They are like report cards. Did I do better? Did I suck less at living? How was it compared to last year? Are there any signs of improvement? Too many questions to answer and too little time to live. I wonder why being the same as the previous year was never good enough. Too much crap and self-centeredness. Humans have always wanted to be the center of the universe. They were really mad when Galileo figured out that it's the earth that revolves around the Sun and not the other way around. It doesn't sit well with our conscience. All the rationality to be objective about a situation ends the moment you enter into it, then it becomes personal, full of feelings, flaws, blood and whatnot. This gamification around validation is embarrassing. All I can remember from the last one month is this friend of mine convincing that I should start with open mics, maybe go out more and tell the jokes that I've told them a thousand times. What's the worst that could happen? The jokes might not be good, the thought might not be as convincing as it sounds, the punchline might lack surprise, but still, out there is much better than in here, behind the closed doors. It sounded like a compliment- a weird sense of appreciation and validation for a craft that lives on the edges of death. Very nascent in its form, not practiced, yet supposedly flawless. You know how birthdays started? It was the Jews who wanted to celebrate the birth of their god. Not knowing who the god will be, they went with the linearity of the search, celebrate every child who comes into existence. After all, no one wants to take the risk of not celebrating a god being born on Earth, that's just too unforgiving and ignorant from a human point of view. But eventually they will become just a reminder of what you lack, of what people of your age have figured out. How the sincerity of your mind toward old ideas shows your lack of openness to new ones. How, in the larger scheme of things, everyone, each one of us, are pretty irrelevant. How you've become too old to be called a prodigy and are too young to be called wasted potential. Every year, it's the same question- what if I couldn't do it? And the reply is never that it's okay to not be able to do it. It is always: "You will. Maybe push a little. One more try. Maybe this time. Next time. A day later. You will reach there. A weird sense of obsession." But suppose I fail, fail miserably. Would I still be a good kid? Would I still be taken as an example for my younger siblings? Why is this thought so heavy? Where do I keep this feeling, the whole idea of not being able to make it big one day. I don't have answers to these questions, and I have never liked not having answers. It makes me uncomfortable, a little hateful of myself. All I have realized is when it is man against the world, sometimes- maybe once in a while, bet your money on the man.

Also, if you have read till here, I kinda have the answer, the one that usually lets me sleep at night and nights after mornings. It's courage. Every human quality that you can think of is a thin wrapper on courage. Can you leave the good for the great, and fail, and not complain about it? If yes, the world is yours. Because geniuses are always in abundance, but they never send rockets to mars, nor do they leave their cozy Jobs.

Told yaa, I always have answers, I have never liked not having them. But having them is not enough.

Ba-Bye.

-R