awaiting the doomsday

7th December 2009

High time this piece gets started. I wanted to write about this ages ago but never started it. You know the 2012 phenomenon don't you. Doomsday/Judgement Day/The End, ofcourse you've heard about it. I don't give a damn if that's the last day or not. Today could be your last, this breathe might be your end, and this moment may put you to rest. So, why think about it? But I await the doomsday for other reasons.

"Shit! Today's 1st. 30 days more for my paycheck."
"Sir, I suggest this Insurance scheme because 40 years from now, when you retire, it'll give you a happy life."
"I need to top this exam. Dad promised me a watch."
"A couple of more dates and then I can propose."
"Two more years and we are ready for the baby."

We've said or heard all these at some point in our lives. I read somewhere that the unconventionality of one generation is the wisdom of the next. We've been bearing the burden of hundreds of generations of our ancestors and its high time we start over again. Let me explain. No matter how much we say we have changed from the first homo sapiens that walked this Earth, no matter how different we may look and think, we feel almost the same way. And that because the ability to feel that way has always been carried form one generation to another. The basic instinct of a human has never changed. Our core emotions, values,insecurities, madness has been the same.

But what has changed are the times. And due that everything has been concocted. The upper layers of our existence have been modified beyond recognition but since the base is yet the same, we are, to put it bluntly, screwed. The humans, like all the beings on the planet, weren't supposed to be these many. According to God's plan, I can only predict, whenever the population of one kind of a being increases, (and according to Darwin too) due to some or the other factor it has to be brought to its optimum quantity. Remember the Bio-cycle? CO2-Plant-Herbivore-Carnivore-Man-CO2-Plant-Herbivore- and so on and so forth.

But then being the miraculous species that we are, we managed to defy nature's rule and desperately chased immortality. Thatha always used to tell me that catastrophes are but God's remainders that we are just a part of the bigger plan and we shouldn't try to act God. Obviously, he'd/she'd be worried if someone was fighting for his/her seat. But then we always ignored the signs. Atleast until Al Gore decided to make The Inconvenient Truth.

But I don't want the World to come to an end just because of this. I know we don't deserve to live on this planet after ravaging her so much but then being the selfish humans we are, I look back and pity the human race and the concept of society and man being a social being and all. I think I've talked about the Intricate Web of Human existence or maybe I thought I'd write about it. Cynics may tell us that all of us deserve it for our actions and its time we repent. But I'm not blaming no one. It both amuses me and evokes pity. Amuses me because How could we ever imagine getting away with all the shit we've piled up and fills me with sadness because it isn't just our fault. We couldn't get the bigger picture. We were never supposed to.

We have thousands of pages of literature written on the human quest for Truth and its pursuit of utter simplicity. And the inevitability of death. But then millions of pages written how to prolong life and plan for the years to come. It makes me smile. We might be run down by a truck today, can be burnt or be frozen to death, or we might simply run out of oxygen. No, I'm not being cynical. I'm just telling you the unpredictability of the next moment and instead of living in what maybe our last minute of existence, we are bothered about where we might be buried and who should get the majority of our accumulated wealth. OMG! I think it was Einstein who said, "The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." Honestly, how dumb can we get.

I was a part of this system, this society too. Or maybe I still am. But then shouldn't we be doing something because we want to do it instead of what we may get at the end of it. 'If you live everyday of your life like its your last, one day you will be correct.' Write the exam for the heck of it instead of the result. Go to the office because you like the work, not the paycheck at the end of the month. I can't believe I'm saying this but something Rancho says has a lot of sense- Do the work you love doing. And then you wouldn't have to bother about what is to come because every moment you are living for the sake of it. I'm not being able to put this properly but I hope you get the point.

The system which we live in, and here I refer to the state of mind as the system, has been so messed up with that if we don't have an incentive visible for every action, we are never doing it. How long has it been since you've done something for the heck of it. I might've said fun or satisfaction but then they'd be incentives too. All I'm saying is we need to stop living either in the past or the future. If I'm planting a tree, I'm not doing it so that I can eat its fruit ages later. No, not because I'm trying to make the World a better place. And not even because I like doing it. Simply put, I'm planting a tree right here, right now because I'm supposed to do it. As I'm writing this, somewhere in the back of my mind, a process is running which makes me think as to how you might react when you read this. But I'm trying to submerge it because I'm writing this not for anyone else, not even for me but because I'm supposed to.

Is that destiny then? I don't know. I don't mind looking at it that way though. Some people find it discomforting to believe that their life is being controlled by higher Purpose and that they are just a part of the huge gameplan. Infact, I think making them think that way is also a part of the plan. If I can be a little harsh, to all you people who don't want to believe in the prospect of destiny, how can you believe that your life is in your hands when you are neither born nor will die when you decide. Let me clarify that I'm not being a pessimist here. I'm not telling you that a man cannot rise to whatever he wants to.

Infact, the reason we dream, we hope and fight for that better cause is also a part of our destiny. You want to be next SRK and you have the courage to dream of it, that in itself is a testimony that you have it in you to be that. But then living every moment by itself and doing what we are supposed to will lead us there. When man grew out of his animal like behaviour, living in search of the next meal, the signs came(remember Ice Age?). Once we started storing food and started taking our own world's with us(started living in our own heads), we lost connection with the real world. I want all of us to be like we were earlier. I want all of us to start afresh. I want that day. And I call that day, the D Day. But for those of you who are suckers for happy endings, I'd call it the E Day. Is that the Enlightenment Day?