Its not like that I am but this line came to my mind when I was listening to the track with the same wordings by Brad Paisley (Its a soundtrack for Scrubs). Anyways this post is a detour from the Eurotrip experience that I was half heartedly sharing with you readers.
Back to those words...so here I was listening to this well composed track when my friend Rachit came online on gtalk (Know more about Rachit here). Anyways, Rachit was with me at IIM C and our discussions about life and all that shit that comes along with it have kept me going during these excruciatingly boring past two months of vacation.
"I don't like the concept" said Rachit. The concept he was talking about is "waiting for one's life to begin" and I asked why? Life,according to him, has to be lived in the moment and should not be something you wait for. The more you wait the more you lose the precious time you have on your hands. Makes sense doesn't it? Though it might be an idealistic thought that one should live in the moment and not care about anything else but often than not in life all we land up doing is wait for a better life. This is when the discussion went to the next level as to why don't we live in the moment? what stops us from doing so?
Couple of reasons for it: Fear of self,fear of society and above all fear of death. Below is what we discussed on this matter:
Rachit: Sometimes I feel that life is like a huge treasure hunt where we have to see the contradictions we live in, figure out the clue, and then figure out the answer
I don't know whether any of this makes sense to you but surely did to us. The fear of death is a crucial subject that according to us one should address upfront. The famous convocation speech of Steve Jobs at Stanford refers to this point as well. If you haven't listened to it already do it now. Its the kind of speech one would like to hear in his/her convocation adn we started discussing about the lousy speech that we were forced to listen to...more on that next :)
Back to those words...so here I was listening to this well composed track when my friend Rachit came online on gtalk (Know more about Rachit here). Anyways, Rachit was with me at IIM C and our discussions about life and all that shit that comes along with it have kept me going during these excruciatingly boring past two months of vacation.
"I don't like the concept" said Rachit. The concept he was talking about is "waiting for one's life to begin" and I asked why? Life,according to him, has to be lived in the moment and should not be something you wait for. The more you wait the more you lose the precious time you have on your hands. Makes sense doesn't it? Though it might be an idealistic thought that one should live in the moment and not care about anything else but often than not in life all we land up doing is wait for a better life. This is when the discussion went to the next level as to why don't we live in the moment? what stops us from doing so?
Couple of reasons for it: Fear of self,fear of society and above all fear of death. Below is what we discussed on this matter:
Rachit: Sometimes I feel that life is like a huge treasure hunt where we have to see the contradictions we live in, figure out the clue, and then figure out the answer
me: but i guess evry few find the treasure
Rachit: not necessarily.. I mean.. depends..I mean isn't that a contradiction to begin with, ie we are looking for the treasure when we are born with itself
me: well said
the point is we feel there is treasure somewhere and wait to find it
but the treasure is in th emoment
Rachit: yeah that's the point. yes
Just that, sometimes I feel that this whole concept of fear that man has developed, fear of "God", of death, of old age, of public embarassment, of losing etc cripples us.
I guess we need to be fearless and then things would fall in place
me: i guess so
Rachit: hmm
me: i guess we have been programmed to live with others and that creates all these fears
Rachit: yeah that's what .. what programs us are the social the norms.. otherwise, aren't we born naked? So the fear of public embarassment is man made for sure. Can't say much about the fears of death and old age
me: similarly when a person knows he has to die his attitude is way too different
Rachit: Yes.. just that realization that we are impermanent should spark something within.. but it's tough.. you know.. those who are alive look at death in a detached manner
me: i guess its a subject we tend to avoid until its unavoidalbele :DRachit: Yes :) that's true
me: but if you think abt it one should give it some thought
Rachit: I am reading this book called The Death of Ivan Ilyich. By Leo Tolstoy.. it's about this only
Yeah.. this can make us all better people I guess
I don't know whether any of this makes sense to you but surely did to us. The fear of death is a crucial subject that according to us one should address upfront. The famous convocation speech of Steve Jobs at Stanford refers to this point as well. If you haven't listened to it already do it now. Its the kind of speech one would like to hear in his/her convocation adn we started discussing about the lousy speech that we were forced to listen to...more on that next :)
