Restless

What do I want and what do I need? Till I was 23, when most of the decisions of my life went by conventions, I did not have to think. Life was superb. Apart from the occasional pangs of insecurity, I was happy. Thought less. Enjoyed stupid movies which I absolutely abhor now. Played sports to my heart's content. Loafed around with friends. Could not have had a better life.

The last years have been, for the lack of a better word, weird. Every year, I have had to decide on something or the other. Which would be quite defining. Significant. In almost all of those decisions, my life could have taken two different paths, different trajectories and different expectations.

I made the choices. I am responsible for all of them. But till about three years back, I never thought about this question. The answer may lie in a single word. Peace. And how do I get it? I don't know.

The later half of the twenties has been exhausting and a test of my mental strength and a time for serious consideration of values and of facing up to some hard-hitting realities of life. At the very least, it has been quite tiresome. Hardly exhilarating. Hardly like the life I had. I am consumed with a certain degree of restlessness - an unharnessed energy. Sometimes, I think, given a conducive situation, I can simply hurtle myself headlong into something and travel at breakneck speed towards - maybe oblivion, maybe glory.

But for what?

If I was a man of limited capabilities and limited ambition, I think I would have been supremely happy. At this juncture, I need to know whether I have it in me or I am just another in the crowd who would be happy with what life has to dish out rather than trying to extract something out of life. The restlessness is palpable. My friends can feel it. So can I. They sense a bit of urgency hitherto unknown in me. I, on the other hand, sense a lack of purpose. I have to break free, but from what - is a question I cannot seem to find an answer to.

Till that time, let me continue to rust in my world of illusions and increasingly keep on pushing the accelerator till I slam into a wall. To break it or to get broken. Either of them will serve the purpose. Happy in death or ecstatic in life.