Notes of an Overthinker

October 30, 2017 It is my 22nd birthday today. Wishes are pouring in from all sorts of people in all sorts of media - phone calls, text messages, social media posts. But guess what, it does not excite me anymore. All that matters is the genuine wishes of the few people I really care for. Until a few weeks ago, life hasn't been exactly what you would call, beautiful. It was not like the bright sunny morning that fills you with certain enthusiasm to get things done, rather it was like a gloomy cloudy day that brings time to a standstill and does not let you get out of the bed. To better phrase the feelings here, I would quote Jack Kerouac, "I forgave everybody. I gave up. I got drunk", except I did not drink myself to ruins. But I had given up. And nobody mattered except a few good people you are lucky to have by your side, and you do not have to worry about them because they are there to stay. However, quite recently, through some personal experiences, I came to reali...

Another semester completed. Another year passed. And once again I chose to stay back at the college longer than everyone else, after the final exams ended. This academic year has been less of academics and a lot more of self exploration. My GPA took a dive down from 9.8 to 8.4 last semester and I cannot say anything about the result of this semester as well. Coming to the self exploratory part, I went on two trips this year. The first one was a solo trip to McLeodganj and the other one was to Jaisalmer with my closest friends. Mark Twain said, "Travelling is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness. And many of our people need it sorely on these accounts." The first trip taught me that when confronted by the might of the earth, we realize how insignificant our problems with the world are. We keep on bickering and complaining about the little issues when they can instead be solved by applying small efforts without panicking. On the next trip, I realized that some tim...

It’s late again. I’m in my comfort zone, at least physically. However, my head is exploding with all these thoughts that I’m unable to chain. There are just too many tabs open in my brain and I’m trying to navigate them one at a time but it doesn’t seem to be working anymore. Yesterday was Valentine’s day. Nothing special happened, though. It was a damn hectic day and I was feeling sleepy all day long.  Over the years, a lot of cynicism has grown against the Valentine’s day. People who are unable to love take over the social media to joke about the day. I personally don’t have any problem with people who celebrate it as a day of love. I, actually, like the concept of having a day to celebrate something. I mean, it is good to take out a day from the year to acknowledge something that we knowingly or unknowingly practice every day. But, I am firmly against the commercialisation of Valentine’s Day by the corporates. You cannot just buy love or put a price tag upon it; and if you...

After all is lost in love, after everything becomes hopeless, after nothing is left to make amends for, after the end of love, why does it happen that we start hating that one person who until now meant the whole world to us? The immediate opposite of love is hate but it does not justify hating someone who was loved by all your heart. Why does it have to happen? We may choose to forget them eventually, or better still we may choose to feel nothing for them. Having a complete void of feelings for someone is possible. Why does it have to be hate? More importantly, how can we really hate the person we love? But somehow, that is what it is. That is what always happens, to almost everyone. That is the common reaction. Maybe it is because we are in too much of a hurry to put our problems in the past. Maybe because we are too eager to ‘move on’ and get going with life that we cannot spare a moment to contemplate upon our situation and find where the real problem lies. Hating someon...