I do not trust Life and Time. I am wary of their curves, their turns, their highs and their lows. I am cautious of their promises of future. I am cynical about the greener pastures that they show from a distance. I have learnt to not be happy or optimistic. I have learnt the art of being pessimistic, yet being motivated or inspired. I am much driven from inside to work harder. But I do not yet know the answers to questions such as for whom, for what, why I should work harder.  Many times, this leads me to a state of melancholy. Even though, I have understood the doctrine of nihilism, I am yet to come to terms to it. How can Life have no purpose? How can it just be a chase or walk towards a certain end? They say life is as purposeful as we make of it. Isn’t this statement wrong vis-a-vis the fact that we have no control over the events of our life? In one of my earlier posts, where I said how I planted various “schemes” to extend the life of my bachelorhood, I made it look simple for an element of understated humour, but the fact is that it wasn’t all so simple and direct.

In the hindsight, I realise that I have lived only a fraction of my life the way I wanted to, rest is incidental or co-incidental. The only domain of my life that I have been able to influence, and mould it largely according to my own whims and desires is professional. On the personal front, I have been an utter failure. I have not been able to keep the friendships that I wanted to. I have not been able to form the relationships that I so desired. I have not been able to up the ante in a few personal affairs of life when I wanted to. I have realised that I have no control over my personal life. I am not choosing the people who should come and who should go out of my life. They come, they leave impressions and they leave. Not that I am much of an outgoing and sociable fellow, yet whosoever breaches well insulated (to external influence) walls of my heart, I want them to stay, and never leave.

Their, of Life and Time, perpetual habit of reneging on the beautiful promises that they make to me, has made me much wary of anything good or better that may be happening to me, or I foresee happening to me. Even a little good is too good to be true. Even smaller and trite [to an onlooker] successes appear [to me] big. These little moments of happiness and success, when they come, the shadows of their evanescence don’t go missing from my sight. I notice them and I restrain my celebrations; rather those shadows overpower those celebrations. I have learnt to be someone who first evaluates the probability of a certain event not happening as desired, and preparing myself for the worst. I seldom prepare myself for the best. I know that I will be able to tackle the best, if it ever happens. But I do not hope for the best. I prepare myself for the worst. This is my guard against the blades of Fate, and daggers of Time. I want to lose these guards. This is my desire. I want to rid myself of these encumbrances. I want to live freely. I do not know how. I want to lower expectations from Life. I am yet to learn how. Then, Life is such a riddle that with every second of its journey, it gives you something that you want to fiddle with hope and expectation. In these conflicts, both mental and existential, I yearn for a life that is totally free of hopes and expectations. Absolutely free.