What makes you smile?
Generic questions,in my experience, have been harder to crack than specific ones. But since the knowledge of my affinity towards challenges has been so vehemently displayed in all my creative pursuits, it’s only fair to assume that I’m prone towards addressing specific questions with a tone of generality.
In context, I refer to a question that I had posed to myself, and to scores of people whose time I have been known to waste on social media, about the loss of a certain ‘smile’. This happened only slightly more than a year back; I was alone and depressed and my writing career at the time, seemed to be headed nowhere. Times have changed since then – Three novels, some great industrial exposure and career jumps later, now I usually find myself smiling, even when people find it socially relevant to complain about the deteriorating weather of Bangalore city. Like all level-headed individuals, I’ve had an urge to explore my reasons for being happy. And it’s important to analyze these things, much as one would be expected to analyze the root causes of any sudden spikes of profit in a business venture. Transitions in the levels of happiness that you live in, are very tough to spot and they don’t sit around like other tangible trends, just waiting to be discovered by the high and mighty.
So, this morning, after I woke up from a nightmare which involved me spraining my right wrist, and after I discovered that I was in fact, sleeping with my wrist resting under my head (hence the nightmare, i guess)- I realized that I had completed a very important milestone in my life, on this date. It’s the first time ever, in my entire life, that I’ve successfully completed one year of a serious relationship. Without a shred of doubt, the most important one in my life so far, and quite hopefully, the one I’ll get to witness as it transcends into an eternity.
What’s the connection, you ask? I’ll explain. (I understand that this ‘explain’ phrase is getting a bit redundant in my conversations these days, but with a spectacular amount of feedback indicating that my thoughts are usually very tightly locked in, I think it’s best to stick to some conventions. The ‘explanation’ thing, is my convention.)
Hum- Ho – Dum!
You see, I grew up through a painfully reclusive childhood, with my only friends being the occasional sitcom episode, Hollywood movie or sometimes, a less-known book. While many would argue that this limited my horizons of thought, I will go on to say that it allowed me to approach a rather global thought process, which in turn affected the way in which I looked at, and evaluated interpersonal relationships. Additionally, after I grew up- my post-pubescent disasters with every sort of emotional blasphemy, meant that I had grown into an extremely unsocial shell. This was right about the time when I asked the world about my missing smile, and the time when I was convinced that I would never be happy (of course, my assumption extended towards all humankind, but that really isn’t the point). I started writing to vent out my anger towards people, whom I believed were responsible for my sorrow. Yes, I did find an exit- but as I hope any wise man would tell you – there’s only a very limited amount of pleasure that you can derive from revenge or any negative emotion. For any form of true happiness to enter your life, you need to cut back from everything that you had your head around, in your past- and move on with something that makes you forget all of it.
On 29th April 2013, I found that. Or rather, she found the raving octopus inside me, which needed to be tamed and brought back to a two-legged form of existence. It started out as something very dismissive, usually people would dismiss it – And I don’t mean dumb people, I mean real sensible people from the real sensible world. It started out with a series of conversations that weren’t intended to be romantic in the first place, but as they say (by they- I mean everyone who knows what it means to be happy) Love always finds a way, especially in places where you’re least looking for it. My interactions with her led me to believe, as I do today, that happiness does not stem from success as the way the world sees around you, it does not come from the pride that you’ve nurtured in your head all your life. It doesn’t spring out of the wells of pleasure that you try and dig every day. It doesn’t come from meaningless pursuit of desires. Happiness, the way I’ve known it, can only come from the existence of true, unadulterated love in your life. It doesn’t ask you to give up on your dreams, but it manages to take precedence over everything else, whether or not you planned it that way. When you’re in a relationship that’s meant to be, you automatically realize that nothing else in your life is as important as holding onto it, nurturing it.
It grows like a sapling, in the garden of your thoughts, and blossoms in your heart. And then, one fine morning, when you wake up from a nightmare, you figure out that you’ve been living the best dream of your life for a year. It adds meaning to your life.
And then, you smile.
Oh and yes :D Happy One Year, baby.
Love,
Shom
