That is what the world is these days. A slow poison circulating in my veins, its venom diffusing through the hallways of my mind, desensitizing my soul to pathos and purity, ridiculing my ideals, clouding my vision about what's wrong and what's not.
The world is gray. Make no mistake about it. An understandable shade of gray, and this is precisely the frustration that I face daily. Nothing/nobody is so bad, or evil, that it/they can't be redeemed by a little (misplaced?) compassion and understanding. Everything is circumstantial, and nothing is absolute. Objectivity and opinion seem to switch places with alarming ease. There is no evil. There is only evil. Depends on what side you're on. Depends on how much you're willing, or unwilling, to allow. To even attempt to have a vision of life seems at once foolhardy and preposterous. For what is today, is not tomorrow. To try and transform from what you are to what you ought to be is futile, like trying to fuse together an object and its mirror image. One derives its sustenance solely through the existence of the other, and to merge the two would be to kill both. Because Life, the mirror, doesn't permit you to. The two are destined to be conflicting apparitions. Illusions because you're in a constantly suspended state, moving from one to the other. And at times you wonder whether you're moving in the wrong direction too. It's like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle where with every piece you place correctly, the puzzle modifies itself, forcing you to shift perspective and start all over again. All because the world is that way.
The world is a slow poison. And I'm dying a little each day.
The world is gray. Make no mistake about it. An understandable shade of gray, and this is precisely the frustration that I face daily. Nothing/nobody is so bad, or evil, that it/they can't be redeemed by a little (misplaced?) compassion and understanding. Everything is circumstantial, and nothing is absolute. Objectivity and opinion seem to switch places with alarming ease. There is no evil. There is only evil. Depends on what side you're on. Depends on how much you're willing, or unwilling, to allow. To even attempt to have a vision of life seems at once foolhardy and preposterous. For what is today, is not tomorrow. To try and transform from what you are to what you ought to be is futile, like trying to fuse together an object and its mirror image. One derives its sustenance solely through the existence of the other, and to merge the two would be to kill both. Because Life, the mirror, doesn't permit you to. The two are destined to be conflicting apparitions. Illusions because you're in a constantly suspended state, moving from one to the other. And at times you wonder whether you're moving in the wrong direction too. It's like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle where with every piece you place correctly, the puzzle modifies itself, forcing you to shift perspective and start all over again. All because the world is that way.
The world is a slow poison. And I'm dying a little each day.
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14 comments:
So what do we do ? Let the posion do its job and die a slow and painful death ?
Is there an escape ? is there a shield ?
ha ha..liked the last line
"The world is a slow poison. And I'm dying a little each day. "
:)
I really dont know..am I the only one who is missing this 'Existential angst'? :| I mean yeah I do understand what you are syaing but hey 'thta's that' there is nothing bally one can do about it unless one wants to go into the realm of deliberate illusion.
catch22
I don't know. Was thinking about a lot of things yesterday and wrote this. Feels good to let it all out now and then. Back to my usual cheery self today.
And these days, I'm not even bothered if there's a "shield" or whether there is even a need for a "shield". Mayeb this is what they used to call "growing up".
girish...!
:)
Exactly. There's not a thing we can do about it. Now, let me get back to my power point presentation.
Btw, I always wanted to ask you, what's the significance of the "...!" in "girish...!"? Is it becasue people are dumbstruck and awed by you? :P
Its one thing to realize the constant endless shifting that goes on in every sphere of one's life and another to constantly keep up with it! And yet another to master a control over such constant modification, anticipating some of the places where the next piece of the puzzle can be put, so that the puzzle modifies(at least to some extent) to your desire...
"Everything is circumstantial, and nothing is absolute. Objectivity and opinion seem to switch places with alarming ease." --Precisely why I am careful of words like "objectivity" --they assume too clinical a rationality. And any approach that,in itself is "too much" becomes "too little", thereby leaving you with your old dark alleys after all.
***
Forgive the confusing rant...but your post is the real culprit!;)
@Musafir: shall i put on an air of pseudo inscrutbaility and say it has a 'deep' meaning? or Shall I admit the plain truth that it was a misinformed Morse Code for 'S A' :P
And an "!" adds more panache than a plain dull '-' :)
@languorous_chaos: What was that?:|
you totally lost me...
languorous_chaos
Agree with your comment (a very wise comment I must say) on a lot of counts.
I'm at a stage where I feel I've managed to comprehend everything (at least at a basic level) that needs to be comprehended, and now all that's left is to keep pace and keep refining the basic understanding I've acquired.
And I totally understand the "too much"-"too less" conflict. The approach sometimes, like you say, tends to be too clinical and like all good theories, only serves to explain most, and not all, things. And that's when you need to draw up a theory of your own, for the time being.
And no, not a confusing rant at all!
girish...!
See above.
@musafir: You totally got what I was trying to say!
@girish: I hope there's less confusion about my rant now ;)
@musafir: apparently your rediffmail address is defunct? ;)
ok. first, it is my job to be miserable and cynical.
second, whatever you said.
third, life is a black hole. it sucks you in. end of story.
consumer demon
If life is a black hole and if it sucks you in, then wouldn't there be a time-space paradox? Or is that what you're trying to tell me? That life is a time-space paradox? :)
i would like to say qed to wht i said in my comment...actual references are blatant in the 'Questions' post i thot...in this one i sense wht i said. u r open, u say it, but the openess "Depends on how much you're willing, or unwilling, to allow." -did i quote out of context! ?
I'm still not sure as to what makes you think otherwise, but then for what it's worth, here goes -
I wrote this post during a period of transition, a sort of turning point. I was (note: was) uncomfortable with letting go of certain traditional notions of thinking and adopting a freer, more liberal position -- hence the part about how much one is willing to allow. So, I had to let it all out somewhere, hence this post, where I am thinking out aloud. I started off with Objectivism with its very rigid view of right and wrong, and then I realized it didn't answer a lot of questions and that it was flawed in a lot of stances it took. So then, my philosophy in life became a hybrid of Objectivism and Existentialism. This is when I realized that there are two sides to morality - a social stance (pertaining to how one deals with people) and a personal stance (how one deals with oneself).
A social stance necessitates having well defined and clearly thought out opinions about (obvious) a lot of social issues, from abortion to arranged marriage to pirated VCDs. If one is ambiguous about these things then there's no point in living by a code, whatever it may be. So, in these cases one seeks out the right, and the right is an absolute. And it is in these issues that I'm more often than not vehement in my defenses, since these issues are black-and-white.
A personal stance, however, seeks to answer the big questions - life, love, family, suicide etc. While dealing with these issues, one faces the gray layer. There are so many perspectives and one can't say that all thought pertaining to these subjects have been exhausted. Hence one is very open with these things.
Best way to know if someone is open or not is to ask "What are your thoughts on ...?". Blog posts written to take out existential frustration are not the best places to start such enquiries.
sounds like a ap on my knuckles!!!!!
Oh no, my intention was to just clarify. You asked me something. I gave an answer. Now, you can either agree, or disagree with a counter. Simple. But then I assume you know these things work :-)
There is this fallacy of attacking the person rather than the logic of the person's argument, and I learnt long ago not to fall into that.
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