Jyoti Vishwakarma
What is life without living. And what is living without purpose. According to Merriam webster dictionary the definition of living is 1. having life, 2. exhibiting the life or motion of nature 3. the condition of being alive. So basically, we have to have a life, show that we are living and be alive. Still this is the most difficult thing to do for any human being today. Everyone I see is either struggling, suffering and trying to live. When I was young, life was different. I won’t say difficult because that is how we deal with it. Life is always the same. We make it easier or difficult by our action of choices to deal life. And as I grew up, I understood what and why people said, “Life will happen when you grow up. You will understand.” And here is how I understood.
I grew up in a small town named Vasai which is located beyond the boundaries of Mumbai City. Despite of having a much simpler life than the most famous and crowded metropolitan city, my life was chaotic. I grew up in the city, with subtle chaos and bigger dreams, just like any small-town girl would along with three other siblings and slow paced evolving orthodox parents. From learning to cook from mom at the age of ten to submitting monthly payment cheques for dad, I learnt my ways in all sectors. This made me feel all-rounder in front of others children of same age-group. Growing up in such an environment paves a great impact of growing child. I took these obstacles of daily chores along with my own educational and personal space as mere milestones I had to cross to find my ultimate path of living. It was fun. It was positive. It made me feel super human. That made me thrive to be good in everything. And my parents never really appreciated anything good in me, ever. I somehow covered up that self-consoling that my parents have other work to do and take care of other younger siblings or they were deprived of such emotional feedback because they never got themselves one. My group of friends and some teachers made it easier by always been there. This made me go sane for a very long time.
My hometown is very beautiful place. It has mountains on one side, many beaches on the other, stretched grassland all across stretched evenly around. You will find every famous branded store here and all the stuffs for living with lots of in-town businesses and opportunities along with less noise and chaos and pollution. I was closer to nature. My way of spending any usual day would start admiring the sunrise over the fogged mountains and absorbing the beauty of sunset by the beach. I grew up crossing certain area-limit with each passing grades. When I finally reached High School, I was allowed to step foot beyond my residential area. I was happy, excited and ready to explore the world beyond.
I had hopes. I believed in sunshine, held to days that were filled with laughter. Nurtured to the peace I had found in one drizzling afternoon when the love of my life confessed about his love for me. I believed that this is how life is. Rainbows and fireflies. Happy and content. I believed in people, relationships, commitments and forever kind of love. That people will stay no matter what. I admired people who wished to settle with the sparseness of affection they got in return. They made conscious efforts to put it back together, no matter how puzzled and confusing life gets. Even with endless struggles, these small things nourish life and make it worth living. Maybe it does. Maybe these small things matter the most. I believed. I was happy until life happened.
The bubble of love and light I was wrapped around just disappeared one fine day. All the happiness and contentment I had in for me just got drained away drop by drop from my soul. It felt as if someone had squeezed and crushed every bit of hope from my skin. Everything felt dark and empty. And just like that I had no one. The love of my life just left after giving years of dreamy memories. He left because he wanted a life apart from mine. Friends left because they had life too. Family didn’t care much because they were busy with their own life.
After a decade I realise, all that I had believed while growing up turned false. I grew up experiencing some things entirely different and opposite. I grew up learning that one by one, at every stage of life, people leave. They just choose to go. Do what is convenient. No matter how hard you try to hold on. They just disappear in the crowd, in human race everybody is running, in no time. The choices to fall in love with any person seemed like a piece of cake. And finding forever is like looking for needle in a haystack. Heartbreaks are common nowadays because replacements were easily available. Or maybe it’s just the way out. Tears have lost its value. I see friends crying, struggling to love, love again. Love do arrive at the doorsteps every day but doesn’t stays effortlessly. And all this started building new set of believes in me ever since then. In all these years; love, friends, relationships, commitments had lost its essence in my life. I had so much unlearning to do, now and it felt exhausting and extremely impossible.
Disappointed! I had to shut doors and windows for these emotions. I ignored and kept my broken, dismantled and half-stitched heart hugged close to self, away from more destruction. I lived all alone with few frequent episodes of self-loathing and some nights wetting pillows without any certain reason in particular, guess I felt lonelier that times.
At the age of twenty-five, I turned out to be a lady with no emotional attachments with anyone. I talk with my friends and family on occasional basis and that is it. I value them because they are still there, supporting or not, but their presence makes things easier and liveable. I go out seeing many guys and date a few if liked but that limits to talk, dine, drinks and dancing without letting them see my naked soul. I never felt the urge to step up my bar of acquaintance with any of those. I have no plans for permanent settlements. Where people around are getting serious in their relationship status, some friends getting married, some finally keeping it solid and real, I am happy living alone.
Time evolved me into something I wasn’t. When I was young, even I wanted companionship, marriage, my own family who would live by the beach in our medium sized semi wooden luxurious house with a sunset view and my house would be filled with laughter of loving kids and caring husband. Maybe deep inside I still do. But now, all I can figure out is the short-term plans of my life with respect to finance and profession. I want to earn, save and start-up an association of my own. I want to start and build up a place for people to heal and grow, a place where physical healing is as much important as spiritual, a place where everything mends and beautifies.
Self-growth became my new goal to achieve. And doesn’t self-growth include emotional growth as well. And here by emotional growth I mean trying to trust humans again, trying to get attached again, maybe feeling love again. Maybe crying when I lose people. Maybe getting upset for more than few hours when people hurt and break trust. Maybe feeling a little deeper inside till a heart ache, again. That is how humans are made of, right? And now I can’t feel up to that intensity and that’s what scares the hell out of me. It is scary for everyone who feels the same. It is very common. Everyone suffers silently but no one knows how to heal.
Just like you need to water the plant daily, provide nutrients and then prune the old dried leaves and stem so that the plant can grow in a healthier environment, breathe in fresher air and bloom. Even for the magic to happen, you need to learn the magic trick. So, until you learn the trick, just sit back and enjoy the magic tricks and be amazed. Our heart is a very fragile organ, delicate yet the strongest. You will be surprised to what it can handle and fight against. Just trust yourself and believe. Believe that you will be happier and that happiness will flow right towards you when you are ready for it. What one can do is, he can choose to be free, be free to pursue doing right actions in life once you can understand the mere purpose of living.
“When the bonds are broken (the believer’s) illumined heart
Beats in Brahman: His every action
Is worship of Brahman: Can such acts bring evil?
Brahman is the ritual, Brahman is the offering,
Brahman is he who offers, To the fire that is Brahman.
If a man sees Brahman in every action,
He will find Brahman.”
This is one of the excerpts of from Bhagavat Gita, which explains and encourages detachment from the seeming consequences of one’s actions.
You must realize, Lord Krishna, the ultimate creator of everything said, that engaging or refusing to engage in a certain path of action because you are fixated on outcome is to be blinded by misapprehension which will lead to failure in performing their essential duty in life. You must detach yourself from the consequences of your action and focus on what must be done, no matter how painful, in order to play the part, you have been given in the Eternal Order of the universe. Refusing to fight for your darkness is refusing to do his dharma and duty which means not only evading his responsibilities but denying the truth of the nature of existence.
The more I read and understand, the more I realise about my purpose of living. We as humans aren’t here to just pass our life around the clock but to live. So, live at your own cost. Do whatever you feel is right and gives you a good sleep. Do anything your heart agrees. And if you are ready to face the consequences either good or bad, the decision of living your way of life is only yours. And maybe even I am living in present. Taking one day at a time. Breathing one day at a time. And believe me, you are moving forward, even if the end makes your feel the same day, the same place, the same at what you started at. I am living a half human life.
From what I know, human life is a part of both masculinism and feminism. Masculinism is a part of living. Masculinism basically denotes the strength, stability attained from the male part of the community and Feminism is the part where the care, affection and emotion become dominant. And maybe due to our nature to adapt and evolve, the feminist side in me has been hazed out. This is why I call my living- the half-human life. Maybe like me, there are many other breathing souls in this era living incompletely. Either of the two livings. Buried in cell phones and racing with the fake status on social media, just to stand out like others, we have lost grip on our reality and value of existence. Isn’t it wrong in our part? Shouldn’t we live completely, shouldn’t we live fearlessly? But what if we don’t. And what if we can’t? What if we don’t what to?
If that is what you feel, you do it. Because whatever you feel and experience deep within these skinned walls are true. They are the instincts which we need to follow. All the ethics you create for yourself without harming or destructing and disrupting the balance of living are right and aren’t questionable. Make buckets of emotions for every individual that matters to you and are present in your life. Deal one bucket at one time. Put respective emotions in respective buckets and that is how you start to deal with every emotion inside you, one by one. One emotion at one time. And let the time do its healing. Because healing has a different timeline for each and every individual. Your time of healing is personal to you. And don’t let others define it or interrupt it.
The choice is still ours, isn’t it? And if we feel content and peaceful and happy in this choice of living. Then, why not? I believe one should continue to live accordingly until feels otherwise. Until one feels the need to live differently. Or until one finds someone to share the same level of understanding and acceptance. Until then, living this way isn’t a bad investment. Think about it. Because you are anyway growing and moving forward, so what’s wrong living half until you find something and someone to make you feel complete.
This is how I understand. This is what worked for me.
“Because living is a choice. And you need to choose first than live.”