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Thursday, July 19, 2012

Fragile


After we watched the rubbish film yesterday, my friend and I were talking about this and that, when, as we’ve done lately, we got talking about her mother. She’s been diagnosed with a disease that’s only going to get worse with time. And, later, as I was heading back, the cab driver told me about the passing away of one of India’s biggest film stars.

Like my friend said, maybe we only see our own mortality in that of others. We know how fleeting this business of life is and just how quickly it can slip away and, yet, we allow the silly pettiness and ego to get in the way and to eat away at the time we have. We don’t say what we want to say to those we want to say it to and let the fear of failure and rejection, and of everything else that years of social conditioning has drilled into us, to stop us from doing what we want to do most. Memories of what was and regrets of what couldn’t be, compounded by this paralysing fear that we lack the courage to ask for what we want, keep us hanging in limbo, neither fully rooted to the past nor moving towards what could be waiting for us if we would just take a step towards it.

And, then, one day, suddenly, it’s too late.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Sanjana said...

i think what people fear is not that they would die the next day... but what would happen if they told all and lived the next day... and the next... and the next... and have to live with the regret of having said or done something they shouldn't have.

4:14 pm  
Blogger GhostOfTomJoad said...

Let me just say that the regret of not having done something, or not having said what you wanted to say, when you still had the time/chance, is far greater than the regret you'll feel for doing or saying something. What you've said or done is easier to get over than the regret of not doing/saying what you wanted to...because then one won't know which way it might have gone.

But, that's not what I'm talking about here. What I mean is that we don't seem to realise that our time is limited. We act as though we'll be around forever. And, we let our egos get in the way and stop us from doing what we would have liked to do or say what we would have like to say. We are governed by social norms and fears rather than be guided by what we want. And, we seem to realise all this when it's too late and ceases to matter.

12:22 am  

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