As I sit, bored more than ever, my mind drifts to the pensive state. Yet again, I catch myself wishing I were a kid all over again. More often than not, this is a mere thought passing me by. This time however, it looks like it is going to stay for a quite a while.( And what better way to get rid of it than write!)
I was watching UP, a children’s film with simple yet strong emotions. Apparently, that had brought me here to this pensive mood. I wonder how easier life would be, if everyone remained children. As a child, the most you need to have on your mind is a bruise on your knee. But that, sadly, isn’t the way life works; you have to experience every single phase, every single emotion.
A quarter of an hour into the movie, as I watched old Mr.Fredricksen’s house rise with the balloons, I could see how elated he was. I then realised the aesthetic truth that every man is indeed still a child at heart. The old man really did touch a few strings deep down my heart!
We tend to make too much of our life; not that it is bad, but it invariably gets unhealthy after a while. And before we even realise it, we are already in the midst of a rat-race. And, then on, as they say, you can ill-afford to stop lest you get trampled by the rest. True- the end of the race does give you the satisfaction of achievement, but unsurprisingly, there is no end to it. Once you’re done with one, you already are in another, because it is only human to crave for more! There shouldn’t come a day in your life, when you turn back and you see that all you’ve been doing was running races, without taking the time to bask in your feat, and feel the sheer happiness.
As unrealistic as it may be for a bunch of balloons to carry a house halfway round the world, it is a children’s film; and I must say – it has done a great job teaching me something really valuable. To work hard is a must, but not towards an unrealistic goal. Whatever you do with your life, take it as a child would- with the sense of longing (not greed) before, and pure joy (not pride!) after. There is nothing more soothing than the feeling of warm satisfaction engulfing your gut. You then realise how happier life could become. Whatever happens- it does for a reason, and the sole difference lies in how you see it!
That one moment. That one moment, a few of us were unlucky enough, or lucky enough to endure. Endure, yes, you read that right. One cannot simply glide through that moment, one endures it, for such is the gravity of it weighing down upon you. That one moment which changes every single thing in your world, or so it seems, on afterthought.
It turns your world upside down, everything around you slowly tilting topsy-turvy. The moment when you realise, for want of a better way of putting it, that everything you believed in deeply, was a lie. When something that meant the world to you was a plain farce.
Silence resounds in your ears. You become oblivious to the world, shutting it out. You can't see anything, you can't hear anything, you just feel the truth hitting you, hard at that. Seconds seem like hours. Everything you had built up inside you just crumbles into dust. The only thing you seem to perceive is the knot in your heart being pulled tighter and tighter. Your heart beats faster and faster keeping up with the adrenaline. Your nose tingles with the bitter-sweet softness of a tear springing out from your eye, now warm and moist. You contort your eyes, trying to hold them back, your jaw begins to tremble. A chill runs through your self, when suddenly warmth is flooding though you. A sigh is spent, the knot loosens and goosebumps rise.
All at once, in that one moment..
The human heart is an interesting little thing. I would say it is a feather- free, beautiful and easily carried away. Seemed an apt comparison. It strikes my eye as a beautiful melancholy. It hovers around in our chest, 'bossed' around by a labyrinth of emotions and feelings, the metaphorical thin, unbreakable chords which hold it in its place.
When we are happy, it is almost as if the happiness is a wind which sweeps it off the ground. It is a free soul, losing itself in the soothing gusts engulfing it. Sadness and depression are deadweights trying to crush the delicate, little feather. Once we enter the blue funk, it is weighed down. We feel the labyrinthine chords of our emotions pulled by the weighed down feather. It hurts within our chest. Strangely enough, as much as we are supposed to get hurt, the feather enjoys the fall into the dark recesses of oblivion. The chords still stretching are manifested as lonely tears from the eyes. You wish they broke, yet they hold on. they know you are better than that. Murky darkness deluges the soul. The feather, ruffled and crushed, is yet pure and beautiful and heartwarming, ironically. The ever-stretching chords choke the lungs beside, gasping for breath
.
You close your eyes, hold your breath, feel the feather falling deep into the hollow cauldrons of nothingness, you try to keep your tears in with a knot in your throat. Yet a moment comes, when you give up for a moment, your breath in sad gulps and sighs groans, tears roll down and it takes a while to regain control.
Ever so slowly, the weights do lift, blossoming a new dawn. The feather, rekindling after an arduous ordeal, misses the subtle pangs of pain, the melancholy, for once real pain is endured, the feather falls in love with it. The melancholic strains of nature appeal to it in an unearthly way, which we do not understand ourselves. All we know is that we seem to love it when the feather sheds a tear. We know it doesn't sound right. We keep quiet about it.
But, do touch your heart and tell me- Haven't you ever loved that feeling of darkness, loneliness, helplessness, frustration engulfing you, all at once? Not once in your whole life? You are not alone, mate. there's you, there's me and millions more out there, The league of melancholics! Amen.
During another frustrated night,
yours truly..
