Birthday, Expectations and Machines

Gift From Google

 I have been waiting to put up this post for a long time now. I have been writing and rewriting and sitting on my bum about it. But maybe I was waiting for a right time to put it on.

Recently, I have been thinking about the value of life and love. As we grow up and walk the path of life, we come across so many people. Some leave a mark, by doing something good for you. Some leave a mark by hurting you badly and then there are some, who just stay there forever. SO what matters the most? Or rather who matters the most? The ones you loved and still yearn for? Or the ones who love you? I don’t know. I have been looking for this answer for a long time.

There is a lifelong yearning, I think. Urge to know who would really miss you when you are gone. As a very old friend always says, “I would like to see who cries for me when I am gone.”  No matter how much ever I scold him, for always telling me this and thinking about his own death, I can’t help agreeing with him on the point that this is the most intense human feeling, and perhaps our biggest fear. A fear that no one cares and loves me and everyone is just pretending until we are around. When I am gone, no one will really care, and I will be forgotten in a jiffy.

I don’t know if it is normal but even at 23, I am really excited about my birthday. Yes I love to get calls exactly at midnight and still keep track of who is the first one to wish me. I know I am too old to gush about birthdays, but then I think what matters to me is the question: “To whom do I really matter.”

I think the root cause of this hurt is the expectation. The expectation which we go on carrying in our hearts. The expectation that so and so will call me, and when I do not get that call, it is just a sheet of gloom covering my heart.

But I think machines are making us happier than human beings these days. Yesterday I turned 23, and to be very honest, I was excited about it for almost a week. But the spirits dampened when I hardly got calls at midnight.  My fault may be because I have changed my number and only a handful knew my number, but even those did not call. It was only relatives.  I went off to sleep, with a sad heart, and woke up cribbing to someone how no one wished me, and I did not matter to anyone. However Google surprised me pleasantly by giving me a special doodle. Of course it was visible only to me,  but still it was a pleasant surprise. After all someone very unexpected remembered and surprised me pleasantly.

I always knew that I should expect the unexpected, but at the age of 23, I realised it. The sooner we learn to be ready for the unexpected, the easier it would be for us to be less gloomy and complaining.  Human nature is too complex to understand.  People value trivial things a bit too much. Emotions come second to them.  So would it be too much to say that we are nearing the dark ages, when machines would take control of the world, and human beings would just be slaves, kept prisoner in some underground dungeon?

Happy new year to all.