Depression brings life to a real sorry state and you feel urges to bring about sudden changes, oblivious of their outcome. But there is NO easy solution; you just have to live this phase of life through. Its out of your control and that's probably why you feel so disoriented. Nothing seems to be going your way and you feel absolutely helpless. Everyday you search faces for some expression which, you yourself don't know, and don't find. You spend hours reiterating past events or thinking of nothing in particular. Emptiness takes over your life; you wake up like a machine, do the daily drab, and go to bed at night, sleepy or not. You don't talk to anybody because you have nothing to say.

Life was never in control; you were under a spell. Now the spell's broken and you're facing the truth: life is worthless. Thank God for depression! Yes, life is worthless if you have been living for yourself, for money, for a promotion, for your family, for your friends. At one time or the other they will let you down. You are so mortal for you cannot see all the faces of time and hence you do not know how your past choices have affected your future and what it holds for you. But you were in control the whole time! You are only a little gear in the great plan of God but you have the muscle to affect His whole creation. Each decision that drives your actions starts a whole new chain of events. You can hardly imagine the kind of control you exert in God's plan!

Don't throw it all away. Trust still and love still. Live through this and atone your choices to God's wishes. You never know how many goodies are in store just around the corner.

Ever try getting out of your selfish shell? Its easy.

You simply have to open your mind to your heart. Voila, now you are open to the feelings of those around you too! Its exciting and worrisome at the same time. Now you're willing to let others hurt you and trample upon your feelings. You'll notice your senses working overtime trying to hear more and see more. The feeling you have surpasses ecstatic by a mile; its wonderful to feel so much and think lesser. You're stronger but more vulnerable. You're joyous within but melancholy without. You cry a lot, even without tears, for others, for their happiness and their sorrows. 

It is a lot like being in love, only this time you probably are in love with God Himself.

I've heard about secret places in your head. Everybody seems to have had them at some point in life, especially kids. What are these secret places? They're just like books and movies depict them - tiny worlds where everything is beautiful and goes just the way you want. Some may call these escapes from reality. I've had quite a few myself. One was in a yellow umbrella with a beautiful lady and we would fly as high as possible and visit many distant lands. The other was my own house but it was surrounded by a moat and all the people there were like merfolk, playful and happy. Of course, I was a child then. I'm not that old yet but I can't go back to those places anymore, no matter how hard I try. The only worlds I find are bad and full of negative vibes. Guess that would be due to a lack of innocence. Still, the need for secret places intrigues me. Why can't we find happiness where we are? Perhaps there is a poorly understood but largely felt human emotion involved. Its called fear.

As a teenager, freedom mostly meant not having to obey my parents. Now I've grown up and make my own decisions so in a way I'm free according to the teen-me. However, the bliss of that knowledge was short-lived as other impediments to freedom have moved into my life. Take the bank teller for example, or the rickshaw drivers, or the rude customer who elbows into a long queue or even my empty wallet. The list would go on and somewhere along my way some freedom-snatchers would become menial and newer ones would take over.

Looking at freedom in a slightly different vein, all kinds of addictions would seem to be freedom-snatchers. They instill desire. And it would seem that as long as desire exists, freedom would cease to exist. But how can anyone exist without desires! From the time she is conceived, she desires to be born. When born, she desires love. When loved she desires comforts. When in comfort, riches and so on and so forth.

So what is freedom then? What do we want to be freed from? If all desires were traced to a root, that root would have to be life itself. In other words, we want freedom from life; we desire death. If death is our ulterior-most desire, then why bother living? Maybe the knowledge of the afterlife keeps us going. Knowing that our actions in this life affect the decision made on Judgment Day, is probably what ties us to the yolk of desire and deprives us of our freedom.

But this is just one huge sacrifice. Anyone will tell you that freedom was never obtained without sacrifice. And what do we get at the end? We get to go to heaven because that's where this life ends and desire is put to rest once and for all and freedom is finally attained.

Few things in life are as certain as death. And life is hardest to live when that certainty bears down on you at its heaviest.

Imagine a beautiful flower in your hands, or anything else that's beautiful and precious to you. Its immense beauty even brings tears to your eyes. It radiates a glowing halo and you can feel the warmth generated by its force of life. You feel elevated by the intensity of emotion that's pouring into your mind. And this little object of your emotion goes on to heighten your senses to a level at which even heaven seems lower.

Now imagine that you're dead. Can you still feel that little flower in your hands? Can you still feel all that you felt earlier? Maybe you can and maybe you can't. But what about that little flower - does it still feel the same? Does it know you're gone? Did it ever know you were there? I can't conclude but this is what I think about and this is what I fear most when I think of death.

In my 20's I think it’s possibly difficult to appreciate or fully comprehend a person who's genuinely interested in me. Most of life now, is a search for someone who can balance me out romantically. And yet, while I fully possess all the machinery required to romantically assault you, I choose not to do so. Some remote sensing device in my brain tells me that you were more prepared to take on my romantic assault, but not the kind of reckless unabashed devotion that I actually am capable of. It’s the material fanatics are made of!

Why do you put up with me?

I know, from that part of my brain that can play with numbers, that my behaviour is completely immature and childish. What an enigma is knowledge, so sought and so disregarded! Don't you agree? To me, you're like the mystery novel that I can't put down until I've leafed through every page, even if I have to stay up all night to know what's at the end. Or you're like a new gizmo that has fallen into my hands and I must plug in and out every accessory and try out every program. I don’t mean to make you feel synthetic. Overcoming all directives from my hormones that I be unforgivably attracted to you, I actually wonder what it would be like to sit besides you, completely invisible, and watch you manoeuvre your way through the subtleties of a romantic encounter not involving me. And probably make notes?

You say we have the same vibes, vibrations? But I know how really alike we are. It’s more than vibes. I'm not the intellectual junkie that you are; at least I don't like to think of myself as one. But I'm a thoughtful individual. I mean, whatever else you could or couldn't do, having access to the highest brain capacity in the animaldom, should at least prompt you to think, right? So I think and I know you think because your big thoughts, always bulging with revolutionary suggestions, keep hitting me like hailstones, making me grimace at the truth which falls out like a splinter from my own eye!

Maybe that is why I keep coming back to you!

Wherein does one search the origin of that relentless need to connect?

You were talking about love yesterday. I agree with you upon the futility of love. We know it’s a weakness. And yet, you and me derive our strength from love. We can’t help being human. Humans, like software programs, with bugs, are short-circuited and they’re barely aware of this, but worse, cannot correct it. At least they cannot correct them on their own because they’re unable to even guess the distensions of their own short-circuitry. That's where sociability comes in. That's where our need to meet and connect with other humans comes in. We are, innately but not acutely, aware of our imperfections and we constantly look to each other as if we're mirrors that could show these imperfections. It’s only after we’ve spotted our imperfections in a fellow-human mirror that we change.

Love has made me a changed man!

In changing for (the fellow human) the image displayed in some mirrors, we build relationships. "Relationships" is a big word. I'd rather use "love" - not only is it simpler to write but also to understand. Isn't there love in all relationships irrespective of type? In fact, what differs one relationship from another is just the amount of love. So every exchange you make with another person, even a stranger, is an exchange of love. We have always known this. That's why we have songs like, "Love makes the world go round", or old wives tales that tell how "an act of kindness always comes around".

I just wonder if love isn’t that bug that’s short-circuiting our near-perfect human systems, also featuring a virus-like ability to replicate. Is that why one would ask, “Have you fallen in love?” in the same way that one would ask, “Are you down with the flu?” Clearly, it’s a bottom-oriented state. Why, oh why, then do I feel like I’m on top of the world!

I realize that ultimately, all our mental pursuits are directed towards "the truth". And even as I so digress, I must mention the voice that haunts me at this point. It belongs to Pontius Pilate, as he asks Jesus, “What is truth?” I wonder if Pilate is more famous for himself or for his query. And I wonder if people don’t easily forgive Pilate since they all share his perplexity of truth. Jesus doesn’t answer him but at another time he said, “I am the truth”. I have to say, “I am the truth too” because truth is such a metamorph, a shape-changer. First day of spring, truth is that fresh smelling, beautiful flower that follows the movements of the sun. Last peg of whiskey, truth is that cynical bystander watching the end of the world. More than once, we, the intellectual gladiators, catch up with truth. We even chance to be surrounded by it but just as soon as we get there its shape is so changed that we can hardly recognize it. And we return defeated and regroup for the next challenge.

(I, of course, have pondered my being way above myself in trying to describe truth. Apologies!)