What is life really?
- Is it a bed of roses? Or a bed of nails? Or is it something where the “roses have thorns” argument holds?
- Is it a struggle? Or is it a celebration?
- Is it a bunch of little things that manifest themselves over time? Or huge things, that with time, become memories one would chuckle and laugh about?
- Is it emotion that defines it? Or is it reason? Or is it passion that grabs it with a vice-like grip?
- Is it defined by acting on the spur of the moment? Or by long deliberation?
- Is it about getting totally involved with everything one does – laughing out loud and crying one’s eyes out? Or is it about being able to see everything from a bird’s eye and never wading through the turbid waters?
- Is it about loving someone with all one’s heart that one would be willing to give up one’s very life for them? Or is it about compartmentalizing?
- Is it about expressing oneself and letting everything out? Or is about closeting everything, digging out the skeletons in the cupboard and burying them deep in the murky marshes of one’s mind?
- Should the innocent and naïve heart be allowed to rule one’s thoughts? Or is it the more pragmatic and insensitive brain that should be allowed to take over?
- Is it about living the happiness and smiling through the tears?
- Is it what we become in life that should define us? Or the people we have turned out to be? Or a combination of both?
- Is life black? Or is it white? Or is it just a chequered landscape in multiple hues of gray on whose squares stand tall the ghosts of the past like pieces on a stone chess board? Do these hues change with time?
- Is life determined by one’s choices? Or is there something inexplicable that governs it all? Or is it the hand that Chance doles out, that makes or breaks the deal?
- Is life easy? Or is it complicated? Or is it one’s mind which makes it the way it is?
- Is it about clinging on and blowing into the glowing embers to rekindle the flame? Or is it about letting go and blowing out the candle yourself?
- Is it about cursing the rain and trying to stay dry under the futile cover of an umbrella blowing in the wind? Or is it about letting the rain soak your very soul and bringing a huge smile on your face while making you catch a cold in a matter of minutes?
- Is it about momentary pleasures and long term pain? Or momentary pain and long term pleasure? Or momentary pleasure and pain?
- Is life about the gentle musings of beauty and wonder? Or is it about aggression, passion and achievement? Is it about the green and the blue? Or the red and the black?
- Is it about the moments that tug at our heartstrings and make us cry? Or is it about the countless memories of pleasure and pain that make us sigh? Is it about the withering roses in the dry rosebed? Or is it about the tender rosebud peaking out from beneath the sepals?
- Is it about letting your hair blow in the wind and getting the dust in your eyes? Or is it about staying warm, snug and dust free inside?
- Are we masters of our destiny? Or is there a sadistic master up there pulling at the strings and ridiculing us while we tread, fall and err?
- Is life non-existent without pain? Is pain the underlying base of the dish that life is?
- Is life just determined by time and space? Or is there something else too?
- Does time heal all wounds or does it wound all heals?
- Is life ruled by randomness, a Brownian phenomenon? Or is there an underlying pattern that lies obscured to all human perception?
- Is life a mission with a purpose? Or is it just one long meaningless pursuit?
- Do our deeds live on? Or do we just crumble to dust in our tombs and blend in with the same dust that would become new life?
- Is it dancing like the wind, singing like a lark, flying like an eagle and hunting like a cheetah? Or is it going about a mundane existence like the ant or the honeybee?
- Is life music? Or is it dance? Is it even an art where colors express themselves and have an identity? Or is it a meticulous science determined by equations, precise, but also having an element of error – the delta?
- Is it about blending in or standing out? Is life like a dazzling array of colors that mix together and presume a whole new identity to paint a rainbow together? Or is it like a sculpture etched in stone, stoic and stable for all eternity?
- Is life love? Or is love, life?
- Is life or love about rainbows and butterflies and violins playing amidst the rustle of leaves and the gusty wind? Or is it about compromise and settling for something?
What really is life? I yearn for an answer…
Simple yet profound! As I browse through the earlier entries, I must say there’s a marked change in the way you write and the perspectives you bring! I think you should make it a point to write a couple of pieces every month and then start on your master project in a couple of years.
ReplyDeleteAnd imho..
If one answers them all, I am sure he’ll stand tall;
But: For them one needs to do, for it doesn’t come free
But: To live is not to do, but to be.
And as someone rightly said, when you were born, you cried and the whole world rejoiced. Live your life such that when you leave, the whole world cries and you rejoice. :P
Well-written :)
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the Sufi Saint Bulle Shah contemplating life...
Acc to me, life is very simple Sur...
It is ur mum, ur sis, ur paati, ur boyfriend, ur friends, other relatives(not necessarily in that order!!)
It is also ur career, ur colleagues, ur goals, and ur achievements :)
@Rajiv: Thanks! I honestly dunno what master project you are referring to! So pls enlighten me the next time we talk :)
ReplyDelete@Arjun: thanks bro! hmmm.. i dunno da.. i honestly wish life were that simple.. but it's not.. there are too many shades of gray.. a lot of uncertainty generally..
Sometimes people go years by without thinking about the most fundamental questions. I guess it's real easy to get so caught up in your life that you forget why you are doing all of it in the first place..
ReplyDeleteThe questions you raise are some of those very basic questions which truly need to be asked da. I doubt there are concrete White/Black answers to the questions themselves, but by the very act of asking the questions, I think you start moving towards improving things from where they stand.
Very lucid clear eloquent writing with beautiful analogies da..:) Loved the one about life being a chequered chess board..
You need to write more!
@Shashank: Thanks da :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you to an extent. It is essential to ask these questions. But, since one can expect an answer to only some of these questions in one's lifetime, does it even make sense asking them?? I wonder...
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ReplyDelete"What exactly is life all about" is a question that troubles me quite a lot. What is our purpose here? I guess thats something we all want to know.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what it is but I can answer your first quest though. Acc. to me life can be a bed of roses if you know how to enjoy the thorns.
Anyway your post has helped me to look at life with a different perspective and has increased my curiosity to understand it.
Thanx a lot!! :)
Life is about curling up on a cozy sofa with a crate of chilled beer and watching a series of football games, followed by a drunken headbanging to the sweet melody of Cannibal Corpse after which one wraps up the evening with a good, old-fashioned romp... Yeah, I think that's life...
ReplyDelete