The shit and the flowers

"The world is a fucked up place!", a friend once told me. I quite agreed with him back then and do so with even more fervor today.

The world is pretty fucked up. We have communal riots, wars, corrupt politicians, ecological disasters, cheating traders, lecherous humans, parasites, bureaucrats, murderers, flippant youth, senile old folk, poverty, disease, religion, mindlessness, altruism, ineptitude, wastage, ignorance, the list is endless and i'll spare myself the boredom of enumerating every misery we encounter.

So, let me get on with my world. We have revolutions, change, peace, nirvana, innocence, children, selfishness, science, freedom, knowledge, causes, brilliance, beauty, music, pleasure, strength, action, integrity, courage, skill, passion, hope, individuality and bliss.

We have the Ying and the Yang, we have the darkness and the torchbearers, we have it all.

Every single one of us plays our part. The universe is structured around this single binding principle.

"Life is a stage and we are all but actors". Shakespeare couldn't have put it better.

We are actors indeed. Our roles and our characters are not a dance of divine elements but a result of the zillions of big and small choices that have steered us into this wonderful moment called the present.

I look around me and feel it all around. This dance. Let myself flow? Why not? That is my role... To wander down the alleyways of life smelling the shit and the flowers... Fighting and dancing... laughing and crying...

I catch myself going rigid... and relieve myself of the burden with that wonderful phrase... "Why not!" It isn't a question. It's the ultimate embrace, a bear-hug to life itself. A proclamation that I'm not afraid of being myself and I'm not afraid of change.

I think of the people that matter most... They are islands in themselves not convoluted parasites sucking off the sap from the shrubs that cower from the sunlight ashamed of their very existence.

I'm an Island... I have within me cliffs and valleys, beaches and trees, birds and breeze and wings of my own... I'll rest and I'll fly again... That's the reason I am. I look across into the clear horizons dotted erratically with other islands, some lush green and some dry and sinking. Their fragrances waft towards me with the sea breeze.

Then I come back to where I am... This laptop, the books, the university, the people, the inanities, the facades, the knowledge, the experience, the moments, the challenges, the wastage, the risks... I look at it all and smile.

Why should I let it affect me? On the other hand, why not? Let it affect me... I'd like to see how deep it gets. Kick me in my ass as hard as you possibly can, I'd like to know how much it hurts.

I live in me, and nothing around me can change that. The world is already mine just as it is yours. I'll decide any moment to fly and until then keep kicking and I'll keep smiling.