Between Delayed Puberty and Early Midlife

In case you have been following my blog, you will perhaps remember this post. Written quite some time back, it ushered in an era of confusion. Like many other things it was also swept under the carpet, but like all sandcastles, it started tumbling down a week or so back.

Communication is one of the major medium through which we connect to our consumers. Even between humans communication is the key to survival. However good your message might be, you often need to reinforce it. You, for example, need to say, “I love you” even if you are married for 50 years. Reinforcement works; always. Communication was the key and yet it was taking a backseat.

Imagine a situation where you would be asked the question – “What is life?” The answers come in varied forms, “I have figured it out and the way I live my life is the meaning of life.” “Well, I don’t know.” “As if I care.” “Can you please shut up? My life sucks.”

Change the question, the answer remains the same. There is so little to talk about these days. Often there is just silence after “hey what’s happening?” Well nothing’s happening in reality and there is nothing to talk about. Walls are getting built up. A phone call is no longer answered by “Dude! What’s up?” Often it is picked up by a new person who has gained prominence. It’s just not the loss of your place of priority in another’s life. It’s a signal - Either the beginning of the end of an old friendship or the end of the beginning of a new one. Slowly the meaning of the old S&G classic comes into the light. The answer lies in Dangling Conversations.

Strange things are happening. I have always believed everything in this world carries an expiry date. It’s like a product life cycle. Without rejuvenation, there is always an end. Relationships are exactly the same. Communication is a major source of rejuvenation but as I said, it’s taken a backseat. The other day I discussed expiry with a friend and realized we both knew the time and date and reason for the same. There is hope of rejuvenation but that would require a fundamental change to product specifications. A whole new phase of research and development. The best part is that we predicted the future. At least both versions of it.

In my life I have always found people who are generally happy. But as we grow up most of us are becoming increasingly unhappy. The general feeling is one of gloom and despair. Rather, a submission to the day to day routine. Some people are lucky; they can dissociate themselves from the questions. Some become Gyaan Gurus lamenting on the decay that has gripped our world. Others, like me, perhaps the worst of the lot, vacillate between acceptance and rebellion.

Change as I keep on saying is inevitable. And yet, people are judgmental about change. A kid told me, yesterday it does not matter if change is good or bad. Without change one would become boring.

The only light at the end of the tunnel was surprisingly Rakhi Sawant. I admire her penchant for being in the news always. She did a truly unorthodox thing to agree on the Swayamvar on television. But then the prudish SEC A++ I seem to be around completely disregarded her. I bet on the show opening to great TRPs and it did. India did not let me down. But when people started passing snide remarks about me watching the show opener, I was surprised. How fast we seem to pass judgment! Anyway I was redeemed when my favourite marketer told me that she watched it too. Bonded by the Grace of the Same God, we still think alike, even after two years.

I hope you have never been addicted to anything. But to give you a simpler example, have you ever felt restless at not being able to finish a book? Well, your mom at times comes into your room and forcefully switches the light off. You hate her for it and yet you know it was necessary. You needed to wake up in time for school. What do you do when your “chuddy buddy” can be accused of looking after you in that strict matronly fashion? You really would not be buddy buddy with your buddy anymore, would you? My suggestion for what it’s worth; Buddy advice saves you. Try listening.

But nothing was working out till a voice of sense called. Remember Maslow’s Pyramid? It asked. If everyone reaches self actualization it would not exactly be a pyramid would it? And the voice gave me back Keats. After almost a year I read him again.

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Before high-piled books, in charactery,

Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,

That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Forces are pulling me to different directions and yet I dance around taut as a wire in tension looking for answers. As they reminded us in the Matrix, “To deny our impulses is to deny the very essence that makes us human.”

What do you do however if impulses vary between extremes?