There are many reasons to travel. To get towards something, to get away from something. Or maybe it's one and the same thing. There are also many roads that can be taken. I, like most of my peers, generally take the acceptable one. Am I one to forge a new path? Or traverse a lesser known one? Is it brave to go down the path I want to? Or do I simply become a well-worn character in the well-thumbed pages of a sometime popular book?
I asked someone once: Why are we so hard on ourselves? When all we can hope to find is a bit of happiness and when beginnings and endings are universal and inevitable, then why do we wait, think, ponder, worry, hesitate? He told me: We are perhaps striving to connect with our own reflections. Hence the need for an alien other. All I am looking for is a bit of that alien soul in whose eyes I might see my reflection and understand for once who I am. I have been quite a few things but I have a nagging doubt I haven't been myself yet. I haven't quite found myself. Have I looked hard enough? Have I just moulded myself so well in the role handed to me that it's no longer possible to break the cast? People, places have come easily enough. Perhaps too easily? No, that can't be it. I wouldn't be struggling then would I? There would be some semblance of satisfaction wouldn't there? Sometimes at least?
It's not where you go, it's who you go with. It's not who you go with, but how you feel. It's not you, it's them. It's not, it is. Maybe, maybe not.
Every journey they say is ultimately a journey of love and at the end you find yourself. They being crappy Hinglish films of course. Even disregarding such oracles, I find myself hoping to undertake such a journey. We all do I guess? Generalizations from myself to the wider world don't generally work. So without boasting of the audacity of answering my own questions and without letting the miasma of vagueness swirl too strong, let me say this. Feel is one of my favourite songs. There are certain lines I think have been ripped right out of me after a rigorous soul strip.
I don't want to die
But I ain't keen on living either
Before I fall in love
I'm preparing to leave her
I scare myself to death
That's why I keep on running
Before I've arrived
I can see myself coming
Some things need to change. This might just be the time. Can I be the person I think I can be? Can I take the plunge and come back up? I might lose. Then again I might win. I refuse to give up without a fight. I refuse to keep myself back from fighting. It'll be blood, sweat and tears. Which war has been less?
Journey, Foray. Call it what you will. A tryst with destiny, perhaps?
He warned me: There's a time and place for everything, even for philosophy. I do not agree,as usual.
Bon Voyage et Au Revoir.
