Our Collective Conscious as Children

As a child...

Life used to be a wait for itself to turn in to stories.

To be of the stuff that legends are made of.

And while we are living it, we are shut off from the significance of happenstances.

Then one day we are too old and we look back.

We lament the loss of a significant amount of realisation. The loss of a consciousness that those times mattered.

And then it will hit us - the life we are living now can and will be bigger and better stories.

There will be stories of fulfillment and experiences, more than loss and despair because those days are behind us and we are armed with experiences spanning all emotions. 

All of them that we are capable of feeling.

We will finally feel like we have lived... 

With a mind, heart and soul... 

Firing on all cylinders...

On and on to infinity.

And beyond!

Right foot forward

As the old adage goes, always start on the right foot. I have always been incapable of that, metaphorically and physically. The oddball that I am. And of late I had been wondering about the cause of this seemingly innocuous malady and came to the conclusion that it was because I used to play too much football. The left foot for a right footer is the anchor point, the fulcrum of balance from which the best movements happens. It is the foot that holds down the fort leaving the right one to do its thing - be it score from an insane free-kick or make the first move to start off a series of fluid dribbles. 

A friend of mine posting about Ted Lasso made me think about the character Dani Rojas running about yelling 'football is life'. And as it is with life itself, football has a place for everyone and everything. It can be dance, it can be a brutal exercise. It can be a calculated strategy or it can be lethargic fluid movements that is as much a pleasure watch as it is beautiful to execute. You can dive or you can get up and keep going. You can feint or you can use sheer physicality prowess. Anything goes within the construct of just 20 or so rules or so to speak. Everyone is welcome. Everyone has a place. It's not the team, it's not the player. Premier leagues and World cups come and go, you're winner once, bottom of the league next. You can't be scoring 91 goals in a season, or maybe in a remote part of the world there is someone who scored a 150 a single season in a small countryside league, which is as important. Because it's the game that matters most.

And as it is with life itself, all of it has to be done and dusted in 90 minutes or a maximum of 120 if you are going to be technical about it. And at the end of it, you rest. A well deserved rest for playing your heart out. And if you didn't play your heart out, too bad. You should have. 

So by this recklessly contrived syllogism in my head - if football is life, why is it so bad to start on the wrong foot? Give me a little time, you haven't seen what the strong foot can do... Yet.

The Unbearable Weight of Intentions

 The way you have lived or more correctly the way you had been made to live has been a travesty. The length and width of the intend in your actions scrutinised to a point that you don't believe it yourself. Who are you? You've asked multitudes of times looking at mirrors or still waters in a pond, by a whispering brook or even yelled at the wind. You've even pondered the questions by the oceans. The silent grasp at a dramatic semblance of spirituality, But in reality you've asked this question on your third beer of the night, on the way to work in a cab or a bus. You've asked it as you sat for your annual appraisals and of course you've asked it subconsciously every time someone seemingly from a far away generation criticized your hair-do. You've asked it while watching your favourite movie and you've asked it while making love to the one that you nearly loved with all your heart. Nearly. 

You have wondered what it means to be you? What it means to be human and what exactly it is that makes you a human. "Who knows?" you've always settled and spend the next moments in careless escapades - into day dreams. 

The proverbial fork in the road right now. 

That your mind has put in front of you. 

And ahead you are tasked with picking the authentic road. "Be yourself" they said. And you tried. You tried searching for the authenticity in your actions.  You tried searching for the elusive authenticity in your thoughts. You tried to be you. But then you realised the you that you want to be is the condensed form of your existence that you have been led to believe is you. By intend unknown. The balm of perceived self assuredness that you have been addicted to, the one that relieves the pain of existence. The one that takes away the heaviness of your existence. 

The fork in the road turns into a mob. The mob of plastic self assuredness that's the bane of your existence - the criticism of your act of conformity, whenever there is a slight stray in the path. The wavering from the path that you had called art and now that has turned you into a circus to be ogled at and scrutinized. 

Again, what does it mean to be alive? The constant strife of contrasting perspectives and an uphill battle to fit in. While constantly hiding yourself. 

All this well and truly happens inside your own head. 

But as JK Rowling as Dumbledore puts it "Just because all of this is in your head, doesn't make it any less real."