DECISIONS

 I watched the Dead Poet’s Society yesterday, again. The last time I saw it, I was in college. It had left a very strong impression in my mind. Carpe Diem! Seize the day. It remained a persistent and romantic theme in all these years since. 

This is about decisions and how they make you feel. This is about Neil. Can you imagine a young seventeen year old, all fresh and excited about life. He is very good – in academics and socially. But more important is his courage. His friends are brave too, but he is a natural leader. When he proposes, to reconvene the Dead Poet’s Society, he does not bother to convince them. He knows; the thrill of doing something dangerous and completely against the rules would be enough to bring his friends along. They convince themselves! It is so refreshing to watch them. They love every moment of their meetings. Not because they were breaking the rules. But they were doing something for themselves, reading and writing poetry for themselves. Otherwise, their lives were governed by authorities, who were determined that they spent every moment in bettering themselves academically, for the future where they would become bankers, doctors and lawyers.

Then comes the day when Neil’s courage is tested. He can’t speak against his father who wants him to focus on becoming a doctor. While his hearts wants to do something else. “I am trapped” he says to his teacher. He is just so young. Dependent on his parents for everything, especially for approval. He feels suffocated in his father’s dreams, and by his own desires. What does he do? He chose out of life. You might think that he choose an easy way out. But can you imagine how trapped he must have felt? To be so good at something he loved, but knowing that there is no chance of it in the present or future. It is rare for people to discover what they like to do, and even rare to find themselves good at it. And here he was, with his glorious discovery, only to find that the doors are shut for him. I repeat, he was just a kid. He didn’t give himself the time to find out how things actually happen. He just chose out.

But imagine how calm he must have felt after taking that last final decision. He wasn’t trapped anymore. Nothing could touch him or hurt him now. He was free from his own desires and those of others. He didn’t need approval for his last action; he wasn’t bothered about the repercussions. Can you imagine that freedom? Death can be liberating.

What if instead, life was like this? If we could feel so liberated in life too?

CHASING EXCITEMENT

They say some books stay with you forever. In my case, almost every book I have read has stayed with me a while. I could make a list, but that would be insufferable. Not long ago, I read the book ‘The power of Moments’ which talks about how “we all have defining moments in our life – meaningful experiences that stand out in our memory”. Most of the times, these moments are accidental. But the authors question us “why leave our most meaningful, memorable moments to chance when we can create them”. I looked back at my life, and after recollecting almost all of the important moments chronologically, I decided they were not enough. From that moment on I have been silently obsessed with creating moments for my children. I wanted to create these little and big moments of fun and crazy experiences which they will look back with fondness.

Ever since then I have been chasing excitement. Sometimes it was as simple as eating out, which is quite rare for us. The kids were bursting with excitement to sit in their own chairs opposite me at the table in the restaurants, and would giggle away at silly things and at the menu cards as they chose what they would eat. It would take hours to decide on what to order and when the food did arrive, they would be fighting over each other on who gets the bigger portion. It didn’t matter that they never actually ate any of it, and it all ended up in my stomach.

Other times it had been going over for a chat with a friend after dinner, but instead staying over till the early hours of the next day. The kids would have played every available game in that house, and seen multiply movies and in the end, they all would have fallen asleep among each other, arm and legs in a tangled mess among the sheets. Finally we had to identify and separate each of our children and carry them home to complete their sleep in their respective beds. In the morning, the children are so surprised about how they reach back!

Another time we packed a picnic lunch, took a few toys, gathered a few friends and went in search of the elusive riverside picnic spot, something I remembered from years ago. We didn’t know the road to take neither did we know the name of the place. We just knew the direction, and so we drove hoping to find that memory lodged in my brain. Instead we found an amazing river bank, where the mountain stream turned a corner. And we had one of the best ever day out! There was sand, there were rocks, there was the soft bubbling of the rivers, there were kids squealing and jumping around, there was so much fun.

There have been other events of making giant bubbles, candles, festivals celebrated with grandeur, camping with the tent inside the house during the rains, spending hours on the hammock in the garden, and many other such attempts to create memories.

There hasn’t been much going out since the covid restrictions and also because of the summer. But the seasons have been changing, and I could feel the onset of autumn with the slight chill in the air. So today I got this crazy idea to have a picnic. It is crazy because we cannot go out far due to travel restrictions. But I really wanted to create some excitement. It has been too long, and I have to keep the spirit of making moments alive. So what if all I could do right now, was to eat somewhere outside, and far from home. That is how I defined a picnic to my kids. And they were hooked. Within half an hour, we had packed a lunch, and armed with our lovely bright picnic mat, we set out in the car looking for a place to have lunch outside. I overestimated the chill in the air; it was positively hot out there. After looked at every place in the area where we are allowed to venture out, we couldn’t find a single, private, clean and shaded place where we could have our picnic. My little one was getting fidgety. She was wondering about was this picnic for which we seem to be searching forever. She tried to console me, “it’s ok mama, let’s go home”. But my elder one was determined not to eat inside the house, neither in the garden. “You said, a picnic is eating out and away from home”, she reminded me. So we continued on our search. I was a little disappointed in not finding a good place, when I remembered something. There is always a way. So I drove back to the children’s park near our house. And lo, behold, I found the perfect picnic spot - shaded by the trees, with a gentle breeze blowing, and with a carpet of thick green grass. We needed no further encouragement. We set up our picnic mat and placed our hamper down, and instantly we felt as if we were far away from everything around. I know all we did was to find a place to eat outside. But all the excitement was there in the planning, and searching for the place. Target achieved for today. For the rest, there is tomorrow.  

Note: the pronoun keeps changing from 'I' to 'we' whenever my husband has been there with us for these adventures, which has been rare in the last several months. I really wish that all our further adventures will have a 'we' instead of 'I'.

DESTINY VS AWARENESS

 

I am confused.

There is the alchemist and similar books saying that we all have a destiny, which we knew when we were young but have forgotten over the years, and other baggage makes it impossible to either see the destiny or try to achieve it. Then it also talks about how destiny can be changed if you work towards it. It talks about omens and how the universe conspires to help you achieve your destiny. It is so wonderful to read and listen and all that. But what if you don’t know your destiny? What if you don’t know what you want in life/with life/from life?

Then there are these books on zen and meditation and all that. It says that the world is just the way it is. We are just the way we are. It says if we accept this, and just go about our lives, being really aware and awake in moment, that’s enough. No amount of achievement or material gains or love will give us what we are looking for. It talks about trusting the universe. It talks about how conflict is created by this duality of me vs you, me vs nature, me vs other. And all such conflicts is eradicated when we realise that everything and every person is one. It talks about why do we want to improve ourselves – because it we who have to do the improving to ourselves – how does that work? It is like the iron is trying to beat itself into shape. The question of destiny and universe conspiring to help us doesn’t fit in here. Because we are the universe.

So you see….my confusion. Should I spend my days searching the destiny and trying to achieve it, or should I just go about my days doing what I feel like and just being here?