I
n a rather first, today, a whiff of anxiety and scare lashed by my soul. For a moment I found myself lusting for being amidst the unseen and the exotic. The moment when one despairs at being fettered to inconsequential chores stood staring me in the face. It so happened that I ran into a gentleman who had that care free aura around his congenial face. A short striking conversation with him made me brood over for a while and I sat down to think of his talk about racism, about visual communication and of temples and beggars in far-flung corners of the country. In the rest of the journey that he alighted somewhere in the middle of, my mind flew away to distant shores. I heard the storming, gorgeous waves and saw those picturesque tides. The inability to have that world surround me for real meant that the world was no longer at my feet as it always used to be. I cannot recall the last time I yearned for anything not within my immediate reach as strongly. That fleeting moment I was yearning to break free. As someone who has maintained, if not professed, that breaking free is not an option available to the human race, that desire of doing so came as a tough pill to swallow. That leap of imagination has left me weaker in terms of my suitability for a set pattern that I have tended to follow and fall by.
Curiously enough, I was haunted yet again, equally ephemerally, when in the market I saw this group of young boys selling chillies and gourds. Sitting side by side, attending to buyers, weighing the greens, they were jostling their things at each other and constantly conversing about things I could not know much about. Amidst the shrillness and the chaos was their world- unfettered, jovial and supple. It is funny to admit but I will. I felt like being one of them for the evening. Oh that I could travel back with them to their fields on a rainy noon and tend to their crop. Thankfully, I was done buying by the time I could take a firm decision. Smiling to myself and at the pretentious sounding plans that got sketched in my head, I headed back home.
These fleeting distractions today in a way have left me confused and right now I am thinking about my confidence in things, about the levels of my contentment with everything that I have until now not taken very seriously. I seem to be scoring lower on these counts than ever before. Should this be a cause for worry? Be it or not, twice in the day today, I was not myself. That is the best face I can put up right now to account for a weakening of my faith in conformity and austerity, in being content and in being oneself. The day has seen me split into two. Another defense, I think it should calm me down- I am no exception. Its only natural to vie, to be jealous of others and to dream of not being one’s real self.
Personal Concerns 
Deep self introspections
Thanks fr the visit!
Something I read- “I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth, then I ask myself the same question.”
The world is so filled with subtle joy that you cannot blame the heart for wanting to live them all 🙂
OMG! That quote makes me sadder!
My! what lovely contemplation of your thoughts and desires. I like the way you wrote this, and, for a moment, I felt I was reading one of those classic passages written by some great writer in the days of yore.
that is a very warm thing you say! thanks a lot!
I love your writing here.
Thank you Allen!
It was a type of awareness that broke into your heart – learning about other ways to be and wishing to participate more. I like your article. But do not fret, the world can be yours in so many ways. Introspection is one. Awareness of self and others is a great human treasure.
Thank you. That sums it up very well.
That was a poised heartfelt introspection!
Strings, my lord, are false. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene III.
Sometimes between that borderland of existing and ruminating, you touch upon the simplest truths you’ve been yearning for long. Never mind the triggers; it is the liberation that matters, ephemeral or eternal.
and there you are, pushing me back to a belief in the fact that liberation, ephemeral or eternal IS POSSIBLE!
Very beautifully rendered the turbulence in your heart.Discontentment is insightful, for it brings one closer to the path that one has to take. Ponder deep and suddenly the light will shine through.
On a different note, there was a time I used to desperately wait for vacations and now, I don’t. Its all in the state of mind.
yeah i read about your ruminations on things gone away. that was nice. thanks for the visit moon!
I loved your choice of words. Beautifully expressed and very heartfelt writing!
thanks Deboshree. Hope you come here more often! Regards!
hello, PC… hey, we’re not always collected, you know? but we do try, we do… 🙂
methinks it’s alright to have those moments, from time to time. like checking out the inner me, huh? 🙂 thanks for the visit, my friend… ~san
Such personal awareness and self introspection. You have expressed your desires and emotional turbulence with a touching pen. Beautifully written.
thanks Otto for those kind words!
It is a frustrating fact that whenever we choose something, we have eliminated all the other options. If we decide to live in the city, we lose the feeling of the open countryside. If we decide to get married, we surrender the freedoms of a single life. I suppose the trick is to be grateful for what is, rather than dwell on what isn’t. Easy to say.
I like how you’ve expressed this dilemma.