Chaotic

Chaos (Mr. Please don’t call me by my real name. I am incognito here.) asked me to comment on a post of his. The link to the said post is given below:

http://thelukingglass.blogspot.com/
POST TITLE: Munna tum bade hoke kya banoge

So what is it that I wanted to become when I was growing up? As I type this sentence, I can’t help shudder at the premise that I am all grown up now. All adult like? Am I? Really? When I was a child 20 seemed adult and 30 was old age. People post 30 were all uncles and aunties who knew best. And now as I am nearing this milestone I don’t feel I know “best”. I am still as clueless about life as before.

Yes, there are certain things I have become good at. Certain life experiences have taught me valuable lessons. I am earning a decent living. Staying on my own. Doing grown up stuff. But come on yaar I don’t feel all grown up. :) I don’t think I ever will. Because now I realize life is not about having all the answers or knowing what’s best. Its about—wait wait its coming to me—its about–nothing. From a person who considers words of Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame) and Dogbert philosophical this is all the insight you will get.

I don’t what life is all about. Hell nobody does. Unless they want your money. Then yeah they will come up with some cock a bull story about life and its mysteries and nirvana and heaven and how if you give them your money you will be free and happy. But otherwise nobody knows why shit happens. And to be honest its fun that way. Or not.

But who cares. In the grand scheme of things you are inconsequential. So inconsequential that if you wrapped your mind around it you would leave your laptops right now and head for the jungles or the bar down the street. Either ways. You wont do what you are doing everyday. And that is the reason we ignore our insignificance. We imagine and create our own world where we are the centre of everyone else’s lives. How many times have we wondered about an unreturned call? Why the hell did she not call me? Trying to ignore me, is she? Or do I not matter to her? Samjhta kya hai apne aap ko? Now I will not call him back! How many times have we stood in front of the mirror wondering what shirt to wear considering everyone (or maybe just someone) is going to be there? :) Our hair cuts are matters of grave importance. A broken nail/ darkening complexion/ increasing waistline matters more than the entire African continent put together. We spend 88% of the time thinking about ourselves and the remaining 12% on why others don’t think about us as much as we do.

But I digress. You all already know this. What you do not know is what I wanted to do when I was a child? That brings me to problem no. 8043 of my life. I find it much easier to tackle life’s problems if I write them down some where. So one day I just created a list of all my life problems / pet peeves/ irritants and coded them as well. What the heck. Doesn’t hurt to be a little organized. Okay so let me see.

Problem no. 8043. Aah here it is. Let me read it out loud for you.

Problem no. 8043 Created: 15th April 1995
Importance: high Solution: Unknown
Status: WIP
Problem statement: I never know what I want.

Progress made: I always know what I do not want. And that, in most cases, is what I have currently i.e. what I get.

So there you have it. What is it that you want to be when you grow up? What kind of a husband would you like to have? What sort of friends you prefer? What is your fav. movie / music genre? What is your fav. dish? What is the right school for your child? Etc.

For all these questions and countless others like them I never have the perfect answer. I am never 100% sure of what I want. But I do know what I don’t like. So what I do is I create a universal set of all possibilities then subtract from it set of stuff I know I don’t like for sure and then what is left is my answer. But this method has some problems.

Like for example take my career choice for that matter. At an early age I realized my affair with mathematics will not last long. I never made friends with biology all though I used to score high in it simply because someone told me in bio labs they dissect frog legs. Yukee. A misguided complex that only idiots take commerce in class 12th made me opt for Science with Maths. But after that I broke up with PCM. I loved English in school and my dad wanted me to study Eng. Lit. but then that would have meant staying in Delhi and well there is something about the city that gives me the creeps (still does) so that option got eliminated. Again I know what I don’t like - Always.

So of all the subjects in all the world, I got stuck with management. I never chose it because I liked it. I chose it simply because I didn’t like anything else. That’s another happy coincidence that I enjoyed the rigors of management and ended up getting a Gold Medal from (sorry no name dropping here). Let’s say I did reasonably well.

Okay so you get the picture. The same has repeated itself in almost all choices I have made. The only problem is if you don’t know what is it you really want then you are never ecstatically happy about anything. Life has been good so far. But it has not been awesome/ sublime or marvelous. It’s been fair. It’s been nice. Not fantastic. I didn’t win any Olympic medals. I never climbed any mountains. I didn’t travel the globe. I didn’t start an organization. I never gave back to the society more than what I took from it. I never made billions. In short nothing spectacular.

What I did was by the book. Everything always by the book. As a friend of mine once told me: you will always have a good life if you do things by the book. Good yes, great no. So that’s how it is.

Now dear chaos sir you know. I wanted to be a manager when I was growing up and yippee I am one right now. :P

(Btw I exaggerate. The situation is not this bad. But this way it makes for some fun writing right. :))