It was about six months ago that I completed the much-dreaded the three decade mark on this planet. “This planet” is a nice, even somewhat an intellectual, placeholder for where you are at. You can call it even the galaxy you belong to, or even the known world. Or, if you are given to using the mortal measurements of immediate space and confines, you could even use nation, state, local district or anything else that is even more atomic to the wishes of the dominion that you belong to.
The event itself passed without much fanfare. I HATE my birthday, not because I am angry about the fact that I was ever born, but because of the fact that I am, by nature, a shy person. I hate attention and birthdays bring about way too much of attention. For someone who is paranoid of being 90 someday (VERY unlikely) and feeling that I have not done as much as I could have with my time I have had in my life, markers of time spent and time left are horrible artifacts of time that has been wasted till date. There is still so much to be done, so much to be learnt and so many other places and people to be seen and known.
So, what have I learnt in the 30 years on planet earth?
- Popular opinion means shit: They will always love you or hate you or ignore you for reasons you could never fathom.
- That does not mean it does not matter, but how much it matters is a very personal call to take.
- Strength in numbers is for those who like spreading the punishment.
- If you don't like sharing your success, don't look to share the failure either.
- You are, always, on your own.
- You own, your own, always.
- Contrary to what you think and what you are made to think, you are not the beginning and the end of the world.
- Death is almost always unexpected.
- What actually happens in life is even more unexpected.
- The truth is always a loss-making business with an overstated demand.
- In a contest between Oprah and self-realization, Oprah always wins.
- Marriage is not what it is made out to be, irrespective of whether you are a believer or a nonbeliever.
- Being alone is, also, never what it is made out to be.
- The only saving grace about being young is not having to do taxes.
- The only saving grace about being old is being able to game taxes.
- A secret is always best when when it is shared.
- Someone always profits.
- If you can love, there is never a final love.
- If you can't love, there is never a first love.
- You can always love yourself, which is also love.
- You are always a bit more worse than what you think of yourself.
- People who admit to masturbating and pirating are always less than the actual number.
- “For your own good.” Snicker.
- Virginity is overrated. Sex is overrated. What matters: circumstances.
- Forget it, nobody understands you. Get on with it.
- The dumb ones get caught first. The smart ones get caught last. Everyone gets caught, eventually.
- In a sample size of many billions, the truth is always repetitive. Same goes for the lies. Originality is modern humanity's tragedy.
- Convenience is your personal truth. Inconvenience is your personal hurt.
- NEVER write something online that you would not expect to find 30-years down the line.
- Losing weight as an ongoing exercise is never as glamorous as what it is writing about in hindsight.
Smart quips apart, it is always a matter of much wonderment that I have made this far in life. For someone who has always had little by means of ambition or desire to be much in life, from where memory does not play truant, it is a pleasure, privilege and considerable honour to be where I am at where I am at now. One thing that I have noticed, though, is that with time I have become considerably less angry about things around me. It is easy to be angry. It is tougher to be over that and do whatever little you can do to change things.
Having crossed thirty, vast parts of what I have been don't see much of a change. I have vague short-term plans to make planning easier, but I really don't know. The only certain thing is that I value, more than ever, the people I am privileged enough to know closely and be held close to in life. If there is one blessing that I would ask, to be never taken away from me, it would be them. I would not really know what do without them.