The Writurn from/to Siolence

In another five years I will almost be thirty, it’s quite something. It’s huge, and not in the same way being twenty was when I was a fifteen year old. (This wasn’t meant to be the beginning, it just occurred to me all of a sudden.)

I have a few opinions on life, they aren’t original but my renditions of these are. I have thought of them for long enough, and recited them to others quite often. But lately I have had no new opinion on being, or on living. In fact I think it’s been more than two years, actually three.

It’s probably because I haven’t been reading much, but then again books only provide the expressions to formulate the opinion. Maybe I haven’t met brand new people or at least interesting brand new people for a long time? You know people who or not linked to you through any elaborate complicated and flimsy chain of acquaintances. I hate people who try to establish these chains. I hate facebook too.

No – that is not the thing.

I guess as I grow older my thoughts, beliefs and ideas are becoming severely rigid. I look at a situation or at people from a perspective that isn’t changing. And it needn’t change; all I need is little flexibility. I think, in many ways, it’s the only path to a wider outlook.

Sometimes I feel I am caught with a frustrating level of intelligence and courage. It is enough for me to be aware of and understand all this, but not sufficient for me to do something about it. Life is easier for those who live on the extremes.

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The worst is to do something you don’t like badly. But it’s a sign of strength, don’t you think? Isn’t it a brave act, that of rejecting the unpleasant but customary? Plus there is always the risk of falling in love with something just because you become good at it.

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We are a generation that has seen no struggle for independence or war, a generation that didn’t have to wait outside the cinema to watch a movie or trick elders into buying us music. In many ways we have had it easy. Our only struggle is the confusion in our heads. It is a battle, and it is for freedom. But what from? And most importantly what for?

I have spoken to many people from college lately, and none of them are happy with work. More importantly none of them know what exactly bothers them. They just don’t want to have anything to do with it. Worse still, they have no idea what they really want to do. So they shift companies, cities and people hoping that the temporary chaos will distract from the misery. Others like me anticipated this dilemma and created for the benefit of themselves and others a mythical bohemian interest, making movies in my case, which allows me to explain my situation.

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Cookie has registered strong protest against the predominantly vegetarian cooking at our home. She has taken to eating mosquitoes and flies. She lies still, almost playing dead and when the buzz surrounds her she snaps like a crocodile. It reminds me of that All-Out advertisement. An aunt of mine would insist on performing an embarrassingly accurate version of the frog like device eliminating the mosquitoes with its tongue. Anyway, I am feeding the stupid dog slices of salami to keep her from being disgusting. Come to think of it, Jolly too would feast on those sick insects.

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Kureishi feels that hurting someone is an act of unwilling familiarity and confidence, reluctant intimacy he calls it. Is it? But even if it is true, what is the point then? I admire his suggestion of avoiding the trap of declaring all acts of injustice and every mistake as deliberate moral infringement.

His character is pathetic, large ideas but petty predicaments. But then again, the crises of our times are probably meant to be trivial because they are largely individual.