Living or merely existing?

I remember that as a child when I was taken out I would pay attention to the little things during the travel, like the colour of the moon, its size, the contrast against the darkness of the night, and questioned my mom "Why is the moon following us everywhere?", so innocently! When there was purity, well not religious purity, but worrilessness or anything that drains us for that matter, the answers to several of my questions just came to me without having to search arduously. A funny instance would be, about twelve years ago, when I was really keen on computers and cracked my cousin's Wi-Fi password (I don't intend to cite that as a big accomplishment) I had that interest, undivided attention and I was eventually taken towards my momentary goal of finding that password despite having zero knowledge on hacking or even on how to use the computer to its full potential, I was a kid and how was this possible? I believe it was the willingness to be led by my consciousness, a complete surrender. Climbing several flights of stairs was rather adventurous with my mind fully occupied with the details of the present.

The thing is that as children we were programmed by nature in such a way that our thought process involved everything about the "now". As we grew, so did science and in atleast the last 20 years, the growth has been drastic. We've abandoned our natural instincts for convenience. Science has rather moulded us into the lethargic, complacent lot that we are. It facilitated our laziness, and 20 years later, BOOM! What a wide spectrum of mental disorders! I don't want to sound like that uncle of yours who goes on and on about his younger days, it always starts with "Those days". Anyway those days people did "live" a better life in terms of a life led in compliance with the order of nature, they actually "lived". My father would talk at length about having had to walk for more than 3 kilometres or so to go to school everyday, their lives were simple, or it could be rephrased that they chose to look at things in a simple way and I on the other hand get tired after a little movement and complicate it further with the assistance of the most sought-after "Google Doctor". I notice that I began choosing convenience at some point in the past, while it seemed harmless at first, little did I know it was as insidious as that air bag of a chips packet (orange is my favourite).

Choices shifted from climbing a few steps to standing like a fat cow till that cage took me to the desired floor; oh I am talking about the elevator if you couldn't make out! From dining at the restaurant to ordering in the food if not the whole ambiance, wonder what it would be like to have such an option! I'm pretty sure there will be one soon enough, from pacing those fingers through the words in the alphabetical order in a physical dictionary to arriving at the search results at just one tap, okay I agree a few more taps perhaps, but you know what I mean! You are mistaken if you think it's because we don't have the time. It was, is and will always be the same twenty four hours, how is it that this same duration sufficed our ancestors with all the extra time they had to devote in their tech-less world and how are we running out of all that time we've been saving with all this cutting edge technology? It's probably cooped up inside the depths of our sofa cushions, waiting for humans from 3050 to harness it as they'd be much more deficient of time than we are. On a more serious note, what we really are deficient of is patience, as my professor, today, rightly pointed out. The universe brings to you that which matches your frequency, indeed! As Rhonda Byrne puts it "like attracts like", because I personally was fighting my own "The living vs The dead" war ( yes I am a game of thrones fanatic) and she delivers an amazing lecture on the same topic, isn't that wow? Coming back, our generation is one that seeks instant gratification, 'if it cannot be done right now, then I don't have time for it.' is our motto, how can I infact have time for it when I have several other options lying on the wait for me?

I also realise that there is an 'unwillingness' to live, and this is an unconscious unwillingness, the dark side of scientific/technological development! I did not know that my laziness was not mere laziness but a 'dislike' towards living. I was not aware that my slouched back indicated this unwillingness! This struck me like a revelation, there was this subconscious aversion towards living! I only managed to "exist" all these days.. When I see us, I see a mass of "white walkers". All of this reminds me of an African proverb "When death finds you, may it find you alive."

you know what? I believe that stiffening our backbones is the first and foremost step we could possibly take to make that conscious choice to live. When I told my mind this, it questioned me back, asking "if this is the natural way, why does it take effort?". I am sure many of you might have similar questions, if we are programmed by nature, why did it stop governing us at one point? The question is as absurd as "Why is she/he letting the drug affect him?". Thing is, convenience, comfort and instant gratification gave us much more pleasure than the natural order. But it starts to cloy after a point, and when there is too much of anything it becomes poisonous (I think a decent attempt at translating the Tamil proverb). Our mind is capable of endless possibilities, it adapts itself to the external conditions, I come to understand that oftentimes what we call 'tiredness' is not really tiredness, it just means that our mind is more accustomed to easier choices, choices that require less effort and give more pleasure, this can be the only way to explain how some people can work like donkeys when some of us can barely even move! Let me get out of your hair now by saying, let us start "living" in the true sense of the word!

-Bhooja Ramaswamy