Any Day Above Ground Is A Good Day

Zaka

Once in a while, everyone feels stuck - unable out to find a way. Life seems like a futile war that you are destined to lose. Despite battling it out for every inch. When I find myself in this state of mind, I'm like FML. It sucks, I'm better off dead. I mean life is so important. How could it be so friggin' fragile????

Most of you would agree that life sucks but does it have to be? There's no gainsaying that life is overly complicated and most of us just don't have a clue WHY?

When you're knee deep in shit and pondering that there's no way out. You need a distraction then, or else you will lose whatever is left. As they say humor is the best companion to get through life. Yesterday, with flipping through the tv channels, I was trying to while away a lazy afternoon. A channel showing "Baby's Day Out" made me pause and then I watched the whole movie. Though, I have watched it a couple of times before. It just tickled my funny bones and banished  everything from my mind.

Just to stop my life from sucking, I tried to find something to laugh about. And I came up with these "Life Sucks" maxims. If you find someone whining, share these sayings with them. It may add a laughter to their life.

“Maybe this world is another planet’s hell” - Aldous Huxley

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive. - Elbert Hubbard

Whenever life sucks, remember you’re going to die someday. So, any day above ground is a good day. – Unknown

“Life is like an onion; you peel off layer after layer and then you find there is nothing in it” - James Gibbons Huneker

I think I've discovered the secret of life - you just hang around until you get used to it. - Charles Schulz

“If the world didn’t suck, we’d fall off” - Unknown

“Life is little more than a loan shark: It exacts a very high rate of interest for the few pleasures it concedes” - Luigi Pirandello

“Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful that it happens in that order” - David Gerrold

“It is not true that life is one damn thing after another… It’s one damn thing over and over” - Edna St. Vincent Millay

My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right? - Charles Schulz

The perfect normal person is rare in our civilization. - Karen Horney

“The life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” - Thomas Hobbes

“Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable” - Woody Allen

“You fall out of your mother’s womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave” - Quentin Crisp

“Half the world is composed of idiots, the other half of people clever enough to take indecent advantage of them” - Walter Kerr

“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us” - Calvin

“Life is an incurable Disease” - Abraham Cowley

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything” - Tyler Durden

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry” - Ernest Hemingway

“It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done” - Samuel Johnson

“Life may have no meaning. Or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove” - Ashleigh Brilliant

“The world is a grindstone and life is your nose” - Fred Allen

“The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race” - Don Marquis

“Although it is a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out, sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation” - Bertrand Russell

Death is life’s way of telling you you’re fired” - Unknown
“It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others” - Unknown

Life is so constructed that an event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation. - Charlotte Bronte

Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it. - Christopher Morley

I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it. - Jack Handey

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't. - Richard Bach

I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches. - Alice Roosevelt Longworth

PS: If this didn’t bring a perceptible smile to your face, then surely you need to borrow a life. Because, I already see you can't buy one. And one more thing - do tell me about that pawnbroker, because I , also, need a new lease on life. This one ain’t working out. 

A Tale of An August Evening

Zaka

On the stony fence, I sat in silence, thinking of nothing. Just staring at the changing tide and listening to the crushing waves. 

"So what makes these waves so determined?", a thought popped up in my head as with every attempt, the waves tried to achieve new heights - rise and fall - then rise again... "They never fail to rise again", mused I.

"Can I sit here"... said an old man with a cane - pointing towards one of the wooden bench behind the stony fence. This row of wooden-benches was installed few days ago.

"Yeah...!! since I don't claim the ownership, so you know", I was being rude. His interference didn't go down well with me.

"I didn't say you do", he chuckled. By ignoring my impertinence, his desire to strike up a conversation was obvious.

"Lonely oldies", thought I.

"You too, are alone or what?", he said as if he had read my thoughts.

"Is it a question or observation. Should I walk away. This man seems weird", just in a second, a plethora of thoughts crossed my mind. I turned my face towards the sea assuming that looking in his eyes could open up my mind again to him. We sat in silence. Though I tried to relate my thoughts with the waves but there was something in my heart wouldn't allow me to do so. I was more interested in supposed things happening behind my back.

"Isn't it weird how a seemingly innocuous remark distracts you or gets you in a stew", I thought. "I'm certainly thinking too much, didn't have the best of time of late. That made me even more insecure", I took a deep breath that somewhat broke the shackles of my thoughts.

"What makes you think that I'm lonely?", I summoned some courage to ask, because I didn't want a conversation, especially with a weird old man.

"ahaa you back"...

"Oh really", I turned back, "I was never gone", I peered at him.

"Oh sure you were, long gone. Somewhere with those waves yonder", he peered back.

"What are you mister", I thought.

"To see a young man sitting alone along the beach and think he's a loner", he shrugged "It's a no-brainer"...

"Sitting alone doesn't mean that someone is a loner"...

"You see that old man and those young folks", he said as my vision followed the traces of an imaginary line he just drew with his forefinger. The old man was sitting about 50 feet off us - gazing at the horizon. He seemed engrossed in his thoughts. And on the beach, a bunch of guys was frolicking away the cool August evening.

"The old man is just another pathetic being like me who is living with memories - only memories. While on the other side those young folks like you, are in the process of making those memories", added he. "As you're sitting alone in a wonderful evening, I can say you are drifted from your path if not lost", he tittered.

"Hmmmm Life well-spent Mr. Weird. You know a lot about life", I thought.

"Well that is a pretty flimsy evidence", I smirked assuming the air of sassiness again. "Being young doesn't necessarily mean you ought to be with a crowd. Sometimes one needs to spend some time with oneself. I like to walk alone on the beach or sit and watch the sun kissing the choppy water".

"Maybe you have an old soul then", he winked.

I rolled my eyes then laughed, and he joined in. He doesn't seem much weird now. 

"So you have an aversion to people". he whispered after a moment of quiet.

"Nope, I'm not what you thinking". 

"He must have been a chatterbox in his younger days" I said to myself.

"What am I thinking?".

"Misanthropic"...

"Then what's it?"...

"Let me say I'm just shy of people. I do spend some time with them, but believe most of them are hypocrites"...

"You are a cynic?"...

"Guilty"...

"What do you do?"..

"Journo"....

"Interesting", he nodded, "I have a question for you. Would you say people are inherently good or bad?"..

"I think they are just people. What they do - makes them good or bad"..

"Exactly", he nodded again, "A moment of compassion even in a hypocrite can give meaning to a life. Life can bring about many dreary and unbearable experiences, but we don't quit living with the exception of few of course. It is like walking, when you take a tumble, you get up but don't stop walking. if someone wasn’t trustworthy, this doesn't mean that the whole world isn't?
There's only one way to seek out the truth about folks and that is to refrain from any sort of prejudice. Only then you will discover who is reliable and who isn’t", he tapped my shoulder and walked away. The dusk was falling as I saw his shadowy figure dwindled away in the gloom.

All Alone

Zaka

Holding hands with myself

Digging the darkness in my mind

I’m standing here

Watching

As a lonely cloud floats by

I’m going to walk alone

On this long and winding road

I always walk alone

Because,

I’m alone

All by myself

In this crowded world

I got my own little world

And

I share my world with no one else

I’m going to stay to myself

Because

I’m scared

I can’t face tomorrow

I stumbled over every obstacle

Life has thrown at me

Vagaries of life

Failures

Bewilderedness

Regrets

Troubles

I’m going to leave behind

By walking alone

Even if I am

Not sure

Where it is taking me

And

Not sure

If I care

I’m going to walk

All alone

In the labyrinth of addled mind

Zaka 

“I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between ― Sylvia Plath ”

No matter how passionate you might be about your life, you may find yourself dragging once in a while and if you don’t make an effort to address it right away,  you could wake up one day and realize months have gone by and you’re still stuck….! 

Doing nothing often gives me too much time to ponder things that I would rather shove into the mental trash bin, where we tend to put unfinished businesses for an appropriate time. The lack of motivation, direction or the feeling that everything doesn’t seem to go right, all bring me to a state called mood swings. It is quite a familiar territory for me, where the mind moves to-and-fro looking for a temporary refuge. There is no permanent dwelling for the mental state, it wanders looking for peace it may never find. 

Our mind has enough explosives to demolish every tendril of its thoughts and yet we leave the doors of mental faculties ajar and accumulate unwanted provocations. Is there any way to keep the adversary thoughts at bay? 

The core of our wellbeing perhaps depends on our ability to flush out unwanted feelings; albeit, it is easy to say than doing it. In such state of mental demolition only one thing can save you. Embark on the road of selfishness. The mental stress disappears when you only have to think of yourself and the rest can burn in the eternal fires. Giving yourself a priority and not the welfare of others restrict the traffic to the channel of thoughts. It should not be exactly a one-way street but a few barriers on the right places can pay a good dividend or a certain degree of selfishness may be the only way forward when the roof threatens to cave in, After all, you mend your fence first before you consider fixing your neighbor’s. 

Sometimes, it pays to give the pendulum a rest. When the wild swings that knocks the hell out of the sides stops, you begin to see things in their proper perspective. While we cannot completely disregard family obligations and professional problems, at least they can stay in the queue for a while. 

In a nutshell, there is no obvious remedy and that’s why they keep building hospitals that have the back entrance to the cemeteries. At least the final destination is peaceful, or so we hope it would be. As for me, I am caught between selfishness and consideration for others, a limbo that many of us are trapped in. 

Lost in time

Zaka

Life is a paradox of dreams and realities. Sometimes things are as clear as crystal, but we choose not to face reality. That’s where the dreams come into play and I am living in the realm of fantasy. It may seem contradictory but I have never lost touch with reality, and yet I am living in the world of memories and dreams. I know that dwelling in my own thoughts will lead me nowhere, and that is a manifest escapism from reality. But ever since I tasted the life of fantasy, realities are no longer enough for me. Hence, my life is hung between dreams and memories. 

Eleanor Roosevelt said "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”, the world of dreams may show you things you've never seen and take you to places you've never been, maybe that's why we love it but sometimes I feel it is a world where you're more likely to be lost , a world between shadows dark and light, a world between being and non-being. each door opens into another, sometimes it seems too real for a dream.

In this state of a fearless curiosity, a voice in my head tells me that I have lived long enough to die. But I need some certain circumstances before I can leave. So I bite through the words that I can't say and falls through the feelings, I don't have the words to explain. The moments go too soon when eyes feel fine but it feels like a lifetime when life reveals its bitter face.

I sit and dream that I had died and all I've nothing but memories, memories and dreams. Then it gets complicated, though, it is a place where I find solace but I do wish I were floating and drifting away from it all.

Let go

Zaka

Sometimes I wonder

Life is too brief,

To think about scars, wounds, regrets,


And pain

So I should let go,

What I can’t hold

I have to make the most of what I got,

Cherish what I have

And,


Value the life while I still can,

Because,

I may never see tomorrow

We have lost touch with who we are!!!

Zaka

In this age, now more than ever before, fear overwhelmed everything else in society.  Why should this be so? Were people as fearful years ago as they are now? Or has society changed to such an extent that along with all of the technological wonders that have been created, to make our lives more comfortable, instead, hand-in-hand with those wonders goes fear.

Society has changed for the worst. My parents tell us every now and then that there was a time, not too long ago, when people could leave their front doors open while they ran to the shops. There was a time when people knew everyone in their neighbourhood by their names. A time when neighbours where like one big family and would look out for each other.When something bad would occur, everyone would chip in to deal with the matter - in other words, people where never left by themselves, or made to feel lonely. It was a time when strangers would be welcomed on any doorstep, with a cheery smile and hello and a new friend would be made.

But times have changed.   With the proliferation of newspapers, and the media at large, it seems that every single hour, we are bombarded with the latest atrocity that has occurred in our own country, or somewhere in the world.  In fact at one time, bad things only happened to those countries who we would view from far off on our television screens.

The mantra would go: As long as it is happening to them, and not us, then we are alright. In some respects it was a very insular way of thinking, a way of saying that those things that we heard, read or saw would never occur here. How wrong we where.  Floods, earthquakes, proliferation in murders, the silence of people who would rather keep themselves to themselves for fear of attack.

People who would step over somebody lying in the street without a second glance.  People too afraid to leave their homes unlocked (like our parrents grand parrents used to do). People too afraid to allow their children to play out in the fresh air.

The main causes for all of those things is fear.  Fear rules our hearts and our heads and stops us from being fully human, and it traps us into a society that we ourselves have created.

As long as it is on somebody else's doorstep and not mine is the mantra now. That is the way of thinking of all of us in society these days. The modern world in which we live is filled with terrors we could not imagine before, and because of this, fear has a grip on our hearts.

It was a wise man who said that there is nothing to fear but fear itself. What does that mean?  Well, if we live our lives by thinking ahead, ie: thinking something might happen to us, or our loved ones, every single time we stepped out the door, then we would never live at all.

The threat of gang warfare, terrorist attacks, and the ultimate, nuclear and biological attacks on our country and person, is too much for us. We cocoon ourselves into our own little worlds, hardly speaking to anyone  - if we can help it - and we separate ourselves to such an extent that hate and fear becomes the overriding factors of our lives.

We are too quick to judge a person, because that person, instead of looking at him or her as an individual, we look at them as being part of a group of people who will terrorise us because of their colour or ethnicity.  Fear in the modern world, even more so now, than before, makes us too quick to judge others, and that will eventually lead to our downfall.

One cannot help but be scared - fearful that our children may go out to play but then, may never come back. What with child murders, drug dealers, and any number of other things that make us fearful for our very lives in this society, we find ourselves trapped, with no way out.

We work, and that is it. We have no time for recreation because we are always fearful to leave the house empty - in case of robberies, we are scared to go to the park, in case we are attacked not just by gangs, but by dogs too. Dog attacks on adults and children have risen steadily over the years until now they have become a major problem in society.

A whole plethora of incidents in this society makes us fearful for our own lives, and those of our family. In this society it is every man for himself, and it is true. Who would go to help out somebody in trouble, if they are lying in the street? There are not many that would these days, and human life seems cheap.

Death is read about every single day, and we bat not an eyelid. It is no longer front page news because it is so common.  with the proliferation of all of the things mentioned, society today is far less tolerant - and far more fearful - than at any other given point in time. We have lost touch with who we are, and in the process we have lost touch with our humanity. This is our own fault and our legacy, because we have created the society that we wanted in the first place.