The Illusion of Wisdom

Wisdom makes you old, or does it come with age, I could never understand. But the irony is, when you are wise enough to know what’s right, you might have already lost the time to do the right thing. We lose many battles to win a few. And in the end, when our life has nothing but a history, we revisit its pages and pause at the unwritten words.

As I lay here, coffined by peaceful pastel walls, in the care of my memories, and with no future to be afraid of, I couldn’t not help but wonder if I would have done things any different. A proud voice inside of me says no. I sigh in compromise.

I have had more falls in my life than a non-adventurous person, but less than what a rebel might cherish. But then, I was never rebellious enough. But I don’t know if I regret it. After all, a choice is always deliberate. More often than not, I was so lost in calculating the pros and cons of my options that I knew no more what my real calling was. So even though I could make peace with the bigger milestones of my journey, I know I have missed out on some important pit stops.

Like right now, I see it raining through the window opposite to my bed, the only solace from this comfort zone. I want to touch those raindrops and see if they can revive my wrinkled and parched skin, so that for a moment I could relive those blissful moments, rather than suffering the nostalgia. Alas! When all my senses have nearly given in to the force of time, sensibility somehow prevails. It tells me to refrain from this short term joy, else it will leave me with long term of illness that my feckless body is no more prepared to meet. It is funny you know. At this point I am not sure if my mind is being sarcastic and mocking me for all the times I listened to it let go of small pleasures, because there is nothing long term to live for now. I wish I could shun it for some time.

“What stops you?”

A voice comes ringing to my mind.

“I am warning you. You are going to miss it big time” He says again, that boy who lived across the street, almost like across the world I lived in. His part of the world had the same material laws, but different metaphorical interpretations. We were friends for the better part of my youth, and I never saw him unfollow his heart, ever. He could stay up all night on a terrace just to see the stars melt into the morning sky. He could pack his bags and leave for an unknown destination just to explore where a road led to, when the rest of us in the neighborhood would be studying for one of the many exams lined up for the week. Once he disappeared for a couple of months. Later I received a post card from him saying that he is at some hill in Himanchal travelling with the wandering ascetics, and how life has never been better than on foot. That post card had a picture of sun rising from behind the snow clad mountains. He had scribbled William Blake’s line below it –

Great things are done when men and mountains meet

I kept looking at it for a while, trying to find myself in those milky creases running down from the peak, imagining how those icy winds might feel like.

“You know what you want, but you are too much of a coward to really do something about it” He argued with me, a lot.

“And you know you don’t really want to do it, but you are just too much of an attention seeker to let it be”, used to be my reply. I really thought that he was quite pretentious about his guts, at times.  

Despite our frequent arguments, he never forgot to invite me to his adventures. And I almost always declined, as there was always something ‘better’ to do. But I never doubted his faith in the beauty of adventure, in the fulfillment that lies in being one with your heart. I enjoyed listening to his stories as I tried living in them. Even though I could never step out of my material zone and step into that other world, I cherished his freedom too much. It was like a ray of hope that may be life is not so clichéd like ours. And that’s why, when there were times when he felt bogged down by social conventions of giving in to the ‘practical’ choices, I never let him give up on his dreams. I always knew that he would achieve something that none of us ever could, as we could never nurture that flame inside us.

I stopped knowing him before I could know what became of his dreams. Life did me this mercy of taking me away on my own venture, and leaving me with this hopeful anticipation that he never suffered the pain of doing the conventionally right thing. I remain hopeful that his wisdom is different than mine.

I always believed that we are destined to be where we are; only the path is left to our choice. So when I was always meant to have this life to love, remember and learn from, I wonder if it had been better if I took those untraveled paths. When I thank God for what I have today, I wonder if I should scorn myself for what I don’t. When I rest here in the warmth of this room writing my final chapter, I wonder if I must step into the rain one last time, to be free before I am free.