Today my usual 5-minute-silence-after-waking-up lasted about 20 minutes and I thought of some things for the first time in many years. Especially about ownership. Today is my friend’s birthday and I wanted to wish him but since he is in a different timezone I chose to wait until after sunrise in his timezone before giving him a call. Thinking of him and our conversations, I was recollecting a wide period from high-school to college. My dreams, ambitions, goals and choices. Needless to say, he’s a pretty close friend who has been a good sounding board and rooting to reality. Showing me a mirror or a finger, whichever was appropriate in response to my eccentric imaginary journeys. Happy birthday to you we-has-us.
Looking back, I’ve pretty much landed where I wanted to be. I wanted to be ‘dad’ by 30, it was delayed by 1 month and 7 days. I had started learning 1 foreign language other than English (on second thoughts, correct classification would just be one-more-language). I wanted to own a car and a house. The first lost steam because the second didn’t pan out as planned. I now repay a housing loan for a house that doesn’t exist and for money that was borrowed and just disappeared (basically charity to the bank). For all those that did happen, I am very thankful to my family, friends, colleagues and adversaries (feed for a later thought: declining usage of enemy, adversary and rival over the centuries).
The undercurrent of all these thoughts were I want to have/be/become/get <thing>. And that is the train of thought for this blog.
Accumulation
At the outset, have and get are clearly acts of assimilating ‘things’ from outside while be and become seem aligned to self-realization. Or is it so? Everything I’ve had, got, attained or become, was a result of selfish pursuit. With just a thin line differentiating selfishness from greed, I’ve managed to stay clear of greed. Or have I?
Many things that I once planned/hoped to own, I did own and later they also got discarded pretty unceremoniously. Heck! I don’t even remember those things to name as an example here! Some of them got unpopular (phones, laptops, hairstyles). The only evergreen avenue has been ‘travel’ which after 16 Indian states and 18 countries, still feels like just the tip of the iceberg. So yeah… Travel experiences are the only accumulation that don’t feel lost or wasted. All the rest seem ready for the garbage dump.
The clothes I wore, wear or will wear in future will all go to the garbage and this holds for all my possessions and me too.
Then what is it that I work for all my life? I sure do want a pleasant future for myself and my people but hasn’t that been the same pursuit all along? A pursuit whose means I don’t remember and whose end I don’t see? I guess nirvana is the next target. Not to be, have, own, get or become but to attain. A long journey that starts with myself and ends within myself. Everything else I own and am attached to or associated with, will only be a peripheral accessory suited for its specific purpose and duration.
kskspeaking 