Suspended Animation

A slow life has its charms, as I have come to realise somewhere in the last few years. It is free of hassles, free of trauma, free of excitement. It is exclusive of everything but what you wish to include.

It was not always so for me though. Irony exhibits its wicked grin as I wonder how it was only a few years ago that I debated in favour of money being everything. How I was ready to sacrifice my weekends and spend twelve hours a day in an office if only the industry was kind enough to reward me in the equal. How I had ambitions. But I suppose Mr. Ambition has been inconspicuous of late. There have not been any rebellions for glory. No one urges me to walk faster. No one minds if I spend my afternoons in siesta. As for me, I find the tiresome Mr. Ambition more agreeable when he is stoned and on a trip of his own, leaving me and my beautiful Lady Laziness to cuddle.

It is in this very spout of inactivity that I have been able to put my thoughts in order. Indulgence in activities that appease me and shunning of those that I see of no consequence. An impecunious lifestyle rather than a affected pomp pretense. A more practical line of thought compared to my earlier quixotic fantasies. It has also been in this very cradle of time-less-ness that I have revived by earlier hobbies and continued with a certain few I recently picked up. Reading books had always been a pleasure for me, one that I left for no reason justifiable to my self. Watching movies is a contemporary one, as is my addiction to blues and rock.

Still, all said and done, each one finds his own drug, either in activity or the lack of it. To each his own, as they say. I, however, have fallen in the fifth level of Dante's inferno. Living and enjoying the sin: a life in suspended animation, one of immaculate lucidity of thoughts and pristine motivations for action.

Mr. Smarty Pants

Smart-asses are easy to identify. As easy perhaps as a man in a red shirt standing in a crowd of yellow shirted fellows (I really could not think of anything better!). And they are offensive. They offend in a way that even the rudest of us cannot rebuff them. And such is the fortune of the buggers that they are blissfully ignorant of their plight. It is us, the victims of smart-ass-edness that are tortured, us that feel pity for the sorry lad/lass. It is us that get caught in the turbulent discussions that scramble our brains, us that risk our blood pressures by wishing to strangle them.

A smart-ass (as i imagine) is led to believe that he genuinely is a connoisseur of every subject he has possibly heard of in his piteous life. He flatteringly enters conversations about unheard of topics. Some clever rejoinder or anecdote that he heard in a certain discussion or party is readily adopted as his own and he carefully nurses it until the opportune time that he hears the subject repeated again at some other party or discussion. And then, voila! He spills the anecdote claiming it as his own, oblivious to the company, which at times is the same as the one where the information originated. But it really is no fault of his own, for he really believes with all his heart and brain that it was he who thought of the rejoinder, and any claim to the contrary simply baffles him. And indeed his surprise is so infectious that one wonders if he really was the true originator of the story.

The dire need for claim to fame, the oblivious deliberate ignorance of the truth, the flattering attitude and the contagious belief in his self, all make the smart-asses one of the most complete irritants found in nature. The only possible solutions to get rid of them are unfortunately forbidden as the law for their violent nature. There seems to be no respite and the species seems to be growing at an alarming rate!

Moments of Inertia

Jobless-ness eats into you. Decays you slowly as if you were a piece of meat in a beast's belly. Makes you wonder about things inconsequential. Reminds you of fonder times and activities. Starves you for company of those that matter, and eventually of those that do not. Whispers sweet nothings in your ears that surprisingly do not make you happy. On the contrary you are left more frustrated than ever. Wishing you had something to do. Throwing across that something as nothing even if it crossed your path. The feeling of being without a motive is not a state of activity. It is a state of mind. You might have a hundred things to do and yet feel jobless. Seeking employment and rejecting the idea of doing something. A contradiction that traumatises. A catch-22.

Lying down, looking into space thinking whether it would be better if you sat down instead while looking into space. By and by, you manage to sleep. Four hours. Six. You are in a state of sleepless trance. Wondering whether to leave the bed which is no longer comfortable. But then there should be something to do if you leave your bed, and you can think of nothing. You sleep for another couple of hours. Expecting someone to call. Message. At times you wonder how your life would be if you threw your phone out of the window. But the window is closed and opening it would require a lot of effort. The phone survives. You sit up. Look around you.

Social networking sites and all your electronic correspondences assume a very important role in your life at such times of sloth. Sitting alone with nothing to do is a suffering. As much a physical suffering as it is a mental. Imagine an absolute void and imagine yourself in it. Nothing around. No one to salvage your hide from the rising waters.

You finally decide that it would not do to just sit around. You need partners in boredom. You call a friend. He is busy. Another. He too has issues to deal with. You sigh. Get out of bed. Get dressed. Sit down. Check your mail and e-social correspondences. No one has replied. Darn them all! You look around. Grab a book. Read a few lines. Put it down. It seems too boring. Go out. Roam aimlessly in the hostel. To the market place. For the lack of anything better to do, you eat something. Even though your stomach does not demand it. Even if your stomach curses you for the overload. You manage to kill time with an acquaintance you meet on the street. But he strands you. He has a life. You return to your room. Morbidly turn on the computer. Check your mails. No reply. Look at your bed. Sigh. Get undressed. Get under the covers. Try to sleep. But even sleep has better things to do it seems. After hours of tossing and turning you finally catch some sleep. The day, fortunately, ends.

Sleep offers the only possible solution if no one else volunteers to let you tag along and observe what they are doing. Finding another aimless person is no consolation. Two are not better than one.

Apostle of Lunacy

There has, in my opinion, been a very unjustified emphasis on sanity in our daily lives (at least in mine). There is the constant expectation from people around you that you do things in a certain way, the sane way; think thoughts that they can readily understand, cultured thoughts. But all these contradict with the baser nature of man.

Yes, we are in fact brought up to do all those intelligent things and act as if we were coherent with the norms of the society, but if actually left to ourselves, with no one around to judge us, would we do things the way we do them with a score of absolutely unnecessarily interested eyes making note of our every movement? Left to myself, I would probably move about naked, take a dip in some river or pool when the sun was at its highest, not care whether I was putting on weight, eat each and everything that I considered edible in a fashion that is disapproved of, lie around all day doing nothing or walk around aimlessly. Now imagine such a person lazing in the garden next to your room. Scandalising! And I am pretty (though not completely) sure that such a lunatic lives inside each of us.

Perhaps it is better that the lunatic remain inside. Not because otherwise the world would become a anarchic and uncivilised place, for it really is not as civilised as it pretends to be, but because if we become the lunatic, we would not have an asylum to run to. Albeit all the pompous fairies around us hold us in contempt, we do from time to time resort to such limited lunatic behaviour. Gluttony at times of depression, skinny dips for the thrill of it, lazing in the middle of the day to take a break from the hectic routines, dancing without steps with a goofy smile stuck on your face. It is all exhilarating. But like all good things, too much of it would rob you of the occasional pleasure that you derive of it.

There is a necessity of insanity. Almost as necessary as is the existence of a sober pretense to cover it up. But to hold a fellow man in contempt when he is blissfully enjoying his lack of restraint or to share his intoxication, if only a little; that is the question (for it is an absolute requirement that there be a question. As is the case with every other things, there has to be a point to everything. Otherwise it will be as pointless as life itself).