I had mentioned two months ago that I was excited to write this one. I had all the time in the world over the summer to tap into that excitement and to write about it, but I didn’t. The summer went by, and the excitement with it; it passed quicker than I had hoped for, with very little to show for it.
The highlight of the summer holidays was an afternoon at the Borivali National Park where I borrowed a cycle, an Indian classic – no brakes, no bell, chain coming off, pedal clanging against the frame, no mudguards – and rode it for an hour, with the wind in my face, raindrops on my back, hands off the bar, and a bus hurtling towards me. It was a throwback to my childhood days, much of it spent on a cycle. All was well with life again. Briefly.
There is this iconic scene in the movie where Chuck – a conscientious if bored accountant and a loving husband and father – stops on his way to work and inexplicably starts dancing to the beats of a drummer on the sidewalk. Soon, he coaxes a beautiful woman to dance with him, and their next few minutes are pure joy – unshackled, unfettered – not just for them but for all those who stand around to watch them groove spontaneously and in sync, tapping into a memory of childhood abandon.
When the drummer later suggests the three of them could busk together for a living, Chuck turns it down and returns to his mundane life, or to prepare for the death which he had intuited many years ago.
So it was with my cycling that afternoon. For a brief hour, I hurtled downhill with no care (and struggled to climb back up the next slope) and then returned to a life that was quite drab in contrast, which did not even involve any strutting or fretting.
In an act of inexplicable decision-making, not unlike Chuck, instead of buying a cycle and doing more of that which I clearly love, I bought a TV instead, and my summer weeks were spent on a couch, rewatching trilogies of trilogies! Ugh! Or Lol.
This is not quite how I imagined I would write this piece two months ago. But this here now is two months hence (if that makes sense), and so it is different (than what it was), and rightly so.
At the moment, I feel like I am waiting for some inspiration, a muse perhaps, something larger than my ordinary existence, to spur me back to action, or I daresay passion. Until then, there is routine, which in itself is not too bad because it is comforting and calming, a balm of sorts after the previous few years of tumult and grief. So I am not quite complaining, and I am grateful for this lull. A time of ease and no drama, no crisis.
To contradict myself again: maybe that is the issue – am I just too contented? Is that even a thing? Perhaps I need to chafe at the bit, more. Grapple with something larger.
I could do any number of things: dance, hike, travel, juggle, color, read, learn. They are all fun and engaging, maybe even uplifting for a while, and I do all of them. I also have my journaling, meditation, and exercise – the bedrock of my life. My plan to live intentionally has been largely on track. I meet my responsibilities. All that is well and good. So is my work – I teach, am good at it, and it serves a larger purpose.
What, then? Why this quiet discontent? And why write about it here?
Said simply: I seem to have a lot of time on my hands, and I don’t know what to do with it. The mind seeks to be distracted or wishes to be engaged, not entirely at ease with itself. Until I meditate – then the anchor drops quite easily and naturally into peaceful understanding and being.
But then, there is this world to live in, and things to do. Apparently. I am quite busy every day, including weekends, but those things are easily accomplished without much fuss; despite the variety, it all feels the same. Somehow, there seems to be so much time on hand with no real desire to do anything with it. There is no overarching drive, ambition, purpose, or meaning to pursue. Nor is there despair. It is just a greyness that the mind is revolting against.
I could easily add some color with activities, and then what? Would it be more meaningful or satisfying? Or would it feel like cotton candy that disappears before you sink your teeth into it, leaving behind a pinky stickiness at best?
There is another iconic scene in the movie where the universe seems to end with the death of Chuck. (Sorry about the lack of warning about these spoilers. Hopefully, you have seen the movie already, or you are not planning to! Lol.)
It seems to me that the universe comes into being and ends with each of us, rather than pre-existing as an objective, independent entity into which we are born. Remarkably, our universes have intersections and seem largely similar, but our lived experience seems to be unique, and yet equally inconsequential. Not in a nihilistic way – “nothing matters, so why bother?”; rather, in the way that everything matters only as an expression, not as a thing in itself.
The expression seems to have no extraneous meaning or purpose beyond itself. It just is.
In some strangely unorchestrated manner, there is a sense of being a participant and an observer at the same time, and there’s a pull towards the source.
To quote Chuck, or rather, Walt Whitman:
Song of Myself, 51
The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them.
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.
Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?
Perhaps I should cycle back to the first few lines of this glorious poem:
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you
But it’s too celebratory in tone. I might just rest with it for a while until it feels real. Or, in a further twist of contradiction, perhaps I will act on Feynman’s advice:
Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.