Live in the present moment.
Everyone experiences hardships, obstacles, or crises at some point or another that can upset their sense of well-being and personal happiness, so much so that they lose their sense of direction. Therefore, it is best to enjoy your earth-born life in whatever way you can, free of too many regrets that could cause you to dwell on them and waste away the short time and space granted to you in this big bad and indifferent world of AI-powered gaslighting, techno-feudalistic fiefdoms, ‘Cloud’-exploitative, inflationary, fast-warming tragicomic planet of ours.
God’s law proclaims that life is precious, so love it while you have it in this brief history of cosmic time passing by. So go on ahead: allow yourself to embrace the moment. Live in the present and—more importantly—engage with life, and your destiny will take care of itself. Have a better wardrobe and keep calm. Read real books (not those dumb Kindles!), listen to music, talk to people, walk in the woods, travel solo or with a friend or two (remember, two is company, three is chaos), chop onions to cry for a change, date your celeb crush (in your head), take a dip in a pond, or go on a virtual ego trip: google yourself—learn to be happy and chipper with whatever you have, no matter how little or insignificant it might appear to others, for you it makes a great deal of difference and it should. Have hopes and expectations that even though not all of them may get fulfilled, the thought is not to fulfil them all, yet to fulfil may be at least one because it takes an entire lifetime to implement just one great wish. Not everyone can be a millionaire or a spiritual master like Sadhguru, but one can earn enough while being cool about it; be one with nature. Mother nature solves everything.
Little things lift your spirits, and if you care to know what they are, they often evoke a sense of foolhardy joy enough to make you go forward in life. We all stand a chance in life, but we should keep looking forward to experiencing it and moving forward without unuttered, unhealed emotional baggage. In a world full of lies, truths are a rarity, so believe in your memories and be nostalgically inclined. Longing for the past will inform your present. Thus, strike a balance.
Understanding change
One inevitable, unavoidable, and usually overwhelming constant in life is change. I resisted change in the only manner I knew how — I let it change and take its course. In a world that has already undergone tremendous shifts beyond recognition, being resistant to change is futile and emotionally taxing. Therefore, reminiscing my childhood memories, my time in school and college, my old friends, and my lost loves have helped me get through some of the most trying times in my professional life. Be that as it may, I never let go of my antipathy for change, for change is still an old villain to me, and I love looking back with deep gratitude and joy on my formative years in the 1980s and 1990s. So, change had to come around sooner or later, and it happened after the year 2000, although I'd prefer to think that I never changed—I just learned to live with it, feeling the loss, loneliness, and longing of all those years.
It can be hard to adjust to the current situation (of political and humanitarian catastrophes that affect half of the world), especially for people who are 'pessimistic optimists' (like myself) and overly analytical (which I'm not) - as I'm not beholden to fashionable change: change for the sake of change. Again and again, we may struggle to reconcile our constant need for stability and security with the ever-changing nature of our lives in a world that appears to be annihilating humanity; I often wonder how humanity still survives in a world that is becoming more and more apocalyptic. Ah well.
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At the same time, it is also hard to downplay the significance or effects of change in the twenty-first century. We live in an age of fanatic capitalism, unrestrained consumerism, and even unchecked egotism, and change is bound to happen the way it happened, especially in the last twenty-five years or so. It’s a world of ever-accelerating technological advances, global economic shifts, and political upheavals that often combine to form one big roaring mess that, I am sure, no sane individual could sort. Social Media—with its capacity for making instant connections or breaching personal space, depending on how you look at it—are like your hair standing up your back, carrying the danger of creating virtual echo chambers and encouraging crude forms of communitarian sentiment that have nothing to do with established morals. While one is not against any networking 24/7 metaverse fantasy platform, it does come with time and age, but these have had enormous consequences on our lives for the past two decades. Although using social media daily has become routine, it was never supposed to be a natural way to work, play, or socialize. But we are now beginning to grasp its societal ramifications, which is why the usage of that social media juggernaut, Facebook, is fast declining. Whoever remembers Orkut? Another application named Google Plus tried to rival Facebook, but it didn’t last long in the global yik yak race. Facebook is also heading fast towards the graveyard of such failed social apps. MySpace is long dead. RIP, ye all, don’t ever come back!
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Change can be scary and, therefore, disconcerting for some people, who still cannot forget the traditional way of life of the decades past. But it also brings up new possibilities and fresh meanings we, if not all of us, can relate to and find new definitions that could be useful to accommodate. Instead of fighting change that really can't stop, we can use our natural-born analytical skills and the plain lust for life to look for potential benefits of change while keeping a realistic eye on its likely pitfalls. Bla bla bla. We can likewise focus on building resilience and finding creative ways to navigate our lives in this rapidly changing world; it can do a world of good to us. (Conversely, it is up to us what we believe is creative or life-sustaining and what is not as we sort the wheat from the chaff to be on the better side of history). Finally, change is a natural aspect of life that we cannot shun as if it isn't there at all. Preferring the status quo is perilous. We may only sometimes like it, but knowing how to use it to our advantage is the key to being aware of it. It can be an opportunity to expand and grow, learn new skills, and broaden our horizons, helping us to find our purpose and become more conscious of our place in our interdependent, interconnected AI-powered, apps-controlled freaking world. So, it may not feel like you're a frolicking fool while being oblivious to change, but change may bring the possibility for growth and transformation (without warming up the planet further) that you can welcome. If you have a stomach ache or a headache, or something isn't quite right with you, think about change; you'll know!
The future of our species, ha ha ha, Homo sapiens, which translates to "wise men" in Latin, is uncertain. In the face of such a bleak reality, how do we keep an open mind, a loving heart, and an optimistic outlook (all rolled into one) to make the most of life's inevitable changes? There are many possible answers to this issue, but none and I'm not over-thinking this, will be satisfactory to soothe our hearts and minds and put our concerns to rest; let's not delude ourselves with unnecessary optimism about the current situation of humanity in the Middle East or the Far East.
In life, nobody can be unconcerned and look happy, and it's unrealistic to expect constant happiness in the face of global turmoil. Life has changed irrevocably, and it's hard to find the beauty in it now.
Even though it might feel like a storm in a teacup to deal with the dizzying changes occurring today, it is more sensible to acknowledge that in the not-too-distant future, the imaginable outcomes will hopefully outweigh the downsides. That's where we should stop, I suppose. Let's leave it at that.
By Arindam Moulick
*'Gyaan session' = ‘knowledge session’ or ‘inputs sessions’
*'Light lelo' (or 'lite lelo') = Hyderabadi slang for ‘take it easy’ or ‘chill bro’