The Delusion Of Being...

You know how it starts. A lost soul entrenched in idyllic surroundings, strings together complex and inflated words to describe what he feels is the most breathtaking sight he has ever laid his eyes on. We swoon, we gasp, we are even spellbound by such artistic and abstract representation. On the other hand it maybe the solemn musings of a scorned lover. High on a few drinks, he lets out all of his heartburn through the quill. Letting words do what he cannot. Again, we are affected profoundly by the protagonists shattering prose. But does our fickle and questioning mind ever ask, what is the point of it all? I do. Almost half-embarrassingly so.

I have to admit upfront that I’ve never seen the point of poetry. Now before you attempt go baying for my blood to refill the ink pot for your quill, read me out. It is not like I am incapable of differentiating a good poem from a useless one. But I fail to see beyond the nominal lyrical value of such an endeavour. It’s rarely of any functional value. There’s really nothing that a well written story/ article can’t express. Imagery and the acoustic sense, normally championed by poets, can very well be conveyed without the unnecessary and at times, redundant, language labyrinths. Plus with poetry, you have to write within it’s perimeters of rhyme and segmentation and can't fully express yourself. Other forms like haiku, offer much more flexibility in that sense. The biggest drawback I feel is that you need to be dramatic while writing a poem and it’s almost next to impossible to write about otherwise normal and ordinary predicaments or situations. At times the poem tends to veer off and end up far from the theme. But I guess that’s a part of writing something like that. The meaning of a poem, in the process of sounding grand and abstract, sometime gets lost as the debate between the literary and metaphorical value takes over.Pedants reading this will probably assault me on the blog title by saying that poetry is totally different from prose. As someone I know, once likened it, “Poetry is like liquor where mere prose is bloating beer.”  But that’s hardly the point.

I remember coming across this poem on some Yahoo! Answers forum a while. Sums it up quite eruditely :)

“Those poets they are a useless lot
they drink red wine and smoke wicked pot.
They alliterate and use imagery
Meditate for hours upon some bloody tree!
But who has built a house of words?
Crops are not sown by a man admiring birds
And writing that his love is lorn
His life in tatters, his heart all torn.
Pick up a spade, you lazy clods
Plant the seeds, turn the sods
Do something useful, something real!
And bury your artistic zeal”

I don’t mean to discredit all the acclaimed poets who’ve devoted their lives to poetry. Nor those who enjoy the form. It’s just not my cup of tea, that’s all. Maybe it’s because I can write a poem to save my life. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been attracted enough to try!

So it is the first month of the first year of the second decade of the third millennium. Great! I'm not normally the nostalgic kinds, who look at all the years gone by with rose tinted glasses and mourn the times that whizzed past like non-descript towns on a train journey. But even by realistic means the past decade has been the most eventful of my life. Growing up is a natural and non-elective phenomena we all experience at some point during our time on the third rock from the sun, and believe you me it doesn't depend on your age. Growing old is mandatory, while growing up is strictly optional.

It is kind of a voluntary (in most cases) and also involuntary (in some) event. It can be triggered by one, many or the sum of a group of experiences. It is like an inflection point in a curve which marks a significant change and departure from previous behaviour and ultimately comes to define us, whether we like it or not. And yes, growing up is seldom easy. But also hugely under rated. When people talk about it they rarely refer to it in positive shades. They complain about how life was better off when they were. When you just had to bother with trivial details like homework, play mates (not the Hefner kinds) or what time to go sleep. Its much easier than figuring out 'big' and 'difficult' things like career, money, family and the ilk. To an extent that's true. Responsibilities increase, days get grudgingly longer, complications start to arise and rarely does any aspect of life seem under control. I don't know exactly why but it is these things which make growing up more exciting. Probably since it signifies tackling challenges, newer avenues, channeling your energy into what you believe is right for you, a chance to make each day more exciting than the previous one and above all being solely responsible for your actions.il there's one thing that scares me the most is looking at my time in hindsight, as a tired and frustrated old hag, blaming others for the way my life has turned out. The 'others' here may signify parents, peer group, opportunities (or the lack of), and the lamest of all, the dreaded 4 word, fate. Instead of that I want to look back at my life and say proudly that yes, it is the best and more importantly, the ONLY way I could've lived it. The tinge of regret of a lifetime worth of promises unkept and options unexplored, is what I dread the most.

It’s not like I haven’t made any mistakes. But the weird thing is that despite that whenever I look back I never tell myself that I wish I could’ve done things differently.If given the chance I’m pretty sure I would’ve taken the same decisions, not out of some false bravado, but simply due to the fact, in that state and position, that’s what I could’ve done. Obviously we must learn from our follies and move on but the learning they represent is more potent than all the things that go right on the way.

So that’s that. A bit of pending amateur psycho gibberish for anyone who cares. The trick I guess, as always, is to grow up without growing old

Have a great decade(s) ahead!