Standing tall on the horizon is Eiffel Tower

 Arun Kumar

 

Photo by Louis Paulin on Unsplash

 

As the years tick by and calendars on our living room wall slowly fade and get replaced, more and more I find myself being aware of my mortality. Nothing external has changed. The rainbow has the same hue of seven colors it always had. Seasons still progress in the sequence they always did. What has changed now is my perspective of looking at the same things I have looked at innumerable times before is occasionally different than it used to be.

 In the afternoons when I take the walk along the wooded trail near my home, there were always dead trees, some standing and some fallen, that littered the landscape. Before they were just “dead trees.” Now at times, the same landscape brings the awareness that everything is impermanent.

And me, one among all.

This change in perspective has been a jarring experience, particularly at a juncture in life when other things are also in transition. I am at the end of my long career and staring right at me is something that is termed as “The Retirement.”

An end of a journey? A new beginning? What to expect in “The Retirement”, I don’t quite know. Associated with that transition is also an acute sense of loss of identity and not knowing what I will be morphing into.

I am getting off from the train I have been on for a long time. As I step on the platform, I do know what the town has to offer. When I leave the noise of the platform behind and step out in the bright sunshine under the autumn blue sky, if someone happened to snap a picture, the look on my face will be of bafflement of a person who gets to an unknown place in the middle of the night and does not know whether to turn left or to turn right.

The one-two punches of life in transition, and the awareness of mortality, has been a potent combination that landed me on my back. Like a stranger in a new town looking to his left, or her right, I am standing at a bifurcation in the road I have been traveling on. One path goes left, and one goes right. I know they lead to two contrasting different destinations. I cannot stay indecisive forever. I need to keep moving or wither.

I need to make a choice - turn left or turn right.

I am at the moment when Neo is staring down at the Red and the Blue pill. Like him, I am at a bifurcation point. Ahead of me, the road I am on becomes two, and teases me with a choice. One road is the path of a life lived consciously; the other is the path of being on an autopilot.

One road is living at peace with my awareness of mortality. The other road is losing myself in random acts in an attempt to swim against the awareness of mortality. Try as I may, I will not swim far.

Taking the blue pill means seeking constant distractions. It is a random walk and the sum of all steps taken over a day, a week, a month, or a year, brings me to the same place I am at. I know this path will be a drowning sense of emptiness.

Taking the red pill means that the sum of all steps I take will put me in a place that is different from where I am now. And the direction of that change will be guided by what I value in life.

After a long struggle and introspection, I am taking the red pill. I am turning right, and although I still do not know what waits ahead, and whether I am currently up to the task of navigating the road, I know I have the wherewithal to do so and will find my way around.

That has always been a charm of travel and visiting new places. I know I will be safe in there and then. What I do not know is what novel views, what fragrances, or what aromas will greet me down this road. The journey, however, will be an adventure, a learning experience.

Most journeys to new places are like that. Take a right turn, and suddenly, standing tall on the horizon is Eiffel Tower.

Red Pill or the Blue Pill

 Arun Kumar

This year, it felt like that the spring passing by will be one less spring l will hold. It is slowly dawning on me that beyond the horizon of my grasp, there is another countdown taking place. Slowly, an awareness that somewhere out there, in the silence of the night, a different kind of clock ticks, has taken root.

Gradually, a realization is starting to dawn that the week that just went by is not another page added into my ledger, but a page torn away. Passing of days, weeks, or years are no longer inconsequential happenings. Their passage starts to hold different shades of gray.

And the shade that slowly emerges from the undulating fog of daily consciousness is the realization that I am, after all, a mortal being.

Until now, I was cognizant of years passing by, but cognizance did not have much personal implications. Although I saw the impermanence all around, its meaning was no more than nodding and saying “morning” to strangers on the trail when our glances met.

But now, when I walk along the wooded trail, I see dead trees all along. They are the mentors who helped me; colleagues who shared the ride; the friend on WhatsApp, who one day, stopped posting.

Those trees are now reminders of people who were in my life but are no more. Some roads continue. Others stopped.

Dead End – the road sign was always there, but its implication, lost. Not anymore. “Dead End” on the side of the road means “Dead End.”

Being aware that I am mortal, what happens next?

How would I live with the realization? Mortality is not something I can fight back and win against. There is no Prozac to take each morning and suppress what I now know. The awareness is there, I know it is there, I know it will be there.

And so, what next? How will the new realization of mortality change how I live?

The road ahead bifurcates, and I need to choose to turn right or turn left. Based on my choice, I need to relearn to live in a different way.

I am at the moment when Morpheus opens his palms and gives Neo the option - take the Red or the Blue pill.

The red pill takes me down the path on which I am cognizant of my mortality, and yet, I live in peace with it.

The blue pill takes me down the path on which I can try to numb myself. With the effort of constantly chasing distractions or telling myself that it is five o’clock somewhere, I may succeed in drowning the realization of mortality. But…

…is the path of life lived consciously better than the path of wandering aimlessly?

Which pill will I take? I know the one Neo took.

As I write these words, I already know which pill I will take. Or that I am writing these words, unbeknownst to me, I have already taken the pill I intend to take.

Computers Are Like Children

 Arun Kumar

 

We live in the era of computers. There is an entire generation of children and young adults that have not seen a world without them. They also cannot comprehend brick and mortar video rental stores. I know, they existed.

World evolves.

15-years back, I used to own a desktop and a laptop. Between them, they constantly sought attention. Various aspects of needing to manage, and to make them function properly, sometimes made me think about the experience of raising children.

The journey of owning a computer started with bringing a new one home. After unpacking, I would place it on the table, step back and admire its shape and fresh out of box "baby" smell. After a few moments of admiration and reveling in the warmth of having a new companion, the journey of raising, teaching, and managing emergencies began.

Everything plugged, and when the index finger reached forward and hit the start button, a low humming of the hard drive spinning up followed. The first breath and we looked forward to many many years of being together.

After a few minutes of hiccuping and steadying the breath, words started popping up on the blue screen. Welcome to Windows. Your eyes to the world beyond, it seemed to whisper.

I was asked to choose a language it will speak; pick a time zone that it will live in.

Getting initiated next required giving it a name. What should I call it? Something mundane like Home-Laptop? Or should I name it after some forgotten love? Or invent something mysterious or esoteric?

Picking up a name required some thought. After all, down the road, we will be on the first name basis. I picked BlueSky.

Few days of saying hellos and getting introduced, exploring through various software that BlueSky came preinstalled, the process of expanding BlueSky's brain and capabilities began. First and foremost, I got BlueSky inoculated with a virus protection. Gave BlueSky a password so strangers cannot intrude on our privacy. I got BlueSky connected with the external world via the wireless.

To BlueSky's whirring and curious brain, I introduced Firefox, Thunderbird, a pdf reader and continued to expand its horizon and capabilities and bring it to a point where we could have creative conversations.

 And slowly time passed, and we started to develop a level of comfort with each other, learn each others quirks. Once a while, BlueSky will throw a tantrum, become forlorn and stop responding. In those moments, I had to reach out to make sure all elements were healthy, let it sleep for a while, and later, wake it up from its well-deserved rest.

But most of the time, BlueSky was a happy, and a content companion.

Many years have gone by, and we have developed comfort being around each other. Only occasionally, I need to give BlueSky booster shots of upgrades or enhance its capabilities, but otherwise, BlueSky, from its humble beginnings, developed into a youthful responsible adult.

Getting a computer, and taking a journey together, is not that different from raising a child.