Everyone in life is pretending. Adults pretend they know everything, kids pretend to be adults. Toppers pretend they know nothing, average pretend to know more than they do, failures pretend to score more. Bikers pretend to be rich, drivers pretend that fuel prices don’t hurt them. But, everyone here, pretends to be happy.
Everyone does what they do to seem happy than they are. To incline towards situations they want to be in. To feel that things that never happened did and situations that won’t occur will. But then there are few who pretend a lot. Their whole life is a lie to people, in hopes to get in everyone’s eye. I know a guy of this sort, we called him the Pretentious Will.
Will was the true wannabe in the best of its senses. He always wanted to be something. When he was a child he wanted to be famous and found out ways to be famous. He had no brains of his own but followed what was trending and wanted to be the best at it. If everyone around his was collecting bottle caps, he would too. If he doesn’t drink soda, he would and collect the caps. When he couldn’t get enough he said he lost them.
When everyone around him was joining gym, he would too. When he couldn’t get bulked, he would tell everyone that he used to have a great bulk but then he suffered from cancer and lost all his bulk. When he joined college, everyone loved guitarists, so he learned how to play one. When he couldn’t learn well he said he got his hand fractured a month back.
Will was one of those people who pretend to know everybody. Who pretended to be polite with everybody. And to Will’s delight he was getting famous, he was becoming what he wanted to be.
Everyone started loving him because he pretended to be cool. In any situation he would say don’t worry, someone he didn’t really know, will fix it for him. Everyone wanted to be around Will. Everyone loved Will. Everyone followed Will to the cliff blindly. Because he said he knew the way to the other side. In the truest of its sense, it had become “Where there is a will, there is a way.”
But, one day, Will had a reality check.
Years back, Will was hired to grow food crops. Because of his strong determination and contacts rather false contacts for irrigation, machinery and seeds, he was hired, but he knew nothing about it. He was paid well but never gave results.
He was hired to write because of his degrees, rather fake degrees from Cornell, Stanford and Harvard. Well, he never knew anything beyond the alphabet “B”. Because he was a “WannaB”. He was hired to make electronics, but he had never held a wire.
He was hired for time management course teaching, because he could do 4 jobs at the same time and still earn pretty well. But, well only Will knew how much hard-work he was putting in.
Over the past so many years, everyone kept Will with them. Everyone knew, who is Will. They believed so much in Will that they never worked. They thought as long as they have “Will” to do it, it will happen. But here’s what happened, no one did anything. Everyone believed in “Will”, the one over-achiever who had achieved the new levels of dreaming and nothing Else.
So, one day everyone’s favourite, Will was shattered… to be continued.
Sadly, I’ve seen this and have been an active part of it too. Rather you could say I was the one who suggested that. That kid had been suffering from it from the past 5 years. How could you see someone suffer for so long? And that too a kid?
Poor soul. His malady had taken a toll on him. We thought we could save him at the beginning but his mental health kept on getting worse. He used to lock himself up in the room and won’t come out for days. We had to bait him out, else he would have starved himself to death.
He wanted to be a photographer. A camera was his favorite toy. He had one with green color, the fluorescent one, that has picture rolling in the lens?
Yes, that’s the one. He hopped around the entire day pretending to click picture of everything he saw. If it were a real camera he would have had thousands of pictures of me and millions of all the things you see. Stars, galaxies, flowers, birds, animals, street, cars, lamps even garbage. He captured everything.
Only that he never knew what color his camera was. In fact, he didn’t even know what he was clicking. Or rather he knew and no one else did because all we could see were walls. A purple wall behind the couch, the one in the image, that’s it. A white wall facing the purple and 2 blues completing the room.
That’s all we saw, but probably his imagination had no bounds. We had to tie him down someday. We had to take away his camera and show him how the real-world works. You can’t just click pictures of walls and pretend they are objects, you can’t make a living out of wall photography.
So, one day I took him to the nearest center that I knew and talked to the person in charge there. They said they’ll handle it and I don’t need to worry about it. No blood on my hands, I’m clean. So, I left him there and walked out.
He cried, he howled I didn’t turn back. I was crying too. It has been 17 years since. They call the center school now. They euthanized the dreams perfectly. He works exactly like a human should. Several hours a day, no complaints and no emotions whatsoever. There have been no signs of revival, he’s educated, has a good job and gets heavy cheques. We haven’t seen his camera ever since.
But, I still think he holds his green camera once or twice in a week when he comes back home at night. Probably, he wonders ‘what is it?’ and keeps it down. Nothing to worry about.
Euthanasia – The painless killing of someone who is suffering from an incurable disease.
Well, at least that’s what dictionary says.
I have been very fond of races ever since I was a child. I wanted everything to go fast. Faster than it could and fast enough to spin around the world and tangent into the space. Just line a coin slips from the end of the spinning thread? I loved races especially the ones I could interfere with because then I could cheat to make my favorites win.
Whenever it rained I used to stare at the drop on the window for hour. No one let me out after my sinus incident. So, I used to pick up one drop declare it as my favorite to everyone at home and then name it as it rolled down. Now, “Jerry” is my favorite drop and no other drop should reach the bottom before it does because Jerry has a race to win! I would tap at the window under every other drop to slow it down. It broke my heart when Jerry didn’t win. I used to say that it’s not fair, Thomas had a head start.
And all the way down I wanted Jerry to win but when it did reach the bottom it disappeared. It died? Without waving me a goodbye? All the way down I wanted Jerry to come first, but when it did come first I was sad that all others are still alive and Jerry isn’t. After a few minutes there was another Jerry rolling down but it isn’t the same. The previous Jerry was faster and more polite and shy and funny. It isn’t the same anymore.
Today, I miss Jerry, not for all his achievements and victories down the window, but for the drop he was. Unlike, everyone in this world trying to race up the ladder, Jerry wanted to be close to earth. As close as he could be. Not that he was afraid of heights, no, no. In fact had gone to be the highest man on earth and then he hopped down. He said it was too lonely up there. Cold too. He won a few more races before he said his goodbye to the world.
I miss Jerry not for his races but for the man he was.
If life had check engine light just like our cars did probably we won’t have problems or that might increase our problems. I don’t exactly know but it does sound interesting.
1. You just started the car
Just like you need somewhere between another minute to another day to get to your senses and get off the bed when you wake up.
It’s going to happen every time you start something new. Problems and unhealthy people are always going to be there. All that counts is whether you drive or stay in the parking lot.
2. The LED isn’t Responding
Sometimes there isn’t actually a problem. But your brain, the overthinking machine tells you there is. You could try to fix an nonexistent problem and there’s nothing wrong with it.
Being double sure about stuff is good as long as it doesn’t stop you from moving ahead. Once you realise the problem won’t solve, you better ignore the thinking idiot.
3. The light felt ignored and is seeking attention
You could be at your highest point in your life. You just cracked a deal and now you don’t even have enough time for yourself but there would still be someone who doesn’t want you to stop partying with them. Now it depends on you, how do you feed its attention hunger.
4. Your 3 year old toddler needs food
Even though you have aged physically and mentally there’s always a part of you who is a complete idiot. This one person inside you is never going to let you breath free air saying they’re going charge you later for it or would email you a bill.
The more free you are the more hungry you think you are. And all your toddler needs is Food for thought
6. There was an error and it miss counted miles.
Mistakes are a part of our life. There isn’t going to be a day where you didn’t make a single mistake. Most of these could be fixed but then there are some mistakes you can’t really do anything about or they need time.
Bring in a screwdriver and fix the gauge or wait for it to fix it itself instead of focusing on the blipping LED.
Seven. You weren’t consistent.
Now I don’t want to start this by saying ‘consistency is the key’, but well I said it already. Though we don’t want to do same things over and over and at a slow rate, but sometimes slow acceleration and slow braking is what your car could do, unless you want frequent break downs. Changing the hands on steering wheels is going to kill your engine too. It’s you who needs to drive all the way, no matter how long it takes and how slow the ride is. Some idiot once said,
“If you do something for long enough you are eventually going to learn how to do it and people will love what you do. And if you don’t learn, people will lower their standards and love you eventually.”
8. It’s a Metaphor
Sometimes things don’t actually exist, we only believe they do. Or we believe something that exists is something we wished never existed. What you see is not actually a problem, you only think it is. The check engine light isn’t actually on, the bright glow of parking lights is making you think it is on.
9. The Engine started aging
When the engine starts aging, it’s going to need more services, obviously. But sometimes an older car is more attractive to mice and you know what mice can do. But here’s the thing, once the car starts aging more people start falling in love with that model or the mileage it has. So this love factor, is always going to make the mice factor look like a breadcrumb to the turkey sandwich.
10. You actually need to check the engine.
And well, life sometimes does mess you up.
A Photographer and A Writer
An Artist and An Entrepreneur
Mugged up Numbers
To pass the Semester
Clicked from an Aircraft over Honk Kong
You won’t ever understand what road will take you where, until you have tried them all.
It doesn’t matter if you take up engineering even if you don’t want to do it. It doesn’t matter if your folks didn’t let you pursue drawing or photography or bike riding or maybe cooking. It doesn’t really matter if you prefer coffee over tea or tea over coffee. The point is, everyone likes chocolate. Well, maybe that’s not what I meant here.
The point is you could go to New York via London or via Los Angeles. I mean it doesn’t really matter what you can do and what you cannot do, what really matter is what you really want to do. I’ve seen MBAs giving out on their high paying jobs to get a chance at wild life photography. I’ve seen engineers turn into bikers and doctor becoming novelists. I’ve seen lawyers become entrepreneurs and CA who wish to be lawyers.
Every mind on this planet has gone haywire, it doesn’t really matter what you think or anyone thinks about it, all that matter is you.
I’d always wonder, what is it is like to talk to wind? Is it actually a thing or just a phrase? I realized what people meant when I became a biker. Everyone around me could pull a wheelie. Everyone could do stoppies and one-handers and other crazy stuff. I’ve always been a “Two wheel down” guy, with helmets, gloves, jackets and shoes even on smaller and slower bikes. When there are biker rallies they couldn’t keep up, because all of them are afraid of speed. Now why are you even bikers?
I was called girl because I never lifted weights for a year after I got into fitness. I did calisthenics. I never had fruit juices because of their higher sugar contents while everyone had them saying it’s the fittest drink. A year and a half later from then, while all of them consider themselves as intermediates, I’m still a beginner at weight lifting, but I’m more familiar with muscles and postures. While most have them haven’t reached the 100 lbs on dead lifts or are still waiting touch the rods for the first time, I’m dead lifting 250 lbs. Besides that, I could do muscle ups and flag poles.
Approaches don’t matter, all that count is the goal, the place where you want to be. All that matters is yourself and what you are over what you want to be. It doesn’t matter what who didn’t let be you what you want to be, you could still turn things around, if you could make yourself want it bad.
Results don’t matter, effort does,
Destinations don’t matter, the journey does,
Life doesn’t need to mean something at the end,
Only that, it should be worth it.
It’s a love story when people fall in love
But it’s a fairy tale, when they stay.
There’s a difference in what a heart has to say, and what the tongue says. In these differences we lose the important ones. These difference are what create distances.
I’ve never told anyone to stay forever or promised someone a “forever” because they don’t exist. Forever means for ever and always but everyone dies, there won’t ever be forever.
But here’s a thing, Penguins have their own forever. Once a penguin falls in love with a mate, they stay together till death and that’s what my forever sounds like, “till death.”
And also, I don’t believe in buying you a drink at the bar, I probably won’t even take you out for coffee, but if you see someone staring at your from a remote corner of a bookstore and then if you have a already paid for book waiting for you at the table when you checkout. Then that would probably be me and that should be a trend.
Many don’t intend to be an hour, day, month or a year long fling. I’m a Leo but I don’t intend to be a lion with four lionesses. Many don’t intend to be chameleon changing colours forever.
Find more of a zebra, black and & white, never gray. Find more of a sparrow, flying through everywhere but coming back to nest every night. Find more of a Penguin that would stout walk with you to the end of the road.
And one day when get down on one knee ask, “Will you be my Penguin?”, instead.
“She’s your Lobster… you could see old lobsters walking in tank holding claws.”
-Phoebe Buffay
Forever.
For-ever.
The word sounds too good to be true and probably it is.
If it weren’t for fairy tales we would have never heard forever let alone what it meant. If it wasn’t for the human desire to keep the things like they are, and wish they will always be, we wouldn’t have the word itself. If we were more open to change and accept life is all about change we wouldn’t have forever.
Or probably we have been using the word a bit too wrong to actually understand its true purpose?
Probably forever was only meant for materialistic things like a mansions and money and not people because people go but mansions stay. They need repairs but they stay now, don’t they? Probably not with you but they stay.
But house don’t stay like they were always, now do they? They change colours, taps, people. Now that’s not forever or is it? They are demolished too.
I guess forever is then just meant to be a lie or is it?
So, we all have been lying to each other from centuries. Probably it was the liars way out. Or it was used to hurt people severely in the long run. Or maybe it was the only way where you could lie in the court after swearing?
Probably forever so are like this autumn leaf, beautiful yet dying.
Or may be it was never meant to be said, just felt.
Even though forever may seem to not last for ever the situations, people and lives don’t seem to have a forever, forever exist in commitments, feelings, and memories.Though you lie to the world, when you say something to yourself, it lasts. Though the one who promised you forever today, may not be there tomorrow, but years later when you see them passing by, it’s going to send a tingles down your spine. Though you could count minutes on finger tips, and moments end, every time you pass by that ice-cream shop, you could smell through time. The said ‘forever’s may not last for ever, but the unsaid ones do.