Mad World

I wish I could write such simple yet effective and true lyrics. Unfortunately these are not my words, but they sure reflect my thoughts and feelings on how 'mad' everything is turning in today's world.

"Mad World" by Gary Jules

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world mad world

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world ... mad world
Enlarging your world
Mad world

Le Petit Prince

"On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."

(One can't see well except with your heart, the essential is invisible to the eyes.)
- fox to Le Petit Prince

Hope

Hope. It's a funny thing. It's a pity for one who doesn't have it. And painful for one who does (I am sure a lot many people will beg to defer with this perspective of mine). It is not exclusive. It brings with itself a foray of other feelings/emotions, one of which is Expectation. Is it really possible to separate the two? Is it possible to hope, yet not to expect? Because expectations hurt. Expectations put unnecessary pressures on people who don't really deserve that pressure.

Someone I don't even know well enough, but have a harmless crush on...I start hoping that they will reciprocate, and I start expecting things/favors/moments from them. And when things obviously don't turn out the way I expected, there is disappointment and anger. Anger at the person who is innocent and completely unaware (and carefree to some degree) about my feelings/circumstances. The reality of it all is, I am really angry with myself, not the other person. I am angry for expecting and hoping foolishly. But it is hard to accept it, so we blame...we blame the other person. And then we carry on...we know its not fair to expect from that person, yet we continue down the never-ending road of hopes and expectations leading to disappointment. Hoping, against all hopes, that this road that we are on, no matter how painful or prickly, will lead to happiness, satisfaction and reciprocation one day.

An overload of the words 'hope' and 'expectations', I agree. But you get the point right!

What are you really scared of?

So an entire month has passed. Actually, almost 2 months have gone by, and I haven't written anything. Hit a dry spell I'd say. Quite dry and this is hardly a comeback. In fact, I am quite sure the very few people who were reading my posts, would have given up on this not-so-regularly-updated-blog a while ago. But then again, I can't resist my urge of electronically penning down my thoughts in this little blurb. I've been thinking, what are we really scared of?

And I am not talking about cockroaches, or thunder bolts and lightning, or even global warming, because let's face it, most of us spend our time whining about the weather whereas very few of us actually worry about global warming and try to do something about it. Anyways, that's completely beside the point for now. I am not asking you what scares you temporarily. I am talking about the constant fear that lurks in your mind and that you rarely accept. May be a lot of us are actually still living in denial about our worst fear. To me, it seems like 'Rejection' is what scares me the most. The realm of rejection spans from our parents, to the society in general, to even God - an entity that we've never seen, yet we are scared of. As a kid I was scared of not doing the right thing and not living up to my parents' expectations. The process of growing up gave me knowledge, but that knowledge also gave me some fears. As I grew up, I developed my own style, my personality and a set of idealistic beliefs. Initially, there was no fear. My beliefs were new, the place was familiar, and I was home. There could be no rejection anymore. They all knew me, they had accepted me. But then it happened. A new country, strange faces, strange habits and very unfamiliar territory. It was a big leap. With that leap, came some inner strength accompanied with some unpredicted fears. Now there was the fear of being rejected by this new society. Here, importance was given to matters that seemed most trivial to me until now - what clothes one is wearing, what's your style statement, who do you hang out with etc. As I grew up here, it seemed like what defined you more was your outer appearance. In this world, at this stage of my life, people are really judged by the cover. So there was the fear of being rejected because of my cover. And then there was always the occasional 'fear of being rejected by someone you like' lurking in the corner. And being scared of rejection from the loved ones is understandable, after all they are your loved ones. But being scared of no acceptance from people who perhaps don't even care to know you, who might pass a sly comment or two about you, have a good laugh about it and forget that you ever existed, being scared of rejection by such morons? Why? This is like an ever expanding bubble of pointless fears. But a bubble, which when bursts, will truly free me. This fear of 'rejection' keeps me stuck in a loop. It keeps me confused, pulls me down and keeps me from accepting and appreciating who I truly am, or would like to be.

I can only imagine how powerful it would be to get rid of all such fears, to truly see yourself for who you really are, put yourself out there, and tell the world 'Bring it On, I don't give a damn, I am fearless and I am ready'.

Moment of truth

A moment of truth - most of the times I just get lost ....lost in the crowd, lost in the conscious, at times lost in the sublimity of emotions, and at others, in the realm of logic. So deep that recovery seems impossible, yet it happens. Because that's how it is, no matter what, we lose and we find, we fall and we recover, and the world just moves on...

Where do I fit?

So after a long lull, I thought to put down my thoughts yet again. Empty mind is a devil's workshop, so here is what's going on in my workshop. A search for my own identity and for my right 'fit'. A good friend told me today that although I am searching for the right thing, its the wrong place I am looking in. Depending on the people I am with, I sometimes feel like a 'misfit' and conflicted with different facets of my own personality. Who should I be, the intellectual who loves talking about things ranging from philosophy, to art, to music, topics that are usually tagged 'boring' these days but topics that intrigue me; or should I be the clueless girl who hangs out with her friends in the 'cool' crowd - the crowd that paints their faces and talks about fashion, about brand names that I have never even heard of and that least interest me. There are friends in both the crowds, and I can relate myself with them most of the times. But in this multitude of personalities, I find myself conflicted. I feel peer-pressured into losing my own 'self' and becoming one of them. 'Everybody's changing', change is inevitable and change is welcome, but how much do I change so as to roll with the ball and keep up with the times (as they say), yet be true to myself. Who am I really? How do people distinguish me, and what is so unique about me? I feel sometimes its so easy to get lost in the crowd, to want to be someone else without realizing how far we've come, without even knowing our own uniqueness. So far I had been looking at others, and wondering, 'Am I like them'? 'Do I need to be like them, in order to survive, and to leave an impression?'

Turns out, I DON'T. Instead of looking elsewhere, I need to dig deeper within myself. Easier said than done, but at least we can try. Questions like who I really am, what is my potential, whether and how I can make an impact, what is next in my life, what and who really matters to me, where do I fit, will probably stay with me for life. The real question is where do I go from here? Where do I go from these uncertainties, these highs-and-lows and with these anxieties stuck in my head like an old record. At least I can start by looking within moi for the answers.

You know its bad for you...you still can't resist

Exactly what the title says. Its just the unstoppable urge of doing something that you have wanted for a long time but you know is so wrong for you, something that says explicitly 'I am WRONG' but you still want it. Its like a pack of cigarettes, a pack that mentions 'Warning: Smoking is injurious to health' and yet it doesn't stop such a large population of the world from smoking. Their justification, oh this doesn't always result in lung cancer, or we're going to die one day so what difference does it make. I am in no position to judge them, nor is anyone else. I believe everyone around me has done something in their life, which they knew was bad for them, and yet they went ahead and did it, because it felt good. The thing is, do we really need to know when to draw a line. While fulfilling a desire, when do we know that we're not playing safe anymore and have reached a point of no return. Is this why we should abstain from temptations in the first place? But then why do people say that its better to fall and get up, because that is the only way you can learn. What an oxymoron this life is, you need to learn in order to live, in order to learn you need to fall and learn from your own experiences and mistakes, but at the same time you should resist all temptations and not get to a point where you will fall. How do you fall if you resist taking a risk? And how do you learn if you don't fall? I guess I am just going in circles here. It is probably another chicken-and-egg problem. Prevention is better than cure, but then if you have never been diseased, how will you ever find a cure?

On another note, can we even differentiate between what we really want and what we need. We can mistake our 'want' for what we 'need' and when we realize it, it can be too late. There is so much in life that we want and so little that we need, but if only we could see the difference and apply it, life would probably be simpler and uncomplicated. But then as humans, no matter how much we tell ourselves that we need our lives to be simpler, we probably have an exceptional talent for complicating our lives, at least I do.