My Life?

It is my another December in IIT Madras. As always, it is very cold. Since yesterday it has been raining heavily. They say a cyclone is approaching the eastern cost of India. Nature seems to be very violent. Looking at the heavy rain, I don't even feel like going for lunch this afternoon. The very idea of entering into rain and getting wet horrifies me. The days when I used to wait for rain just to get wet seem never existed. What an ironical fact! We don't believe in our own past. Do we believe in our present or, more importantly, future? Nihilism is an ideology of frustration. But my nihilism had long ago reached an extend where it started feeling frustrated of itself. Yet coming back to the question of believing in the past, present and future, I am tempted to be nihilistic in the sense that I see nothing to believe in. We have lost all the lofty ideals to believe in. The industrial revolution and, later, the information revolution have taken all the ideals away from us. Look at the present. Too much of exposure. Too much of visibility. Too much of information. What is the result? We are unable to distinguish between the important and the trivial. I, being a Signal Processing engineer, am tempted to say that we are unable to distinguish signal from noise.

These days, everything seems to be achievable. Happiness has become a product that anyone can buy from the market. Yet no one achieves anything and nobody seems to be happy. Happiness is portrayed as an individual affair. Probably that is why the fight to assert oneself superior to others is becoming more and more prominent. In this way, one vigorously attaches happiness with ones ego, the self-image. The way Palakkal felt happy while walking in a garden on a delightful morning or just by looking at the sky seems to be remote to the contemporary individual. Perhaps, the need "to produce", not "to be creative" but "to produce", prevents us from enjoying such ancient happiness. Consider any walk of life. The urge is "to perform ones duties"; it is not "to be creative" or "approach life with reason and logic". Perform your duties mindlessly. Don't look at the world with a broader perspective like a human being. Be an individual and live in your narrow hell but performing your duties. To succeed in your work is to strive for your happiness. The world may go into chaos, but you will be revered for your uncompromising dedication to your work. And having performed your duties, just relax yourself with amusements. What a great ideal that the present day individuals hold onto! No one realises the emptiness of it. Perhaps everyone realises it, but still not able to admit! I say so because, many a time, I feel that people are just actors. They just play their roles thinking that they are merely acting in a drama. Yet their "acting" becomes their "action" which ultimately defines their lives. Are we trying to fool ourselves? Or, are we merely powerless to break free from this drama? And how are we acting in this drama? By unconsciously yielding to the urges I described above!

I am on the verge of asking a bizarre question. Is my life not my life?

Sandeep

Dec 29, 2011.