Experiments With Life …..Not Fatigued At Fifty

December 2014 I turned fifty. A cool age! As many would say because now there is no stigma attached to being old. Women are discovering themselves at the age of 40 and rediscovering perhaps at the threshold of completing half a century on this planet Earth. But it’s not an introspection on age but more on life in general. How was growing up or may I say growing old? The answer would be experiential. What does that mean? It means moving on in life holding the hands of a variety of experiences and on the way gathering pearls of prudence and an overdose of caution.

Prudence which teaches us the larger implications of mundane actions or inactions. Why caution? Because it is better to count the steps before placing a wrong foot into the pit and plummeting through that tumultuous drop which can put you back to not even square one but square zero.  Yes, you are right! I am talking about that horrid feeling of vulnerability that we all suffer from at times in life. What exactly is it? It is that sense of insecurity and that fear of being exposed to hurt and defeat combined together. After all we are all humans ….social animals with a strong defense mechanism.

Confession time! Yes, this urge to defend the softest core inside called the heart has often frequented me. At unguarded times, I have lain wounded bleeding profusely, at others I have swished my sharp, stinging porcupine thorns and lashed back wisely or unwisely so. And at very extraordinaire moments, I have neither cringed nor conquered but craved for melancholia. Strange are the labyrinths of the mind and those utterly confusing and chaotic love enzymes which have begged me to foray into paths wild and be lost.

Failings have come naturally. They are bound to when you are too innovative or over-confident of your own limited wisdom forgetting conveniently that in the long run you are dealing with that most unpredictable element of this ever expanding Universe, the human species. Then what? Do I get daunted by what did not happen as per calculation or be propelled by that indomitable spirit which tells me “You shall overcome someday”! If one asks me at this juncture what is the remedy, my answer perhaps will be “I dunno”!

And that is what makes life so interesting and quixotic and a seeker so inquisitive and overwhelmed by a surge of adrenaline. The inability to foresee what is going to be….which makes me cling to that evergreen dictum….”what will be will be”………..embracing it as the sovereign mantra of survival ….physical, psychological and emotional…

The experiment is still on…..the excitement is insatiable…..the endeavour is relentless….

I am happy to feel the warm rush of that crimson liquid in my veins, the lyrical cadence of that tiny throb in my pulse and that sharp inhalation of springy breeze which tickles my nostrils and that wild thud, which reminds me of the African jungle beats,  in my heart….

In short, I am still alive…

What will be ….will be….