Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Beginings

They say you can tell the age of tree by the rings that circle the circumference of its trunk. For people wrinkles do a similar job, but, as we are well aware, they only lead to estimate the physical age which may not say much about a person. Experience on the other hand, adds that poise to the personality, that receding hair line and prominent forehead to the physical being, that gleam in the eye and the tenacity in voice which is often characteristic of a mature adult being.
It does have an other side to it as well. The side where, again based primarily on experience, us allegedly mature adults surround our self in a comfort zone. We define our being with numerous objects and attributes and tend to surround our self with all things "us". We thus enter a state of constancy where life moves like a car ride on a highway through the prairie flat lands. "What’s up" is answered with "same old", the zing and the flash that had been a part of us, slowly start to disappear. We start spending more time at Wal Marts and Ikeas and less time at places closer to the soul with people closest to the heart and eventually, as Tyler Durden said, the things we own start owning us.
Then, while still in this comfort zone and tackling the routine path of life, we come across a person, a question, an event, that challenges our notions. The challenges seem oddly familiar, its happened before. Its like being hit in the face with a blow of wind that carries a new fragrance and one cant help but trace the path of the wind with their eyes closed and the nose leading all other senses. And this is how it all begins, the step that we had been waiting for, the one instance that pulls us out of our comfort zone and shakes things around.
Life suddenly gets more colour, the prairie highway suddenly turns into a curvy road snaking a path through a city market full of character. We get a new meaning, a new look and a new zest for life. We look at the monotony that had engulfed our being, the commodities that defined us and all we see are blue pills that kept us suspended in our comfort zone. And that person, question, event that met us a little while ago is the red pill of liberation that gradually brings the zing back to our life. We start feeling snap coming back, words that were previously lost somewhere in your head start rolling of your tongue, ideas that awaited action now take a course. Youth in its mature experienced and adulterated (for the lack of a better term) form re-emerges.
And when I find silver in my hair and rimmed spectacles holding on to my ears, I hope to tell several stories where a person, question, event changed the course of my life into something more glorious than it could have been. That, as I will tell anyone who listens, that person, question, event is how it all began.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

The Big Wait

Life, as someone wise may have already said it, is the greatest waiting game of all. Its a sequence of large waiting rooms connected by corridors of events. We step into these corridors and they end up in another waiting room. Our stay here is dictated primarily by things beyond our control. We wait for moments that justify our transition to the next corridor and the hall at the end of it. We seek out the right flag, the right light, the right cry, the right whistle, the right trigger to cause the action and so begins another transition from one point to the next.
I had been waiting for such a signal as well and I got the green light on Friday. A major career related move took place. Celebrations happened, congratulations were extended to yours truly, revelrous evenings and hillarious incidents ensued and then it was back into a new waiting room. Now, as I sit here in transition yet again I look out for signals. I pace the town looking for a new apartment like an anxious father paces outside the labour room in a hospital. I know its very unfair to compare a child with a new home but the idea is eventual feeling, the adrenalin rush that occurs at the end of the big wait. Its that moment when we are running through the corridor full of excitement, seeing that light at the end of it. Everyone around is equally ecstatic, life acquires fever pitch and suddenly you push through a door and land up in another waiting room. Your entourage falls silent, your adrenalin disapears and you look at all those eyes in the waiting room that are staring back at you for disturbing their peace and quite. Before you know it, you find yourself in a private corner keeping as quite as the others waiting for your turn to scamper through that fun filled corridor again and whenever a high strung group rushes through the door you join in, in staring at them.
Its this rush through the corridors of life that we, well some of us, live for. We will go through the pangs of boredom and monotony just for that one quick rush from one big white colorless waiting room to the other. I guess thats why someone coined the phrase, well worth the wait.