Over these one and a half months that I have been at home, an appreciable time has been spent talking to Sreeni, a friend from Cal. We have had some nice discussions on everything under the sun, right from the typical banter, to cricket, to music, to movies, and to life. It’s been a pleasant surprise to know that we have a lot of common interests.
So, anyway, this post is a sort of a comment on this post on Sreeni’s blog. Being a part of that discussion, I thought I might as well write about it too.
I know that the idea of ‘living in the moment’ is somewhat idealistic. But then again, isn’t the idea of labeling things ‘idealistic’ or ‘realistic’ akin to seeking an easy way out? And anyway, who decides what’s idealistic and what’s realistic? I think, by hoping and waiting for a better life ahead, instead of working towards a better present, we are guilty of indulging in escapism. It requires considerable tenacity and courage to come to terms to the fact that this moment is what we have. I suppose we all have this insight and hence coin terms such as ideal and real in the first place. I was talking to Sreeni about Al Pacino’s famous speech in the grand finale of the movie Scent of a Woman where he says, “I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew it. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard!”
Of course, this does not imply that we go looking for problems to prove to ourselves that we are on the right path. But, I guess it does mean that we should not retreat from following what we think is the right path, just because we face a difficulty or two doing it. I have seen ordinary people around me do it. There is no reason we can’t do it for the entire stretch of our lives. After all, happiness is not something to be bought. It’s something that we have to excavate from within ourselves. And then again, as I read somewhere, “Human Beings exist to be happy, just as birds exist to fly.”
