Human beings are born with a tendency towards hurting other creatures for their own good and even pleasure. Leave human kids unsupervised and no doubt you will have a Lord of the Flies situation. It is adults who must teach children that it is bad to hurt other human beings. But in doing so the parent also makes the child weak and vulnerable to the attacks of others who do not have this sense of morality ingrained so deeply. All big questions in life somehow end up being paradoxes. 

One of my most vivid memories from when I was about 14-15, is of bunking school to go watch a movie at New Empire theater. The movie was American Beauty. Even as I could feel the uncle sitting next to me get shuffly and uncomfortable at the sight of rose petals raining down on Mena Suvari's naked body I knew that I had watched a thing of beauty far beyond the comprehension of my 15 year old mind. They don't make movies like that anymore in Hollywood. Now you go to the theater not to see beauty, but to see things getting blown up...Monsters destroying whole cities, sometimes a lot of cities. I have nothing against superhero or monster movies. In fact I love them. But to quote American Beauty itself ".Sometime
 there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in." Maybe it will be good to see a plastic bag floating around for a good few minutes could soothe our tired eyes. 

Those Moments of Unexplained Happiness

Life they say is a dreadful void, and in between dark and empty days, there is sometimes a little unexplained twang of happiness. It is supposed to be these little breaks in the clouds that keep us going. But for some time now, I have lost even these little moments of happiness. The only breaks in my constant bitter sadness is when I see someone even sadder than me by sake of nothing but misfortune. It doesn't reduce my sadness, rather makes me even sadder, only less sad about my condition and more thoughtful about the human condition... how we are doomed by our birth circumstances... geography, economics, politics, social structure, to lives that are nothing but a struggle to stay alive. What does one who is doomed to suffering by birth stay alive for? The fear of the painful process that is death? The fear of what lies beyond? Does the blind man who lives on the street and begs for small change from people out for joyrides in their fancy cars ever feel any twang of happiness that makes his life worth the while? In the night he takes the little money that he collects and buys himself a bottle of country liquor that kills him slowly, or some low grade drugs that kill him faster and he gets high. That is the only twang of happiness he can hope for. Happiness is an illusion, a moment when you can forget the reality of your existence and take pleasure in it. Whether one needs these illusions to help them stay alive, whether one really has to stay alive? I really do not know.

An epiphany of sorts,
In the middle of a busy day
Takes you by the hand
And leads you to places
You never wanted to know.

I was nested peacefully
In the place that I had craved
Though falling apart at the edges
Justified by the safety and
The comfort of avoiding change.

Reality, however well disguised
Has an inherent nature
Of showing itself in time.
Things fall into place
Though not the places you want

(Incomplete)

Hope and other demons

There are days which are bearable, some days which you could even call "good". Then there are days like this, full of nothing but an overwhelming existential crisis. I wonder if anyone else feels this way at all? You wake up in the morning, it's a Sunday, the weather is nice, the sun in bright. You have your breakfast and think you will read for a while. You get into bed and then there it is suddenly. Waves of lethargy, your whole body hurts, it hurts so much that you start thinking of dying, how good it would be to not feel this pain anymore.
I have nothing that I can use to justify my existence. The only thing that keeps me from taking that final step is thinking about my parents... these people that I can't live with anymore, but I can't bear to hurt either. I was always unfit to exist but somehow I tried to cope with the world around me, worked hard and tried to make something of myself, gave my heart and soul to another human in trying to make sense of this existence. Yet the best laid plans blow up on your face.
My hopeful friend tells me I must have made some mistake somewhere. Something I didn't do, somewhere that I didn't put in my best. Sure, I wasn't perfect. But I had my heart broken, and all my efforts,trampled underfoot just because I have bad luck, because I was doomed to fail.If luck is on your side, you will get things done and have things work out your way without even trying and is luck isn't working for you, you can try try and try and all you will do is fail fail and fail.
These last couple of years have made me so confused and even more weary of the world than I have even been. How does it happen that one has accident after accident and then one failure after another? I was never the superstitious kind but these years have made me feel that there are so many things beyond our control that trying and making an effort doesn't even matter.
All I want to do now, if I have to be alive is escape. Escape form all the demands and expectations of this world to a place where life is simple and simple efforts lead to simple results that are sufficient to keep you going. I don't have hope any more. Out of all the demons that came out of the box that Pandora made the mistake of opening  the final and most dangerous one was hope. It comes disguised as something wonderful, a light in the times of darkness, but for the ones whose luck has run our, hope is just a monster that leads you down paths that will crush the last bits of joy you have left in your soul. You will hope that days will get better and you will only find yourself sinking further and further down to depths you could not even imagine.
I was probably destined for this fate, that girl with so much promise and such a spark grew up to be mediocre and a loser in love and life. Maybe there is a lesson in there, some sort of wisdom you can gain. But I just don't see the point anymore.

My happiest place

If heaven could be the time and the place in your lifetime where you have been the happiest, I would die and wake up in that tiny room of that house that doesn't even exist anymore. That bed too small even for one where you and I used to lie intertwined in each other. The kisses that would last forever or at least as long as entire songs. Where laughter was easy and the tears came from realizing that what we were feeling was so much love it was too much to bear without breaking down from gratitude or the fear of losing it all.
I can still remember those afternoons, when I found excuses to leave my house, only to come to that room to be with you. Those few hours lasted so long, seeing you for a couple of days a weeks filled my heart to the brim. Nothing else mattered in those moments. The world outside did not exist for two lovers, children at best, locked in the last embraces of love.
Before all the darkness, before all the pain would engulf you. And then come for me as well.

I miss you so much. I don't have anything that reminds me of you. I destroyed everything in a fit of rage, not knowing that one day I would give anything to just have one of those letters, a small trinket, anything that reminds me of you, of us. I would give anything to touch you again, your "revenge of the nerds" haircut, your geeky glasses... for me you were the most beautiful boy I had ever set my eyes on. I don't even know when and where I lost you, when love ceased to be enough, how the outside world crept into that room and blew everything to smithereens. Maybe when that house was demolished, we left our souls there, still entangled in each other, while we went about the world being grown ups, having grown up problems, never knowing love like that again.
I'd give anything to be in that room again, with you. Lie in that bed and bury my face in your arms. This time I will never ever look at the clock or say that I have to leave. This will always be my happiest place. A place that does not even exist anymore except in my memories.

Idenitity Crisis

I am confused, or maybe depressed; or both. I don't know what I am doing with my life. I am in my thirties and I have no clue what I want to do with my life, my career is depressing, my personal affairs even more so. Most of my friends are in the same boat when it comes to relationships and family matters, but almost all of them have at least figured out what they want to do for a profession. I can't say the same for me. I changed track 2 years ago, decided to go into research instead of clinical practice, but over these two years I haven't found satisfaction in this career choice either. The daily routine, the need for round the clock dedication of headspace does not agree with me. I think I have written this same post some time back, in between I have tried to work harder on what I am doing but it didn't bring me any satisfaction. I am too inclined towards the arts to completely immerse myself in science. I need an artistic release. I was going to art classes to keep my painting habit alive, but the circumstances ended that phase this month. Now I am unsure whether I will be able to carry on painting or whether it's the end, those beautiful canvases will just sit gathering dust for me to look at them and feel even more unhappy at how I have let my life go down paths I didn't even want to tread. I want to have the motivation to come back home from work and sit with a canvas but I doubt that I will, since I have given up on everything unless I was forced to keep doing it. Last time I had quit the art classes because I was too depressed to do anything, I could hardly get out of bed. Rejoining the classes and starting painting again had been a step towards recovery. But ever since I started working in my current position, I have been finding it more and more difficult to sustain the weekly art sessions. And moreover, what I was painting was not even from the heart, it was skilled alright, and very beautiful, but it did not have my voice. I want to paint for myself, to find my voice in the brush at last, but with the extremely demanding phase of starting a career in scientific research, I am afraid I will just lose whatever connection I had with art completely. I don't even have the dedication and the drive that some people in my current profession have. If they are the ones who are supposed to "make it" in this line of work and I cannot even put in the effort and hard work it takes to "make it" as an artist, where do I stand? A wasted, mediocre life? Realizing at the fag end of your life that you have wasted all your time doing things that never made you happy and that you have no more time or energy left to do those things anymore? I never wanted to end up that way. But if I am too afraid to take risks, too lazy to work hard on the things I believe in, then that is how I will end up.