It's Easy When You Think About It

I don't suppose we always have a way with some sort of people. A way for them to see us in a different light, to see others in a dull one. To stand out. But when you think about it, it's the most easiest thing to do in a world where everyone and everything has a tendency to fall together. Everyone is connected to everything around them - even the most detached kind of person will name one thing this person connects to, present or past. This is the problem, see?
Take away that one thing, the one simple thing, and you have conquered the lights men.
People are in love with the idea of this thing they feel attached to. Not understanding the difference between the real and the projected. It's so easy when I think about it, yet I look for more meaning in such simple world of thought.

Do not think about Elephants. What are you thinking about?

Always gets me. Heh.

©2014 Aman Gupta

Wait, It gets better

I don't suppose the coffee has anything to do with the events I'm not going to not describe for you here. These events may or may not have happened in reality and you are at liberty to form your own narrow opinions.

I suppose the sun was down and it was getting a bit nippy - even with warm fire we were all sitting in front of. Now that I think about it, it might have been the snowfall combined with the unholy winds in those parts which was making us all shiver out uninteresting random stories.
As we were all looking at the dwindling excuse of a fire while shaking violently, I couldn't help but notice the lack of plot this story of mine would have if I were to write it down for my mediocre audience. So I gave a nod to everyone, which no one noticed, and went back to my room, which again, no one noticed - pondering about what the actual hell am I doing here with my life - for exactly 3 seconds. The room was just 10 ft away from the fire. But once I got in the room, I welcomed the uncool air and unwarmed blankets, a refreshing change from the shared room I had to share yesterday. I took off my messy boots and threw them around the room as if I wouldn't need them the first thing in the morning for the trek - which coincidentally, was the exact thing I had to do first thing in the morning. Took off my soaked socks and went into the cocoon that was my bed with multiple layers of warm blankets over it.
I perhaps dozed off because the next thing I remember now was me lying over the freezing floor with my right leg still stuck in the blanket - which was odd because I slept on the right hand side of the bed. With the sleep gone and my left side of body paralyzed from cold, I figured the best way to spend time till morning was to continue wasting time on thinking about how to waste time. Most of the thoughts centered around what was climbing down my back - until it turned out to be a spider. After that the night was slow and my thoughts wandered from music to tablecloth to having a bowl of hot stew. After having my imaginary yet vividly detailed bowl of stew, I went back to thinking about the question of life and everything. The answer was 28.
That was as good as answer as any. What really got me thinking was why are we really here, our purpose in the grand scheme of things and whether I will have eggs for breakfast. The answer to at least one of the questions was a yes. I once read a very dramatic quote on a message board written with a bad typographic font about the purpose of life.

"To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life."

It all sounded ridiculous at first, but believe me, as the night got longer and quite all I could think about was how have I lived my life up till this point and if I would have butter on my toast at the breakfast. (I was really hungry)

I don't think I've really lived life the best way possible, the instruction manual was really outdated and should really have served as just mere guidelines. And while I'm not going jumping off the next cliff I climb with my bear feet in the Himalayan range and I'm definitely not going diving in pacific without proper breathing apparatus on a soviet era fishing/navy steamer - I'm still going to spend more time out than time in. And I started by making my way to the kitchen, asking for leftover dessert.

It was bit nippy though, I took my blanket along.

©2014 Aman Gupta

Slumber

You can go only so far, sometimes.
Imagine.

You are at a far off place, there is no way of knowing where you are and where you are headed. There is a distant thought lodged deep in your mind but you can't be sure. There's light at the end of the tunnel but you're afraid of what lies beyond. You have no previous memory of who you are, you just woke up from a very deep slumber. All you can remember is that you were really tired before you shut your eyes.
There is a rush in your veins as you're sure you've never felt before. There is a sense of awakening and the energy is pulsing through your complete body.
You are now sitting, staring at the light. You're curious and the newly found energy urges you to move forward. As you get up and start to take your first steps, you notice your surroundings. You were sleeping, not on a warm bed, but cold floor. Odd but no odder than the walls of the tunnel, which seem to be plastered with odd symbols in different colours - you wish you knew what these meant but for now, the light is your destiny.
Now that you are moving towards the light, your curious mind wants some answers. You start to question the reality, if it is reality at all. For some reason, it seems to have a dream like quality to itself. There is no way to know if this dream will break at any moment, this does not make you feel easy. You have come too far now, you want to know what's at the end of the tunnel and you're scared that the dream will break before you reach the end.
Walking briskly now. A whole tapestry of symbols pass away on the walls are you rush past them. Somehow, the light is still not getting any nearer.
Stop now to catch your breath. You're still full of energy and determined to reach the end, just that, you need to take a break. It's like you're been walking towards it for eternity since you can't reference time.
You start walking again. This time, you pick your brain by looking at the symbols for some recognition. There seems to be a pattern in the symbols, you're very sure of that. Still determined to reach the end, you put the interesting symbols at the back of your mind and continue.
Another break. More symbols and more pattern this time. Suddenly, you make a connection in the symbols. Walking towards the wall, the symbols start making more sense. The obvious pattern and the design, somehow, it's not new to you. You let your gaze turn to the other sections of the wall, and suddenly, there is a sense of comprehensiveness which strikes you.
As you continue to move ahead, going wall to wall, making pattens, you don't notice you've come near to the end of the tunnel.
The last symbol, now being accounted for in the pattern, revels nothing. You learned nothing from the symbols and it seems like decades since you're been going about studying them still, somehow, you're learned something along the way but again, you can't be sure.
You are now standing at the end of the tunnel, afraid and curious at the same time. You step into the bright light, waiting for it to give you the answers you desire.

Then you wake up.

©2013 Aman Gupta

The Backgroundsmen

"The problem with being smart is that nothing misses your sight and you're blind to everything else."

Roll Camera, 3rd Person:
We have grown used to the idea that everything somehow gets better towards the end. Everything gets fixed, the Hero gets the credit, the girl and everything there was to get in the plot. Drop curtains. Roll credits. Pretty good story, right?
It's always been about being 'The One', the desire to fit in the shoes of someone essential and absolutely important is embedded deep within the human emotion. You see, this person, is someone who always makes the right moral choices and so, he is 'bound' to succeed. He can do no wrong. This brief sense of elation that we get when seeing this guy on screen getting everything is the same as we ourselves get when we fulfill our dreams.
The problem is, somewhere, the lines of reality and truth gets blurry and gets tangled up with the one we're fed at the theater with over buttered popcorn and soda.
You see, we are the most important  person in our lives. We think it's rather fair that our lives be like 'The One's' - Actually, we take it for granted really. We like to pretend that everything that's happening around us will eventually lead to better things for us. This is a well kept lie of our lives.
But such lies have their own way of coming to light.

Camera, Shift to 1st Person:
Things which are complicated enough, are often false. That's what I always say. Anyways, this here is not about the guy riding on his horse into the sunset but rather about the guy who lost everything and took the blunt of being in just the background. I like to pretend that what I do is good. You know, the writing and stuff. It gives me a a right to condescend without facing moral dilemma. Stuff that I do, make me superior than most so obviously, it's all about me and some more of me. Bow before me, worship me and bring me neat stuff.
Alright, where were we again?

Shot, Back to 3rd Person:
We are often faced with a situation where we are at crossroads with our morals. We cannot go ahead with our lie. We have to face the truth. It has accumulated over time and now is much potent. The most protected lie is usually the one which breaks you. Because you would do anything to keep the illusion of false hope and go on with your life. If, say, there comes an impasse, we try to get around it - understanding fully it isn't possible. Making new lies to protect the one.

Roll over to 1st Person:
I'm really in a sort of dilemma. The confusing lines of moral authority that I thought I had gets distant day by day. I'm losing the grip on my thoughts. I run around writing things that make no sense when read by someone other than me. Historically, not good for any writer. Na-ah.
Such admittance is usually characteristic of people with issues, mine comes from the fact that I'm have a lot going on in my mind than in my life.
Everyday, I wake up with a renewed zeal which goes down with the incessant barrage of inflicted and projected emotions. What was an exercise in Logic and Reason before is now a  muck of conflicting emotions for me. I guess this outta diminish my life's joy a bit.

Switch to 3rd:
There's always a person in your life you want to beat. I'm not saying you want to go behind the alley and kick his ass, or that you just want to see them miserable and scream manically 'I win, you lose.' No.
It's more like there's a person who has what you want but either he doesn't value it or that he doesn't treat it the way it should be treated (by your reckoning).
But as the comic nature of our tangled plot hinges on this other person getting the thing, there's hardly anything you can do to make it otherwise. You see, it's the classical paradox. You are given a choice which has no effect on either the present or the future. You can take it as your moral values are put in question while others around you suggest not to - either making no impact on the truth. It's a kind of kid's game where at the end, everyone wins and so, everyone loses.
That's always fun, right?

Pan over to 1st Person:
The point where I cannot live with your self and decide to take things in your hand is the day I went turbo. I told myself that maybe the future has more in store for me, because that's how it works. I have been brainwashed to believe that I'm important in my life.
From that moment on, I tried the move the immovable rock of destiny. And watched my morals get squashed ruthlessly. I think, things like these leave scars. The eventual buildup to the tipping point suggested a grim outcome and it wasn't wrong. I'm afraid things will turn for the worse from here.
I can't force someone to make a choice they are actively trying to avoid so I guess I'll have to make it easier for them by withdrawing my candidature.
Pretending to be happy while you're tortured from inside - It's a good skill to have when most of the time you are putting on a brave face for the world to see.
I do believe that some gestures are more comforting than most but these lose their value when the person getting them holds the optimistic secondary position in the priority.
The convoluted nightmares of falling from heights have a new meaning to me now.


Won't say anything anymore. Told you so.

©2013 Aman Gupta

Fate and Faith

I'm a bit down. That's a very understated truth and more of a far fetched lie. 

In dedication to Carl Sagan.

I breathe in, and breathe out. Somehow, this sole act combined with the compression of my heart are a warm reminder - reminder of my mortality. I look up at the sky when I feel alone, the stars, the incomprehensible vastness of the universe amazes me to no end but also reminds me every time  that in this vast ocean of space - I'm just a humble bit of carbon. Human beings are not designed to live long you see, we have a very (and I cannot stress this word enough) short lifespan - not even worth a second on the current cosmic timeline.
Every other day, I wake up wondering if anything important will happen today - but the skeptic in me always reminds me that no matter what happens, it won't show up on the timeline of the species. Sure you can argue that events add up, that, the infinite probabilities existing for the next second or even the next year take a hit for every action we perform now and finally collapse into a single future - which we experience then. I wish this made me feel any better about the future, if anything, this makes me feel paranoid for the present.
We are a young species, barely into the third day of the cosmic timeline. We have inter-earth politics, wars, disasters, crimes, religions, race and what not. I feel sad for the slow human conscious, we don't constitute a second ourselves but still we are pretty bent upon petty issues. I can only wish someday, in a distant future, a man will wake in world free of the shackles which bind his conscious to the materialistic world and he would then finally understand his role in the overall scheme of things.

But why, of a sudden, have I taken such a sad direction for my life?
Well, in my opinion, the emotion of sadness is pretty subjective. You can say I have more feet resting on the planet which borne me. I understand that even though I will not live to see the next century, I know somehow, our species will endure.

Sure, a century seems like a long enough time - maybe twice the lifespan of an average man in the 1800's but  when we look at it on a broader scale, it represents merely a second on the cosmic timeline. I guess this is why our species is so slow on waking up and lacks the wisdom to make an impact on the universal scale. It's just like an unstable particle in a lab, short lifespan - lots of potential. This is why most of the population of our planet is happy letting things slide, this is how they justify their greed and agenda. They simply lack the vision and the patience.

We have grown up listening to tales and watching media which popularizes the idea of Humans surviving against all odds. Well, as much as I like to say that I believe in the idea, there's a small part of me that keeps me skeptic. I ask this very simple question: What exactly do we have to offer the universe?
We just are. The sooner we confront the truth that we are just a product of a very lucky set of circumstances and that we are not special in any regard than any other life form which evolved during the same time as ours, perhaps in another sol system, we archive a state of belonging and togetherness. We begin to think just how alone we are and how we have been wasting what little we have - both time of the universe and our planet.

The global conscious is slowly waking, the last century saw remarkable leaps in our understanding of the universe. That will keep me going for now but I still feel bad for our species, we have such short lifespans that we cannot even begin to comprehend the mysteries that lie out there.

I know my eventual fate as a sole human, but my faith in the future of humanity remains unshaken.

©2012 Aman Gupta


Author Note: This article actually started out to describe all the troubles I have in my world right now and how the circumstances are testing my resistance to bow before them (and how I will not) but ended up being something else entirely. A somber reminder that we all have far more to worry about.