“Everyone is the main character in their own lives”, is something I’ve heard often, but have never felt to be true about my own life. I’ve always been a spectator to my days, months, and years. My life is like a TV show where other characters have meaty roles, and I’m a sidekick. Not to one of them, but to the story itself.
So what does it mean, then, to have lived the life I have: to have loved, meditated, run, and traveled, if those things are just waves rather than the sea itself?
What does it mean, then, to write?
It’s not so much that I found what I was looking for. It’s more that the search itself dissolved.
— Leonard Cohen
I wonder — only sometimes — what more I want from life, and I can’t come up with an answer. A goal for a character who is not a protagonist is such a bother. I already have everything I want, and can’t think of a time when I didn’t.
My life has had many chapters: childhood, college, work, travel… but all of them together are a book I’m reading rather than things that have happened to me. I’m closer to the story than to the person who the story is about.
Weird.
Things happen, then you die.
Nice things, bad things, big things, small things.
I’m running a lot in the mountains these days. I’ve seen the same trails change over more than a year. In February, I ran on fresh snow, my shoes wet and my feet cold. In April, the rhododendron flowers shone bright red against the backdrop of snowy peaks. In June, the snow was gone even at the higher altitudes, and my runs were dry and hot. During the monsoon, I ran through the rain, water drops dripping down from the hood of my jacket into my eyes and my ears. These days, it’s cold and the sun sets early, so it’s becoming a pain to run after work.
I work at a job that I enjoy. I like to think my work has a positive impact on the world, and so it gives me joy. I’ve moved from a programmer role, to a manager role. It’s quite a pain, but I’m learning.
I live with my wife, who I love. We meditate regularly, but less than we would like.
The list of things that I am a part of is not short. They seem real enough, but are they? It’s like I’m standing ten feet away from the person who has this life and I can see him only through heavy, loud rain.
Do not hurry; do not rest.
— Goethe
My mother lived a remarkable life, and she died only after making sure my brother and I had a first-person account. My father still needs some convincing, but his life has been remarkable too and there are a thousand stories hidden in there.
I live in a place where the locals have been here since before the hippies came, and are still here as tourism booms. All sorts of people show up: healers, meditators, partygoers, hikers, each with their own life and stories, each a possible main character.
All that to say in a roundabout way, that I will be writing short stories on here. Sometimes based on one of these people, sometimes based on a meandering direction my mind took on a random afternoon, and sometimes a mix of both.
I hope you stick around!
Pritam. You wrote. And you promise. That you will. Write. Again.
Guess whose ‘okay-ish’ day just got better?
Sounds like Hamlet 🤣 But with good information in the end 🤗