Are you experienced?

It is vaguely worrying how cloyingly
hopeful I have now become.
I am convinced that I was benchmark
case of quarter life crisis. I believed that I would transition from one crisis
to the other as I grew older. As painful as the last few years were I am
beginning to see their point and necessity. Now, suddenly a few months since
last year, my doomsday perspective has all but vanished.
What is even stranger about this
metamorphosis is that in the scheme of things not much has changed! It is not
like I have redefined my metrics of success from which I am just as far away as
today as I was a few months ago. The mountain that I had chosen to climb still
looms menacingly large. Yet, in almost a maniacal way, I find myself trying
hard to conceal a grin.
Most of this has come with kick start
of growth ever since I chose to uproot myself from my well settled domains of
Michigan. Placing myself in a country that speaks a different language (and
German), in a brand new social order, a smaller apartment and a new car minus
the Lotus, has been a decision that oscillates between brilliant and almost
dangerous. It is in that pendulum of emotions I dusted off the cloak of
comfortable and saw my spud sprout again.
The growth has been in understanding,
perspective and patience. My preconceived notions on most things are being
relegated into obsolete every day. I am seeing the same people differently and
I am seeing different people similarly. And in this observatory mode, I am
finding more and more about myself in ways that are at times upsetting and
cathartic at the same time. It is becoming harder for me to classify everything
to black and white while the pre-defined grays are adopting a distinct color. I
am relishing the ability to wear more shoes than just mine to re-define
perspectives. I also seem strangely patient with hiccups. There are of course
days when minor problems irk me fully but largely the road blocks seem very
negotiable.
For the longest time, I had celebrated
the joy, and harvested the excruciating pain of true love! The truth is, true
love is easy but relationships aren’t. There is no reason for love and companionship
to be exclusive but there is also a fair chance that they don’t occur
simultaneously. People find couplings for several reasons and only answer that
holds true is that no one really knows why some bonds are inextinguishable. I
too, at this point would like my sweetheart to call me to bed but I am equally
comfortable knowing that my bed that should sleeps two, will today only sleep
one.
What about success? What about
passion? Are these mellowed in my new perspectives? If anything they have gone
even more concentrated in their purpose. I am embracing my average-ness in most
cases because it points to possibility of dramatic improvement. These years
have been plateaus of patience. A base camp of sorts, needed for impossible
mountain climbs.
There just can’t have been these many
coincidences. The circular pattern of people I have met, things they have said
and the skills I have learned are all surfacing at just the opportune times. I
find myself nodding unbelievably at the déjà vu nature of things. These events
are knitting a quilt that only I can provide the wool for.
I feel slightly apologetic and foolish
as I write this. Perhaps this is only a naive phase. I been listening to way
too much Hendrix recently. This could be just my way of combating the physical
phenomenon of growing older. Perhaps I am employing idealistic youthful
thoughts when my body is showing very visual signs of aging. I cannot, of
course, dismiss the possibility of short sightedness. But I can highlight the
rapid change of my mind map. I had often debated what is it that makes a person
happy (besides certainly owning a garage full of fascinating cars). But the
problem was to think of it in a generic way. What is rather far more important
is that you understand fully what that answer is for you. There are no
generics.
And now I need to follow my source of happiness
unequivocally, without deadlines but with adult grit and sincerity. I want to do
this regardless of my BMI, my 401K or my innate inability to sing any song,
even in the shower.

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