a picture, a song, a good nightmare and a snippet...

the triggers required for a post. Some you can talk about, some you can't. 

Every so often, I want to run away. Run away where, I don't know. But run away from everything, without anything and go to a place where no one knows me and where no one cares for me. Do I want to start fresh, no, do I want to go back to what I left behind, no. I just want to run away. 

A feeling you must be all to familiar with.

And then there are people who do, and they are the ones written about...

the picture and the dog in the picture, the picture taken at a beach in Panjim, a beach that only the locals know about. The dog belonged to a couple who had come for a lazy weekend stroll, lets take the dog to the beach they must have thought. They put on their shoes and the dog knew, they said 'chalo' and he started jumping in circles, not letting them even put on the leash. Wish he knew that to be free, he had to be leashed first. 

the open beach, the flying disc and the only people he cares about playing with him, he had everything he wanted...he couldn't stop playing, running behind the disc. And then he had to bring it back to the owners so that he could run again. To run after the disc again, he had to first give it up, did he see the irony again. Bring it back to where it started. We don't, how would he? He was on a leash, just not a visible one, a leash now bound by the owners, but one he tied on his own. A leash which stopped him escaping to eternal freedom, a leash which brought him back to pleasures available now and here. 

and in that one moment, he considered his freedom. He considered leaving all behind, escaping forever. The illusion of happiness shattered, the eternal struggle beckoned. 

We all want to escape, we all dream about escaping, but we never do. I ask why...and Tagore answers. 

“Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them. Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed. I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room. 

The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love. My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.”

Its the insecurity and the fear that terrifies us. The insecurity of losing everything, the fear of finding nothing. We call them responsibilities, we call them attractions, but all they are is a false sense of security. Its not people who need us, not your parents, not your better half, not you children, its you who need them. To feel secure, to feel like you belong. And yet, you want to run away. And yet, if you don't escape, you shall never know. 

and then there are those who leave it all, who do take that step. the song

PS: started writing this post many days back...and like most posts on Crimson Blues now a days, stopped writing it mid way. Coincidentally, next day saw the below instagram post by a respected college senior, and she gave a name to the feeling. Seems running away is a pretty common feeling out there...

PS: Another one written sometime back and not published, not sure why. Good writing methinks, bad title though. Well what to do...

Apocalypse??!?

Its been so long that I have written something here that even the interface has changed...well who knows, with the pace of change today, maybe not so long!

I usually ignore the forwards my mum-in-law sends me. This one caught my eye. In a jar, there were a lot many black ants, living peacefully, going about their business. Then someone added a lot many red ants on top of them. They mingled and found their space, but soon they too went about their business. And then that someone came and started shaking the jar real hard. The black ants and the red ants, who till now were living peacefully and going about their lives without caring for each other, started fighting.

Somehow it seems that is the state of the world today, and it has been for a long time. 

There are so many disagreements, at every level you see, there is a disagreement. Be it on geographical boundaries, be it on caste and religion...all of the fights for things which are not really naturally occuring. Like Earth didn't come with a line drawn between two countries or continents, and even if it did, it surely didn't come with a marking that one side was better then the other, or one side belonged to some and the other to someone else. And religion, caste, name even, these are just groupings made by humans to segregate us. These are just groupings...created by us, to what purpose I don't know. 

Am guessing at some point, a weak individual would have calculated that he (must have been a he, she would have had better sense for sure) doesn't have a fighting chance to win against another he, and so well, two is better than one. A deal must have been struck, we fight together and defeat the third and we'll then sort ourselves out. 

Or maybe it was not a fight amongst the three of them at all, but against another kind, and so like animals we would have bunched together and thought well, lets fight together. 

But humans are and will always remain individuals, and so they the first scenario would have taken place...and another would have thought, well, I can stop your fighting, but in return you need to make king...

And thats where the problems started, when the kings realised that the only way to stay safe forever is to be a king, and so by hook or crook, every one wanted to be a king, of something. And so countries were invented, and so were religions and castes and all kind of groupings. They all had one king each but everyone else was a participant, which is just a fancy way of saying, you shall keep on giving concrete stuff like taxes and your lives in the battlefield, but only get abstract stuff like pride in your country and the right to pray!

The biggest paradox is that humans are all individuals, but they need to be part of a group to feel safe. We are alone, but need to be social!

I am a Libra (also what people might call a liberal), and I like seeing the big picture. And in that big picture, all of these fights just seem petty, non-sensical....sometimes fought for the sake of fighting, or for someone elses sake. None of these seem like our fights, it always seems like we are fighting at the behest of someone. A hand to hand combat so save your life in the battlefield, that is a fight for your self...but question that people don't ask is why are you in the battlefield in the first place. 

A lot of these fights seems to enrich the already richer, add power to the already powerful. And that in itself is an issue, but the bigger issues is that these artificial human created groups and fighting for these groups are hiding the real issues...global warming and extinction and making our earth a garbage dump. 

But we keep on fighting the small battles, the ones that we are tricked into fighting, while the one who make us fight ignore the real battles.