A
few days back while having a nice long conversation on my terrace with a close
buddy about the nitty gritties of writing as a process I remarked to him that I
am fascinated by people who can do poetry, like himself. He said "it isn't
that hard actually; you just have to really feel
it. To the point that you have no choice but to pour it out somewhere".
That made a lot of sense, especially since I have been discovering a lot about
the process of writing itself in the last few days. That ‘feeling it’ thing
really made me realize how good he was at literally being in the moment; he
couldn't otherwise generate the beautiful lines that he does.
Then
I came up today to the terrace with my earphones, my music and a good book.
While pacing the terrace with my music on, I did nothing except just notice
myself, and everything around me. I noticed how I had been starting my day
lately- with a lot of gratitude for the wonderful weather. I had been dreading
the summer and had just not expected such lovely weather. It felt great to
notice that gratitude had been the first thought and emotion of my day. I
noticed the tree that was swaying in the breeze without its pink flowers,
because they were now decorating the floor of the terrace. The tree knows me
well, because there was a weird connection I felt with it when I first came to
see this place while apartment-hunting. On the adjoining terrace, some of my neighbors
had spread out their mattresses and were preparing for a good night's sleep.
Natural air-conditioning is the best air conditioning they say. With weather
like this, I definitely won’t argue with that. Strolling around some more, I
got peeks into other homes from my bird’s eye position. People sitting in their
living rooms, chatting inattentively with the TV on, a lady disinterestedly
clearing up her kitchen, a kid feeding his dog in stealth mode every time his
mom wasn't looking. A cool breeze came in, drawing my attention to how amazing it
felt against my skin. I almost stopped my playlist to go down and bring up my
own mattress to spend the night up here. What stopped me? Well, my fear of
rodents.
I
sat down leaning against one of the walls and stared up at the sky that
twinkled with its brightest stars. Star gazing is just awesome. I could do it
forever. I feel like they have a language of their own, don't you think? So
often I have waltzed them through my thoughts and they listen,
patiently and intently. They are there, like the few constants in our lives and
so I gravitate towards them, and forget who I am and everything that seems to matter
to me. And in forgetting myself completely, I can feel one with everything.
It
was just perfect, like that was really all I ever wanted to feel and that was
exactly where I wanted to be in that moment. Nowhere else. I wondered…
how we try so hard to keep up with facades in all its various manifestations, how
we convince ourselves of wanting things that we don’t really want and how we
reason with ourselves to defend the value of some people in our lives even
though they actually don’t really contribute any. And how we worry, all the
time, about our future. The world’s many convoluted perceptions about ‘following
one's heart’ has complicated it far too much. Sometimes I feel that our elders
are messengers or agents meant to keep reminding us of these. I don’t blame
them, for they only have our best interests at heart after all. But practicalities,
they say, are what run our lives. And I think to myself…really? I mean I am not
denying in any way the practicality of money, its significance in our lives and
what it does for us- It gives us the freedom that everyone spends their entire
lives trying to attain. But I don’t see why we can’t just be free in ourselves. Free in thought, in form, in expression, in
essence. From whatever little I understand, it is the freedom of choice that
everyone wants to arrive at eventually. What stops us from exercising it right
now, in this very moment then? Is it fear? Of the consequences of being a
free spirit…or fear of the incapacity to manage the awesomeness that it comes
with?
One may
wonder why it is so hard for us to be happy, because happiness exists in
perpetuum, if we want it to. Perhaps the
moment in itself has no power whatsoever. The moment can be inspiring, or
morose. Calm, or dramatic. It can be whatever we choose to make of it. So the
free choice we exert in such moments is really God’s hand here isn’t it? Maybe
that is what the stars intend to tell us when they twinkle; that they don’t
work independent of our free choice. That our acquiescence to their plans is
just not as effective an approach towards life as much as our effortful
collaboration and fraternization with them would be. The constant seeking of external validation that
we initiate for our own welfare must seem so ludicrous to them when all they
expect us to understand is to let go, keep showing up every day and just… Be.
If we learn to be the companion of the moment, we have probably achieved
everything we have ever wanted, in its becoming
from that moment on. I feel like in having this thought, I have arrived. Don't know where, but somewhere really good for sure. And I
like the feeling a lot. So I think this is a companionship I want to invest in,
for many years to come.
Have you
tried it yet?
