mid week break

A mid week break is a thrilling thing to get, allows one to hit the pause button and remain in a whirling bubble over the rest of the week, observing the rest of the world scurry along. So all I did was sit and read assorted articles from the Time magazine, and 2 things leapt out and stayed with me

JFK Presidential Campaign

The Time did a photo essay releasing the so far unpublished images from his presidential campaign. By itself the topic was run of the mill and the images not path breaking.  Set in the 1960’s the campaign moved across the breadth of America gathering  votes and meeting people.  More than the President, the happy shiny faces of the people leaped out at me-  Optimism, surge of faith, hope all expressions colliding together to leap up and out.

As I sat gazing at those faces, on a random afternoon of Nov 2010, could not but help thinking that each of the young people captured in that one moment were not dead, or at best old and wrinkled. Each of them had lived their lives, each of them in that ONE MOMENT -  were people with real worries, some ambitions, some aspirations, and each made some choices. But at the end they faded , as shall you as shall me.

Sounds morbid.

But was not the feeling that I had. Remember a line from a Murakami, don’t remember which book.. he said

"Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting." -— Haruki Murakami

And another line the exact quote of which I cant get – which said

“ As I stood there gazing at the crowds rushing through the square, it hit me that a 100 years from now not one of these people shall remain, everything shall be gone, changed altered, the reality of this moment was fleeting”

This thought actually made me light, the realization that everything was and is fleeting, That the moment comes and goes, that the worries are never as big as we think, the achievements never that huge and there is nowhere really really to go.

That one day, everything we too know is going to poof off and go and what we shall be with with are a few karmas, some samaras and the memories. Nada is the rest.

Made me sign, get a drink and be silly. Be mad and a little glad, to shed a little of the worry wart and laugh. Got high, got silly made nonsense jokes and laughed willy nilly.

I like.