On life, among other things

There was, once, in a land quite reasonably far away, a man. Although he lived, as mentioned before, in a land reasonably far away, he was, in fact, much like men that live everywhere else. He was, therefore, mildly good at times and slightly evil at others. He had, over a considerable period of time amounting to nearly a couple of decades, surrounded himself with many friends, some good, some not so good, and some unambiguously vile, but, very significantly, and this reflects much on the kind of person he was, none indispensable. He belonged to a pleasant family, and had, like most others, his share of cool, irritating, and cool and irritating relatives. And he thought that digital watches were a pretty neat idea. He led, in short, a normal and happy existence, and passed his days in relative contentment. He was genuinely satisfied with his lot, and thanked the Lord every day (and sometimes, even twice a day) for his fulfilled existence.

Although far from exceptionally talented, he had done well for himself. He was not extraordinarily intelligent, nor strikingly good-looking. He was not very good at expressing himself, and rather slow on the uptake. His dress sense was, at best, shoddy, and his sense of humor was only one step away from appalling. He could not play the guitar, and, worst of all, he didn’t even own a digital watch.

Yet, as I have pointed out earlier, he had done decently well for himself. He studied, for he was a student, in a fairly prestigious institution, and did not do too badly there. He was, inherently, highly interested in a variety of subjects, and had, therefore, over a period of time, accumulated an air of worldliness about him. Most importantly, and this was probably one of the few things he had working for him, he was aware of himself. What really set him apart from others was this sense of knowledge about himself that he possessed. He was, at all times, in complete control of his life. He had an almost impeccable hold on the various components of his being. He was, in short, the Master of his Domain.

But life, especially at times when one is not really paying much attention, has this uncanny, and rather suicidal, knack of taking a turn for the worse. It’s one of life’s biggest problems, ranking right up there with finding the largest prime number. For, like the latter, it has no known solution, and worse still, you can’t quite see it coming. You stand back and look at your life, and find yourself much in control. Then, as soon as you throw a quick glance the other way, it swings into action, and when you look back after a brief moment, all you can see are the ruins of your (erstwhile) life staring back at you.

Now, when life takes a turn for the worse, it really does become a bit of a bother, especially for those who like being in control, and are used to being in control, like the person who has been written about in the preceding few paragraphs. He didn’t like it a bit. It all seemed a bit chaotic to him, like he couldn’t see where he was going. All about him, things that were intimately linked to him were occurring, and he was being left out of all of them. He, as I said before, didn’t like it one bit, but he couldn’t quite see what was to be done. He did know, of course, that he had two choices ahead of him. He could fight the change. He could put up some resistance. He could get back in the driver’s seat. But, for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how.

Or, of course, he could choose to continue looking the other way. He could let things unfold. He could let himself drift along a seemingly predetermined path. He could let things happen instead of making them happen. As often happens in such matters, this latter path seemed a lot easier than the first one. Whether it was because of the fact that he couldn’t quite figure out how to combat this sudden change, or merely because he was already not really in control of his life any more, he chose the latter path.

And he enjoyed it. He loved his new self. For once in his life, he was blissfully unaware of the minutiae of his pathetic little existence. He viewed himself as an audience would have viewed a play, when he should have actually been backstage. Apparently, life moved on just as well, or so he thought, because everything seemed just as before from the outside. Outwardly, he remained unchanged. He was having far more fun than he had ever imagined. Everyone seemed to like him better, and he had found a perfect excuse to avoid much thought.

He stayed in this half-dazed state for a long time. Far too long, I believe. After about three months of aimless drifting, he finally realized that something was amiss. Yet, he couldn’t figure out what it was that had gone awry. What’s more, even if he had known what it was that had gone all wrong, I very much doubt that he could have actually set forth and done anything about it. It didn’t quite seem like he was fully bent on it just yet.

But one thing you can count on. Push a man too far, and chances are, sooner or later, he’ll start pushing back.

Manu Saxena recently realized that things had indeed, as he had expected, gone wrong. Very, very wrong. It was probably then that he understood that his options had descended to a singular course.

He’s still not quite out of it, but he’s finally trying his best.