Millennials without a cause,,,

Complete your studies, acquire some skill, get a job, get some money, marry, have a house and a car, have kids, and then die. This is the "de facto" life package for past generations. This is the what they call normal and any deviation to this pattern is deemed abnormal or even sacrilegious.
I was born in mid 80's, child of 90's. I am what they call millennials, but I do not adhere to the definition by the year I was born in, but by the attributes of the "Gen Y". I personally feel millennials are the "deviation" of the above said pattern. Millennials is the generation which has been exposed to one of the biggest achievements of the mankind, information technology. It has endued a certain sort "self consciousness". It is also very fluid, people have many personas manifested through different social outlets. Which makes it very difficult to even know one self let alone being extended to others.
So as long as one is refusing to be normalised,  they are millennials without a cause.

Career choice,,,

Whenever the age reflects on my views and I need an innocent insight on life, I tend to talk to my sister's daughter. Couple of years ago, just of five summers, she had already realized the importance of  "identity" when she told me that when she grows up, she wants to be someone. This is when I started to ask her about what she wants to be when she grows up.
At first, she wanted to be a scientist, later an artist,then ballerina, an astronaut and then a teacher. But then she just told me that when she grows up, she's gonna work at McDonald's.  I was amazed by her career choice, not for the apparent reason that most of the people look down working at McDonald's, personally I don't care where the hard earned money is coming from until the means are clean. My concerns were that If she is already aware of the importance of being someone, why didn't she choose something where she can make bigger impact. Last week, she just said something that not only justified her choice, but put me in an embarrassing but very epiphanic situation. She said she wants to work at McDonald's so she can hand over free fish o fillets to her brother. I said this doesn't work like that my young Padawan to which she replied that she doesn't get why we have to work for money. Why can't we get food for free, when I will work for McDonald's, I will give free food to poor. Well this was utter blow to me, I realized this is the most innocent and naive way of a "human being of service" to others. This was her way of venting her altruism. Cliched it may sound, this world could be a better place if adults are not deprived of their innocence,,,

Sweeter than the nectar,,,

I found my self next to the calmly flowing river, and the weather was just perfect. Summer was chasing winter, the breeze started to have subtle warmth in it. Morning was edging over the sky and suddenly the night gave it the final push, and it seemed like someone has colored the horizon with pinkish hue. Everything was moving towards perfection and I was struggling to fathom the depth of her eyes. The pupils were so widen that I almost fell in them but suddenly her lips saved me from the fall. Jolted, it took me a while to register the event, and I realized how delayed I was in the act. That was the first time I came to know kiss has a flavor, it is of the sweetest nectar you have ever tasted.
Kiss is the earliest instrument of life, Adam and Eve kissed and life started where the last standing sinner will receive it from the grim reaper at the end, so life starts and ends with a kiss,,,

Timelessness,,,

In the process of growing old and getting young, the concept of time has really perplexed me. It falls within the same category of phenomenon we feel, observe through their symptoms but not able to define them. I don't wanna indulge in the philosophical conundrum related to the unreality of the time, but mostly my memory serves me well. When recalling a event, the illusion of timelessness imbues me, because the events we recall mostly are in isolated state, without the information of immediate next or past related to them. Seems like memory is an incarceration with mirrored walls, and once captured, it can not escape. It just reflects with every ricochet and time ceases to exist.

Language has enabled humans,,,

Language has enabled humans to say things that they don't mean, believe or even have a slightest ability to apprehend. This has helped us to conjure up jargon and hide our vices behind it. Lie, is the invention of the language and not of the thought, the impetus of it is pure lingual. The reason is that language is amoral, emotion less construct and humans have exploited it. Reciting promises that they never intend to keep and flourishing hope when things are at their bleakest. "Glass is half full", is one of the best examples of the latter; where glass is always half empty by its virtue of utility. Instead of making ways to either fulfill the glass to its brim, or adapting our thirst to be quenched with what we have, we have came up with this idiom to palliate the situation...

Identity crisis,,,

In the quest of self, I ponder upon who am I. This question precedes the question of what I am, so to reach there, we have to answer first the "who" part. Am I just a thinking being, who reduces the existence to the mere process of thinking and to reach on this conclusion I have to make an assumption, that there is some being which will never deceive me. 

Or I am a chaotic being hidden beneath this exterior which gives me the illusion of composition, tranquility and integrity.  But then this poses the duality of  ever changing and agitated "imaginary" self under the reflection of my body.

Or I am someone who can process the continuous stream of consciousness, which boil downs to a subject perceiving an objects. 

Or I am the impure manifestation of the immutable and somewhat "heavenly" form shadowed in me,,,

You are, therefore you work

Historians have been dividing the world history in many epochs, mostly follow triad framework; for Toffler it is Agricultural, Industrial and then age of Information. For Yuval divided the history in Cognitive, Agricultural and then Scientific revolutions. I am not concerned with the division or how they work, but each epoch brings an existential crisis within. The urge of people to give some "meaning" to their life is always there. Since we are living in the world where everyone knows everyone, a new "collective self" has emerged, which could be considered as the essence of the time we are living in. "Collective self" could be a doctrine, standards, moral code or whatever imposes certain expectations on a person. This creates a drift between what society wants you to be and what you want to be yourself. The most of today's anxiety is sprouting from this drift. We can clearly say this is the era where, "You are, therefore you work". The humans have been reduced to mere "utility" to the society, where you are evaluated by professions. 

This epiphany came to me when my niece of just 6 summers told me that she wanna be someone when she grows up. I realized instantly the drift she is feeling and wants to give some meaning to her live by choosing a profession. Naive as is she, started off with becoming a scientist. Within a week from a scientist she decided to be an artist, then a ballerina and ended up to work at McDonald's. I have nothing against working any honest day job, but my advice on her career's choice (clearly the "collective self"), convinced her to work as a teacher when she grows up.

It takes two to recognize one,,,

If bear with me, do a cognitive exercise, imagine you are thrown in this world, alone, all alone. Just imagine there is no one. In this situation a dilemma of existential nature will arise. Even if we have required epistemology like categories, quantities and awareness of time and space, we wouldn't be able to ascertain, who we are. We would be needing at least one other living conscious entity to recognize oneself (the self here is of mere psychological nature). According to me this is the very reason that human beings are the most "attention hungry" creature. The acceptance or approval of other conscious beings is an integral diet of one's psychic. So it takes two to recognize one, maybe one's true self is just a hello away.

"Some become wise and some become fools for the rest of their life",,,

Within all the living things, humans have this tremendous ability to thrive and sustain their existence. Over the ages, human beings cease to extinct. This overwhelming urge to live is due to the fact that we are the most adaptable species. We can withstand the harshness of the climate, lack of food and none conducive environment. But these all are pertinent to our physical attributes, and we are beyond physical; and contrary to our ability to adapt our selves according to our environment, meta physically we have done the quite opposite. Instead of molding our selves to the meta physical ideas, we mold the ideas in a shape that fits us. The meta physical ideas that I am talking here about are absolute or pseudo absolute ones, more like Platonic forms. For example God, we can only idealize the existence of One, who is creator and sustainer, but this idea doesn't sell so well. We have mold it to such a degree that we have killed the true idea. Now mostly he is a punitive and judgmental being who we seek only when we need material things and not the His true will. We have done the same with the idea of love; the eagerness to learn reality of things, to be wisest of all, we have cast love just to present our needs. For me this is the defense mechanism of ours, hidden in our collective unconsciousness, where the social structure has pushed us to find "acceptance" in others rather than accepting our selves first. It is desperate to tell someone that you need them, so we have fabricated the concept of love, maybe to palliate the pain or make it more acceptable in society. With these changes, "some become wise and some become fools for the rest of their life".

Ones Lost,,,

Well most of the relations we have that are not imposed on us, are created out of emotions and feelings rather than rationale. Now I won't start the debate about the nature of the emotions, whether they are innate or acquired but I do state that we are conditioned to comprehend emotions in binary or extremes. This can be due to the incapacity of the language to associate more words with the feelings, or it is due to the fact that we can not express everything we feel. Sometimes feelings are lost in the translation. The whole idea of discussing this is to highlight the phenomenological aspect of emotions. A person can potentially be everything that is possible. We have to wear veils,guises and layers to hide all the unacceptable possibilities so that we can be accepted in a group,friends or a society.This is due to the reason I feel,that our existence is reflected not in our mind but in the consciousness of others. Then for them we become phenomena, they can only know us from what they already know and not actually what we are. That's why in the world which is growing out of proportion, where almost everyone knows everyone, this makes a person "acceptance hungry". So every new relation we make somehow starts with a bit of killing of ones true self.

Beyond time,,,

There was a time when all the experiences were pure and direct, without passing through the cognition. It was the time when I saw without eyes, listened without ears and spoke without language. I remember vaguely, wandering around in serenity, It came to me, all laden with black cloak, with grimly grin, offered me some fruit, a piece of cloak and then It walked with me for a while. When I acquiescently accepted Its gift, I was stabbed with scythe and the next thing I knew I was thrown into this world, entrapped within a body. Now all I experience is slave to my mind, truth is poisoned with relevance and perception. I realize the fruit It gave me was for perpetual hunger, the yearning for more, the cloak was not to fashion the clothing, but was to veil my perversion, to hide the beast I have inside me , but worst of all the stabbing of scythe in my heart, was for the lingering of other's acceptance,,,

Plan B ,,,

Well the gist of life is its spontaneity, its utter uncertainty. We plan and plan, but mostly our plans are returned in vain when ricocheted with reality. So it is must to have a plan B in life. My life is the biggest example of 'Plan B', it is running more or less in Plan B at least since I left the school. There are some things you can't plan, they strike you as lightening, some are shattered by it, some become more confident, more strong. In reality, instead of accepting our frailty and flow with the tide.We are afraid of the future, in our present where in the end, when this future will be our present, our present and past will be just glint in our eyes, they will be either regrets or rejoice, so I guess only way to live is to make our present better and joyful.   

You are beautiful,,,

Well been rational beings, we all ought to analyze things according to our innate and gained knowledge. But sometimes, over analyzing things kill the joy and beauty they possess. I believe somethings are just beautiful at the surface, like a rainbow projected on the clouds, the ripple on the water, the tide that is ebbing, sun's reflection on the smooth flowing Rhine. These things are beautiful on their surfaces. I believe everything with some exceptions, holds a general beauty. "The beauty lies in the eyes of beholder", subjectifies the beauty thus disparaging the generic beauty we all share. I guess at sometimes, some places we all were, are and will be beautiful. 

Every moment you live, you die.

Life came to me as nothing but an incarceration, imprisonment is imprisonment though its for one’s own benefit. In incarceration it doesn't matter what they have taken away from one but what have been given. It’s all about maintaining the comfort zone, I can remember the first time when someone took me away from my comfort zone. It was my mom’s gynecologist who thought he is better out than in, I contradict that. Free food, free place to stay, no bills to be paid, no promises to be made. I was happy, but then the doctor took me out and I cried all over her face, but she threw me in this world. After so many springs, my comfort zone was destroyed once again, oh those 13 horrendous days, when I was imprisoned. They said its for the good of society and me. In prison, one have nothing but time, and in my contemplation, I had an awakening, all those 28 years ago, I wasn't crying for being disturbed but I knew then that I have breathe first, I have to die last. The only unchangeable, inevitable truth. Pity every child knows that, that’s why they cry their lungs out, but the illusion of life, dusts the truth. Sometimes I can hear the cheeky grin of the reaper, laughing out on me. He is saying, every moment you live, you die.

Sky of Lahore,,,

Well what goes around comes around, there is no backing off from one’s doing. Nature has a way of giving us the precursors for future, and I realized it when I beamed my vision over the skies of once my beautiful homeland. A beautiful clear sky with a wide stretched golden haze, flossing clouds, and a lot of birds swirling around, their serenading chirps echoing the bliss in one's ears, but this time my sight was in vain to capture and reminiscent those beauty days of my yore. I didn’t know when this transition happened, its funny how one gets really imbued in enslaved schedule and misses the subtle priceless things. But what I saw this time was a sky filled with smoke and scavengers floating all over it. I haven’t seen such a number of death eaters before, they really jolted me to my soul. But again what we are doing on the ground is reflected on the skies. On the ground we are feasting on the carcass of a dead nation, in the skies kites and crows are savoring the helpless birds. The whole ecological system has changed, now I wasn’t able to find nightingales,doves,swifts and other precious birds that used to add beauty to Lahore. Even the number of wild pigeons have reduced alarmingly, once in abundance, now only can be seen near PU’s old campus or at Darbar. I wish one day the hopes and birds will be back again, but it seems most unlikely.