We often travel from our homes to another
city or country for a specific purpose, be it work or a hobby or to find
something. On the way we tend to indulge in myriad of things & experiences;
the food, the shops, the sights and the people. We eat, talk, buy, think,
wonder, observe, sleep, jump, smile, laugh, cry, love, hate, yell and whisper. We entertain and bemuse ourselves. That which leads the way is often forgotten amidst the hustle bustle of the way, the chirping birds, the cool breeze and the rough yet satisfying feeling of the way itself.
In many of those moments on the way we are not necessarily thinking of
where it is that we were headed to. We might at times wonder of what our
destination city would be like or what would the weather there be like; but
a lot of times on the way we tend to think of things other than our specific
purpose, our work or hobby or the thing that we want to find. If the journey is
really long, the chances of getting caught up, in the many wonderful, nice,
pleasant, scary, distasteful, bad or amazing experiences on the way, increase
in ways that we cannot imagine. If the journey is as long, eventful and
treacherous as our lives…
When I was a little boy, it was easier to always harp on
what my dream was. You could start the day with telling your mother that you
wanted to be a “fighter pilot”. Ramble it through the day, crashing books,
spoons and sometimes your bare hands into tables, vases and walls. Make strange
noises to feel the reality of the dream. “Whoosh”, “Boom”… you could believe in
your dreams without questioning their feasibility, without attempting to
ascertain the returns on your investments and without evaluating whether they were sustainable. You
could finish dinner and yet be talking of the same thing. And utter those same
words in sleepy murmurs. “Mai bada hokar airforce
pilot banunga” (“I will be a fighter pilot one day”). The distance between
dreams and tomorrow appeared negligible. Or perhaps it appeared to be too huge
to worry about.
Along the way, those dreams metamorphosed into completely
different dreams. That perhaps is understandable, after all the pursuits of
life tend to change as we tend to discover the world and ourselves a little
more every day. After all, very few of us would remember where they were headed
to and for what purpose, when they started this journey of life. After all, we
were so young back then. We have probably forgotten. It is perhaps that
purpose, that original dream that I have been trying to remember all of these
days. So that I can get on with the actual journey, reach my destination and be
done with my purpose.
With every new day, new facts are uncovered. New things are learned, new habits acquired, new skills developed and new friends made. New possibilities emerge every summer, winter, spring and autumn. And every day I feel that perhaps I know my original dream better than the previous day. And that “new dream” slowly replaces the older dream and comes to the top of the list. So it is perhaps even understandable that somehow my dream of becoming a “fighter pilot” eventually metamorphosed into my dream of becoming a “software engineer” by the time I was 15.
With every new day, new facts are uncovered. New things are learned, new habits acquired, new skills developed and new friends made. New possibilities emerge every summer, winter, spring and autumn. And every day I feel that perhaps I know my original dream better than the previous day. And that “new dream” slowly replaces the older dream and comes to the top of the list. So it is perhaps even understandable that somehow my dream of becoming a “fighter pilot” eventually metamorphosed into my dream of becoming a “software engineer” by the time I was 15.
It was not a simple caterpillar – cocoon – butterfly thing.
It went through many distinct steps of the metamorphosis. “Army captain”, “Race
car driver”, briefly “basketball player”, even briefly “musician” and when I
was 15 “software engineer”. That was meant to stay for a few years. And yes I had
my doubts about the universe, the cosmos actually wanting me to be a “software
engineer” or for that matter even a “fighter pilot” but I came to believe
somehow that it was what the universe wanted. Days went by and obviously a clearer
picture emerged by the time I was in college. “Software engineer” was what I
saw from far off but on closer examination it was actually a “tech entrepreneur”.
“Software engineer” was probably just a train on way to reaching “tech
entrepreneur”. And the pursuit continued since then with finer pieces of the
puzzle coming forth from under the carpet. So I quit my plush job at the “world’s
largest software company” and took a plunge. After all the “software engineer”
train had to drop me off at this station. So all that is very understandable
that somehow the dream became clear by the time I was 25, to be a “tech
entrepreneur”.
What is not understandable is how our intensity to believe
in our dreams, our capability, to be thinking of just them all the time, from waking
up through lunch, dinner, till we hit the bed and even beyond, diminishes as we
grow up. Everything can be doubted! After all there have been so many changes,
so many new things have been learned and now that we have grown up with our
maturity and what not, we certainly know that our current dream may also be
just another phase in this large complex process of dream metamorphosis. What if
our current bearing is not to the destination but just to another railway
station? Such questions are no longer rarity when you start reaching 30. Some
days, you start the day with “I am sure I want to do this” and end it with “What
the hell am I doing?” You tend to ramble less about your dream and more about
the feasibility of things that can be done. How much will I make? What will I
get out of it? Does it even make sense? Thinking of it, it is not very
different from haggling over the price of a leather belt at an airport shop
(Yes it can be done!) – You get so caught up in that moment of potential gain that you
forget where you are headed to. At times you might even change tickets on the
way! You now know that can be done. It’s not like you are new to all this
travelling and you will just sit quietly in a corner, thinking about getting
there and getting your thing done.
Turning 30, I seemed to have hit some kind of a disastrously amusing and amazingly
disturbing jackpot of creepy revelations. “This entire dream thing has no real
meaning, this is just a big farce and actually we are here to make money, have
fun, travel, eat good food, take photographs and post them on Facebook”. And
you tend to think that you’ve been such a fool all of these nearly eleven
thousand days of your life trying to figure the dream, trying to pursue the
mini-dreams, all of that. The feeling seemed to continue for several weeks if
not more. “Really? You really thought there was this big dream that was meant
to be?”
Fortunately, I happened to find a cheat sheet towards the end of those few weeks after I turned 30. Like most profound
insights in my life it did not come to me nicely packed in a
single envelope. It came in pieces; of different sizes, at different times, through
different posts and a few of them even in emails for that matter. It seems
believable because some of the pieces have come from people far more
intelligent, far more learned, far older and far more insightful than I can be.
One of the final pieces was from Ang Lee (well in the form of an old essay that
he wrote in 2006 after winning the Oscar for Brokeback Mountain). The summary
of the cheat sheet is that your 30th
birthday is like the 1st April of your life. And a lot of years
before that the world conspires to pull off a big joke on you on that day. That
cruel joke comes in the form of a number of insights, learning, suggestions,
advise, realizations and creepy revelations. It tries to make you believe
something that you have been made so gullible to believe over the past few
years. It tries to make you believe something like - “This entire dream thing has
no real meaning, this is just a big farce and actually we are here to make
money, have fun, travel, eat good food, take photographs and post them on
Facebook”. The trick is to know at the right time that it is not a revelation but just a cosmic sleight of hand.
The dream thing, you see, is for real. The metamorphosis is
meant to continue till you discover your own personal original dream. You keep
finding it and once you find it you pursue it. You are meant to hunt it down
with zeal, with fervor. You are meant to ramble about it all day. You are meant
to murmur it in your sleep. You are meant to think of it while you eat, talk,
buy, think, wonder, observe, sleep, jump, smile, laugh, cry, love, hate, yell
and whisper. You are meant to think of
it while you entertain and bemuse yourself. Life after all is meant to be a
never ending dream!
The final
piece of the puzzle which helped me finish this essay – the translation of the
essay by Ang Lee can be found here - http://whatshihsaid.com/2013/02/26/ang-lee-a-never-ending-dream/
