The Experiences

I love talking to different people and I’m always looking to learn something from someone or the other. I consider myself a fairly observant guy, I’m always seeking to understand why people do things thing that they do. Most of the things we do in our daily lives are being done unconsciously, hardly we are conscious of the things we do or even of our own self thus limiting most of our experiences. Now coming to the experiences, a lot of people say to me that they want to experience everything, there is only one life and they want as many experiences as possible. Nothing sounds problematic in this argument, even if you believe in reincarnation, you can desire to get every possible experience in this lifetime. But people just talk the talk, don’t actually walk that talk. Almost everyone who says the above lines is rarely a seeker of experiences, all their talk ends with only three or four things, getting laid down or getting a girlfriend/boyfriend, trying every kind of booze and drugs, trying fancy food at new places, and few talks about trying some adventure sports. I ask myself, how come people limit all the experiences to only three or four things? There are a ton of other things that are probably left undiscovered and may end up giving you more content than you could ever imagine. I don’t understand why people think that practicing a discipline of any kind is all about limiting your experiences. In reality, it is the opposite of limiting yourself, following a discipline of any kind is itself an experience.

Half of my friends are worried about getting a good paycheck and for the other half financially sorted guys, getting into a relationship seems like their only goal. I seriously can’t understand why people of our generation are getting so obsessed with getting into a relationship. I know the feeling, everything seems like heaven at that time but believe me all the permanent things in your life are very subtle, like the love of your brother, he may not express it, but it is always there. If something is very exciting, it doesn’t necessarily mean that its good for you, it hardly is, it is just your obsession that makes it so exciting and once that obsession is over, things fell apart, which sadly happens in most of the relationships. Permanence requires patience, don’t go mad over getting into a relationship no matter how exciting it seems. Experiencing love is a good thing but try other things as well, for instance, try sacrificing something for your friends and you may understand what friendship means, having a good time with the opposite gender is the easiest thing to experience, but sustaining the bond of friendship takes a lot more efforts. Try being honest with everyone and I mean with everyone, I see a lot of guys who talk so humbly in front of a girl and abusing her behind her back. If you want to abuse her, first do it in front of her, then dare to do it behind her back. Not lying at all for months is an experience in itself, you’ll start seeing people differently. Why not try experiencing humility,? Talk to a rickshaw puller with the utmost respect, the way you do with your crush. Why not experience the love of creating artwork or creating some music? You may say that you can’t do it, but forcing yourself to learn new things is the real deal. Try giving up your phone and every other electronic devices for two-three days, it'll teach you how to  live on your own. These experiences may seem small but they may end up changing your entire perspective towards life.

I’m always seeking to gain new experiences and it’s been a wonderful journey so far. So, let’s start from the beginning, I used to give my books and homework to one of my friends so that he can be saved from the punishments and sticks. Both of us used to get beaten up for each other by our teachers and I’m glad we did that because I can proudly say that we’ve been friends since kindergarten and will remain that way for our entire lives. This trait got carried forward with me and I ended up making really great friends in my college life as well. Once there was a ceremony for my new house and instead of attending the ceremony, I was chilling with labors working in my house, I sat for 3 hours straight with them and ended up knowing so much about their lives. I can comfortably say that they lead a far more satisfactory and less tensed lives than most of us. I’ve practiced the discipline of not eating non-veg for 3 years straight, it gave me the strength to control my desires. I could never read a book for more than 20 pages at a time, I wanted to work on that, so I forced myself to sit and eventually ended up reading 200 pages in a single go, this taught me how to sit for long durations of time when there is no pressure because sitting for hours without any hanging sword is the real test. During a phase of my research work, I worked for 18 hours a day for 2 weeks. In those two weeks, I rarely ate any solid food, I was literally surviving on tea and biscuits, this taught me how to live, work, and concentrate without proper food for days. I rarely recite my poetry anywhere but I’ve recited it to total strangers in order to get over my fear of talking about personal shit of my life. Recently I drove a cycle rickshaw in order to understand the effort it takes to drive someone for your livelihood, I must say, it’s pretty hard to drive it. I tried social service for 2 years and rarely I thought of getting any benefits out of that, I think that I’ve even lost that certificate of NSS. Few people used to laugh seeing us cutting the grass all the time, but I was okay because they were also not contributing to the society in any meaningful way. I’ve slept on the floor for months without any bedding to force my brain to give up the concept of comfort. I’ve literally lived with almost no personal belongings for months at stretch, doing this taught me how to survive with the least amount of resources. I’ve tried exploring Indian classical music, history, religion, politics, filmmaking, storytelling, guitar, sketching, writing, astrophysics, business strategies, and creating music, learning about all these things taught me many wonderful life lessons. I can feel utter happiness just by seeing a child playing on the street. Why are you so sad? Just look around you and there is divinity everywhere. Happiness is a skill and you need to develop it like any other skill. Biggest misconception of our time is that acquiring things and experiencing things makes us happy, it just makes us excited for a short period of time. I’m not saying that doing all these things is the true definition of exploration, but I guess, I can say that I’ve tried a lot more things in comparison to my fellow mates. And at last, I’ve not met even a single person who ever had a spiritual experience, it has happened with me few times and I bet that not even a single friend of mine has experienced even something similar to that. The closest possible thing to that experience is getting high on heroin, cocaine, or some similarly heavy drugs, but still, the experience from drugs is secondary to the spiritual experience because once your hangover is over, you don’t fully remember that experience.

At last, I would like to say that your life is really sad if you feel the constant need of having someone in your life and can’t find exciting things in your own life. And it’s even sadder if you need to be inebriated to enjoy everything you do, be it music or anything else. There are a ton of other things I’ve tried to date but I think I’ve made my point that life is beautiful and everyone should try to gain some really good experiences; alcoholism, trying fancy food and relationship shouldn’t be all you seek to experience.

‘If you can’t be happy on your own, no amount of relationship can make you happy, you can be excited for a moment, but peace and happiness is to be found within self’ ~Unknown