Wednesday, November 25, 2009

A Life Less Ordinary


Its been too long. 

But I suppose sometimes you just don't have all that much to say. And that too can be a good thing. 

I often find myself at a loss for words when people ask me that most innocuous of questions "What's up?" And I rummage through my mind for a coherent, robust answer worthy of this eponymous query. Sure,  I can tell the rhetorical what's-up from one of those probing, searching, investigative ones. But the discomfort I feel at the latter is becoming something of a social handicap. 

And I have never been more acutely aware of this handicap.

For this I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of that wonderful warm shiny gooey thing called facebook. My friends (facebook friends that is) all seem to have highly exciting lives peppered with occasional drama, lots of fun times and most importantly a definitive road map of where this exciting life is going to take them next. (Explanatory status message coming up...) 

I used to be one of those people in the pre-facebook era. Figured out, with much less self-doubt and anxiety about where everything is going to end up. Now here I am, wondering what will be while the rest of the world is sending me live updates of lives being lived (or so the facebook messiahs would have me believe) 

Never has the phrase "Get a life" seemed more ironic. Because now, you can! 

The cup of life that is social networking is always on the up and up, never rock-bottom low mixing with the dregs of yesterday. So when one stares into it , rarely do you get to see rock bottom. But when you do hit rock-bottom - and everyone does at some point - even a lame little "what's up" will make you want to punch someone in the face. 

Sometimes I have to shake myself out of the ennui of keeping up appearances. Its not the harmless banter that bothers. Its the feeling of constantly being sized up. The whole idea of living your life like a roster of what you did-who you met-where you went.  It might be worth asking then - "How would you live your life if you knew no one was watching?" 

Its unsettling - this feeling of living your own life as if you had been for the longest time, merely an opening act in a great variety show. Always on the outside, waiting for the show to start. Stealing a glance every now and then at the audience from behind the red velvet curtain. And while we stare diligently at cursor on screen, tomorrow becomes today becomes yesterday all at once. 

And I worry more at this than my seeming lack of ambition, goals and road-maps-to-a-better-life..... because how will there be nostalgia, if I cant't even remember living? 

 

7 comments:

Olive Tree said...

Hi, it's a very great blog.
I could tell how much efforts you've taken on it.
Keep doing!

Sushrut said...

so true

Ruchita Madhok said...

sigh
i know
facebook is evil
its like u have to send out a status update to remind the world u exist.
sometimes its nice tho...when u want to share a little happiness or ask for help with something

we're all toooo connected either which way

Priyanka Chhabra said...

i stumbled on your blog. and was on the same trail. the annoying 'what you doing - these days' question. i think we need better conversation starters

errormsg! said...

i know, 'whats up' is just so vague, and i NEVER know what to say to that, for its hardly relevant and almost always, way to ordinary (thankfully!)

i like this post a lot, especially the last coupla lines. quite moving :)

Mandakini said...

hello all and thank you for your comments :)

@priyanka - yep. we are all guilty of that particular over-used conversation piece. definitely need to re-think and re-invent.

Anonymous said...

Lovely thought here :) rings a million bells in my head, because I recently got off facebook. precisely because i got tired of how everyone has become so used to this compulsive sharing. so much so that it becomes meaningless. and yes, what it does on one hand is make you wonder why people are beaming out every little detail about their lives and on the other hand it makes you assess where you stand in comparison. sucks! totally sucks!