my friends about (who else?) myself when he said this about me vis-à-vis another common friend of ours.
"People like you are meant to change the world, but people like him were made to survive in it"
:)
I really don't know if I should take it as a compliment or a judgement. Any ways, it was quite thought-provoking. So much merges into what I am into these days, self realisation (/mockery /denial /discovery /pity) All things self, though.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Know Thyself...
Somehow, this poem makes so much sense to me right now...
Know ThyselfThe Riddle of the World...sometimes it becomes too puzzling for me.
by Alexander Pope
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast,
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such
Whether he thinks too little or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
Monday, November 27, 2006
Murphy
Going as per rationality, the Murphy's Law must apply to all the phenomena of this universe, including those dictated by the Murphy's Laws themselves, no?
Keep thinking ;)
Keep thinking ;)
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Confession
This post for a very selfish reason.
Today was a bad day. And I am writing this so that I remember everytime I see it, that how bad it was. Maybe I will look back at it someday and have reassurance that it wasn't THAT pathetic, or at least something good came out of it all.
In the end, its every man for himself, and it's never too late to work towards a better life. Maybe this is it.
The feeling of remorse for letting down a close friend shall always pinch. I'll have to do something about it.
I am sorry, Sumeet.
Today was a bad day. And I am writing this so that I remember everytime I see it, that how bad it was. Maybe I will look back at it someday and have reassurance that it wasn't THAT pathetic, or at least something good came out of it all.
In the end, its every man for himself, and it's never too late to work towards a better life. Maybe this is it.
The feeling of remorse for letting down a close friend shall always pinch. I'll have to do something about it.
I am sorry, Sumeet.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
<...>
As I push the door, it opens with a creek, almost poetically. As I enter, I can distinctly smell the smoke of a freshly stubbed out cigarette. Strange, because it has been quite some time since anyone has been here. The tinge frolicks around with my nostrils for a few moments before they get used to it. Is it really the smell, I ponder, or my mind playing around with the memories I have of this room, his room.
The room is dark and gloomy, still I can make out the faint outlines of the furniture inside. There isn't much of what can be accommodated in a hostel room, but still, his room has quite a lot of stuff, all randomly placed inside. Because of the darkness, I cannot see it, but it is there, I can feel the obstacles. Almost like they have an aura around them, his aura.
As I flick up the button of the bulb, the room is immediately filled up with soft gloomy yellowness, pushing the darkness to the corners, making it hide in the shadows. There is a chair immediately in front of me, a cluttered workdesk to my right, a pile of unlaundered clothes on the bed, a couple of suitcases unwelcoming me into their owner's domain, a wheezy typewriter stashed away in a corner, tons and tons of paper everywhere: class notes, correspondence, his "idea" pages, the "festival material"; all strewn about. Everything looking back at me just like I am looking at them. Without passion or emotion, devoid of energy, just us gazing at each other. A feeling of statis grips me. It seems nothing has been touched since then.
A crunch beneath my feet. A used up matchstick. A box of matches on the desk. Depressing amounts of cigarette stubs in the waste bin. Stubbing-out marks on the desk drawer. An empty box of cigarettes.
Then I see it.
On a small bedside table I see a stubbed out cigarette. Perfectly left untouched. The ashes are there, the insignia of the brand intact, as he used to keep it. The filter a bit crooked with the pressure applied on the top and still standing in the little pile of ash. Beside it is a letter pad, with the impressions still there of the note written on the page that must have been above it, the page that must have been hastily torn apart by him. A page that he was carrying with him when he was found.
A suicide note. In my dead friend's pocket.
I can feel my eyes getting moist. I must go away now. I give one parting look at my friend's last smoke, and close the door behind me.
-Pratyush
The room is dark and gloomy, still I can make out the faint outlines of the furniture inside. There isn't much of what can be accommodated in a hostel room, but still, his room has quite a lot of stuff, all randomly placed inside. Because of the darkness, I cannot see it, but it is there, I can feel the obstacles. Almost like they have an aura around them, his aura.
As I flick up the button of the bulb, the room is immediately filled up with soft gloomy yellowness, pushing the darkness to the corners, making it hide in the shadows. There is a chair immediately in front of me, a cluttered workdesk to my right, a pile of unlaundered clothes on the bed, a couple of suitcases unwelcoming me into their owner's domain, a wheezy typewriter stashed away in a corner, tons and tons of paper everywhere: class notes, correspondence, his "idea" pages, the "festival material"; all strewn about. Everything looking back at me just like I am looking at them. Without passion or emotion, devoid of energy, just us gazing at each other. A feeling of statis grips me. It seems nothing has been touched since then.
A crunch beneath my feet. A used up matchstick. A box of matches on the desk. Depressing amounts of cigarette stubs in the waste bin. Stubbing-out marks on the desk drawer. An empty box of cigarettes.
Then I see it.
On a small bedside table I see a stubbed out cigarette. Perfectly left untouched. The ashes are there, the insignia of the brand intact, as he used to keep it. The filter a bit crooked with the pressure applied on the top and still standing in the little pile of ash. Beside it is a letter pad, with the impressions still there of the note written on the page that must have been above it, the page that must have been hastily torn apart by him. A page that he was carrying with him when he was found.
A suicide note. In my dead friend's pocket.
I can feel my eyes getting moist. I must go away now. I give one parting look at my friend's last smoke, and close the door behind me.
-Pratyush
Psst ... Pratyush doesn't know I wrote this story in his name. :)
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Nobody.
I am nobody.
I live in all of us.
Come to think of it, almost everybody is a nobody at some point of their life, and I am one right now.
Why? I don’t know, but I have this feeling that I am slowly pushing myself back into the darkness. While the world around me is bubbling and thriving, I am getting more and more secluded, an outsider, a lonely onlooker to the party.
This too, shall pass.
I live in all of us.
Come to think of it, almost everybody is a nobody at some point of their life, and I am one right now.
Why? I don’t know, but I have this feeling that I am slowly pushing myself back into the darkness. While the world around me is bubbling and thriving, I am getting more and more secluded, an outsider, a lonely onlooker to the party.
This too, shall pass.
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