Life’s Good

 

LG might have copyrighted it (the title!) as its tagline but surely can’t keep a tab on its umpteen usage in our daily lives. Thanks to the globalization the professed American optimism has spread its roots deep in our lifestyles. Whether it is good or bad is very debatable but the answer to the question ‘Howz Life?’ would definitely be  ‘Good (or gud)!’(that comes with a forced smile!).

That leaves me completely flummoxed! How on earth is it possible? We all respond differently to identical tastes (Ever wondered how the same thing tastes on other’s taste buds?), smells, sounds, surfaces and sights. How can the majority retort to the above question with a common answer? Can so many people be in the congruent phase (tht’s Good!) in their life? Is it the lack of apt vocabulary, which makes it a convenient answer? Or is it a more politically correct manner of saying—‘ It’s none of your business’?

Ah, That’s a long list of questions! Let’s see how well do we know ‘Life’ to find an answer to the ‘you know what’ question.

Not so long ago, my status line on gtalk said, “ A feather stuck in a cobweb, waiting for a puff breeze” (if you try to decipher it would mean I was in an unpleasant state and was waiting to find an escape). My dear baby sister (actually thought of her as a baby before this!) Komal introduced me to the concept of ‘escapes’. She very well explained it to me how we more at ease in any situation when the ‘escape’ is within our field of vision and vice versa.

My recent experiences in life have seconded her argument.  To my displeasure I have come to understand that ‘life’ is ‘empty’ on its own. We end up living the ‘escapes’ and fool ourselves in believing ‘that’s Life’. These Escapes can range from a simple flick, a long holiday, work (oh yes, that’s an escape too!), materials, nostalgia, daydreaming and of course dozing off (Tht’s my favourite and the most accessible!) etc. Whenever you try finding a meaning to ‘Life’, you will end up perplexed because there is none. So, you strive giving meanings to it in form of  ‘escapes’.

Emptiness and escapism, that’s Life! I am not sure whether it makes it any easier to answer that particular question but it certainly clears my other doubts. ‘Good’ might be American way of keeping away from the nitty-gritty of life (which is really complex! Being a staunch optimist I do not know if optimism makes to ‘escape’ list.).

May I ask you— So, Howz life?

The missing spark!!

Here is the first post on my blog, which isn’t a product of my gray matter. I guess it’s the recession taking a toll on my creativity too. 

This piece by (I guess u know her!) Ayn Rand, provides the much-needed motivation whenever I feel dispirited.

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in the lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be Won. It exists it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

Another one to add to the flavour, a bit over the top but relevant nonetheless. This one’s by Kirsti A Dyer (not so sure who she is but what she says makes lot of sense!). Here it is—

Like the mighty phoenix,

Once again I rise from

The flames set to destroy

me and take flight.

I am stronger

Glorious

Powerful

Victorious.

The Illusion and the Real

 

The previous post made me delve deeper into my search of the meaning of the word ‘Love’. It made me question its existence and our perception of it. No, don’t give me those prying looks; I am not ‘in love’ (even if a series of posts on 'it' might suggest otherwise). For understanding an emotion you have to be out of it. Like how you have to be calm yourself to understand what anger is! I know it’s such a cliché and overdone subject (love, what else?) but still we can’t get enough of it (and we don’t grow sick of it either!).

Maybe I am tad late in my realization but it recently occurred to me—How we end up loving the ‘illusion’ of people instead of the ‘real’ people. Everything seems sunny, till your rose coloured glasses are on. Once, you start seeing outside them, things start to get stormy. Our visual or rather mental image of our ‘object of affection’ is way different from the real-life them. When reality strikes you feel deceived (not by them but by your own sense of judgment).

In one of my recent chats with my friend Sreejith, where I was griping about the fact that I don’t understand this thing called love. Not much to my surprise he answered saying— “Mankind is made of love, also in its distorted forms. You can’t live life without loving something or the other”. Agreed that we end up loving somebody or the other at every point in our life. But there are these times when you don’t feel so affectionate and hence feel ‘unloved’ in return and it works vice versa too.  

For once I would like to concur with how Meg Ryan (as Kate) describes ‘Love’ in the movie Kate and Leopold—“ You can’t live a fairy tale…. The whole love thing is just a grown up version of Santa Claus, a myth that we confect since childhood.” As I perceive it she refers to the ‘romantic’ love here. For ours is the generation raised on a good dosage of fairy tales since childhood. We grow up harboring this notion of ‘love’ and related stuff. That pretty much explains the culmination of many so-called ‘love-marriages’ in divorces.

How much ever we fight it or desire it, love is here to stay as it has always done. The genre may differ. It can vary from ‘selfless’, ‘motherly’, ‘parental’, ‘human’, ‘puppy’, ‘romantic’, ‘erotic’ and (not to forget) ‘unrequited’ etc etc. That’s precisely why more often than not (with some exception to times like the ‘present’!) I find myself humming – “ I can feel it in my fingers, I can feel it in my toes. Love is all around me….”.