The pursuit of happiness


"Ask most people what they want out of life and the answer is simple - to be happy. Maybe it's this expectation though of wanting to be happy that just keeps us from ever getting there. Maybe the more we try to will ourselves to states of bliss, the more confused we get - to the point where we don't recognize ourselves. Instead we just keep smiling - trying to be the happy people we wish we were. Until it eventually hits us, it's been there all along. Not in our dreams or our hopes but in the known, the comfortable, the familiar."

I've always regarded the attainment of happiness as something mandatory to our system. It's a natural state to be in, I've told myself, like the point of equilibrium for a pendulum after its tumultuous journey through space. You see, whenever asked what my codes of morality were, the only answer I'd be able to present was that I wanted to be happy. It's all very simple. What do you wish for the person you love? 'I just want you to be happy'. Why do you want to take the week off and go hiking in the hills? 'It would make me very happy '. Happiness, or the lack of it, has always been the driving force, leading us on the path of decision making. Yes, it's all very selfish, when you only think in terms of happiness only, but, why should you not?

Bur the thing is, happiness is no state of being. Only the pursuit is. The long, eternal road. Because, you see, happiness is like a butterfly, fluttering all around you in all its winged splendor. When you catch it, it's ecstasy. But butterflies only live for a day...

So what is it all about, really? Could we define happiness as the absence of pain? But when are we ever without any troubles...

Can you be happy even when you're falling apart and everything is changing? You could struggle around and grip on to something secure, something you know will work to being the smile back. Happiness is a need.





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Coming to terms


You're dead and gone. Why is this fact so difficult to digest? You're gone. I won't ever see you smiling back at me again. That night outside my house was the last. The wistful, promising smile. I was happy. For you. I knew you were too. What happened there, kid? Godmother, that's what you called me, once. I wish I could be a better one. I can't turn back time and it hurts. Remember that day in Delhi? I told you I can't ever live with regrets. Not any more, kid. You are gone. It's just irreconcilable. I won't ever get a chance to, well, be there, with you, for you. I loved you, kid, I loved you in that pure simple way that you can only reserve for someone who you call your own. And that you were. I don't know what we were, best friends we called it. But it was there, all that love and care. Us. Now you're gone.
I thought of writing an obituary. But how do I put in to words what you meant to me? Words were your forte, were always your forte, I am only borrowing inspiration. They haunt me, your words, things you said in that heavily accented high pitched voice of yours. They come to me when I least expect them to and then they just stay, hanging in the air. You once told me playing with your words can get you anywhere. You just have to choose and use them right. Yet, we always ran out of them when we wanted to talk, didn't we? It's strange.
Today, sitting by myself and watching the rain, I'm trying to come to terms with what this means, if at all things have any meaning. I'll take my time dealing with the grief. You always knew that about me, didn't you?
You were brilliant and lovely. I would catch hold of random friends and tell them about your genius. It made me so happy.
The love you gave me was, is, so precious. You were one of those who loved unabashedly. I remember one afternoon when, sitting in my room, you sang me a lullaby. You were, undoubtedly, pathetic at singing, but the passion with which the words flowed out...

'...So long I've been loving you,
I will never forget you...'

That is the thing.





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