The realization that you are completely powerless over your own life is one that many are unfortunately acquainted with. It's a daunting one, this realization. A crushing blow that'll knock the very life-breath out of you, leaving you winded and gasping.
If you really try to break down the immense number of forces that influence life as we know it, analyse how each and every one of them shape our past, present and future, it can leave you feeling negligibly small. Inconsequential. And if we also take into account the number of human influences that have us dancing to their tunes, then we feel helpless. Inadequate.
God, destiny, opportunities, timing, the weather, policies, books, the news, global trends, religion, friends, family, even the vendors on the streets. Our lives are molded by the people we surround ourselves with, the environment we inhabit. A missed train might kill a career. A lapse in judgement might take a life. A smile could lighten a melancholy heart. A few well-chosen words could help someone start their life anew; a few misplaced secrets could bring a nation to its knees.
When we are shrouded in so much uncertainty about tomorrow and when fate is right around the corner ready to ambush you with a wet sock, it comes as a physical pain when your family and so called family “friends” are also out to get you down. My life never went according to my plans. I got my hopes shattered, dreams trampled on and my career choices laughed at and was told time and again that my ambitions were ludicrous and that I ought to get my head out of the clouds. My parents too, despite being mercifully different from the parochial dimwits that inhabit the place I live in, are bound irrevocably by the laughably sad “social conventions” the aforementioned dimwits hold so dear.
So they tell me I’m different, that I think differently and that I should change my convictions and outlook on life because they don’t want me to end up getting hurt. Translation: Stop being so weird, you’re making us look bad by sticking out like a sore thumb. They ask me to conform. And I do, to a certain extent, that they might have some peace of mind.
They just want to polish me up a bit, smooth out the rough edges, weed out the strands of wild abandon that sometimes wrap my whole brain in a dense cocoon, making me susceptible to outbursts of untamed emotions and that frowned upon disease of following my heart. I let it slide because when all is said and done, I’m firm in my belief that they love me and only want what’s best for me. And they worry that I’ll get stoned down in the society, even among family, for refusing to knuckle down under anybody, for living life by my convictions rather than their theories. But then, that’s what parents do. They worry.
I hope they realize some day how much it hurt me when they chose to try to “fix” my “weirdness” rather than accept it. Mere acceptance would have sufficed; the suggestion of celebrating it might be too ludicrous. Because, to me, it doesn’t really matter what people think of me, or what stories and ridiculous rumors they cook up about me. I don’t begrudge them the relish of calling me unruly or eccentric or plain cuckoo. If belittling me is what it takes to bring some color into their humdrum lives, if talking ill about me and what I do, wear, eat, or my hair is the only ray of sunshine in their sad, monotonous daily routine, who am I to deny them that? To me, all that matters is your support, dad.
I’m tired of letting sadistic people influence my life. Fatcats who think money and their status is everything, and their bored wives who find life so unbearably unfulfilled that they devote much of their time and energy to wondering about others’ lives and cooking up nefarious schemes to ruin the facsimile of bliss that I painstakingly put together so as to persevere till I find the path I would love to follow. I’m past wondering why they don’t lavish all this time and misplaced kindness on their own children rather than focusing their malicious behavior on people like me who don’t yet have a voice of their own. I’ve long ago made peace with the fact that their brains are too primitive to refrain from meddling in other people’s business and their hearts too cold and callus to care about the sorrow their deeds bring into sunny lives. They thrive on spiteful gossip, deriving pleasure only when it’s directly proportional to the pain it causes to others.
And for my part, I simply cannot wait to put these inferior beings far behind me, eating my dust, and take off into a world where people are preoccupied with their own lives, unless it’s to lend a helping hand or flash a friendly smile. Sooner or later, I will be independent, and I’d never have to associate with backbiting, backstabbing, brutes anymore. I’ll just leave that to my parents, then. Because, right now, the only thought that’s holding my badly damaged heart and shaky self-esteem together is the faith that there will be a tomorrow in which my tormentors or I shall cease to co-exist.
One can’t live while the other survives.
