On turning 20.

First, I love Rilo Kiley.

Turning a year older has never really exerted that need for denial or for a dramatic entrance. However, with the way this year has been unfolding, I feel putting a tab on your maturity and the reaction and action duly expected is not just a subjective validation. Since my birthday is in January, I can essentially turn a year older and begin the calendar year fresh. This year, I turned 20, it was not a huge deal, in fact, in was like any normal birthday/new year for me.  Now 5 months have passed and during those five months, I have been finding myself at a lot of crossroads. And many a time, I contemplate if the quintessential attitude I have been developing had been just a passing phase of a confused and naïve adolescent unreadily thrown into a world of adulthood. If the thought that you can relate to every thought and action of J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield and if this reflection makes you just another angsty and confused teenager on the threshold of adulthood. So every time I bring up this puzzled side of me to my good friend who likes to smugly remind me that she is 3 years ahead of me, I get this “Welcome to adulthood” or  “ That is turning 20”. Well, despite she being a bit exaggerative and theatrical about most things… she might be is right, now, I think I know.

The funny thing is, in most cases, people get more cynical and develop a more lucrative approach as they get older. However, it has been more of the opposite for me. The cliche'd reason for getting into law, of becoming human rights activists, incorruptible judges, a lawyer for the lost causes, etc., didn't really apply to me. I just thought I would be honest to myself and maybe become a corporate lawyer and earn shitloads of money. I have to admit I sincerely thought that the money I earned would measure my success ( I was, however, only a 17 year old teenager). Well, now that is far from my mind.  Before, when you thought about the future, it was the world accommodating you; Reality check: you accommodate the world. Or you fall. Everything is so structured. So it’s either you’re brave and stupid enough to deconstruct the structure and make your own way or you follow diligently and become the typically successful person. No big breaks, no risks, your life is as mundane as it can normally be. I applaud the people who have committed ludicrous acts pursuing their dreams, their senseless belief in themselves and I hope to have their courage – there is a thin line between bravery and stupidity after all. Becoming an adult, I hope, would give me enough insight to know the difference between reality and optimism and where to draw the line. 

I have miles to go and I don’t want to reach milestones wishing I had a second chance to start all over again.


(I had posted this in June but removed it. I was going through my folders and came across it tonight and thought I would put it up again).
 

Still rambling. I can't think of a title.

- The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Well, how would you define love anyway? Its varies, right? To be aware of your feelings and knowing that you don't love a thing/a person is something I would definitely choose over facing a confusion of waves of infatuation and curiosity. I don't think you should blame anyone when they are being honest, even if it ends with your heart being broken. On the other hand, there are many who would rather pretend to be blissful in ignorance than to face the truth. Here is something I will never really be able to comprehend. Maybe it is because it is too intimate and personal or I still have a lot to learn. 

- from Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

  
I might as well suppose that these lines were written for me.

 Wouldn't this be a lot easier to grasp if we looked at relationships between people from an economic viewpoint, analysing the cost-benefits of dating a particular someone with another, using game theory to calculate whom to ask out on a date  or predicting a break-up based on the gradual decrease of a person's marginal utility? This is not as bad as it looks, people do practice it, if not for material gains, then due to ego-centric reasons.  However, the inclusion of 'economics' would make it absurd. Love and relationships themselves would become a travesty. After all, is it not a popular notion that love is unconditional? (although I think it is more close to compromising or just one's hormones acting up "D). Clearly, I should not be writing on this subject.

In any case, if I ever fall head over heels in love one day, I may take it all back. Till then, ephemeral affections will suffice.

(Pardon the language)

I seriously have no clue how I got here from reading about attempt to commit a crime. It is unfair to have such a short-attention span :(

I ramble alot.

                         Judge a book by its cover.  Appearances alone tell us a lot about a person. On top of that, kindly consider what a person has to go through dressing themselves up. Yes, we all care about how we look and appearances do create a point of view. I’m not saying everyone spends minutes and hours in front of the mirror and contemplating which outfit looks best, there are those of us who like doing that and those who put on whatever is thrown in their face and are just as comfortable. It just is like that.

 Come to think of it, I think ‘covers’ are the perfect supplements in analysing a person. Just as we are capable of hiding our physical flaws and staging looks, we deceive even more through what we say and how we act. Don't we all do things and say things because we want to be seen and heard that way? To say you don’t form an opinion about a person on meeting them is to say that you just do not have any opinion of your own; you could instead try not to form a strong one (and not shove it in everyone’s face) and be open to wrong conclusions.  Because it always ends with “I never thought she/he was such a person” or “I always knew she/he was like that”. We are always right, even when we think we are wrong, we are right in thinking that we are wrong.   

No matter what, we always look at people in a way that is convenient for us, negatively or positively. We use our judgements to justify ourselves. So make a judgement or don’t make a judgement, it does not change the person or the thing (even if it does only remotely) it only affects you. 

Well, there may be differing views but this is how I think it works. 

Everyone is judgmental and if everyone accepts that, then we can look at things more objectively by taking our own subjectivity into thought (and we will all live happily ever after!).


Oh! But make sure you...

Keep calm and keep walking.

People can be so horrible and mean (and some petty and slimy). People are horrible and mean. Its just an issue of trying to not make them my problem. When the line of indifference is crossed though, I get by with good old music and an attempt at reasoning it out in my head.  Because sometimes not caring is the hardest thing to do. When you have been exposed and familiar to it. Apathy comes as a challenge only. 

So I was thinking, what if you could acknowledge and let live only the people who matter to you. Then the emotional and social baggage put upon you by those around you because of ‘people who suck’ would be removed and you would have more room for yourself and blah blah blah… until my daydreaming got a slap in its face when I came to the realization that every person would have a connection to another, ergo no one would actually cease to exist. So much for coming up with my own theory of an ideal world – it is still the world as it is. 

So I’m really better off with not caring and it is feasible too. Not caring would also mean the adamant refusal to admit the slightest possibility of being affected by, as I have said earlier, ‘people who suck’. In another sense, they don’t exist. Well, figuratively. At least. 

Anyway, I think I have this attention problem. I can never concentrate on one thing for long or at a time. If I had not re-read what I just wrote down I would have already moved on to another topic here. Some moments ago, I hated people, now I think it is a rather trivial affair. I have bigger things to worry about, like how I should feel about Osama bin Laden’s death and how it affects my life or choosing my next Facebook profile picture .

 So, did I watch "The Wedding" ?

-  I don't even like attending weddings of people I actually know in real life. So, bite me.

"Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?”

And soon the sun went beyond and all that was left to remind her of that day was the darkness that followed with her longing for the warmth of the sunlight. And the will to light her way out of the black night to see it shine again.

To live in bliss is to live ignorant and stagnated. Perfect  happiness is only glimpsed or felt every once in a while then it vanishes as quickly as it comes but effortlessly. And that is how it is and always will be. We should know better than to challenge it but be aware that our search for happiness is our strongest motivator.

I say happiness is the means but contentment is always the ends. Gibberish? Not if you look at it from my point of view but very few people would agree I even make sense. That perpetual state of happiness is a big glorious lie. We do everything to keep ourselves happy and strive to remain in that state for as long as we think we can but in the end it is all a matter of being satisfied and content. So our pursuit of happiness too was in itself a façade. Happiness is only a wee-bit over-rated. Contentment – that is the real stuff. And only a few open their eyes wide enough to see that it is always within their grasp but only for their pursuit of happiness. And before you get to know contentment, you have to know what you really want.

Step up and accept that the times you remember well and moments which made you a bigger person are the ones when you were at your lowest and how you got out of it.

 (Roy M. Goodman, my thoughts, exactly!)

Pause the parties and the work. Take a break. Take courage and find your forte.

I make little sense most times. I don't mind it. ^_^

A thin line, indeed.

 At some point or another, we all have that moment in our lives, it may come early or you would refuse to acknowledge it with the will that you can. Sometimes, its best to be point blank realistic. But where do we draw that line? Is it blind and stubborn stupidity to go through with what you have started till the end? But how is it wholly a rash and desperate attempt on your part when for the first time in your life, you have a clear idea of what you have to do and your courage to speak up for it? In many cases you are just ungrateful or having a temporary breakdown o_O 
or you just think you're too cool and smart <---heh! I wish.

So what is the right thing to do and what act will be condemned? When you stand alone with one wish, and you're going after something only you want, does that make the pursuit of your own happiness wrong? But how can it be wrong when your happiness and well-being is said to be the determinant for the objections? Rebels can be heroes. Heroes are rebels. Sometimes, it is all a matter of perspective. In the long run, will the right thing always remain justified? Put under different circumstances, what if it turns against itself? Where do they meet - the point of right and wrong? Happiness against well-being? Knowledge against wisdom? The supposed ignorance of youth against the supposed wisdom of the old?

When I am golden and old, I hope I can still stand by the rightness of my decision today and not regret not having gone through with it.