This post has been on my mind for many weeks now. I have been dragging my feet for various reasons. It was one of those feelings that I could not understand myself clearly. I was also caught up with some other pressing demand on my time.
But the time has come to write about it I believe.
After 58 years of worldly life I have come to accept that it has largely been a failure. I have nothing to show. Nothing to offer to the world. I have received far more than I have given to borrow a modern cliché.
I have made no positive difference to anyone as far as I can recall.
I surely have hurt or harmed countless. Some of them are known to those that hurt from what I did to them. And there are others that do not even know that I have hurt them. I do not even have the spunk to fess up to those horrible things that I have done.
I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. But I have been blessed with parents and grandparents who struggled and sacrificed to make sure that they gave me one that they could not afford.
All that they wanted from me was that I make good use of it and did every one proud in the process. And I - no prizes for guessing this one - I blew all of those opportunities.
I was blessed with modest talent that could have been mistaken for prodigiousness as Maugham warns in The Summing Up, his autobiographical work. But I did not even put up an apology of a performance even with the modest talent.
And then when I began to regret it I realized that I had been crippled as if by a divine act of retribution. I was a ghost of my former self. It was as if the Lord had taken away what He had given me in the first place - like the earrings of invincibility that He cheated out of Karna that He had gifted him.
To make matters worse my social bets seem to have come unstuck. Not once but twice. And there is no guarantee that I would not make a third and a fourth and a fifth error of judgment.
There is a strong urge to do something stupid. But even that requires spunk and character. Cowards like me hide behind the argument that the theory of Karma will not allow you to escape by merely resorting to stupidity.
But here is the most pressing argument against contemplating anything stupidity and perhaps the only reason I would not even attempt to muster courage to pursue that idea: The three guileless, unspoilt souls that I would leave behind, that are willing to forgive all my sins, and give me, warts and all, the pride of place in their hearts and home. And there is a fourth that would collapse the moment I disappear.
Denying them my presence, however useless or dysfunctional it might be, would perhaps be the worst act of treason I may have committed, if I did anything stupid.
Nanni...Namaskaaram
But the time has come to write about it I believe.
After 58 years of worldly life I have come to accept that it has largely been a failure. I have nothing to show. Nothing to offer to the world. I have received far more than I have given to borrow a modern cliché.
I have made no positive difference to anyone as far as I can recall.
I surely have hurt or harmed countless. Some of them are known to those that hurt from what I did to them. And there are others that do not even know that I have hurt them. I do not even have the spunk to fess up to those horrible things that I have done.
I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. But I have been blessed with parents and grandparents who struggled and sacrificed to make sure that they gave me one that they could not afford.
All that they wanted from me was that I make good use of it and did every one proud in the process. And I - no prizes for guessing this one - I blew all of those opportunities.
I was blessed with modest talent that could have been mistaken for prodigiousness as Maugham warns in The Summing Up, his autobiographical work. But I did not even put up an apology of a performance even with the modest talent.
And then when I began to regret it I realized that I had been crippled as if by a divine act of retribution. I was a ghost of my former self. It was as if the Lord had taken away what He had given me in the first place - like the earrings of invincibility that He cheated out of Karna that He had gifted him.
To make matters worse my social bets seem to have come unstuck. Not once but twice. And there is no guarantee that I would not make a third and a fourth and a fifth error of judgment.
There is a strong urge to do something stupid. But even that requires spunk and character. Cowards like me hide behind the argument that the theory of Karma will not allow you to escape by merely resorting to stupidity.
But here is the most pressing argument against contemplating anything stupidity and perhaps the only reason I would not even attempt to muster courage to pursue that idea: The three guileless, unspoilt souls that I would leave behind, that are willing to forgive all my sins, and give me, warts and all, the pride of place in their hearts and home. And there is a fourth that would collapse the moment I disappear.
Denying them my presence, however useless or dysfunctional it might be, would perhaps be the worst act of treason I may have committed, if I did anything stupid.
Nanni...Namaskaaram
