By any reckoning, my life is in a mess at the moment. It’s almost as bad now as it was about two and a half years ago. I wouldn’t go so far as to compare it with the worst time in my life because, as much as I can help it, I’m not going to be in a broken relationship again...because, as much as I can help it, I won’t be in a serious relationship again. But, I digress…

I just got off a long distance phone call with a friend, who said to me, with a hint of admiration that she never fails to confess to feel, that “...at least, you have a purpose in life. Not many people can say that about themselves, you know...” I can’t argue with either the truth in the statement or the fact that more than one person has said this to me on more than one occasion. But I did laugh at her statement, as I have laughed on all those occasions when similar things were said to me. Because, as I said to her, it’s no good having a purpose if you’re not able to do anything with, or about, it. It’s no good if you’ve had a purpose for as long as I’ve had and if you’ve been able to do as little as I have...which, truth be told, amounts to nothing.

There’re two parts to my professional life. One I’m in the process of giving up and will be done with it at the end of the month or thereabouts, maybe early next month, by when that cricket book should be out. The second part of my life tried to give up on me but the shameless so-and-so that I am, I hung on by the skin of my teeth. Hard to say whether the effort has paid off, or is likely to in the future, but, either way, I continue to hang in. For how long, I don’t know.

I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member...I can’t remember the exact words but that is pretty much the gist of what Groucho Marx once famously said. Of course, he was being funny. But, oddly, these words find constant resonance in my life...maybe they do in everyone else’s too. While I’m not about to discuss instances from personal life, of which there’ve been a few, this is something I’ve often thought about as far as work is concerned. It may sound like an oxymoron but, if I were to get ‘sensible’, the first part of my professional life can set me up very nicely. But, for me, that’s a part of the problem: I don’t want to be set up by, or be a part of, something I don’t truly love.

The other part of my work-related life, films, is hardly moving in the direction I would like it to. What is constantly being driven home, everyday, is the thought that I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, the saving grace, if I can call it that, is that I am where I am, at the time that I am, for the right reason. But I wonder if this will provide any consolation to me when I sit back, a few years from now, and think back about my life. In which case, I also wonder if I will need some consolation a few years from now. Now that is not a very comforting thought.

Having said that, the film front, and I use the term film in a more generic manner, does appear poised to emerge from the very long and dark tunnel it has been in for so long. First, in all likelihood, our AIDS films, which I had mentioned in my last post and which are still up on youtube.com, will be telecast very soon. More than for us, I feel good for the NGO because, finally, they will have something to show for their efforts. Moreover, they seem like good people and the bestest clients I think we’ve ever had. Then, not being able to make any headway on my own, I’ve sent my film script to a director I like, to read and consider it for direction. She has made two good English films in the last four years or so and I’m hoping that she will like my script enough to want to work on it too. She has a lot on her plate at the moment, I know, but I’ll be really happy if she were to take it up. And, we have also been commissioned by a television channel to do a 13-part non-fiction series in English for their network. A lot of paperwork needs to be done and got out of the way before we do anything else. Real work will start in about a month and we’ll be ready to shoot in June-end or early July.

Most people in my position would be celebrating what seems like a minor victory but I’ve seen enough in my life to know that ‘There’s a slip between the cup and the lip’ is more than just a phrase. It has happened far too often in my life for me to believe that something that should happen will indeed happen. What is more likely, at least in my case, is precisely what the stupid Murphy’s Law states: anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

But, contrary to what I might have led you to believe up to this point, this post is not about the two parts of my working life. Or about the strife that both have given me, one because it is doing well, and can do better without any effort on my part, and the other because it’s not. This post is really about the larger personal truth that everyone has to define for themselves. It’s about the guidelines we choose for ourselves, to show us the light in all aspects of our lives. It’s about personal philosophy.

I now have a new philosophy in life. I’m not sure I can, or even want to, launch into a description of my old philosophy at the moment…yes, contrary to popular perception, I had one…because there will be time for it yet. However, what I can tell you is that, sooner or later, the new one is going to land me in trouble.

As far as I could tell, reckless was the best way to describe my new attitude. But then I came across this term in a film, whose name I cannot recall immediately, but I do remember that Frances McDormand’s daughter says it to her. Anyway, it is only really a phonetic variation of the real thing. I remember that Arthur Quiller Couch had also used it as a part of his comment on some blog. As I said, the term itself is just a clever twist of letters, but for me, the philosophy boils down beautifully to two words: Feck it! I like the term very much and think it is a perfect fit for my current state of mind.

You may not have any good things to say about me but the one thing you’ll be forced to admit, if you knew me, is that I’m a fairly responsible kind of chap. By nature, I’m not a reckless person, even though there’ve been enough times in my life when I’ve been tempted to be so. But now, I’m really fed up! I’ve truly thrown caution to the winds and myself fully into the alluring charms of this new approach to life. While I’ve not become irresponsible yet, I fear, pursuit of the same may cause me to be that at some point. But, then again, till such time cometh, feck it.

For the moment, I'd rather not go into the changes this new attitude has brought about or the impact it's likely to have on my life in the near future. However, I do admit that I have been feeling relatively freer, even happy at times. There's this certain lightness of being, if you will. And, while I'm not going to encourage anybody else to feck it, I will tell you this: the new philosophy is bloody liberating!