Thursday, April 11, 2013

Life is Transitory

Life is transitory. How do I know that? I looked it up in the dictionary and it says: Transitory means “of a passing nature; not enduring or permanent; temporary, fleeting”. And that is so true about life! The feeling really hit me when I was cleaning out a desk at home a few weeks ago. The things that came out of there, some of which I had almost forgotten about, all brought back to me so many memories of specific places in time that I was staggered. And this is only about eight or nine years worth of stuff, I don’t really have much from before that time. So it really hit me that this pile of stuff would only get bigger. What kind of stuff you ask? Well there are things ranging from birthday cards (especially the handmade kind but the other kind too, the message inside them make them special), bookmarks (I just love collecting those!), mementos (invitation cards, ribbons, fancy badges, sea shells), notes on scraps of paper, diaries with scribbles of song lyrics or half finished stories, calligraphy sheets, folders, old calendars with nice pictures on them, precious stationery, a few photographs from back in day we used to actually print them and the list simply goes on..


Anyway, this got me thinking (what’s new?!), and it occurred to me that we use this transitory nature of life as an excuse and keep planning for the future which never does really appear. We keep telling ourselves that this phase of life will just pass by soon and then we shall do all things that we have always planned. But actually it should be the absolute reverse of that! We should be living in the here and now, making the most of the phase we’re going through right now instead of waiting for it to finish and a better time to begin. There will be no better time if we don’t make it so; so the closet that we’re planning to clean out next month, or the early morning exercise that we so want to start but keep putting off till next week, or that we want to cook but next weekend always sounds better, all these things are just exercises in procrastination. Want to be more updated about happenings in the world? Start reading the news today; Want to get fit? Go for a walk right now; Want to read or write more? Start right now. It really doesn’t matter what it is, the answer always lies in taking action. Nothing stops us from doing the things we want to do or to put it the other way which I find that people respond to better is that nothing forces us to not act. Only that little fear inside of us that we may not be good enough or not be able to achieve what we set out to do or someone else might not like what we do; but quite frankly none of us is perfect and every mistake is an opportunity to learn so that we get just a little better at it. It’s just the decision that we need to make really and the rest will all take care of itself; the decision to be what we want and do what we want. So that in another ten years time when we clean out that desk full of memories we are satisfied with what we see and not regret that there are missing pieces that we could have had but just didn’t do anything about. Something to think about… Until next time, cheers!

Being Lost



Just yesterday a bunch of us were discussing how we view things differently at different points in our lives, in this case we were specifically talking about movies we have watched and loved at one point of time only to be disappointed by them in later years. Everyone agreed that there would always be those evergreen classics but for the most part the things we relate to at a certain time would most likely change with time. I decided to check the theory for myself today. There was a time in my life that I was addicted to the TV series aptly titled ‘Lost’. If you haven’t had a chance to see a bit of it, trust me you need to try it. I was so enthralled by this show that I have actually once watched 15 hours worth of episodes non-stop (yup, I can be crazy like that). After that even though the passion remained I wasn’t very religious about following the subsequent seasons as they came along. I kept up with the developments of the plot by reading about it on Wikepedia but that just wasn’t the same. At one point of time in college I had a brief reunion with the show and couldn’t believe I had stayed away for so long but once again fate did not permit us to stay with each other. Cutting to the present, a while back I managed to acquire all six seasons worth of episodes and I said to myself that I would shortly relive the joy of a Lost marathon but what do you know months have passed by with me hardly glancing at the folder or maybe having a look but choosing to go for something lighter instead (it’s a very intense show and you have to watch it in sequence else you’re lost quite literally). So today I dusted off the cobwebs and decided to give it a shot and see what my present self thought of Lost. After blankly staring at the screen for a few minutes I decided to randomly pick out an episode from the last season hoping I wouldn’t regret it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that from the first minute I was hooked on as if it was just yesterday! But I did discover that I was no longer eagerly sitting at the edge of my seat waiting for every next scene. Moreover I did not have the urge to keep watching one episode after the other. I did end up watching three random episodes but the curiosity was much diminished (I could blame it on Wikepedia but I have long forgotten what I had read on it so it wouldn’t be fair). I still wanted to watch the show and discover new things about the characters but it wasn’t an obsession anymore. I fact I think I’d be quite content to watch an episode every other day and be quite satisfied. So in conclusion, yes the time and place in our lives do effect our perception to things and how we react to them but I also believe that sometimes the new perceptions we build can be pretty great too. Until next time, cheers!