A friend introduced me to this ambient, instrumental band
the other day. It’s called Explosions in the Sky, and I’m honestly surprised
that I hadn't heard of them earlier. Then again, they are heavily featured in
several TV shows, as Wikipedia cared to inform me, and I’m sure we all have
heard a snatch of some of their stuff. Anyway, quoting Wikipedia again, they
specialize in music that is cathartic to the listener. While this may not ring
true with everyone, it was definitely music with a distinct positive-ness in
its tone and melody, and to me, it ended up giving me an epiphany rather than
become a means of catharsis.
True epiphanies are often rare. Yes, we all have our moments
of unparalleled genius; usually while in the shower. These are inevitably lost
in the deluge of other thoughts that pass through our brain every minute, every
hour, which are mostly regarding what’s for lunch (or dinner). But there are
moments when people stumble upon something really great. Maybe a struggling
musician finally discovers the perfect riff when he is languidly strumming his
guitar late at night. Maybe an entrepreneur decides to add a customized perfume
as freebie to a gift basket. And maybe an everyday man finds the perfect way to
put a smile on his kids’ faces. It all comes down to that one thought, the
moment of clarity and understanding, which is more self sympathetic than
inspirational, which solves the mystery of why life is the way it is. In most
cases, we tend to forget these moments within an hour tops and get back to our
old state, but somewhere in the back of our minds, that thought, the catalyst
for change has registered.
So I watching the song “First breath after a coma” by Explosions
in the Sky, that evening. It was the first song I heard, and I was already
“ready to get my mind blown”. The music was beautiful- complex, yet simple
enough to identify with, calm, peaceful and reassuring. The video was that of a
beautiful daylight sky. The blue was a delicious pleasant shade, seen only on
the brightest and most gorgeous winter days, and peppered with wisps of pure
white cottony clouds. It was breathtaking and I kept watching. About a minute
later, I found myself to be restless. I was waiting for something to happen.
After all, the name of the band was “Explosions in the sky”, so where are the
fireworks, I asked. Nothing happened. The anticipation grew and grew and
reached a fever pitch. I was actually perturbed at why I wasn't seeing people
running (I don’t know why, but the perfect music video in my head, always
features people running!) or birds flying. So, two and half minutes into the
video, and I was still staring at the sky, feeling a little bit angry now, and
even a bit cheated, when I realized the beauty of it all.
All of us are constantly waiting for something to happen. We
lead our lives every day, hoping that something epic may occur which will make
our day exciting. We wake up in the morning praying that the big guy upstairs
will create a moment of serendipity in our lives, and things will change immediately.
In fact, we are so busy waiting for the extraordinary, that we don’t realize
that life has passed us by. 2013 is winding to a close, and I still am in the
same place I was a year ago, waiting for answers, waiting for inspiration. With
hearts filled with a deep seated feeling of discontent and regret about the
things we could have done, or even should have done, all we do is live a life
where we are always waiting for a glorious future to knock at our door and
sweep us away from a past cluttered with perceived mistakes. This waiting
consumes us to such an extent, that we forget to enjoy the life we are
currently leading. Who am I? What’s my purpose? What am I passionate about?
What do I love? We would be lying to ourselves if we say that we do not ask
ourselves these questions. Yes, there
are a definitely a few among us, who have gone beyond waiting to actually
doing. These are the people we should seek inspiration from. But most of us
just spend our lives like the fairy tale princess, Sleeping Beauty, living life
inertly and waiting for the handsome prince to kiss away our mundane existence.
Marveling the fact that I had made such a profound
observation, I continued watching, feeling slightly happier and less sorry for
myself. This is when I stumbled upon another epiphany. Wow, a double bonanza, I
thought to myself as I began to ponder about yet another peculiar
characteristic of us, people. As I was watching the video, patterns started to
emerge from the clouds. Now, all of us can definitely relate to the time we
used to spend as children watching the clouds and trying to find shapes in
them. Now, the ever evolving sky where the clouds are buffeted by the winds, by
itself, is a source of metaphors galore, but we will keep that for another
time. So, as I watched, I saw several things including what looked like a pig
wearing a party hat. I was looking out for patterns, yes, but to see this while
listening to moving music and pondering on weighty topics, was less than ideal.
This simply will not do, I said to myself and tried to find other patterns. I
strained to find a face or something like a large banyan tree, but the pattern
of the pig was most visible, followed by what looked like a man-eating
crocodile. Needless to say, I was disappointed, as I searched harder and
harder. And right there, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Apart from waiting for life to happen, waiting for a sign or
chance, we humans are always searching for patterns. We look so hard for
meanings, answers, structure and even predictability, that we are ready to find
them were none exist. In fact, we force of ourselves to accept situations with
some arbitrary reasoning, giving ourselves excuses for things we are afraid of
facing. Acceptance of situations is sometimes harder than struggle, and most of
us are content with using any flawed logic in order to avoid what could
possibly be a hurtful, but necessary truth. While it is true, that on the
grandest scale of things, nothing is truly random and that there has to be a
scheme to result in such perfection we call the universe, real life can be
random. Isn't it better to leave some things unexplained, rather than to force
out a meaning out of nothing, to try to give some semblance of reason to a situation?
Most of us, (or may be just I) over think, over feel and let any stressful
situation overwhelm us, but always under act. Using our time trying to think of
five different possible reasons why a bad thing happened is much easier than
finding even one active solution to make it go away. This is the bitter truth
and this is possibly one of the humanity’s biggest flaws. Along with shoulder
pads in suits and men’s harem pants!
As the song progressed that evening, I closed my eyes and
firmly told myself to stop thinking about the pig. I told myself to stop
looking for something to happen or something to be there, ever present behind
the veil, and just enjoy the music. It was a conscious effort but it paid off.
I was lost in the soft strums of the guitar, the steady reassuring rhythm and
the melody that eventually lifted my spirit and gave me a sense of solace.
Perhaps, that is what catharsis really is: the feeling that, in the end
everything will be all right. At the risk of quoting Om Shanti Om, (that spoof
movie actually did offer a wealth of wisdom in the form of corny dialogues)
which was itself inspired by a quote from John Lennon, “Everything will be okay
in the end. If it’s not okay, then it’s not end”. And in the end, I thought I saw vague picture
in the clouds, which resembled a mother hugging her son. So perhaps, it is
true, in the end everything simply has to fall into place and that all of us
simply will end up happy; not a possibility, but a certainty. Life can
definitely be a dream, rather The Dream, but only when we learn to live it.
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