Sunday, September 30, 2007

MY WORLD

I stare at the blank page with blank thoughts in my head.
It is dark and there is no one around for miles.
Or maybe I'm trapped in a crowd in an alien land where I know no one.
What difference does that make?
I choose to see what I want to see.
And I hear only the words echoing in my mind.
I wonder. Would I just die one day? Would my heart one day, just refuse to beat? I can neither comprehend this nor can I believe this. So what if people die? So what if everyone I cared about is no longer around to hear my silly thoughts. I choose to believe that everyone is still around. Maybe not near me. But definitely not dead. I remember the story my mother used to tell me. When people die they become stars in the sky. Hence it is night for me. Despite the cold mocking sun that shines so brightly. It is night and I can see all my loved ones. They are here. Looking upon me from afar. Twinkling in the night. Or maybe I am blind and can see nothing despite how much I want to. So I just create the images that I want to see in my head. I may be blind but I still can see in my mind. Even if what I see is what I want to see. It is probably better this way. This way I am not alone. As long as I can think, I am alive and with the people I love the most. I choose not to accept the so called realities. This is my conscious decision. This is my free will. Let me give an example. Suppose I jumped from a high rise. Would I die? Of course not. How can I? There is no way I can die. This is because I am more than a random jumble of organic molecules. Gestalt if you will. I am also a viewpoint and a thought stream. As long as my thoughts survive, I will live. They are indestructible. They are changeable. Like a chameleon or a shape-shifter, but they remain. Wait isn't that some conservation law?
Now let me ask a question. What is the proof that I am alive? Aw that was a rhetorical question. But let me answer that. There can absolutely be no proof. Maybe I am just a figment of someone else's imagination. But by the same logic, that someone is also a figment of my imagination. Hence we all are defined recursively. Each and every person's existence depends on the existence of every other person.
Hence if a person stops to exist, that is to say, dies. Everyone else dies. Thus we all are already dead. And every dead person is alive. Which is so to say, no one is either dead or alive.
As countless philosophers have said before, the world is hence just a myth. Or I am just a schizophrenic deluded bastard. What difference does that make?
I just claimed that I have free will. But do I really? Why do I exist in this space and time? And in this ridiculous form? If I really had free will, would I not have chosen a perfecter world for my existence? Or maybe this is why I have free will. I had the will to chose an imperfect world for my existence. That is a choice I made by myself. Thus, even though I do not know my reasons, I exist in this world. Also, I can claim, that by choosing this existence, I created this world. Thus, I cannot die. Because if I die the existence of this space becomes naught. It is hence a prerequisite for the existence of this space, that I must exist. Maybe a bullet in my head will relieve me of my sufferings. That however won't kill me.
It is cold. I am numb with the cold. Or maybe I am cold-blooded. A reptile. Hidden in the shadows. Crawling around. Maybe I am just sick and tired. Tired of my tedious existence. Tired of just existing. Tired of having to breathe, day in and day out.
I close my eyes and I see. A new world. The same, that I see with my eyes open. If it has changed, I cannot discern. I decide that I exist in the same world as everyone else. The same laws govern me as everyone else. But I find that to be a ludicrous argument. There is a barrier around me that separates me from the rest of them.
Love, I say the word out loud. Love mysterious. Love eternal. I remember what someone told me a long time ago. I am in love not with any person, but with the idea of being in love. Love for me is the state of being wanted. That way my existence is not superfluous. There exists a person for whom my existence is necessary. Thus as long as the person exists, I am bound to exist. Love relieves me of the misery that my life is and allows me to romanticize my own existence. Love literally makes my world go round.
All my life I have been searching for ways to define myself. If I can define who I am. I will know myself. And why the infatuation with my own person? I believe it does not make me a narcissist. I believe there are things in this world that I will never know. I am however with myself all the time. I will be satisfied just to know myself. That way the world will be a bit less of a mystery for me.
For now however, let me talk about my world. It is a bright and gloomy place. The sun shines too brightly and everything glows. I cannot hide from it. I feel as if I am always being watched. Which is probably true. Even my darkest thoughts are laid out bare for everyone to see. It is as if I exist in a comic. When I think little balloons appear over my head that everyone who cares to see can read. But I being trapped in this 2 dimensional world can't comprehend that. I keep my doors closed and blinds drawn . Yet I feel naked and violated. Like a laboratory mice under observation and every time I do something unexpected, an old senile man with bifocals will jot it down in his notebook with a wry smile. A smile not warm and comforting for having achieved something new. But a smile of sneer and derision. As if every thing I do is no big deal. For it has already been done. Even when it hasn't been, hey I am just a laboratory rat, I am nothing of any consequence.
Today I feel like ants are crawling all over my body. Exploring my darkest deepest secrets. Secrets that even I don't know myself. I feel dead. I feel dead, thats it. I feel like I am in hell. Like God decided to send me to Hell for all my sins. I want to tell Him, No you're making a wrong judgment. Like I was framed by Destiny. There is no peace. There just is emptiness. I do not hunger, I do not tire. I do not sleep. I do not feel. Unless it is pain. Lots of it. I have no passion. I do not exist. I am not alive. I feel the ants crawling over my dead skin. Maybe I am buried. That will explain why it always is dark. I am in my own grave. I probably dug it myself.
I try fitting into the world, smile at the ready. But it no longer works like it used to, before. I got through most of my life pretending to be happy. Smiling for the pictures. It somehow no longer works anymore. Come to think of it, I never posed for that many pictures. I think that I did not even have 50 pictures taken of me. That is bad, right? I have always avoided meeting people. I am not very sure why I did that. But that is how I have always been.
Never in my life did I know that love would be so painful. For all I know, that is the only reason I can think of for the pathetic existence I lead. Love unfulfilled. Love unreciprocated. Love burning me inside out. Sometimes I cry, without tears. For no reason that I can discern. I wanted pain. It has proved to be my death-wish. I am selfish. I do not want to carry this burden. I cannot. There is no way I can. I am tired of it. I loathe it. I hate myself. I hate my thoughts. Why can't I be normal? Why can't I be happy? Why can't I be at peace?
No, there is always a multitude of voices in my head. I am sure of three voices at least. They exist because I wanted them to. I created them. Now they own me. They control me. When I created them, it seemed like a good decision. You'll never be alone, I told myself, if you talk to yourself. Now I don't know how to turn them off. They are always arguing. I don't know which one of them is me. I don't know whom to listen too. Talk about having a coterie of inept advisers. I just want to tell these guys, the following words, Fuck off. Maybe I did tell them already, but they always come back. They frigging never leave me alone. At any moment. When I do something right, I am mocked, it was no big deal. It was nothing special. When I do something wrong, they become condescending, I am only human. To err is human, after all.
It is gets harder and harder to put up a brave front, when your life is shit. That is so to say, despite all the machismo, my armies have been completely routed. Or like Germany won the frigging god-damned war. I question everyone else's existence. Do they feel like me? Do they have this much pain hiding in them? Are they in penance? Are they already in Hell? Do they know they do not exist. I have a way of making everyone else seem insignificant compared to my person. But the truth is probably the other way round. I feel I am a bad influence on other people, I am no one's hero. No one's idol. Which kinda sucks, because, it means, I won't be remembered, when I am dead. And since I am already dead, no one knows me.
I feel like a detective at my death scene. Going over small nuances, trying to recreate someone who no longer exists. Putting together scraps of information. Like listening to the songs I am listening to. But it is not actually me who is listening to them, as if it is the detective instead. Looking at the pen on my table, the unmade bed, the cigarette butts in my dustbin, the candy wrappers. My writings. My thoughts. It is as if he is on a visit to my place and I am showing around my place and telling him, hey this is me. The real me. Not the one with a fake smile who opened the door to let you in. That one has been dead so long, his body doesn't exist no more. But his thoughts live on. He exists in the piece of curled up paper, the half-drank cup of coffee, the half-burnt toast. How did I die? I like to imagine, very peacefully. In my sleep. Maybe overdosed on sleeping pills. Or I just refused to breathe one fine day. But I have this fear, that even this little wish, my last wish won't come true. Trust me I have imagined a lot of more gruesome endings for me. Maybe I have actually died every time I imagined myself dying. Every time botching up my attempt. Just trying to find the perfect way to go. Never quite getting it.
I am restless. I cannot sleep. I cannot rest. With the constant din in my mind, I wonder how I used to sleep earlier.
Every day I question myself. Why today? Why must I exist? Why must I breathe? Why must I eat? I can not answer that. I eat to exist. Food has lost all taste. I have no cravings for eating anything special. No food exists I feel, that I'll binge on. There was a time, I remember, when I loved to eat. Almost everything was my favorite. Whatever happened to that. When did I change? I do not know. It happened very slowly. I could never feel it coming. I kept deluding myself that I am the same as always. Until one day, I looked at the mirror and didn't know who was staring back. I don't know why I changed. I was happy the way I was. I was satisfied. I never wanted anything more. I was in comfort. I was protected.
I cannot fend for myself. I don't even know where to turn. All that I think, remain useless ideas. In my head. I cannot concentrate on anything at all. It is like I am being pulled in a million different directions at the same time. Like the frigging big bang actually took place in my goddamn mind.
I have lucid dreams. I now try to think of a time when I fell to the bed, tired, exhausted and happy for all that I had done in the day. But I cannot remember the last time that happened. Now when I sleep, it is no different from when I am awake, I am aware of what I am dreaming. It is like I am pretending to be sleep. From a lack of sleep comes a huge problem. I have more time on my hands than most people. Normal humans spend a third of their lives asleep. So it is like I am living longer. Hence I am getting older sooner. I have so much time, I don't know what to do with all of it. 24 hours are too many for me. So I just keep wasting time, staring at the clock. Trying to make it tick a little faster. A hour lesser to spend.
I am becoming the person that I feared I'll. What disturbs me is that, somewhere deep inside me, this is what I want to be. Dark and mysterious. Chaotic. Unfeeling and stoic.
Like I am a child's unfinished crayon drawing. That I am something the child thinks is a human. But being a child he can't draw a human. So from a very casual view, or from a far off distance, I might look human. But on a closer inspection, I am revealed to be a jumble of mis-matched cris-crossing lines and shaky curves.
How does this story end? I like to imagine. On a dark night. I am not alone. I am in someone else's arms. Finally I am happy. Finally I am whole. Finally I am alive. Then I can look back at my reflection and say. I exist.
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Now playing: The Beatles - Michelle
via FoxyTunes

1 comment:

vikram said...

you exist basit..
i am a proof to the fact that you exist. may be you can be testimony to the fact that i exist. this is what world is. you only know that you exist when you see your work behind.

good luck.
hope your time ticks faster and you get out of this place asap.