01 April, 2010

'Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day!'

The things I see each day, the people I meet, the events that I decode, the knowledge I gain… it’s all very overwhelming. Overwhelming to the point that I feel enormously little! And you don’t know what being enormously little means. There is only so much emotion that a few words can transmit, and while being confined by the whole idea of making sense, the most part of emotional upheaval is lost.

“Words are only painted fire; not the fire itself”

There were some differently able students from Ida rue that had come to our university to show us their excellent capabilities to play the piano, tabla and singing skills. I reached uni twenty minutes before class so I thought to sit through their performance session and I was moved, beyond belief. Blind children playing musical instruments and singing at an institute that they’d never be able to afford studying at troubled me more than their not being able to see or hear. There is so much misery in this world that laughing without feeling guilty is nearly impossible. So I sobbed a little and went to take my class.

“And it also became clear that these conditions of inequality and historical injustice have given rise to a feeling of hate in the world - a deeply felt hate that cannot easily be overcome with a few good words.” -Ulrich Beck

I’ve become very touchy these days. There was a time when making me cry took nothing less than placing a cut onion before me or blowing chili powder in my eyes – now making me cry is as simple as making me watch a pleading beggar on the road. I don’t know if it’s my sincere feeling for those in misery that makes me sad or is it a kick in the butt of my self-esteem which gets hurt as a result of my helplessness at the state of such people! Point is that I don’t know. I don’t know yet who I am because I keep fluctuating between extreme states of selflessness and selfishness. I’m a combination of contradiction to the point that it’s hard for me to breathe down a single breath without much reflection. And the inability to express those complexities further frustrates me. But the following quote makes up for a good expression of my oh-so-complicated thought process, so here it goes:

"I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use --silence, exile and cunning."