cleanliness drive

I cleaned my room so well yesterday that one could eat off the floor. Which is a good thing too since I somehow managed to misplace the plates.

the knot

Marriage. Its something so intimate, so personal. How can anyone make a show out of it? How can something so personal be done in a public forum with so many prodding eyes? The public declaration of eternal love and faithfulness. How can these words be pronounced in anything but a personal sphere between the two. Isn’t it embarrassing? The show. The watchful eyes.

death

Death. Dying. Ugly words. Conjures up visions of darkness, space, emptiness, nothingness. An inescapable, grasping, greedy void. I like reading about death and dying though. Reading about the last few days of terminally ill patients. Reading about the horror that unfolds in front of them, second by inevitable second. It’s like standing at the edge of a cliff and looking down. Or watching a ferocious, hungry, wild animal pounce at you when you stand protected behind a wall of impenetrable glass. There’s safety in reading about their pain and struggle. It’s too early for me to sense any real danger. Or at least that’s what I feel.

Death. The final argument. Life’s ultimate touché. The universal coup de grace. There are no further arguments. No further course of action required. The definitive answer to a life long question.

My time will also come. I won’t always be a spectator. The gift of this life force can’t last forever. All that I lived for, dreamed of, experienced, feared, thought about, all of it in a second will vanish without a trace. My whole life will grind away to nothing. The magical life giving force will vacate without so much as a goodbye or a backward glance.

I don’t want to die. I don’t want the whole of my life, me, to come to this nothingness. But I don’t want to kid myself into believing in theories that promise continuity either. The Eternal Soul. Reincarnation. Post-Death-Life in Other Dimensions. Heaven and Hell. All of these theories propagate the lie of continuity. There is no continuity after death. I want to be able to look at death in the face, without these shields, these fanciful toys that are used to deflect reality.

And yet, can I even begin to understand what my own death means to me? The destruction of my physical body. The annihilation of the very mind that defines me, the mind that is thinking these thoughts right now. Can I comprehend this loss? Can I comprehend the magnitude of this loss? How can I even begin to mourn the possibility of there being no me? I cannot. I cannot even see myself as a lifeless body. And yet that is exactly what I am walking towards. There is no escape. No secret tunnel I can take, no extra life points that I can collect. This is it. The whole of it. I cannot have more. There are no second helpings. The game is set up in such a way that no matter how I play it, there is invariably the end game.

From the perspective of death, so much of what I do everyday seems so petty, so trivial. The thoughts that wrack my mind during the day seem so insignificant and jaded when compared to what I am going to have to face some day. All of what I do, have done, plan to do, seem so useless, so hopelessly futile. I cannot live with the idea of a dark shadow that moves with me all the time. I would feel like a prisoner in the gallows, living out his death sentence. I mean if all this is so fleeting then why spend it in anything but utmost ecstasy. Why shouldn’t I head off to the mountains and spend the rest of my life meditating, making merry, having sex, getting drunk, trekking, singing, doping, dancing…? Why live even a single responsible moment?

The only answer that I have to that question: I just do.

Therefore, for me to live as I do, it’s pertinent that I sweep aside the reality of death. I have to refuse to acknowledge the inevitable. Otherwise how am I to live a normal life? I consciously allow myself to continue to carry the illusion of my own death being a distant and academic concept. I need this illusion. Not only because I am afraid to contemplate my end but also because that illusion protects my present day precious reality. It helps me to keep consequences in mind. It helps me want to grow, to improve myself, to become a better person. It helps me lead a responsible adult life.

And this illusion I will continue to hold dearly, till some day in future, when I am lying bleeding in the middle of a road or writhing in some unnamed hospital room or lying peacefully in my own bed, the burden of carrying this illusion will become too much and purely unnecessary. Probably for the first time in my life I would be able to look death in the face and laugh.