>Never ending…

>As I have done before on a few rare occassions here, these are excerpts from the most recent entry in my personal journal:

“…I returned to Pondicherry this morning at 5:00 am from Bangalore where I’ve spent the last 3 days. In a way they were the best days I’ve had in a long time. Staying with Lawyer Boy who’s always been one of my most personal friends and seeing the life he’s made for himself and being a part of it even for a short time, reconnecting with old acquaintances, meeting new friends that I liked enough to want to keep and of course the Iron Maiden concert all made it really nice. With neither of us having any immediate responsibilities or pressing concerns, it was great, I think we both got to be ourselves in a way that we haven’t in a very long time. People always talk about the joys of reliving your childhood and the happy days of youth, but I don’t think that’s ever been it for any of us. The two of us sat and talked a lot these past few days, sometimes about the most inconsequential things and sometimes very serious topics, but that’s something my friends and I have always done and it always kept us centred and balanced and relieved so much of the things that take away from us. Most definitely for me anyhow…
“…We sat and smoked and drank in fits and starts, were like a couple of vagabonds traversing the city’s streets and haunts and it felt great! One particular discussion really shed long lost light on why: as people we’ve always been what in polite company you’d call “free spirits”. Not to say we’re special or anything boastful, its just that we’ve always had a different sense of things and how they should be – how life should be; its one of the things that always makes us feel like we were born in the wrong era. What I mean (to clarify) is that I’m content to live in this society of ours and make several compromises along the way – after all no one can have their cake and eat it too as they say – but there’s lines of compromise that I will not cross under any circumstances.
“…I will never lose myself. That’s partly why I struggle so much and resent things, because everywhere I look I find a call for conformity to either one stereotype or another. If I’m not part of the “establishment” style of life, automatically I’m branded a rebel or more often “rebel without a cause” but I’m not! I’ve never wanted to rebel, I’m not a non-conformist rebel of any kind – I don’t belong to the establishment because I simply refuse to follow all the rules and beliefs that they dish out in the form of the social conditioning of how to live a good life, but I don’t want to fight anyone. All I ask is that life take me as I am. I don’t ask others to change their lives, never have, never will. People should do what makes them happy and feel whole…
“…decided to fill up the old tub here in my accommodations and relax in it for a bit, and so I sank into the cool water and lay back with a ciggy in hand and Zero Seven playing off my laptop. As is my habit in such quiet moments, I began to reflect on many things, and that’s how this particular entry came about. After some time passed and my smoke was long burned out, I felt the urge to just sink and so taking a breath I just let myself slide into the indolent liquid around me.
“…lay there in the dead calm and silence I felt more innately relaxed then I have in a long time. I had no track of time and then slowly I began to hear my heart beating and the rhythmic vibrations travelling through the water to my ears. I just lay there immobile and listened to my heart and it was a truly meditative moment. As time slowly slipped by I heard my heart beat speed a little and then slowly get faster and faster and I realised that I had all but used the air in my lungs and then in a rush as sat up breaking the calm surface my thoughts flowed like the water falling around me.
“Those moments under water had been like a metaphor for me: All my life all I’ve ever wanted is peace and the chance to truly appreciate life and those few stolen moments of peace and truly feeling alive – feeling LIFE – were not meant to last. That’s what I dislike about the world I’m in, there’s always something, metaphorically it’s the constant noise of the world and the lack of time to as they say, “smell the roses.”