Reflections

Direction

Prajakta59 Comments

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Life apparently has signboards strewn along the way. Reading and following them is also not a problem for most of the people. However, it would be nice to have a map as well. You know, complete with a “You are Here” and a “You need to be Here” and a “This is Where you will be” and oh – “This is Where you are NEVER supposed to be”. I can think of many more such.

I often get the feeling of being a stray leaf just flowing along the stream. I don’t know when or how I landed here. I don’t know how long I will be drifting along. And I don’t know how I will meet the end. Will it be through a waterfall? Or will I eventually join the vast ocean? Or maybe I will just flatten and dry against a rock, slowly being shredded into nothing.

I have to walk for about 15 minutes from home till my bus stop. I am a part of the crowd, the dirt, the occasional fish smell. And it makes me wonder yet another time, what am I doing here? What do I want out of my life? How long can I just toss a coin and keep going where life takes me? I thought the whole point is that you are supposed to be guiding your life along! And the inner voice in my head simply talks to me about food! No clue about what is my motivation or the driving factor! I don’t even know what are my “skills”! I have always had options. I have always had likes. But no passions. Things followed their natural course apparently and here I am!

I recently finished reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and I can safely say that I have found my “once-a-year” read for life. I am not going to stop coming back to read it. There was this one amazing analogy that the author draws that captivated me. Imagine a fig tree blossomed with big plump juicy figs. Each fig represents a direction of your life – all equally appealing and good. But then, you cannot decide and figure out which is the fig you want to pluck and bite into. Slowly they start drying and rotting. Blackened, they start falling around you.

It felt like taking a dive into the dark realms of my heart. This analogy sang to me. I feel like I am examining those rotten figs fallen all around me one by one and wondering how different things could have been. Here I am now – a product of the process of elimination. I do not know how long this will go on; my present plan is to wing it one day at a time and let people go on thinking what a sweet and sassy person I am. It is an honest illusion I am conjuring!

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I thought at this point of life, things will be all sorted or at least I will have some semblance of direction. I am nowhere close to figuring out the fruit that I must have chosen and bit into. Maybe it wasn’t a fig. Maybe it was a blueberry. Till then, I will simply blow a soft thank you kiss to the ones looking out for me in spite of not recognizing the path I am presently treading. And while I am at it, might as well try to enjoy this winding journey to somewhere!

How is your road looking like? Losing your way make it interesting? Drop in a note when you take a water break 🙂

59 thoughts on “Direction”

  1. Was it you??
    At once, while reading through the analogy between a fig and a direction of life, I thought of ‘The road not taken’ by Robert Frost.
    Very well written. But was it you? I mean, are you really clueless?
    Btw, for the part of difference between passions & the liking, I think it is –
    “The difference between an elephant and a squirrel.
    PASSION is the powerful emotion, and can be love, joy or hatred, anger, etc., an emotional attachment both good and bad. For example, coding is my passion, which means I would love to spend my whole time in coding.
    But, LIKING is simple interest towards something. – I like answering to the questions in Quora. I do not have any emotional attachment to it and simply I like it – probably with good intention.”

    You’d likes. Means no any emotional attachment. i.e. low in EQ – considering the motivation factor only!
    And a perfect equation from my side,
    IQ + EQ = (Known) Purpose + Passion + final success [indeed!]

    Your expression is fantastic. I liked that!
    …
    How is my road looking like??
    Well for the present, it is covered in lead. Need some time to explore and move on. I love to keep exploring and trying the things. Hence not a master in order to take a road for the very long life!

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    • What you said makes perfect sense, Dileep. Emotional attachment is indeed a powerful motivator and something on examination I find is lacking at many areas – or perhaps I would want it to be stronger? I know exactly what I do not want – which makes me assume that what I have is what I want. A mistake that will take time to rectify I believe.

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      • Emotional attachment is the basis of existence of human life. Uncertainties and ignorance at the very stages of our lives make ourselves to think of the life as a dusk! You probably demotivate yourself and step back from the newly knocking opportunities. Else, you’d definitely want it to be stronger.
        Finally, whatever we have is not really what we ALL want. Explorations are indeed necessary in one’s life. I think it’s not that mistake unless you’re unaware of the art of living.

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  3. Oh, you are not alone in this…..I seem to have different times in life where I know my purpose/path and others where I sit around wondering how in the world I got where I am at that time. Life…..very strange…keeps you guessing, but in the end, I think I’m glad to plod on without the map….it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if I already knew the ending, yes?

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  5. Oh Prajakta, you feel a little lost at the moment, don’t you? I dare to say that you are not alone with that. Everybody has moments in life where they question the sense of their presence, the sense of what they are doing, even the sense of what they did. They ask themselves: Was this it? Was that all life had in store for me? But there is also the knowing that there is something waiting. We want it. Perhaps we even feel it. But we cannot see it or we don’t see the path towards the realization. I like the comparison with the tree. But I would go one step further. The tree will drop the rotten fruits and why? Because it needs room in order to blossom again and to devolop new fruits. If we don’t know what to pick today maybe we discover a rotten fruit we had liked and pick it the next season. The only final line in this life is when we leave our body.
    I made the experience by myself but also witnessed it at many other people that right this point of questioning our lives is the crucial point where dramatic changes take place. Be patient with yourself, you are about to break out. Be aware, observe your surrounding, listen… and you will soon know where to take the first step. In the end it is all about one single first step and everything else will start to reorder which shows you the next step.

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    • Erika! It feels so good to see your positive thoughts. You have now made me think of the tree like an old friend – the fruits may have gone bad but the tree in itself hasn’t died yet! It still has life 🙂 I like to believe that I am close to that first step, or already have taken. I just need to recognize it. Thank you ❤

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      • Now we can go another step further, Prajakta: Imagine yourself as this tree! You have all the potential, wisdom, and choices within you. Like water for the plant the fruits grow combined with the conditions around you. When the time is right you pick the ripe fruit. Sometimes we just need patience to wait until it is ripe. But it all has been within you and can ever get lost. As you said: The tree is full of life.

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  7. Life is so interesting, isn’t it, Prajakta? It’s like a book, with infinite plot twists. A living book of sorts, where the next paragraph is determined by how we live in the current paragraph. It’s about the journey, though, and not so much about the ending for me. Living in the moment, carpe diem as it were, is how I’m living it right now. Than you for sharing such a thought provoking post!

    Rob

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  8. I really liked the analogy of the leaf. I think we can go through this process several times during our lives because we are growing and evolving hopefully. These are transition periods. I am in one myself. You can stick your toe in the water and try a few things you find interesting and see where it leads. I think it is good to listen to your heart when you make choices to make sure they are right for you.

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    • Oh yes Deborah. Such transition periods or “milestones” as some people often call them is the most challenging yet enthralling time. Just want to keep the voice inside sorted out. I hope you get through your transition smoothly 🙂

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  9. I agree with Deborah. Experiment with your likes and interests. I felt my most lost and confused a lot in my early 20s, but this uncertainty has popped up since then from time to time. As far as the road map, yes it would be nice, cause there are definitely places I wish I had not gone, but I learned from every path, at least where I did not want to go. If we pay attention, things do get clearer as we get older, but not entirely clear, because life does have its surprises.

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    • Thank you for sharing your experiences. Accepting anything at face value isn’t something I want to do just you – life has so many possibilities. Experiment like you rightly said. This confused phase is what will make this time count 🙂 Trying to be patient.

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  10. Sylvia Plath – She is an amazing poet. Her poems will force you to think about life deeply. You should read her life, how she used to exchange poems with her husband in the university she was studying, how super-sensitive she was and all, but then a tragic end. I myself has a topic in mind related to her, but couldn’t get time to pen it down.
    Direction – Everyone is lost in the path of life. Its a good thing that now you have the question and you’ll figure out the answer. We all are NEO (from Matrix) in the journey of life, and as Oracle said “If you can’t find, no one will.” And he does find the way. Everyone will. 🙂

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    • I did read about her life and a few poems. Especially the ones she penned in her last years. What a waste of talent! Tragic end. Try to put down your thoughts, will look forward to reading them.
      And I suppose we’ll find our way when we are meant to – at the right everything! Thank you 🙂

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  11. I always found it a bit of a ridiculous idea that in our youth we are expected to map out our future in its entirety, with this grand plan for success. I did not figure out my path until well into my 30s, and I’m still working on it in my 40s. I do not think that allowing yourself to drift until your inner voice leads you is necessarily a bad thing. 🙂

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    • I swear! At the age of 15-16 we are expected to know? Drifting is something is fine; I just don’t want to get so lost that I cannot hear my inner voice.
      Thank you for your kind words 🙂

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  14. My life, Prajakta, is going very much like you have penned down. Like a rudderless boat, tossed and turned with the waves and the wind.
    At one time, its up and at the other its down but completely under the control of the elements- as you so rightly say- food at times ( for you) but for me, always.
    But tossed and turned though I am, Prajakta, there is a basic faith in me that says- keep on- you are on the right track. Even if it may seem that i am wayward now ( to others), in fact my current path is leading me on to my destination – I believe the same for you too.
    A small suggestion, if you feel food is a weakness, why not make it your strength ?
    Like research food, write blog posts about food, try different types of food, look for alternatives, experiment with flavours – who knows- maybe this is your calling ?

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  15. I finished reading The Bell Jar last week or so. Coincidence? And I too loved the fig tree analogy!

    I can relate to the dilemma you posed. Should we drift along or guide our life? I try to think I am trying to follow my passion (yes, assuming I know what is mine) but ever so often, I get the sense that I am being led and not leading. Maybe it’s the consciousness that’s the first step towards making a change?

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    • Ah! I actually had to take a few days off to “recover” from the book. The awareness seems to be a good place to start like you said! Thank you for dropping in 🙂

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  16. My grandmother use to say that life was like a big buffet table full of food and the size of your plate was entirely up to you.
    She also said that life was short and you spend a long time dead.
    Growing up, I was always hungry and in a hurry.
    I like the idea of tasting as much as you can. You will always be surprised.
    A lovely post, Prajakta!

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  21. Prajakta, your ideas are so true and so powerful 😉 We are are lost but wandering is good for experience, which is going to help us in the long run. Going with the flow is ok but you have to sometimes steer your life in the direction you want to, so as not to regret it later. Good luck for that and same is the case with me 😛
    We all are at such a juncture in our life, this is our time, though 😉

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    • Wandering is really good for experience… although there are those stops where you suddenly feel lost! Good luck with your journey 🙂 Let’s retrospect at our next stop!

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      • Oh yes 😀 Yes, at some stops we feel lost or we encounter a dead end and we gotta turn back to square one. But, we will never regret reaching the dead end as we were moving ahead and we discovered something 😉 Good luck to you too 🙂

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  22. Can completely relate to this post. I’ve just been winging it through most of my life. The handful of decisions/choices I have actively made for myself have somehow always backfired. So Im just going to take things as they come for now!

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  23. 🙂 feel like you are reading my mind Prajakta.. its scary isn’t it..thinking you still haven’t managed to figure what you are supposed to do..or be..but its good to know that I’m not the only one on this unchosen path..

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