It has been about two years since I wrote this piece – A Difficult Start! All the words still hold meaning. There is not much to add or subtract. I have been extremely busy for the last few years. Bestowed with fatherhood, life has taken an altogether different meaning. Sometimes I wonder whether I am the same person who was born three and a half decades ago. Would I ever be able to provide an enabling environment for my child in this artificially ultra-competitive world?
Grappling with existential questions, I am sometimes prodded to think about the utility of competition. If survival is the purpose of human existence, then why are we submerged in the deadpool of persistent competition? All the time, we are in a hurry to pip the others in the race for supremacy, only to realize later that standing on that coveted pedestal is also a source of momentary pleasure.
In the pursuit of ephemeral goals, what we ultimately achieve is perennial stress. Would I ever be able to build a garden of joy for my child? It seems difficult, but not an impossible task. Life is nothing but a series of attempts to decipher its real meaning. I have always taken refuge in words in times of stress. I have expressed myself in myriad ways. Being an adhyatmik (strictly not spiritual) person, I have sought my answers in the divine.
Revelling in the unanswered questions, I am restarting my experiments with words, sans any timeline or structure. Our lives are amorphous. I intend to discover a form that ultimately helps me bid adieu, exonerating me from the need to prove myself. May I dissolve my ego in these words that are nothing but manifestations of the divine that prevails in all of us. I am sure this journey shall, henceforth, continue unabated.
-Ashant
Small City Thinker 