Looking back in wonder

"I wish I had achieved something significant in life.”

“What do you mean by significant?”

“Like something extraordinary, at least in some area of work, something by which I would be remembered.”

“And what is wrong with how things are now?”

“Nothing wrong really, but half my life is gone, and yet I don’t have anything concrete to show for it.”

“How old are you now?”

“Forty-three”

“Are you sure you will live up to eighty-six?

“Oh! I hadn’t thought of that!”

This is a conversation I had with a dear friend who has been a guiding light in many ways even as I stumbled through questions of the existential and the esoteric kind. As someone who has grown up with me, her insights are valuable, and yet, the mirror she sometimes holds before me, tends to make me wary of what I see.

What is significance? What is achievement? What do these words hold for us in everyday parlance?

There seems to be a general agreement about a certain goal that one needs to have, that requires to be achieved. It is an imagined destination which, when reached, there shall be a plateau whereby one can relax and enjoy life, having taken care of all the ‘responsibilities’, etc. This is a loose template of the ‘how’ of life as seen by most.

And yet, one look around and it is quite clear that there exists no such ‘normal’. While a certain paradigm may assist in some kind of planning, such a thing is more a projection of what is felt to be ‘right’ and ‘correct’, both value laden words that seek to confine and therefore constrict.

This brings one to the basic question. Aren’t there assumptions that we make even as we embrace certain paradigms and reject some others, and upon what premise do we assume a ‘correct’ or an ‘incorrect’ way?

Society lauds conformity and it makes sense to have some agreed-upon principles so as to encourage systems to work. However, these very systems can also inhibit and these very principles can suffocate an individual who, by chance or by circumstance, decides to move away from the existent societal norms. 

With this backdrop, I go back to what I found myself uttering, one perfect summer day (which, in retrospect, had perhaps been wasted on me). Society places a lot of value on achievement- personal, academic and social. Extraordinary achievements by individuals are spoken of in the terms of what they have studied and earned and contributed. This sets a benchmark for others to follow. The earliest memory of childhood for quite a few of us would be the demand from adults to recite a poem or spell out the alphabet. This is the beginning of the road.

There are times when entire lives are lived out trying to measure up to some ideal, may it be a person, a rank, or an idea. The goal is a distant place in time, which is assumed to ensure that the journey has been successful. More often than not, this goal is set by some significant other. In many cases, the chosen goal is self-imposed. The result is the same.

Life, consequently, is called a journey, the destination of which is supposed to provide for the fulfilment of the chosen goal. Anything before the acquisition would be an interruption and a break in the travel path.

This brings me back to where I began. In retrospect, the dismay at not having achieved something (I wasn’t even clear about what that something was) was actually regret at not doing something apart from the normal. This assumed that there was a normal, a superior and an inferior scheme of things. Subliminally, it was an acceptance of hierarchy in the multitudes of humans. Overtly, it was a projection of an ideal which was tempting enough to solicit acquisition and vague enough to promote a sense of despair.

The last question also puts things in perspective. What is the length of a lifetime? What made me assume that forty-something was just halfway through? Why does one plan keeping in mind a certain amount of time simply because many others lived a certain number of years? What is the guarantee that today is not my last day, or maybe tomorrow?

Is life a journey? Does a string of days add up? Is there a linear aspect to the multidimensional, experience? Is there a frame-of-reference that is valid simply because many follow it?

These questions can have varied answers, each unique, depending on the perspective one takes. However, the point to ponder will be whether the grand panorama of existence can and even should be crammed into a single or even some multilayered scheme? Is the simple and obvious occurrence of the day just a unit of a thread or is it a magnificent revelation of what is impossible to describe in words simply because of its inherent elegance and exquisiteness?