There is something about a dispassionate honest comment. Something which shakes me from my laidback, lacklustre existence and provokes me, pushes me into a labyrinthine maze of utter clarity shining through the dusty, smoky confusion which is ever prevalent in my life. (Whoa ! what a sentence!"I" wrote it??)
This particular conversation like many others I have had with a wide spectrum of people struck me immediately the moment it was occuring. It was as if something profound was being said in the most simplest of ways, without a complaint, without remorse, without any real feeling. Like stating the obvious. Yet, a certainty we wish not to accede to.
My uncle, roughly 75 years old, told me "Our state is like a discarded furniture". He said it without fuss, as matter-of-factly as possible. And on my subsequent protest he backed it up with an argument I could not disprove. His logic was he has lived a life where he has done it all, seen it all and today he has no contribution to make, either in his family life or in his professional life, let alone his social life. So, why live further? In a queer way, it is reminiscent of Adolf's theory of extermination of unproductive resources.
Rationality was always a family trait. But to such an extent! I did not know what to feel. And since, in a conflict of the heart and the mind, I have, contrary to my wish, always gone for the mind, I could not but disagree with him.
Which is what makes me insensitive ?
It lead me to think of the proverbial question which haunts me intermittently and which many in their own right have tried to find an answer to. "Why am I alive now?" and "Why should I live after I am 60?". The answer to the 2nd question is fairly easy at this time - "cross the bridge when we come to it". But the first one?
My explanation is - It is pointless. There is no reason for me to exist. And this I presume holds true for most of us. Ask yourself "What is the purpose of your life?" If you get an answer, then well, maybe you might have an outside chance of having a reason to live beyond 60.
If you don't, then well, just mint money for the time being - we will talk of philosophy later,sipping coffee by the Riviera.
