Now, before we begin, let’s address the elephant in the room that you will notice by the end of this piece. You are going to misinterpret this piece—and that is fine. There’s no point in it anyway that you would miss.
Maybe it’s all pointless and that’s the point of it. Do it anyway.
I am not here to answer questions. I don’t have any answers to give. I am just someone who answered the one question that mattered to me—however I am, whoever I am, can I escape my “self”?
That question led me to this current version of me—whatever it is.
If I crack my skull open and scrape every memory out of it, my only recollection would be my early childhood phases where emotions were dominantly expressive. Since then, a lot changed gradually. There has never been a major life-altering incident, as most who claim to know me suspect. Yet, somewhere along the line, emotions faded away.
I could no longer look at the passings of life and put labels on it—fair, unfair, or any other kind. The more I dwelled on this, I realized: if you examine your thoughts thoroughly, you will never find one true reason to blame anything—neither the world nor yourself.
There’s one truth in any given moment—you are alive to experience it. Everything else is conditioning. A clutter.
For the world, my story goes something like this—Professional Screenwriter & Brand Storyteller, who works at an agency and manages a motley crew of geeks and nerds under the division labeled as “Creative Team.”
Outside of work, my story is different—Members of my gated society, when they end up in the same elevator as me, often ask—do you live here?
So, I guess that’s me—Professional storyteller by day, recluse by night. Perhaps I am just a ghost wearing the costume of the living during work hours, then retreating to its natural state of non-existence. I understand the contradictions it bears, but it is what it is.
So naturally, most of my day is spent dealing with people. And here’s me ranting about it.
I have often found myself telling this to people around me:
All I expect you to do is be smartly selfish. You don’t need to care about me or the world. Just care about yourself. At least make decisions, take actions that align with what allows one to live well. That’s the only responsibility you have. If you can’t do that, who will?
This point in conversation only comes when I have exhausted all my other options to reach the person.
And when even that doesn’t stir one’s “conditioning” pot, I let out a sigh and walk away. From those troubled souls to this space where I can get over the experience. Perhaps this is that place where alcoholics go to drown their sorrow. That would make you the bartender, I suppose.
So, here I am, again.
I come across individuals who are constantly at war with self and the world around them. Not that I am an advocate of peace, but frankly it’s just too much bloodshed for my taste.
They see, think, act as if they are infinite beings, indestructible in every sense. And yet I see them cracking and breaking into pieces at even the smallest nudge from life. Somehow, we have comfortably forgotten the ticking time and indulged in a delusion that life will never cease.
To me it often appears like a child racing on the street chasing a ball while a truck is heading its way.
A while back, I was discussing branding with a client—and I ended up saying—A brand is a hero even when no one’s watching. You just be who you are and be true to yourself. And it didn’t land. As if I spoke a foreign language.
Just last week, I was discussing with someone what the mark of a leader is—and I ended up saying—to hold the napkin box in one hand and the wooden ruler in the other hand and be willing to use whichever is needed in the given hour. That didn’t land either. The guy in front of me flinched as if I threw a paperweight at him.
And almost every other day, I hear someone complain about a cold shoulder they got from a colleague, or a burdened single working day out of 200 odd working days of a year, or someone just accidentally bumping their car from behind in busy traffic.
At least to me, the issues that shake individuals often do not warrant the reaction individuals indulge in—stressing over it, questioning their life choices, blaming the system, parents, and at times, even the almighty.
And I keep wondering, how did they jump to this conclusion.
I believe a lot of our actions are a result of conditioning. And we ourselves contribute to our own as well as other people’s conditioning. Perhaps that’s what has been happening since genesis.
We started off imparting wisdom, then progressed to passing on gathered knowledge, but along the lines, somehow, without realizing, we started sharing opinions.
And that’s where the issues began. Conditioning inherited from ancestors and passed on to offspring. And before we knew it, everyone was conditioned to think, feel, act in a certain way. And anyone acting outside this was again labeled with whichever term seemed fancy at the time.
Most of our day’s moments are lost in judging “everything”—but mostly people around us. Someone speaks sternly to us—they are bad. Someone speaks nicely—they are good. It doesn’t matter what the ulterior agenda is. On the surface it should look good. That’s the sole criteria, I suppose.
We are so caught up with our own delusions that we do not see how and when we are practically driving ourselves off the depression cliff.
No! I’m not saying it is bad or good. Those are labels as well, aren’t they? I am just stating the facts as they are.
Perhaps that’s the reason for the way people feel. We rush to put labels on everything including our life experiences—good, bad, average.
Take for instance, this piece of writing. Even the idea that writing needs to be “polished” or follow certain formal conventions to be valuable is conditioning. The whole apparatus of literary criticism and categorization is another form of the labeling. Yet we label away.
I see these patterns all the time among everyone I cross paths with—Going through the motions of life carrying the burden of emotions.
Now, I am not delusional to believe I can change anything. Those notions sound good in speeches and stories, but there’s no real evidence to support the theory that a drop can transform the ocean.
Yet, given my role in the professional world, it is expected of me to deal with people in a certain way, and when it comes to creative people, nurturing is the only way I know. So, I often indulge in thought experiments. I ask people questions that I feel would help them see the point, even though often it leads to places it was never intended to go.
Like one time, I asked—
What is the ingredient of love that you all feel so hooked to. What would happen if you disappear for a couple of years from your so-called loved ones—and then return—will they still have the same feeling for you. It’s likely that those who gave birth might still do, but those are maternal and paternal instincts. Love, as it has been glamorized by literature and cinema—that I feel will not survive. In a way, it is likely, even the parental love could be a result of conditioning as to how parents are supposed to be. If so, should you really care about the emotion of love or rather the time spent on it.
Another time, when those around me expressed shock over my decision to not celebrate special days and festivals, I responded—
Wouldn’t the idea of festival mean one day of your life is special and celebratory while the rest isn’t. What if every day is such—wouldn’t all days become ordinary.
Naturally, these thought experiments fail. The questions seem to be indecipherable to most. And I wouldn’t be shocked if they have labeled me as “crazy.”
But even though I am aware of the futility, I do indulge in the event of sharing my view from the window with others.
I believe one of the strongest conditioning I see everywhere is the “me against the world.” Every individual somehow is susceptible to this. As if we have woken up in a battlefront.
I see people and they appear to me as warriors on a battlefield—whether it is home, at work, on the street, with loved ones, or strangers. They are all fighting a battle they feel is just.
Real battles stemming from illusory threats. The planet has just turned into a warzone. Now, my trouble is I have to cross this battlefield every day—between leaving home, going to work, coming back.
Hence the disappointment, I suppose.
I believe we never grew up. When we were young, we played with figurines and would dress them up to match our personality. I believe we do the same thing even after growing up. We try to dress up anything we do not understand, but in doing so, we end up forgetting it’s just a dress up.
Life is just a stream of moments passing and we happen to be a drop in the stream. Now, for us to think we are the ocean seems a bit far-fetched. Even though, as a creative person, I generally encourage people to go wild with their thoughts, I find it hard to subscribe to the notion.
The reality to me is this—Life happens. You exist, until you don’t anymore. Everything else is a dance of consciousness.
I believe there’s nothing more to life than consciously living every moment with pure presence of mind, being fully aware that whatever choice you make is just as random as the event you are caught up in.
There was a time when I sought to understand things. I had a room full of books, sought spirituality, psychology, philosophy. Then one day, I donated all the books away. And it felt liberating. Then the knock in the head came and I realized even that feeling was conditioning. So, the only thing I did then was to acknowledge that Life is a forest, mind is a monkey hopping from one concept to another, and there’s nothing more to it. No grand theory to decipher.
So, if I were to say anything to anyone, even with the full understanding of its futility, I would say—
You owe no one, nothing. All you owe is yourself and a well-lived life—whatever your definition of a well-lived life is. But it certainly is not suffering.
Buddha, when he stated life’s suffering, may have meant something else!