Have you ever felt that you are living in a solitary confinement of sorts? Have you ever felt completely unrelated to the world and everything in it? Have you ever felt that everything around you is running just because it is supposed to - much like a program with billions of entities in parallel? Do you believe that we all live in a 'matrix'?
What we enjoy as freedom, is nothing but a greater - pervasive - confinement. We eat the same food everyday. We see the same things everyday. We meet the same people everyday. Occasionally get ourselves sanitized. But continue to live in it. Most of the times content and sometimes, happy.
Often we take so many things around us as 'ours' – our locality, our city, our nation, our world – our thoughts, our ambitions and our dreams. Step back and think "What would have been different if you were to be replaced by someone else?" Or "What difference would it have made to anyone in a locality next to yours when you die?" The answer is a cold - Nothing! Surprised? Welcome to the real world.
Where do you fit in the grand scheme of things? Try to move in a corner of your room. But try to keep your body at this very place, in this very state. And look towards yourself from that distance. Spotlights on, environment dull and everything else silent. Visualize how familiar does this look to you. Aren’t you just another guy in another setting?
Now step further back. Try to look from outside your immediate locality. It becomes difficult to identify yourself here. There are thousands of people working just like you. Each of them has a dream. A set of handicaps. And a set of commitments. How different are you from any one of these?
Now take a step further backwards. You see a blue ball called Earth in your hands. Peep in. It is difficult to even pinpoint the city you live in. Leave alone your house, car, neighborhood, locality or your friends'. And it is so quiet out there. So captivatingly beautiful homogeneity. And we all pride ourselves on being unique!
The truth is that we are mere programs running on huge parallel processors. Each entity has a few specific properties from a fixed set. Each one is aware of its existence. And is happy and possessive about it.
In this perspective, all your pains and complaints, your joys and desires seem gibberish. And you experience an eternal peace of mind. The question now is “Why do I perceive things the way I do? Why this cloak of uniqueness?”
Just like in any computer program, everything that happens around you is due to a reason. You have parents because you have to come into this world someday someway. You have relatives for the same reason. You have friends because you need their company and help. The same is true for everyone around you. Everyone lives in this small world of theirs. And outside this world no one cares about them. Just like nobody cares about me outside my world.
But if I am so insignificant, why is it that my body was designed with so much perfection? Where does my existence fit in this grand scheme of things? Honestly, I don’t know about mine. But so doesn’t anyone else. Some try soothsayers. Some go to spiritual gurus. But no one can conclusively say "Ki MAIN zinda kyun hoon (Why am I alive)?" The answer perhaps lies inside one’s self.
We always fail to realize the power of concerted thought – the power of dreams. When you know your aim in life, your every moment is spent planning and laboring towards that end. And when you are about to rendezvous with your destiny, everything just falls into place. More often than not, you get more than you ever dreamt about. What is takes is to make his sense of being – as ‘The Alchemist’ says – WANT it more than anything else in this world.
I know I am insignificant in this world. Each one of us is. Within months after we die, memories about us will start fading. Even in minds of our closest buddies. This makes me feel so lonely that I feel unrelated to everything around me. To that beautiful lady that just went past me and to the big buildings and trees I see along the road. I look towards everything with awestruck amazement. What is even more incredible is that though you may not find all reasons, but one thing leads to another just as in a sequential clock-work.
I don’t think I will be able to carry this state farther. Perhaps, I am not strong enough to live through the challenges that living in this state might pose. But I would like this blog entry to serve the purpose of a time-capsule. If ever I would return to my normal state, this will serve as a reminder of how, for one moment, things seemed so crystal clear – so blatant. The moment of enlightenment!
[These thoughts pervaded through my mind while I was watching the movie ‘Zinda’ at a city multiplex. The protagonist was put in a solitary confinement for 14 years by the villain, for a small childhood gag which snowballed into an innocent girl’s suicide. The girl happened to be villain’s elder sister. The protagonist then prepared himself for the fateful meeting with the unknown villain every moment of those 14 years, eventually killing him battling all odds.]
(Zinda)*=Alive (Hindi)
What we enjoy as freedom, is nothing but a greater - pervasive - confinement. We eat the same food everyday. We see the same things everyday. We meet the same people everyday. Occasionally get ourselves sanitized. But continue to live in it. Most of the times content and sometimes, happy.
Often we take so many things around us as 'ours' – our locality, our city, our nation, our world – our thoughts, our ambitions and our dreams. Step back and think "What would have been different if you were to be replaced by someone else?" Or "What difference would it have made to anyone in a locality next to yours when you die?" The answer is a cold - Nothing! Surprised? Welcome to the real world.
Where do you fit in the grand scheme of things? Try to move in a corner of your room. But try to keep your body at this very place, in this very state. And look towards yourself from that distance. Spotlights on, environment dull and everything else silent. Visualize how familiar does this look to you. Aren’t you just another guy in another setting?
Now step further back. Try to look from outside your immediate locality. It becomes difficult to identify yourself here. There are thousands of people working just like you. Each of them has a dream. A set of handicaps. And a set of commitments. How different are you from any one of these?
Now take a step further backwards. You see a blue ball called Earth in your hands. Peep in. It is difficult to even pinpoint the city you live in. Leave alone your house, car, neighborhood, locality or your friends'. And it is so quiet out there. So captivatingly beautiful homogeneity. And we all pride ourselves on being unique!
The truth is that we are mere programs running on huge parallel processors. Each entity has a few specific properties from a fixed set. Each one is aware of its existence. And is happy and possessive about it.
In this perspective, all your pains and complaints, your joys and desires seem gibberish. And you experience an eternal peace of mind. The question now is “Why do I perceive things the way I do? Why this cloak of uniqueness?”
Just like in any computer program, everything that happens around you is due to a reason. You have parents because you have to come into this world someday someway. You have relatives for the same reason. You have friends because you need their company and help. The same is true for everyone around you. Everyone lives in this small world of theirs. And outside this world no one cares about them. Just like nobody cares about me outside my world.
But if I am so insignificant, why is it that my body was designed with so much perfection? Where does my existence fit in this grand scheme of things? Honestly, I don’t know about mine. But so doesn’t anyone else. Some try soothsayers. Some go to spiritual gurus. But no one can conclusively say "Ki MAIN zinda kyun hoon (Why am I alive)?" The answer perhaps lies inside one’s self.
We always fail to realize the power of concerted thought – the power of dreams. When you know your aim in life, your every moment is spent planning and laboring towards that end. And when you are about to rendezvous with your destiny, everything just falls into place. More often than not, you get more than you ever dreamt about. What is takes is to make his sense of being – as ‘The Alchemist’ says – WANT it more than anything else in this world.
I know I am insignificant in this world. Each one of us is. Within months after we die, memories about us will start fading. Even in minds of our closest buddies. This makes me feel so lonely that I feel unrelated to everything around me. To that beautiful lady that just went past me and to the big buildings and trees I see along the road. I look towards everything with awestruck amazement. What is even more incredible is that though you may not find all reasons, but one thing leads to another just as in a sequential clock-work.
I don’t think I will be able to carry this state farther. Perhaps, I am not strong enough to live through the challenges that living in this state might pose. But I would like this blog entry to serve the purpose of a time-capsule. If ever I would return to my normal state, this will serve as a reminder of how, for one moment, things seemed so crystal clear – so blatant. The moment of enlightenment!
[These thoughts pervaded through my mind while I was watching the movie ‘Zinda’ at a city multiplex. The protagonist was put in a solitary confinement for 14 years by the villain, for a small childhood gag which snowballed into an innocent girl’s suicide. The girl happened to be villain’s elder sister. The protagonist then prepared himself for the fateful meeting with the unknown villain every moment of those 14 years, eventually killing him battling all odds.]
(Zinda)*=Alive (Hindi)
