I was dumb-strucked on hearing the above quotation from a movie I had watched lately, “All The Bright Places” recommended to me by a friend the other day on Netflix which costs me an hour and a half and just a cup of coffee.
From learning to say “Papa! Mama!” to learning how to crawl; from crawling to learning how to walk by ourselves; from learning ABC’s to flying kites; from flying kites to playing hide and seek within the bushes; from playing hide and seek to seeking education and what not? A career? A job?
A life partner or called it a soul-mate? Then from seeking education and career and soulmates and life partners to seeking attention? To seek acceptance and point of view of someone’s perspective on us that does not matter and do better to us from the society?
And the list could go on forever or at least up to the end of this article you are reading now when what you thought was that it might actually help you or for the slightest note- enlightened you, when it is all but a piece of paper from a newspaper that would be put in the bin or use for serving your favorite locally made roadside ‘Singju or perhaps for serving you a hot, spicy and freshly made 'Samosa' on a cold and rainy day or from a page you found in your social sites which you happened to stop by while scrolling surreptitiously through your phone or laptop and have a glance of it while on your bed when you should be sitting on your study chair chasing after your dreams or for some reasons you never realized the clock is ticking and you are on the verge of running out of time.
This generation is total chaos and futile! From a spoilt one month old baby to an energetic and innovative yet technology-addicted, procrastinative and statusphilic(meaning : a person who love to update and view status or stories repetitiously) youth; from the never-ever changing ‘grades and marks are the basic and primary necessities to be successful’ education system to the corrupted ‘elect me in this election and I will do this for you’ government to the ignorant 'We want justice' placard holding citizens.
The problem with this generation is them having with them a small piece of technological non-living rectangular object which they called as ‘smartphone’ which keeps beeping, vibrating and ringing all day long, stealing away all their times and moments right in front of their eyes and doing nothing about it. And the sole problem is them not being smart in the first place when what they are addicted to is already way too smart for them to handle or even far from their dream or imagination.
And we end up procrastinating and keeping things off for the next day while we are busy with our phones- I do not want to call or add the prefix ‘smart’ anymore because we are starting to get smarter in ways that have no future and hope for us because of this technology.
We have come way too far already I guess? Shall we get back to where we were or I prefer saying it to the side of ‘half-full glass of water’ rather than that of the ‘half-empty glass of water’? You must have heard or seen somewhere that ‘Being human is given but keeping our humanity is a choice’. As we move on in life, day by day, with each sunrise and sunset and from experiences to mistakes, we only then begin to realise that days and dates do not matter much to us, but moments and memories really do. Being humane and doing something out of humanity do.
And what is a life not lived? Many people have died only while they were living. And what is worse is an unlived life. A life destined and filled with purpose and meaning turns into ashes overnight- so many untold stories and unlived lives lost in a matter of time. At the end of the day all we need is only ‘six feet of land’ for our graves, as Leo Tolstoy beautifully wrote in one story about a greedy man whose greed for owning a land had no bound.
And what is the price he got and the size of land he really needed for his selfishness towards the end of the story- death and a six feet of land was only all he needed. This story gives us a powerful message that no matter how wealthy, wise and powerful one may be, everything we do is vanity at the end: empty, futile and short-lived, as we can clearly see from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. So take a moment today to begin living for you and for humanity. And to be a good Samaritan for the people who need us from all walks of life. And most importantly to live with love and harmony.
And today being fathers' day, I would like to remind you- dear unknown reader reading this message of love for having the love, support and guidance of your father and for having someone whom you can call out ‘Papa or Dad’ to today on this special day and to never take his existence for granted. For the day will come for you to be in my shoes as I am today; when you will be envious of those who are still with their father that day- only waiting for their turn to be like you and me.
I vividly remember spending good times with my dad as a child and having all those dad-son moments with him. And it is also an irony and saddening to not have a single photo with my (your) dad ever in your life. Yet I am grateful and happy for having a father- once. Moreover, life always gives us showers of unseen blessings and a bright side to see and live as we cherish our moments.
(The views expressed are personal)
