I am 23 years now- that is technically 5 yrs since I soared and plummeted into the world of adulthood, both in equal measure ; the soaring and plummeting that is.
I don't feel like an adult. I try to behave like one. I really really try. But I am not sure how much that works.
But then I have these disturbing moments of epiphany and I can actually feel myself growing up, you know in your head you are 5ft and a decent 4 inches, make that 3 ( i am trying not to be too ambitious here ). You are strutting about in high heels, hair swishing back and forth. There is a collective intake of breath as you enter the conference room and all eyes are upon you as you flash that winning smile, which smiles back at you from the gleaming backside of the recent book that you have authored. There are cameras flashing at your direction and every word that you speak is held in rapt attention. You look quite the picture-you with your winning smile in all that sartorial elegance, deftly answering questions with a cultured restraint that can only be acquired over years of practice. You smile a poised and well practiced smile.
For all that is worth, it is important to get the whole act right. Doing anything otherwise would be just killing it- like dislodging a strategically positioned rock and bringing about a landslide. Who cares if you have never known love or feel terribly hollow and empty inside- it is still important to pull yourself together and get the whole Act right. Therein my friend, lies the emblem of true showmanship- when you can pull yourself together even at that precise moment, when you are sinking deeper into the abyss but you still retain the poise and dignity. You smile even when you are breaking inside. That is my friend,true showmanship !
My hitherto 23 yrs of existence has been spent in a flimsy pursuit of trying to get this whole act together. Not all of it has been futile but yet again today, in the slowly gathering darkness, I realize how much of it has been in vain. Here I am, quite a standard mess in the most standard way that you would define a "mess", struggling with dreams and aspirations, more imposing than my diminutive frame. I, who have always been vertically challenged can only dream of soaring-flying beyond the hitherto untrammeled seas and oceans, past huge expanses of valleys, over the raging rapids, riding the waves- never slipping, never retreating, always guiding myself forward. I cannot resign myself to walking or simply running, for fly I must and fly I will.
But all this drama can happen only in your head and in the face of real adversity, you stumble only to cower behind a protective force; willing yourself to believe that this protective force will fight your battles and help you in putting the said act together. Of course, you do not have the wisdom to understand how this action could permanently impair your agency-clipping your wings while hanging like a millstone round your neck. And that is how you kill your own dreams, a little every minute- beating the life out of them, till they lie dissolved in one squirming heap that is forever rendered immobile. Dreams are mobile creatures.They bring momentum and agency in your life.
You kill something fundamental within your own self, every moment you judge your own dreams and seek refuge behind another person. Every time you dissociate your dreams from yourself and try to transmute your ideas and beliefs with someone else's beliefs and ideals, you are guilty of adulterating something that was intrinsically yours in the purest form possible. You are guilty of becoming the lyrics in someone else's song and the paint in someone else's painting. That is one of the very worst things you could do to yourself- killing your own dreams by viewing your life as an extension of someone else's life.
Most of this is written as a reminder to my 23 yr old Self.
I don't feel like an adult. I try to behave like one. I really really try. But I am not sure how much that works.
But then I have these disturbing moments of epiphany and I can actually feel myself growing up, you know in your head you are 5ft and a decent 4 inches, make that 3 ( i am trying not to be too ambitious here ). You are strutting about in high heels, hair swishing back and forth. There is a collective intake of breath as you enter the conference room and all eyes are upon you as you flash that winning smile, which smiles back at you from the gleaming backside of the recent book that you have authored. There are cameras flashing at your direction and every word that you speak is held in rapt attention. You look quite the picture-you with your winning smile in all that sartorial elegance, deftly answering questions with a cultured restraint that can only be acquired over years of practice. You smile a poised and well practiced smile.
For all that is worth, it is important to get the whole act right. Doing anything otherwise would be just killing it- like dislodging a strategically positioned rock and bringing about a landslide. Who cares if you have never known love or feel terribly hollow and empty inside- it is still important to pull yourself together and get the whole Act right. Therein my friend, lies the emblem of true showmanship- when you can pull yourself together even at that precise moment, when you are sinking deeper into the abyss but you still retain the poise and dignity. You smile even when you are breaking inside. That is my friend,true showmanship !
My hitherto 23 yrs of existence has been spent in a flimsy pursuit of trying to get this whole act together. Not all of it has been futile but yet again today, in the slowly gathering darkness, I realize how much of it has been in vain. Here I am, quite a standard mess in the most standard way that you would define a "mess", struggling with dreams and aspirations, more imposing than my diminutive frame. I, who have always been vertically challenged can only dream of soaring-flying beyond the hitherto untrammeled seas and oceans, past huge expanses of valleys, over the raging rapids, riding the waves- never slipping, never retreating, always guiding myself forward. I cannot resign myself to walking or simply running, for fly I must and fly I will.
But all this drama can happen only in your head and in the face of real adversity, you stumble only to cower behind a protective force; willing yourself to believe that this protective force will fight your battles and help you in putting the said act together. Of course, you do not have the wisdom to understand how this action could permanently impair your agency-clipping your wings while hanging like a millstone round your neck. And that is how you kill your own dreams, a little every minute- beating the life out of them, till they lie dissolved in one squirming heap that is forever rendered immobile. Dreams are mobile creatures.They bring momentum and agency in your life.
You kill something fundamental within your own self, every moment you judge your own dreams and seek refuge behind another person. Every time you dissociate your dreams from yourself and try to transmute your ideas and beliefs with someone else's beliefs and ideals, you are guilty of adulterating something that was intrinsically yours in the purest form possible. You are guilty of becoming the lyrics in someone else's song and the paint in someone else's painting. That is one of the very worst things you could do to yourself- killing your own dreams by viewing your life as an extension of someone else's life.
Most of this is written as a reminder to my 23 yr old Self.
