Life - what exactly is it?

We're born, we go to school, then pursue "higher education" at some college / university, start our professional careers, get married, produce kids, and then die. Of course, some of the luckier ones among us have a lot of fun in all this. My question is, is this what life's all about? I can quite understand that as humans, we need to eat, sleep and, pardon me, pee - these are inevitable things indeed.

Beyond these things, however, do we question our actions? Why do we go to school? Because our parents sent us there, and we didn't really have a choice. Why do we go to college? Because we start feeling vaguely uneasy that if we don't, then we'd perhaps not get "ahead" in life, or maybe because we feel that it'd be fun to spend some time there; more common, I've noticed, is the inner voice that tells us that a good degree ensures a good job - after all, an engineering degree is usually a gateway (in India, at any rate) to pursuing higher education abroad; and that higher education is a means of gaining a higher salary. A genuine desire to learn for the sake of acquiring knowledge is probably the least common of the reasons why we study.

The reason for holding down a job are pretty obvious, so I doubt if I should discuss it at all.

Marriage - this is possibly the most discussed topic among people who have crossed a certain age (ask, and I shall tell you!). It's also the most often quoted ingredient of the act of "settling down" in life; in fact, in some communities, settling down and marrying are almost synonymous. Please indulge me as I make the (admittedly stupid) assumption that the reasons given by a very small sample of the human population (of roughly a dozen or so friends and strangers) to be representative of the entire human race. Here are the top reasons why people marry:

1. Everybody marries! ("...so why shouldn't I?")
2. What else will you do in life later on? ("come on, there isn't much fun in life without a marriage!")
3. One has to settle down in life, you know (whatever that means!)
4. We need companionship in our later years (hmmm, seems to make some sense)
5. I love him / her, and want to spend the rest of my life with him (this makes sense too)
6. I love to have kids! (really? Why don't you adopt some orphans then?)
7. Mmm, er, it's a legally sanctioned way to, you know, make out, you know what I mean? No? (looks of embarrassment) Well, you know, you can make love with a member of the other sex all your life (that's pretty direct!)
8. I want to let the human race survive (ah, behold the great philanthropist at work; he's perhaps the one that smokes so that employees of tobacco companies don't go starving)
9. Peer pressure (I dig this!)
10. It's the done thing (oh yeah?)
11. My parents want me to marry, and I don't want to disappoint them (duh?)
12. I don't have the courage to face life without a life partner (this person is at least honest)

I'll let you form your own conclusions from the above. However, you'll notice that a lot of people don't really seem to have honest answers, and usually pass off other people's views as their own, or maybe they've hypnotised themselves into believing those views.

The last act of any human being is that of dying - and this is something over which we don't have any control - at least, not unless you're a highly evolved yogi - so it's pointless discussing this either.

In summary, I think we go through life mostly in deference to opinions that are not necessarily our own. To be fair, there are many situations over which we have no control, so that ought to somehow mitigate the charge of our actions being mindless, but all things considered, I can't help feeling that we are mindless automatons, most often programmed by society, and somewhat less often by ourselves.

Mind over matter

I am often amazed at what the human body can achieve when it's backed by human will. We can do much more than we think we can, and I daresay we'd be much happier individuals if we listen to our minds than if we listen to the complaints of our bodies. But again, that's a topic for another discussion :-)

On a bright Sunday evening, my neighbour's son, who's a very accomplished amateur trekker, and yours truly decided to venture out on a not-so-often-travelled trekking path; a path, to be sure, that many trek rookies are hardly aware of; something to avoid if yours is not the iron will ;-) To wit, we chose to cross the hills that stretched out from Katraj to Sinhagad. We reached the Katraj ghat section at precisely 5:30 and started out. We were armed with a few litres of water, two half-litre bottles of mango juice, some jam sandwiches, a mini-towel each, and, speaking strictly of my companion, tremendous trekking experience. Within half an hour, we had reached the first of many hills that we had to cross, and had soon crossed it. Within that time however, I, who had not been acquainted with physical activity that even moderately stressed the body, for a period of well over two months, began to be assailed by doubts about my ability to complete this seemingly impossible trek. My co-trekker, however, refused to let me give up, giving me every possible encouragement. I succumbed to the power of his speech, and chose to continue on till either the journey was complete, or I fell down exhausted.

He (my co-trekker and guide) had promised me that as the evening wore on and night fell, the trek would be more enjoyable, especially since we had chosen a full moon day. I found that he was absolutely right. Soon, under the hypnotic spell of the full moon, my negative energies left me, and I was filled with nothing but a desire to see this trek through.

As the evening wore on, we made good progress, though I couldn't really keep up with his scorching pace and stumbled here and then, not as sure of my footing as he was. But I'm proud to say this - I didn't slow him down significantly, and found reserves of energy within me whose existence I never even suspected. As we stopped for dinner, we gazed at a fantastic moon-rise - the most spectacular one that I've ever seen - and mused on the beauty of Mother Nature.

Eventually, four and half hours after we'd started, we reached our destination, the top of Sinhagad. Since it had become quite dark by then, we couldn't hitch a ride, and had to walk down the road, all the way to the base village. Once there, we managed to persuade some strangers into giving us a ride till the edge of Pune city, had dinner at a "Chinese" eat-out which was just closing down, managed to flag down an auto-rickshaw to take us to our homes, and then made our way to our respective apartments for a night of rest, each filled with a sense of achievement.

We plan to do this again during / just after the monsoons too, if everything goes well.

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