My Matters of Consequence

I've grown up on a steady diet of Walt Disney animated movies. The following quote is from The Jungle Book. Baloo the Bear is imparting words of wisdom to his hopeful heir, Mowgli the Mancub: "Don't spend your time looking around for something you want that can't be found. And when you find out you can live without it and go along not thinking about it (have I given you a clue), the bare necessities of life will come to you. They'll come to you."

In Richard Bach's Illusions, Bach meets a messiah who tells him: "There is no problem so big that it cannot be run away from." He also says, "If you want freedom and joy so much, can't you see it's not anywhere outside of you? Say you have it and you have it! Act as if it's yours, and it is! Richard what is so damned hard about that? But they didn't even hear, most of them. Miracles - like going to auto races to see the crashes, they came to me to see miracles. First it's frustrating and then after a while it just gets dull. I have no idea how the other messiahs could stand it."

Security is great. But I don't want the boredom that accompanies it.

I am tired of people telling me what to do and how to do it. Agreed that I am a lazy bum in many ways, but I do work very hard. I do have certain dreams and ambitions but I also have plans of attaining those – but in my time, and in my way. I am in no hurry. And I don't understand why everyone else is. Why?

I am not ambitious. But I am driven. I am not interested in pursuing a career (at least not in the way that everybody seems to want me to). But I have certain dreams and goals for myself. There are things that I have to do in life. There are things that I am going to do as I walk along each minute of every day. But I am not willing to follow someone else's timeline; someone else's rules. I may be the biggest, wretchedest failure in the world. And that's okay, as long as I fail while plodding along my own road. And if something doesn't work out, why worry? I can always go find another goal, another aim, another dream. If that makes me sound naively optimistic, I'm okay with it.

I wasted two years of my life just working and working and working and working more. And later I found myself wondering what I did with those two years. Even now, the only memories that I have of those two years are of me with my nose buried in my books, or my eyes glued to a computer screen that wasn't mine. It made me feel as hollow as the hollow men that T.S. Eliot wrote about. And I swore that I would not bury myself in work that did not really matter to me. I swore to give myself a few pensive moments everyday. I promised that I would LIVE and not just WORK.

Yes, I don't have to go to office for many months in the year, starting July '07. But I still get worked to the bone. Yes, the money that I might get working full-time elsewhere may be much more. But would I get the uncertainty and flexibility (and sort-of security) that my current boss allows me to have? A little more money could be great. But I can survive on a lot less than a lot of people. Even if I did pay 5000 bucks as rent, I would still have enough left over to give me a good time, decent food, and some books. (Obviously I wouldn't be staying in expensive ol' Mumbai then)

I'm still a little hung over from those two years. I still find myself unable to settle down to doing the fun stuff that I have been planning to do. But I am getting the hang of it. I am still finding my way around life. Maybe I am a little old to be living this slightly nomadic, romantic, unsettled lifestyle. Maybe it is time for me to get serious about things.

But when did I ever say that I was not serious?

I am.
I just want different things.