Happy Realisation?

So I heard Lewis Hamilton is depressed and the team folk are getting him help. Recently he went public saying how being vegan is the only sustainable way to the future. He, of course, meant to talk about climate change and the natural balance. Responses came in many forms. Someone said "the guy who drives a Formula 1 car and has a private jet is asking me to eat cabbage!" Someone else said he's trying to get his massive following to think greener and we need to look at the message and the larger picture. I see his point. Until now, I didn't like the guy. I believe he came in a strong car and went to another team where he happened to suffer for a little while before the engine regulations worked in his favour.

But that's beside the point. After the whole #ClimateStrike initiative by Greta Thunberg went viral, I realised one thing. One person CAN make a difference. Again, people, like they always do, hit back saying, "She's a kid!", "What does she really want?", "Go back to school!". But, she was right, wasn't she? Even if she's touring the world (on a sailboat, I might add!) and even if she's "not speaking of other great scientists who have developed world-saving tech" she did do one thing. She made some people aware about the scale of the mess we're in; about the depth of the hole we've dug for ourselves. She spoke at a point where it's getting even deeper and soon we won't be able to come back out. A few others have realised, too. Of course they have. However, the world's population is over 7 billion. People consider "1%" a small number. One per cent of 7 billion is 70,000,000. That's 70 million, or 7 crore in local speak.

Many of those have access to water, some don't. Food, even less so. The point is, we need more people to wake up to the scale of the problem.

Now, another topic is transport. Or, cars, in my case of reference. Yes, we've enjoyed racing, and driving some fine examples. I know I enjoyed my share. However, one thing is clear. The world is running on oil and money. And something is going to give very soon. Particularly the environmental balance. What we did then, doesn't work now. Times have changed. Priorities need reassessment.

Schools don't function as they did before. Traffic doesn't have the same share of space as before. Consideration is taking a back seat, because people seems to have become seemingly expendable. There are so many, if one can't do something right, someone else will? Is that so? The very idea of a co-operative world is being drowned by desire. Individual desire. Worse, individual need to be better than the next? It's not a competition. Or, is it? Is it truly survival of the fittest? Surely seems like it now. But I digress.

Back to Hamilton. It is depressing. Yes. When one realises something about the world and about themselves doesn't fit any more. We've been conditioned over the years to believe certain things, do things a certain way and expect certain things in advance because "that's just how the world works". Get up, take a bath, change, make the bed, get on the bike or in the car, ride/drive to school/college/work/whatever. People took things for granted. They wasted water, electricity, trees, forests and now, there's a price to pay. You may wonder why this is relevant. You know all this. But, as I've always believed, understanding is one thing and acceptance is another. Do you accept that an entire established life needs to change? No, it's not a lie. It's just a change that must be brought on. If not by us, the world will fight back. It's an old planet, it's been through a lot and it can take care of itself. We're not killing the planet with our doings, we're only killing our future, and ourselves.

People asked me what I'm on about. What's with all the posts? After seeing what Greta had to say, I feel I've woken up from a bad dream and have to live a nightmare. It's true, what some said. What she said is scary. And it is. Our future is inevitable if we don't change today!

What's hard is to accept it. I love cars. I love motor-racing. I love going fast. However, I also realised that has to stop. I can't enjoy those things any more. They're coming at a terrible price. The sound of combustion, of big engines and the roar from the exhaust – things that used to make me smile and make my heart flutter – have become sins. Not to the world at large, but to me. I cringe. It's a painful feeling of mixed emotions that I fight every day. That is what is depressing. Realising that what you enjoy, and have enjoyed all along, is something that needs to stop. The world is built on that platform. How can it be?

A change so big would mean a new system. A new normal. Jobs will be lost. Skills will be redundant. Yet, new ones will surface. They have to. With so many mouths to feed there is no question. The thing is, we need to realise and start adapting now, or the world will simply leave us behind. What's worse is that the Earth will fight back anyway.

I'm not asking anyone to go vegan. I know I won't. Yet, turn off your bike/car at signals. Long or short. I started doing that. Ride/drive easy. The more you're on the accelerator and back on the brakes hard, the more fuel you're burning. The key is to cut down on carbon emissions - specifically carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide among other more deadly unburned hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen. Save water. Don't waste electricity. You may be paying a fixed amount but it isn't yours to throw away. We're still using coal-fired thermal power plants. That's not clean. The reality is that renewable sources aren't enough to cater to us all. That's why the need to use all forms of energy sparingly. Also, electric cars are only as clean as the source of electricity powering them. If your electricity is coming from coal, your electric car is pretty much just as harmful to the environment. Battery material mining and their life cycle and supply chain is another matter altogether, so look deeper into things that don't make sense. Hybrids are the best way forward until clean, hydrogen-powered transport solutions become mainstream. Research. Find out for yourself. Don't take mine or anyone else's word for it. Go ahead and take that step.

The time to make a choice is now. We can't give up everything. That's not right. But we can try to change slowly and tell others to do so as well. It's about time. Wake up. Realise. Speak your mind. Be heard. Listen. Understand. Be considerate. We all want to get out of this alive. It's still not too late...

Faceless Dreams

They haunt me. Faceless figures.
I see them. I yearn for them.
To feel their touch, their embrace,
their hand in mine.

I glance around. There's no one.
Just us.
Yet, I do not see you.
For I don't know who you are.

I know what I want.
I may not know where I'm headed,
but I know exactly what it is I want;
more than anything else.
To see you. To hold you.
And for you to want to hold me too.

That is what eludes me.
I'm not here to play games.
Or to mess around.
I'm here to fulfil my heart's wish to not be alone.
To be here with you
and for you to want no more than to be with me.

Love is strange.
It doesn't knock.
It doesn't make a sound.
It just is.
And sometimes, voiceless, it dies.
Not here.
I give it a voice.
Often at the cost of sanity.
For then, even if it isn't heard.
It dies with me.
Once more.

See

How much of life is lost in peripheral vision?

You always look. But do you see?

Our gift of sight is, unfortunately, accompanied by a greater portion of oversight. We only see what our eyes want us to see. How true it is, then, that someone said it long ago. Yet, here we are, overlooking so many aspects that could be bringing joy instead of pain.

You pass an old house. With a long dead tree. Children play. There's a swing, and parallel bars, and a little patch of grass that their dog likes to lay in. Flowers bloom beside it, and bees buzz around feeding. Yet, the kids don't run away. The dog does not chase those bees. Everyone is content in their state of being. They're happy. They see you. They wave.

Every day, twice. Morn and eve.

Yet, there you are. Focus on the road ahead. The endless ribbon of dull grey, broken only with inconsistent dashes of white. It's all a blur. The house. The tree. The children. The swing. The grass. The dog. The flowers. The bees. And, the joy of life. All of it involuntarily, perhaps unwillingly, ignored. The mind has its priorities. And the heart has its own. Which you choose to follow is what decides who will govern you. Of course, that's not to say you can't have a bit of both.

The 'plaster bagworm' is tiny little worm that lives in a cocoon not half-an-inch long. It peers out from either end. And drags its residence with it wherever it goes. It feeds on anything from spider-webs to hair and paper. It likes humidity and darkness. It's in many houses. Invisible to most eyes. Yet, it's there, living. I don't know for how long. It's related to the moth family, the search results tell me. If this tiny worm can make someone think about existence, and intrigue them enough to look for more details, why can't everyone do that? It's simple enough. But the thought. The wonder. The urge to learn. Simplicity is extremely complicated to understand if you're looking for reasons for it to be.

So much of life, love and wonder are lost in peripheral vision. It needn't be. Just stop to smell the flowers, as they say.

Cold

Don't sit out here the weather is harsh, said he,
that my bones were getting old.
I trust my instincts and follow my heart, said I,
besides, I'm in love with the cold.

Don't come all this way with hopes up for summer, said she,
to face the winter you have to be bold.
No one knows for sure till they do it , said I,
and I really do love the cold.

The world is crazy and unpredictable, said they,
'Tis nothing like you've ever been told.
I'll take my chances and take things in my stride, said I,
I trust my love for the cold.

So what of my heart? I asked myself.
If it beats too fast with all the love it can hold?
That's just what it's meant for, I told myself.
If not, I'd rather it stop with the cold.

Beacon

To borrow from a Coldplay track, 'Lights will guide you on...'

Sometimes the darkness seems overpowering. So much so that you just give in and become one with it. And then, just when it threatens to break you, the light you always look forward to comes on, seemingly at a distance. The beacon of light, of hope, of everything you need to see. It doesn't always appear, and never always as bright. It decides to show itself for only a moment, just as all hope seems to be falling to its knees.

When there are more downs than ups. When each good day of the year has a shadow lurking over it. When you can smile outside but be broken inside, that's when the beacon always comes into view. You have to close your eyes to see it. For it isn't meant to be found, only seen. Maybe. Maybe that's not even what it is.

Maybe it's just your soul playing tricks on you. The horse-and-carrot trick. It makes darkness play the Mirror of Erisid. Show you your deepest desires that you may once more realign body and soul to work in the direction it was supposed to keep heading in. "Don't give up," it said. "Keep going", it said. There's your destination, glowing in the flickering wisp of hope that chose to show itself. And, what do you do? You head towards it, of course. That's what it's there for. That's what you've always dreamed of. Or have you?

And when you reach it, embrace it, and get set to become comfortable. You see the path. Not entirely, but you do. So this was just a checkpoint? Refuel. Reload.

Repeat.

Slave to the System?

Manufactured lifestyle for promoted capitalism disguised as everyday life.

Allow me to elaborate. If you're someone who works through the week and looks forward to the weekend so you can go out, eat, catch a movie and buy some popcorn, you're the victim and you don't even know it. The 'slave to the system' is you. The world is running on brand power. Shop till you drop. Earn to spend. Study. High School. College (with or without a huge student loan). Find someone, go out, spend time outside doing the above, work harder, get married, work even harder, buy/rent a house, work still harder, have a kid or, perhaps, kids. Watch cartoons that sell action figures, water-bottles, lunch boxes, games, expensive toys that children absolutely must have or else be rebuked and have no friends. Seem familiar? Does it sound like something you are doing or even going to be doing in the very near future?

Yes, that seems like the “perfect" life. Is it really? When did enjoying some mountain air in the middle of nowhere while there is still some greenery left on the Earth become plan B? It's not always cheap. The will is all you need.

Yes, choose the alternative route and somehow it seems darker, lonelier, and even makes you wonder if you made the right choice. The urge to give in is huge, yet, you think about why you did it in the first place. Why you want to be different. Not blend in. No Skrillex, no Miley Cyrus, no Justin Bieber, no bullshit because some retards next door with no mind of their own think it's “cool” and blow money to go watch some random person push buttons on a console.

There is a world within the world you see. Underpinned by conscious, well-seeking persons with personalities of their own, there is a chance to be different, even yourself. It's not really hard once you get off your ass and begin to look for it. The first step is always the hardest. But then you realise the next few steps are hard as well. Eventually one step could almost kill you but you take that 'leap of faith' anyway. And then you're there. And things are much clearer... Oh, how I wish I could get there. These steps seem never ending. But I'm beginning to accept I won't be making it out alive, because, guess what? No one will, eventually.

How Can You Tell?

It's the curious scent of the morning.

The mighty wind blowing strong.

Leaves of fresh green rustling in the trees.

The sun coming up after seemingly so long.

It's the anxiety of the future.

Moving on from the past.

It's the eagerness of moments

that will be created to last.

It's the many efforts of past years

all of which are never forgotten.

With a heart full of joy

I reminisce those times golden.

Memories will remain,

that will always be true.

Good times celebrated

over fine dine and brew.

In the toughest of times

let your mind lead.

The soul will plough through,

although, the heart may plead.

One word can surely heal,

yet, another may raise a storm.

For me, that word is 'October'

and it will, always, be warm.