Chapter 30: Life

Yesterday, I bid goodbye to one of my best friends at Montreal international airport. The airport was busier than most of the days, so we were told. We grabbed one last dinner together. After double checking his luggage for one last time and sorting the passport and tickets out, it was time for check in, time for him to leave. I was sad to see him go. 

I first met him when I was working as a Research Analyst in Chennai, India. We became good friends mostly because of our movie conversations and the common goal which was 'study abroad'. We entered this country together two years ago with couple of American Tourister bags, filled with uncertainties, hopes, terror, and excitement. We didn't know anyone in this country. The language was new and so were the people and culture. We faced most of the daily challenges together. We got along well as most of our hobbies, interests and passions were the same. We both found solace through photography, cinema, and books. We explored the country together and discovered some strange, beautiful and remote places. We were sliding down a small hill, just so that we can take pictures of a pure blue lake at minus twenty five degrees. We made short movies and exchanged books. As life in Canada made us revolve in vicious circles, sometimes we were ahead of or behind each other. But wherever we were we never failed to occasionally catch up a movie or once in a while grab a beer to talk about the pointlessness of life or the brutality of capitalism. We helped each other financially during tough times. Eventually we completed our studies and I, at least for awhile, secured a job of my own and he secured his. After two years of relentless adventures, poverty, excitement, depression, happiness, sadness and indifference, he finally decided to move to a different country to pursue a better future. I travelled from Toronto to Montreal with him. We walked around the old Montreal and tapped the gates of the beautiful Notre Dame, one last time,  just as a tribute for our three days Montreal adventure, the previous year. Then I dropped him off at the airport, bid good bye. At the time of parting he shook my hands and said "It's been a pleasure doing business with you." At that point I realized that I have no idea when I'd see him again and also that he is right! It has been pleasure doing business with him! 

                                                                                                         

It's been a day now. I am sitting at the same coffee shop near my place where we used to sit, almost every day, over six hours, late at night time, applying for countless number of jobs through various different job sites. Finally at around 3 or 4 am, we'd walk down the empty road discussing movies, future, and life in general.

I am looking around me and there are lots of people. Some of them, I've seen before and I am almost certain that I'd see them tomorrow.  But some I've never seen before. Hundreds of people sitting and having coffee in groups, having conversations, some serious and some light ones, discussing about their jobs and promotions and difficulties of being a mom and dad and so on. While all of this is happening around  me, I can't stop but to constantly ask myself a few questions. I always had these bunch in my mind, but never bothered to try to find the answers. Maybe there's none?

What am I doing here?

I honestly don't know. Yes, I am trying to survive. Trying to pay my bills. Now that I'm living on my own, I feel like I should build a statue for my dad and mom and honor them as they've been doing this forever. They took care of me and my sister and struggled to pay the bills and they somehow managed to do it and they still are doing it. Trying to pay the bills and survive in this environment is a biggest accomplishment in itself. But still, is that what I'm supposed to be doing? I guess that's why I came to this country. In search of something that may or may not exist. I honestly don't know what that is!

What's my life about?

I always think that my life is a movie and it is playing out in front of me in which I'm the lead character, the  narrator. But what am I narrating? If my life is a book or a movie, I should be able to describe it right?

As someone asked me recently, 'What's your life's mission statement?' 

You know what my reply for that is? 'Uhhhh' that's it! 

He continued 'If a business deserves a mission statement, your life also deserves it. Because your life is larger and better than any business ever existed.' That is very true. But what is my mission statement? Should I find out? Should I have to define it? or can I just watch it unwind. It certainly is beautiful to watch it unwind. But I don't have a sense of control if it unwinds by itself.

I am just thinking out loud through words as I am sitting in this coffee shop, looking at all of these people being alone and being together, arriving and departing. I feel like my life is one of those strategy games. I am given few resources in my hand and I should make something out of it. What am I supposed to make out of my resources. I have a Project Management post graduate degree, a Mechanical Engineering bachelors degree. I am passionate about photography, movie making, writing stories, telling stories, making up stories as I go, observing everything around me, having inner monologues, being alone, being with certain people ... Are these my resources? If so, what should I make out of all this?

This is kind of a personal confession, but I had to do this. It has been two years since I had any inner peace. am filled with uncertainties, confusions, and questions.  Of course I have inner peace when I watch a movie, or find a new location to take pictures or when I write a new bizarre story. But I am most certain that those peaceful moments are the result of the diversion I create from all those questions and confusions. Underneath of it all, it is still there. I am at the point of my life where I constantly ask 'what's the point?'

Sometimes I feel like there's no point whatsoever. We, people are just imitating each other by going to jobs and getting married and having kids and retiring and dying. But at the end of the day, nobody knows what the fuck they're doing. It is all, one huge imitation cycle, that must've started somewhere when we as humans began to define things.

Being happy, might be the point. Doing something which makes me feel happy. What makes me feel happy and settled?  Many things make me feel happy but nothing makes me feel settled and grounded. Nothing as of now. But I've been trying to think of something to do which would make me feel settled.

I recently came across few people who did something with their life,  which is so different than an ordinary person's day to day actions. One person rented his forehead for a month as an advertising space and making a living out of it.

Another person sold his life, after a brutal divorce. Sold his life? How's that possible? His life package contains his home, his vehicles, his job, and a personal introduction to all of his friends and everyone he knew and teaching everything he knew. He then walked away from his life and started a new one.

I have so many possibilities as of now. From this very coffee shop moment onwards, I can do so many things that would take me in so many different directions and places. What should be my next move, regarding my career and my life in general? What should be the next thing to do after finishing this post, that might affect my life significantly?

Just thinking out loud!