Over, It Is

It is the end of an epoch, a saga nearly as old as me. I watched the final Star Wars.. the way it should be watched - waiting in line with costumed diehards, celebrating the run up to the movie raucously till the opening credits at 12:01 hushed the halls into abrupt silence. Yes I’m a fan, and I stood by Star Wars through two lackluster episodes. And I have come out feeling somewhat redeemed; so what if I went in determined to love the movie!

It’s always quite an experience, going in to watch the premiere of any Star Wars, the lengths that some fans go to with the costumes is quite commendable. They willingly pose for some quick pictures, do their best impressions for the video cameras, and some of them even break into impressive saber fights with their light sabers.

I will not dwell on the philosophies that I have often contemplated about the Jedi, the Siths, the motivation of the characters and all the stories lost to the ones who have only followed the movie and not much more. Nor would I launch into a movie review, twisting thumbs up or down. I just had to express this bizarre sense of contentment I’m feeling, like one has after a particularly gratifying feast.

Oh yeah.. here comes the cliché –
May The Force Be With You

Some sights from the première:

Mighty Earth, Mystic Ocean

As the blazing sun surrenders to the faint glow of the moon
The mighty earth caresses the slumbering numinous ocean
Waves lapping its shores, like the blissful breathing of the cherub
What would I be but barren soil without your fluid touch, he wonders
Where will I rest my weary head without your solid shoulders, she dreams
The desert sands crave the oasis, water poured takes the shape of its urn
Morning rays streak through, awaken the sleeping terror, stir the placid giant
The dance of the elements begins again; will the earth survive another day?

Strife

Atop the clouds, I gaze down
The wreck that is your mortal world
Lifting mists lay bare the ashes
Of a humanity pillaged and torn

Reap the effects of your own folly
Pay the price of your blindness
Pitting man against brother,
Till neither is left to cross swords

Mistrust, hatred, revenge, war
There’s never a basis, never a purpose
I was blind when I was in it
My bleeding eyes are open now
alas, too late..

So long as there are men there will be wars
~Albert Einstein

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
~John F. Kennedy, 1961

War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
~Bertrand Russell

Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself.
~Francis Meehan

Reading the paper on a hectic Wednesday morning, Watching TV on a leisurely Sunday evening, surfing the web in a mid-Monday break, even a casual discussion around the office cooler… its just depressing news everywhere! Wars, death.. well, I guess it just got to me - again, hence the war rants above..

Influences

Every single being that wafts through our lives leaves some fraction of them in us. It could be in any form or shape. It could be tangible, like an oft-used phrase you picked up, or maybe something more nebulous, like a subconscious affinity to a color that the other person had also. Little things – arranging your shoes in some order; overwhelming transformations – your approach to some problems life throws at you. So many of these are traits and habits we pulled out from someone in our life at some point, willfully, or inadvertently.

Some insightful words from a pensive smith, (Danke, Idea-Smithy) greased my rusty brain a little. If we could be dissolving into the universe, giving morsels of ourselves to every part of it, then what is this universe? Is it just us? Are we this black hole that takes in fragments of all who fall in, just to enhance ourselves? And in turn we fall in and give back to this universe again. Maybe so, but with the good and the bad specks that we pick up in life, if we don’t sift through it and discard enough of the rancid portions, we only spread it through the universe again.

Clear water, devoid of color,
Red, black, white and life
Every plunge the brush would make,
Emotions, illusions, a touch of strife
But what is this life, without all that…

Empty Spaces

What shall we use
To fill the empty spaces
Where we used to talk
How shall I fill the final places
How shall I complete the wall

-- Pink Floyd

I egg them on, my creative juices..
The flow is stemmed, despite my ruses
Unabashedly I thieve, apologies, Roger Waters
You’ve already explicated, my minds fumbled phrases...

As I vent these melancholy thoughts
my mind clears, I see some bright spots
I’m not one to bring you down
What I’d not give, for a smile to wipe away that frown

Life, Humanity

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
-- Mark Twain

This is, after all, my vent.

War Of Two Worlds

I’m stranded. There are many exits in sight, on either side.. but they are ALL the wrong ones. If I resolved to take one of them, no matter how pragmatic it seemed to my normally staid and calculating mind, there would crop up a series of reasons, many of which a level headed soul would term impracticable. But hey, I can reason with my mind, it’s a whole different ball game arguing with the heart!

Its not too hard for me to ‘be myself’, instinctively do the idiosyncratic things that come to mind, be my eccentric self and wave my fist (or finger) at the old world that I intend to leave in the dust. But the other side is hard to ignore, my ‘roots’, where I came from, my kin..

I, like many from my generation and locale, have been ingrained with a certain sense of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, what is acceptable (by society?), and what is not. After years of not knowing a world beyond this invisible fence, I was tossed into this other world. I have been through the phases, few familiar, many alien.. awestruck wonder, caution, suspicion, bravado, invincibility (didn’t last too long), vulnerability, frustration. But I have come to accept the ways of this new world and with it the receipt of its perks and recognition of its pitfalls.

Abruptly, I find myself at the crossroads again. The two worlds collide. It would seem that the wisdom of these worlds is at odds. I choose to live my life as is my wont, and I stand to antagonize the principals of the old world. I couldn’t live with that. I give up my newly developed ideals and return to the values of yore, and I fear that I may look over my shoulder in regret someday. I couldn’t live with that.

Where is this middle ground, this unseen egress to the quicksand that entraps me? When will this war end?