Monday, May 24, 2010

The transience of infinity

Its only once we realize the finite nature of things around us, do we really value them. Name the top three things that come to your mind - time, love, life? Have we all not, at one point or another thought of something as strange as what we'd do if we had 24 hours to live? Heck, I had to write a 300 word essay for my school applications recently! What we'd say to a loved one if he had 24 hours to live? How we'd spend the last week at home before leaving the country? What we'd say if it were the last conversation we were having?

Infinity, is actually, a misnomer. Come to think of it, everything in life can be allocated ephemeral pockets of circumstantial time slots and vacant spaces in our hearts. Do you still love the person you said you'd love forever? Most likely, not. We love circumstantially and conditionally, contrary to what Bryan Adams might say. A sequence of events led us to feel what we did at that point for another person who at that time fulfilled some latent need--wanting to be loved, to feel secure, to be a couple, to count on, it varies. Which brings me to the point - infinity is actually transient. fleeting. brief. momentary.

We live in a world of paradoxes. Where change is imperative and imminent, yet faced with intense opposition. We'd stagnate without it, yet we battle any change with formidable strength.
Where love is not 'forever' but 'until you suit me'. A world moving at whirlwind speed with more efficiency than ever before, yet where's the time?

Today as I count down to a new life, in a new country, I feel a heightened perception of emotions of all kinds stewing through me. Home cooked food, Mom's hug, friends phone calls, family - suddenly I'm treating these things with enormous depth. The other day I was driving past Marine drive and I remembered all the millions of times Ive driven past hurriedly to get home, but that day, I took in each curve in the road, each contour of this beautiful coastline, absorbing the energy of lovers, joggers and urchins just infusing life into this place. I pulled down the windows and let the salty sea spray ruin my hair for once without a grumble. I ate plain rice and dal without a squeak of opposition as I know there's going to be a day, not too soon when I might be craving this - and a status on a social networking site is all Ill have to contend with.

It's not just the impending move to another country - its the repercussions thereafter too. This could possibly be the last time I live in my parents home as me. This new life and move could have its extensions in marriage, who's to say? The other day someone asked me what my plans are, and whether ill marry and settle there, or work? I simply smiled and gave my now templated answer - 'I don't have a plan, I'll deal with whatever comes my way'.

Cause hell knows, when has life gone according to plan anyway?