Legacy

Crisis

I often fear alienation and estrangement but in those brief moments when I sense belonging and familiarity, I cringe further. It's a constant tussle between wanting to stand out & to settle in the crowd. It's in these bits that I gaze at the frailty of our existence in its entirety.
I am not good with words , my grammar is sloppy, I keep a Merriam Webster's by my side whenever I decide to write lest I be misunderstood or worse be considered a simpleton. I can't be a simpleton, I assure myself, how can someone who know words like "Machiavellian" & " Kafkaesque" ever be a simpleton?.
I look closely at my audience, it's a fair mix of  "intellectuals" "pretentious snobs" &  "simpletons". To whom am I catering my thoughts to? And essentially, are my thoughts exclusively mine?
My hypocrisy is beyond measure, my self loathing is a direct result of my insincerity. If it were a physical entity, I would have peeled it off myself in a final act of redemption.
We try to give a meaning to our lives, tagging it with labels like canned juices in a foodmart. But canned juices go bad on expiry while we go bad well before expiry. Canned juices smell bad when rotten while we give away no telltale signs of our decay, that comes way after we have expired.
I just stare towards the night sky and tell myself " I am special, I am made of stardust" but then a little voice knocks some sense into me. All of us are made of stardust, if all of us are made of the same thing, then by definition, no one is special. This realization is both a boon & a bane. It's a constant reminder that I am insignificant. No matter what I do or don't , I still will be forgotten. We will all one day merge into a singularity. That, will be some union.

The Year So Far

2015 has been quite an eventful year for me. Eventful is so much so an umbrella term that it encompasses all things good and bad. The bad has helped me to keep my feet firmly on ground and the good has aided in the expansion of my vision.
I have learnt that not every kind word has a kind intent, as La Rochefoucauld puts it aptly in his maxim " what seems generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a greater one." No act is ever a purely selfless act, selfish shenanigans always linger on but are well hidden behind the veils of sentiments, lest you question them.
I have learnt to probe and doubt things that for long have been thought to be beyond the realms of logical deduction and existed solely on faith. I have learnt that god only exists because man fears oblivion & death.
I have learnt not to exercise bad faith or mauvaise foi as Sartre puts it. Scrutiny of self action is the best tool for self extrapolation.
I have gained interest in philosophy though I shall admit in all fairness that it does seem like a bunch of baloney at times. I identify myself as an existentialist but cannot tell existentialism , absurdism & nihilism apart. I have learnt that 'Kant' is actually pronounced as 'cunt' and Nietzsche's overman is not an undearwear and cloak clad flying alien. I have learnt that we all are like Sisyphus, only ours is not a perennial doom. 
I have learnt that to sound intelligent you need the validation of grades and sophistication comes from using scores of humongous words with no intrinsic meaning whatsoever.
I have learnt that math does have practical applications and not knowing it is nothing to be proud of. Also history is not just a catalog of dates , valuable life lessons can be taken from it.

This year in particular has shaped my rational mind but it has also taught me that the young mind rides high on hormones and is rebellious & impulsive , ergo , it is prone to making mistakes.

Forgone Youth

I turn the pages of the newspaper, decorated with stars & starlets of the tinsel town. I too was one of them, though, before the advent of such media furore. Every single small act in privy or public by these actors are written about in full detail. I detest it but so I crave for such attention.I seem to pity the stars of the decade for their lack of privacy and the sheer discomfort of media intrusion at all times but seldom do I realize that I don't pity them , I pity myself , for I am not subjected to such fandom anymore. I am old, very old, so old that I have forgotten certain fragments of my own life. Maybe in a years time, I will forget a bit more of my being but  what I can never forget is the essence of being a hero to the masses , though a reel hero but a hero nonetheless.

I feel the fine wrinkles and loose skin on my neck, in stark contrast to the perfectly done faces that stare me from the tabloids. I wish the curse of old age falls on them too, which surely will, eventually.They will also be secluded and made to rot in misery and penury. A charming face can sustain you for how long!.

I don't click my photographs anymore, I hate how I look now. My fragile figure , wrinkled skin and bald head is laughed upon , by others as well as by me. Ah! what a plebe I was to think I was omnipotent.

Thoughts of suicide fills me with hope. Irony much?. But then the reality hits me hard, what is the point of killing myself now when my image has been tarnished already. I should have killed myself in my youth, at the prime of my thriving career.To go down the pages of history as a figure of reverence and adulation. Alas! , Its all too late. I have to live the remainder of my life as it is, as a pariah. Old , lost & forgotten.

We seldom do , what we preach