Connecting the dots

A recent conversation with a friend made me re-realize what I've been feeling for a while:

Sometimes I feel like I have no idea as to what my long term plan is. I'm absolutely clueless. I'm just doing a bunch of small, random things, building on them, with the hope that one day they will all connect together. A little bit here, a little bit there. Perhaps one day these bits and pieces of different things will build up into something more concrete and meaningful.

Of course, I don't want to have to sit and wait for this moment. I need to take initiative as well. But it's quite difficult, seeing that I don't know what to build up to, exactly.

So until then, I think i'll continue with this randomness that I've been experiencing the past few months. Here, there, just building on things, treading randomly. Maybe even in circles. I won't know, unless I ever end up where I started. 

Positive vs. Negative

Over time, i've realized how important it is to stay positive. Granted, it's the most obvious thing in the world. But it's taken me a while to come to this realization.

More than plain optimism, I think it's important to bring the good things in your life into the limelight, and give them attention and importance. Life isn't perfect, and there are many elements to it that you may dislike. Sometimes, you may have to live with these elements. But bringing the positive things, using the happy moments, to cloud over bad times and bad elements can help you be happier, and more productive, even. Letting all that negativity suck away even the good moments of your life is just a way of digging your own grave. Crush the negativity, make it seem insignificant. 'Cause it's going to be there no matter what. It's up to you to get rid of it, or make it seem like a drop in the ocean that is your life.

Life is twisted

And so is death.

I've been in such a daze, just wondering how you're feeling, thinking what you may be thinking. In that daze, my mind shuffled through a lot of things that didn't need shuffling through.

Sometimes, when nothing makes sense, what do you clutch on to for some normalcy? What do you look towards and what do you rely on? I hope you can find that, because for the next few days, months, years even, that is going to be the most important thing; it's going to be your anchor, and in a way, your lifeline.

Re-gaining

I feel that there was so much more to write about in university. I mean, not like there's nothing happening. I think I was just so much more inspired then. Funny, because when I read back, I remember mentioning something about being uninspired back then. Haha.

Nonetheless, this post is more of my attempt to get back to writing here. To take a topic, something, anything, and write each day. I've been trying to get things into place, and writing here is another attempt at doing so. I feel that writing is a huge part of me, but it's something that I tend to lose sight of. Like other important things in my life.

This whole feeling of losing sight of things, sometimes it makes me question the depth of how much I feel.. 

Blister

Atop the crest of my right toe-the big one

There sat a tiny little bump, a blister

They call it.

The black velvet footwear, the culprit

Sat proudly upon my meager shoe collection,    

Its small heel glistening in the florescent white lights of the balcony of my dorm room.

But that heel had much more good associated with it than bad;

The cobbling Mylapore lanes that we strolled through

With tiny painted houses and Ganeshas and little gates and bicycles;

The crisscrossing of my shoed feet

Upon campus stone floors and old sofas

Upon conversations that we fancied to be intellectual

Upon ideas and hopes and dreams and opposing music tastes;

The unsteady balancing of my knobbly, wobbling knees,

After spirited nights and too much laughter and too many tears;                             

The lush green of grassy midnight walks and the calm blue of daytime meanderings,

Of Wednesday nights;

The tripping and slipping of my clumsy self that relied upon these troublesome soles

Troublesome souls

Troubled souls, sometimes.

All for the price of a blister

Atop the crest of my right toe- the big one.

It was worth it.

Place.

Nothing in life can be determined. I genuinely feel that you could be anywhere and be happy, or be at that same "anywhere", and be unhappy. I'm not saying that it's all completely in your hands (though it largely is, yes), but I am saying that where you are doesn't matter. A one way ticket to the States does not guarantee you happiness. Neither does a million dollars. Sometimes, even someone that you love can disappear. Life is not written out. You may do certain things, go to certain places, with the hope that you'll do greater things, be a better person, achieve a greater level of satisfaction, of happiness- and it may all backfire. 

Maybe that's my biggest fear.

Lives.

Meera

Meera looked into the morbid darkness ahead of her. All she had known for the last few nights was heat and dust and mosquitoes  The streets of Chennai were cruel in the summer, and ever since she had been forced to move into her small lodging to find odd jobs to support her aging mother, life had been a struggle. She watched a middle-aged man speed by on his bike. Ah, if only she could even afford a bike, she thought. If she had that kind of money, life wouldn't be as much of a struggle, surely?

Raj

As Raj slowly made his way through the small alleys of  Mylapore, he passed a young girl trudging through in the dead of night. Normally, he would have been concerned, and would have even offered to drop her at her destination. Today was different though. His wife, who had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer a few months ago, had not shown any response to the six sessions of chemo-therapy that she had received so far. Her condition had reached a critical point, for which he had to quit his job to be able to take her to the hospital if any emergency arose. He felt weighed down with troubles, with responsibility- how was he to manage even basic survival, now that expenses needed to be dug out of his savings? What about his kid's education? He couldn't help but feel that everything he had ever worked for was slowly crumbling down in front of his eyes, and there was nothing that he could do about it. At the traffic light, he peered into a Mercedes car and glanced at the suit-clad man inside. Maybe life would be much easier, more problem free, with that much money at your disposal?

Sathya

Sathya had to hold back his tears as he sat at the backseat of his chaffeur-driven car, on his way back from a late night at work. Not that anything really mattered to him, at the moment- in terms of work, that is. His sixteen-year old son had just committed suicide. So this is what it feels like, when they say that the worst thing that can happen is to lose your child, he thought. More than anything, more than even the death, he felt responsible  Had he not been a good father? Had he not given his son everything, been there for him when he needed help? What had gone wrong? What had he hated so much about his life that he had ended it? So many questions, not a single answer- not even a note.

I watched from the outside as all three people struggled with what life had handed them. I watched as they watched their lives fall apart. I watched, and all I wanted to do was hold them and say that this is unfair, and that life will offer them something more, something better, and maybe the best thing of all- hope.