“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.”

Thursday, December 30, 2010

A late night pondering...








Life is a whole jumble of uncertainties. Each day, every hour it pops up something new, something unexpected. It makes you happy sometimes and sometimes not so happy. 

Happiness to quote the old adage is like the butterfly which keeps fluttering away every time you think you just got closer. But at times I wonder why chase this butterfly after all and insist on catching it. Can’t we be happy just staying in the garden among the flowers the butterfly is hovering over? One might not always obtain the object of one’s desire or longing but shouldn’t we rather than chasing fleeting possibilities of happiness lay back a bit and enjoy what has already been given to us; to enjoy the present rather than target a delusional future. 

I do not mean that ambitions or aspirations ought not be there. I simple mean that if you do not obtain exactly what you have been chasing, do not torment yourself over it. Maybe what you have instead received is something even more beautiful; the only thing is that in order to realize the beauty of it we need to remove the blinders we have put on, to love and forgive ourselves in the only life we have got. 

As my friend says, it’s all a matter of perception. The optimist sees the rose, the pessimist sees the thorns. Someone sees the glass half full yet someone else sees it half empty. Some say the butterfly has flown away yet some look about and say that there are so many more around.

Held at gun point

I had quite forgotten about the existence of this blog, until a friend gently reminded me that he would personally come over and hold me at gun point unless I write again. I am both amused at the hilarity of this warning and touched at his gesture of motivating me. Writing had been my passion until a few years back and I needed no external push to get my pen scribbling. Anecdotes, stories, daily incidents, musings everything got penned down with great enthusiasm. However off late this urge to write began receding until now when I need to be threatened by a possible physical assault or get laden by emotional guilt to start punching the keys again. Am I just plain lazy or is it something deeper like a personality change I wonder.