These days it pisses me off to read some 'great' person's life story that begins 'Ever since my childhood I always wanted to be an X', where the X happens to be the 'great' thing they are now.
Well how do people who do not know the difference between beer and lager know what in the big wide world they want to end up as? Come on, spare me the loose talk. When has being nerdishly mono-minded since your childhood become so cool? When has spontaneity lost its charm? Well may be I am over reacting.
I as a kid had this rich uncle in America, who had a lot of money (at least after converting to rupees). So then all I wanted to be was a rich uncle in America. Well now I am almost there. (Depending on whether the department of Electrical Engineering at Tech thinks I am good enough to correct some exam papers in return for a huge tution waiver) .
So right from my childhood that was what I wanted to be. Rich so that I can buy Five Star choclate or a music system. Basically all the things your dad can not justify buying in a joint family. Once I was on the road to becoming a rich uncle, I hit the accelerator so hard that there was no stopping me; halfway trough my ride, I realized life is much more than money; that glory had many more faces. I hit the breaks hard, but my existing speed, with some help from Newton's first law of motion, lunged me into this rich uncle state and to drive back from here is going to be an effort. It is when I miss being a stupid from whom people do not expect anything,
where you can start a shrimping business anyday!
In my last days of college, I knew so well that I am going to be a technology-coporate bigshot that I did not care to apply for the armed forces. That was a big mistake. A man looking for glory, looking to satisfy his insatiable thirst for greatness, I would send him to the army.
Well, that is one of the disadvantages of being two years younger to your classmates, because two years after college I realized what a good option the army was. It would ahve 'fixed' me for ever. The best 'treatment' I would ever have got! Neway here I am at twenty three having seen it all, done it all in the corporate world. Too much appreciation at too less an age, there is no more challenge!
May be this is not very serious, may be I would have backed off in the last minute. Well if I am that serious, I can go now. You and I know it is not so straight forward. There is always the option of SSC. Well this may be only the pensive talk resulting from watching Forrest Gump for the hundreth time. It could only be the confusion of an old fashioned guy lost in the new world of technology. May be the voices of a lonely kid. May be they are for real may be they are not.
Well as mama says 'Life is like a bunch of chocolates, you never know what you'll get', lets see what appears this time when I open it. Somewhere between the so-far-yet-so-near lives of Jenny and Forrest lay your own destiny. Destiny to make or destiny to endure.
Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet Home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
Well how do people who do not know the difference between beer and lager know what in the big wide world they want to end up as? Come on, spare me the loose talk. When has being nerdishly mono-minded since your childhood become so cool? When has spontaneity lost its charm? Well may be I am over reacting.
I as a kid had this rich uncle in America, who had a lot of money (at least after converting to rupees). So then all I wanted to be was a rich uncle in America. Well now I am almost there. (Depending on whether the department of Electrical Engineering at Tech thinks I am good enough to correct some exam papers in return for a huge tution waiver) .
So right from my childhood that was what I wanted to be. Rich so that I can buy Five Star choclate or a music system. Basically all the things your dad can not justify buying in a joint family. Once I was on the road to becoming a rich uncle, I hit the accelerator so hard that there was no stopping me; halfway trough my ride, I realized life is much more than money; that glory had many more faces. I hit the breaks hard, but my existing speed, with some help from Newton's first law of motion, lunged me into this rich uncle state and to drive back from here is going to be an effort. It is when I miss being a stupid from whom people do not expect anything,
where you can start a shrimping business anyday!
In my last days of college, I knew so well that I am going to be a technology-coporate bigshot that I did not care to apply for the armed forces. That was a big mistake. A man looking for glory, looking to satisfy his insatiable thirst for greatness, I would send him to the army.
Well, that is one of the disadvantages of being two years younger to your classmates, because two years after college I realized what a good option the army was. It would ahve 'fixed' me for ever. The best 'treatment' I would ever have got! Neway here I am at twenty three having seen it all, done it all in the corporate world. Too much appreciation at too less an age, there is no more challenge!
May be this is not very serious, may be I would have backed off in the last minute. Well if I am that serious, I can go now. You and I know it is not so straight forward. There is always the option of SSC. Well this may be only the pensive talk resulting from watching Forrest Gump for the hundreth time. It could only be the confusion of an old fashioned guy lost in the new world of technology. May be the voices of a lonely kid. May be they are for real may be they are not.
Well as mama says 'Life is like a bunch of chocolates, you never know what you'll get', lets see what appears this time when I open it. Somewhere between the so-far-yet-so-near lives of Jenny and Forrest lay your own destiny. Destiny to make or destiny to endure.
Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet Home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
2 comments:
Well, I have a half-written post on a similar topic lost in cyber-space. Dont you worry, someday it will hit you as to what you want to do with your life, maybe not your entire life but atleast a
significant part of it. Until then, enjoy the journey.
Except for perhaps 5% of the pop, most people "decide" what they should be in life and that becomes what they "want" to be. Even that 5% of the population are the ones that "know" from the very beginning what they want to become, their selves are so conditioned that they dont allow any other influences or experiences in life to change this "ambition". There is a very small percentage of people which doesnt fall into these two categories.
But I didnt understand the connection between knowing the diff b/w beer and lager and knowing one's place in the world. And I think you shouldnt delude yourself into thinking that at 23, you have seen it all and experienced it all. Even in terms of making money and the kissing the corporate ass, the bars are much higher and you still have a long way to go. Also, its besides the point, but I think its not the chronological age of 23 that counts but your "academic age" and mental age; your mental age "tends to" your academic age after the initial years.
Yes you are right, you can always go and join the army, the SSC way. And I know you are not the guy who is afraid of chucking all these years of studying to be an engineer,for that life. But maybe think about it, what is holding you back is perhaps the fact that although you might love to be an armyman, you also wonder whether there might in the future be something else that will appeal to you more and whether you would not be better of doing that.
Anyways, your mama is totally right. Life is a bunch of chocs. And for me, but the different variety of unknown chocs, life would have been boring.
maybe I should dig up that post of mine and complete it.
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