Notes on Life

Life’s such a malkin. It freaks you out. I always expect something or the other to happen to me and much to my chagrin diametrically opposite situations take shape. Eventually I realize [I do realize but oft times pretty late] that one shouldn’t expect too much. Things – and people for that matter -- never turn out the way you want them to. And why should they?

I am also greatly unsure of how to live for the day. It beats me.
I never seem to get it. The words of Frederic Nietzsche, the 19th century German thinker whose works hugely influenced the freewheeling and scandalized the faithful, comfort me: I love those who do not know how to live for today. What genius! At age 24 he was the Chair of Classical Philology [linguistics and renaissance humanism] at the University of Basel, youngest ever to hold the position. Poor Nietzsche, he died a madman. God, I hate smart people.

The domestic help who cooks for us so that we live for another day throws away a lot of left-overs everyday. Every frigging day.
Then there are these dark, gunky, hungry kids who tap at my car window pane at the traffic signal almost everyday, pointing to their scrawny naked tummies. They live off surplus, stuff we choose to discard. And I keep telling myself why the heck do we put up with this injustice? Why the crazy skew? This shit contrast. The crying shame. It gnaws away at my belief or whatever remains of it.

I reckon I will learn to move on someday. Life is all about making adjustments and headways. I don’t know what pastures await me.
My soul has a song. An old country song. You can’t afford to not have songs in a soulless world. One shouldn’t really care about the hearers!

Sameer