Life has been busy, but not me. Maybe sucked in by it’s pace for a bit.

I have not been an avid reader, I must admit, but with the online awareness campaigns people support and give their valuable inputs to these days, some readings are hard to avoid. I have discussed this earlier too, that everyone wants to speak, wants to exercise their freedom of expression, without giving any attention to it’s repercussions or judging if their expressions are even worth expressing. Be it about the AIB roast or the BBC documentary over Nirbhaya rape culprits.

Recently, I came across a pretty detailed debate over extremist feminism and modest feminine behavior. An interesting one at that. I wasn’t surprised to find that both ends were literally opposite ends of the stick. No common ground. How would a debate solve any problem is out of my understanding, because discussion is what leads to a proper solution, not a debate.

Maybe that’s what we all are lacking. Nobody wants to listen, wants to discuss, because they know what they think is right. And from where do they know things? Internet of course. And if not internet, then all hail to the media today. Both internet and media is filled with content for which nobody is responsible. To all the bloggers, open letter writers, analysts, critics, I request you to refrain from writing anything which you can’t take responsibility of.

Internet is being flooded with these personalized views which tend to declare that these are subjected to portray viewpoint of an individual. But how anything online could be personalized? It’s an idea. A thought. And thoughts spread viral, get modified at even more terrifying rate and before you know it, what was your own original thought a few seconds ago is now in hundred and thousand of brains, resulting in as many versions of it. You acted as an instigator. I wish people were using their own sense of reasoning from the scratch, but believe it or not, nod your heads in disagreement all you want, it is all suggested or referenced. Something you read somewhere, saw somewhere which you think as, “Yeah, this is the right thing! Obviously this is how it is.” And then you build up your thoughts from a ready-made plinth.

So a humble request to all the people who take a very important and huge chunk of time out of their lives to write and explain things at so much lengths and details, I don’t want to know if you think Aamir Khan is having double standards on AIB roast. Or if according to you BBC documentary ban is valid or not. It’s your opinion and you should be proud of it but not boast it. Not because it’s not boast-worthy, it might be. But because you start a debate which results in a huge swarm of flies, which just spoil your possibly amazing point of view.

It’s way past mid-night and sleep is still trying to play hide and seek with me, and I must say she’s very good at it. Don’t you think sleep is a ‘she’? As she’s deceptive and playful; easy come easy go, fickle minded, hard pressing and one of the bare necessities; you can’t live without her.

I really don’t have a title or a topic to write. A protagonist, a subject, a story is missing. Peace actually rusts and dulls your senses. Still, it’s good to be in peaceful times. Even though it causes an anxiety, an anxiousness which you can’t simply shrug off. But then, this peace is momentary. The dawn of a new day would bring thousands of new possibilities with it. Not every new condition would necessarily be a favourable one.

This awareness of the immense uncertainty etched deeply in consciousness is terrifying and addictive at the same time. It’s a thrill which gives a rush to both your brain and your heart. The confidence you gain when you could see yourself evolving through the rapids of time is forever.

There are things we did in the past, which act as the accumulated experience we possess. Your actions could be judged on the parameter of right or wrong, but not your experience. We all sometimes face a situation similar to one faced in that past. Should one use the experience to do it right this time or should the experience be used to accept that avoidance is the best option?

The night provokes me to think, to dream. I am surrounded with people yearning for someone who could understand them. I see them everyday. And the funnier thing is, they have chosen someone in particular to whom they want to explain themselves repeatedly. Funniest thing is, I was once belonging to the same category. Everybody wants to be heard, to be listened, to be taken care of, to be asked if everything is al-right. Strange, nobody wants to listen.

I don’t choose to listen on a regular basis. But then what is more exciting than non-fiction? Fiction after-all is man’s creation. Something which may sound so bizarre and out of the world, but ultimately is a figment of human imagination. And non-fiction? Naked truth. It exists. Still out of bounds of human imagination. People gasp and open wide eyes but could not digest it. So are these stories which I choose to listen. I can imagine a magician shooting spells flying in different colours, from the tip of a wooden stick called wand. But it feels almost unimaginable for a mother to discard her own son.

The truth is, we have drawn a line between fiction and non fiction, labelling them. Whereas there is no line. It’s simply divided between what makes living our life easy, thinking that it exists and what makes it a living hell. Or what catastrophes we think can be bearable and which delights are too good to be true.

But these stories have a weight tied along with them. The listener shares it with the narrator. Suddenly your perception towards the narrator changes. It’s not always bad, but not always good. Now that you are privy to their stories, they want to be judged by you. And they want it to be in their favour. Some just want to share their excess burden so that it could be possible to carry the burden of both, their story and their pride. It’s difficult being a listener, being a mute audience, being unable to point out the problem when you are staring it in the face. And mind you when I say it doesn’t do good even if you tell them it’s there.

Now I understand why silence is golden.

So even if your life is without any ripple, you can cause storm in it by listening. But then, it should be done only if you want to be high like me.

What do you want out of life? Money? Fame? How about satisfaction? The satisfaction of knowing that you gave it your best shot. It was the best you could do. Whatever came before you, you tackled it head on no matter what the result was. Or try Winning. That you were not able to win all the battles in your life, but the one which actually mattered. The peace at your heart when you win, conquer is something that could never be replaced by any other feeling. Once tasted, it gives you the yearning to go that extra mile just for the sake of it. It is like a push which gives you an adrenaline rush like nothing else could give.

Never thought about it? Or actually you did but it had always been that pumping you feel when you set for something. It’s easy to be focused at the beginning of the journey. It’s a taxing job to keep your spirits up during the course of this path, let alone to push down all of your enthusiasm into the work you took on. So? Should I empathize with you? We all are in the same boat one way or the other. Most of us don’t have it easy. Actually nobody has it easy. Everybody is fighting on, clinging on for one thing or the other. We have our own battles. We meet each other at cross ways, sometimes find each other on the same side, sometimes not.

So should we just give up in the middle of the journey, deep in nowhere? I agree its terrorizing finding yourself at a place of which you don’t have a clue of, thinking what’s next, how did you get here, how to get out of here, this was not where you wanted to be. But just taking a rain check in between doesn’t mean your destination has come. You did not know how the path is going to be anyways. You did chalk out a plan but it’s as good as imagining how a destination is going to be just by listening to its name. Now you are on it. So why giving up just because the path is not how you supposed it would be? Just because the effort is a bit more, does it makes unworthy of it?

You are afraid. Each one of us does. We get afraid of the situation. Of expectations, of people around us. Of ourselves. We all question our abilities. Do we have it in ourselves to get what we want? Was it feasible, the target we set? What we seek out of life, is it achievable? We all question our worth. But when does questioning became the seal of disapproval? Is your faith so shallow that just a bit of questioning would shatter it? It’s funny how the brittleness of one’s confidence depends on who is attacking it. If any person in this world tells you ‘You can’t do it’, it would simple fuel your desire, until and unless that person is yourself. You all could be the worst person for your own sakes.

Just do yourselves a favor. Give yourselves a bit of breathing space, some room for committing mistakes. Fill in your quota and don’t be afraid of doing so. Show yourself some leniency. Cut some slack. So that it does not matter anymore if you even find yourself in an uncharted territory. You always know where your destination is. What you actually want. What you were targeting all along. Keep your eye on it. You will pave your own way out. That rush will charge you to do so. Maintain it all along, not only at the starting point. It’s another chance for you. Let’s get it right this time. I’ll not say let’s do it together, because I’ll leave you all behind if you don’t maintain your pace. After all I don’t know which side you are on.