Guys! Greetings from a middle-aged hybrid person!
A hybrid person in his early fifties from the East with a somewhat immersive experience of, but fuller cognitive development in, the West, I would like to share what I think are insights with you.
Guys! This may sound a tad paternalistic, patronizing, and even presumptuous. But I am sure you will overlook my insouciant insolence.
I come from a generation that still thinks cumulative experience leads to some degree of wisdom and learning, and that this learning must be passed on.
Folks, I beg you, forgive me then. All I ask in the attention economy is a few moments of your time and, at the risk of sounding repetitive, attention.
Guys! Serendipity, that beautiful word, ah, that word which tells a lot without explaining much by making a mockery of cause and effect, made me make contact with the Western world.
This, folks, was the mid-90s of the 20th century, a happening one, as you may call it.
I had a fractured self then.
It was in Australia, toward the fag end of what I think was more a sojourn than anything else, that I healed. I picked up the fragments of myself and became somewhat whole.
But it was not my quest to become a man of reason that made me somewhat whole. It was, well, I blush here, a bold and a beautiful one that helped.
The woman, who still resides in my heart in an elevated state, had, maybe not consciously, gone beyond the known, reason, into the unknown, the world of the spiritual and romanticism.
Guys, you know what, I am a Muslim and I should have known. But it was this bold and beautiful woman who introduced me to the great Mawlana Jalaaluddin Rumi, the poet of Islam. I also came to know about Omar Khayyaam of Iran and his famous romantic quatrains.
I still find this embarrassing, but I stand indebted to the fab woman. It was, guys, the best of times and the worst of times for me.
In the interstices of these, I healed and became somewhat whole. It was a sense of being, as that great German Heidegger would have called Dasein, where romance and romanticism became servants to reason and rationality.
My conscious self had been maneuvered into going to Australia for what we, in South Asia, call higher studies, in other words, a quest for a degree, knowledge, a job, and certainty.
But Allah had different plans for me, folks.
I ended up becoming more attuned to my soul and the romantic quest. Of course, the process, or the path and the journey, was difficult, even painful. But it was all worth it despite my irretrievable loss, the fab Australian woman.
But, guys, I still have her, her memory, the bold, beautiful, intense spiritual moments. This was, and remains, my education, folks!
And, in worldly terms, I have, besides my faith, an all-important determining locus of my existence, her memories to savour, cherish, and hold on to.
The corollary to this, forgive my rather reflexive use of academic parlance, was the transfiguration of, first, my fragmented self into a man of reason but, ultimately, a man on a romantic quest.
I get ahead of the story here, guys, and I guess I am rambling.
But I am over 50. I am sure you will overlook it and forgive me.
Folks, this is very important. As a mere man of reason, I would have gotten a job, settled down, worked off my ass for the government or a company, made lots of money and, in my early fifties, sought a shrink for helping me out of a midlife crisis. I would have fetishized my body, preened myself with branded clothing, snazzy cars, and may have been divorced a few times.
This may have earned me applause in the eyes of my peers and society for pivoting and reinventing myself, in tune with changing times.
The hours spent writing project reports, warding off jealousies of colleagues, learning the corporate hoopla, ingratiating myself with bosses and clients, may have made me a millionaire, with stock options to boot.
But I would, during lunch hours, while nibbling a Subway sandwich by myself, or a chicken tikka, or a doner kebab, think about my dispersed family and brood. I would then either, in my latest Tesla model, or its Chinese variant, drive home. Or I would catch a BART, a subway train or tram, unfold my newspaper, read the gory, or salacious, scandalous, and sensational news of the day.
The train would drop me at the station and I would then walk into my spacious apartment bedecked with fancy gadgets.
Alone and lonely, I would make myself a cuppa, throw frozen food into the microwave, grab a bite to eat, watch TV, and doze off.
The same saga would repeat itself every day till ennui and boredom would so grip me that a vacation to chill, detox, and rejuvenate in an exotic locale, Bali maybe, would titillate me.
I would, in the meantime, hold regular counselling sessions with my shrink, who would induce me to foray into childhood memories, relations with siblings, and my mother to seek some moment of trauma.
I would leave the shrink’s clinic, feeling lighter, but only for the evening.
The same drudgery, the same anxiety of the past and for the future, would recur and hold me in a vise-like grip. To peer into the future, post-retirement, I would probably live off my pension and savings, maybe in an old age home.
I would, one day, die.
A service provider would make the funerary arrangements. Children would weep and grieve for a moment. An epitaph on my grave would say: Here’s a man who lived a full life. Peace be upon him. Amen.
That would be it.
Guys, I know I have been rambling on and on. I am about to finish my talk and be done lecturing, as you may be thinking. But I am sure you will ignore this, be kind, and allow me to conclude.
We early middle-aged guys love nothing more than being listened to. Having lived as anonymous cogs, we love being the centre of attention. You know it, guys. You are a smart, empowered, connected, and more empathetic generation. You will allow us our moment of fame and attention.
So, after all this rambling, guys, what do I have to actually say, you may be wondering.
Folks, I thank you from the depths of my heart for listening to me. I am flattered and honoured. Bear with me a few more moments.
All I am, in my incoherent way, trying to say is that I have not lived entirely. I have mostly existed. But the interlude where the fab woman introduced me to the worlds of Rumi and Omar Khayyaam, opening more such worlds, was the best one.
It was the gateway to romanticism, bliss, and spirituality. It was a world where reason and rationality did not reign supreme.
These were not discarded but put in their place as servants to romanticism.
In this world, the soul had primacy, and the body was not ignored. But it was a container for the soul. It was the soul that was to be nourished, not that the body was to be ignored.
No, folks, not at all. It was a world where the soul and the body connected to nature in a sublime, spiritual idiom. It was a world where the weak and the marginalized, the ill and the destitute, were not liabilities but members of a wholesome society.
It was a world of the esoteric, the mystical, and the quest for the unknown, a world where reason had a place but only as an aid to human wellbeing.
A few more words, folks, and I am done!
I do not have a self-help healing book to offer you, nor tantalizing dreams of what all money can buy, nor the titillations of an ephemeral and illusory world of the senses to offer.
Sorry, guys, that’s not me.
As a South Asian origin person, I will and can only offer a thousand apologies for this. But while being a South Asian origin person, I am not the mimic man who wears a white mask on a brown face.
I am me, guys, unapologetically so!
Guys, this is what I offer, a few words of advice, if you may, or suggestions: Be yourself, guys!
Don’t choose to be victims of an unconscious civilization sleepwalking into an abyss of possessiveness, mere competitiveness. Don’t let a mere quest for a career, as important as it is, define it.
Reconnect to your selves.
Reconnect with your soul and nature. Internalize a quest for the unknown, and respect each other and cherish your humanness and humanity.
As and when you develop the latest AI application, create new benchmarks in machine learning, build better pathways for the future, don’t forget the present.
Read Wordsworth, Chaucer, Hugo, Byron, and Keats. Follow up with Rumi, Omar Khayyam, and Saadi Shirazi.
A fuller, soulful, intense, bold, and beautiful life awaits.
You are the world’s future, its trendsetters. Reclaim your selves, guys!
You have nothing to lose but your chains!
Allah be with you!
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