BEHIND THE POEM: LIFE IS A RACE

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© The Superfit Project

About 5 years ago, I was going through some troublesome times. As a teenager, I was discovering a different, more edgy side of the world. The innocence was withering away along with the obvious. Life was becoming harsh and more meaningful at the same time. Around the same time, while dealing with the heartbreaks a teenager usually goes through, I observed a pattern. I realized people always chase those who run away from them and run away from those who chase them. I wanted to solve it. For that I needed to know the cause. I kept thinking about it and 5 years later the following line was born:

It is our desperate tendency

To strive for the forbidden fruit.

In those 5 years, I wrote many poems, thought of many philosophies but not once was I able to theorize a solution for this issue. As I have discussed in another Behind The Poem, I often find answers while writing poetry. So, that’s what I did. I got obsessed with an alternate version of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” In the original rhyme, the students ask the teacher why the lamb used to follow Mary everywhere. To which the teacher responded that it’s because the lamb loves Mary as much as Mary loves him. I thought what would it have been like if Mary didn’t love the lamb as much? This was mused in the most grammatically correct line I’ve ever written *wink*.

Until he started wondering whether

His absence make any difference.

This made me realize how much we are like the little lamb. How hard we try to tip-toe around people who are harsh to us, even though we should not. How hard we try to beat the reality. How hard we keep going for something until it finally breaks. Some of us keep going even after that. We run for goals that are not in our trajectory, we run for relationships that have gotten over a long time ago, we put the dead on a ventilator and push oxygen into their lungs even after light has left their eyes. Ultimately, we all race against ourselves. Why? Because we’re

Trained to participate in tough races

The poem is not about our race against others, it is about our race with ourselves. How we should have said some words but we held them back for five long days until the effect wore off and decided not to say anything at all and broke off something which could have been so special and eternal.

What we speak, however, are comforting lies

Over and over until we forget the truth.

We fool ourselves from time to time to believe that we’re not in the race. Or if we’re self-aware enough to realize that we’re in it, we fool ourselves to believe that it is a race that we’re meant to be in.

But if we keep holding on so tightly,

We would end up with fractured fingers.

The above lines are actually inspired by a real-life situation where my finger got fractured under the most ridiculous circumstances. It’s sad that I realized the metaphor too late. Life could have been easier if I had stopped trying a long time ago. Had I exorcised the ghost of the past earlier, it would have made way for the new.

This poem wasn’t a writing exercise. It was a process. It had its learning curve. What I learned as a solution to the forbidden fruit tendency of human nature was,

Some things ought to be effortless.

A point that has, for long, been mute.

It surprises me how people (including my older self) keep trying relentlessly to save/make things that are so clearly not meant to be. An artist becomes an engineer, a couple chooses cheating over divorce, a loser chooses to snatch the mic from the winner and rant about how someone else deserved to win, a failure chooses to commit suicide than starting the same life anew. We have been lectured so much about hard work and discipline that it has overlapped every single aspect of our lives and we have forgotten that our main field, at the end of the day, is supposed to be effortless. Engineering is not supposed to be taken because everyone else is doing so, rather because it feels right and smooth to do it. Marriage is not supposed to remain because people will judge if you divorce and choose peace for both. Blames should not be thrown on the world for being racist in every single thing! Introspection is what we really need. Vamping the attitude and outlook towards life is what we really need.

If only we counted our blessings

Instead of wailing over our sorrows.

We just notice the flaws in our lives and think that it is cursed. We think our bad times are because of our bad luck and not a result of our karma. We keep sulking over how a door has been closed. If our eyes are all watery, how are we going to see the light coming from the other side where another door has been opened?

If only we cherished it when present

Instead of missing it in tomorrows.

We keep running away from the hard truths and throwing lies at our faces so much that we decide to let what could have been great, burn in anguish. Then we miss it in the future. Now it is long gone and we can’t revert it. How about we change it and try to relish the presence of something, without attaching any hopes and expectations. Just relishing whatever life has handed down to us. Sounds good, doesn’t work? Try it! Definitely better than making that excuse.

Placidity is its translation.

I know this line sounds too abstract and untouchable. It takes a lot for one to reach the state of placidity. Even I don’t claim that I have reached it. But imagine your detractors trying to shame you and you do not give them the satisfaction of falling for it. It is going to infuriate them, right? Now try applying this to every other aspect and you will see a difference. I am trying, I wish you would too.

Thank you for taking out time to read the poem and give it all the love and support. The level of acclaim that you have endowed upon me is unprecedented. Thank you for everything! Stay tuned for the next work coming soon...

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