Epistle for a friend feeling flat

Hi Friend,

Let us continue our 'biggest loser' contest a little. I don't typically like stories without hope - an exception here is Rohinton Mistry's 'A Fine Balance' which I think of on a regular basis - so through some self-deprecation I'd like to close with prospects of a bright future for both of us. Okay, here goes. 

You listed the following as my achievements (you didn't use that word though): Ph.D., marriage, marathons, cycling, blogging, watching movies. Let's us keep marriage out because it involves Revathi, an individual not common to us, and she and me together make the marriage what it is; so this marriage isn't just a man show. Regarding the Ph.D., you don't know the details of my doctorate. It isn't a great Ph.D., I am in some sort of trouble now because I will graduate in a month with nothing to go to. This wasn't the case after my times in Davangere and Bombay, let us where this Ph.D. takes me. So, as of now the Ph.D. isn't a clear cut achievement. Each of the other items you mention are all gone now. I don't run anymore so am frighteningly overweight; my blog remains untouched in almost a year; and .... where did the cycling come from? I haven't owned a cycle since July, 2007. You have an inflated image of me and perhaps I am responsible for this image. The only truths from your list are Ph.D., marriage and movies. Strike out the Ph.D. and put in money instead to get every single person we know from Sindhi High School. Most are married, watch movies and are financially in strong positions. Since the toss up is between money and the Ph.D., let us agree that the choice between the two would vary from individual to individual. Most chose financial security, I chose this Ph.D.. Therefore, in the larger picture of life I haven't really run far ahead of our classmates.

Now for the future. You use 'mediocrity' and your acceptance of it frequently. It is a feeling that I know roughly 50% people to possess. The other 50% people will try to talk up their life and say they have done some special things. Where do I stand here? My feelings vacillate all the time, some days I feel myself to be nothing short of 'great' with boundless research possibilities, then there are days when the future looks hopeless. In your case, it appears you don't have positive days at all. There is no conclusion to this paragraph, I am just stating how I know people to feel about themselves, my self-image and how I believe you evaluate yourself. All this revolves around the word 'mediocrity', a variant of which is used as self-assessment by everyone I know. When I ask them what being above-mediocre means, they don't have a specific answer. Answers veer toward 'something special', 'kuch khaas karenge' and 'yeno ondu maadbeku'. Therefore, people are assessing themselves as mediocre without defining what above-mediocrity means. If that definition is known, we can work towards it. Therefore, I feel success needs a definition. 

Unfortunately, that definition can't be a universal one, but one for each individual. Let us consider examples. Jeet Thayil. He wrote Narcopolis which made the Booker Shortlist last year. In brief, I loved it. Jeet was a drug addict from his teens till about forty years of age. He got his head out in 2003 or so, rehabbed out. His father gave him a home to live in. Jeet felt it was too big for him, so he rented it out and moved to a smaller place where he started work on Narcopolis. It took him five years to write, his first novel came out at fifty-three. The general consensus ranked him as second/third on Booker Shortlist of 2012. The way I read the story is this, somewhere in his late forties he defined success as one work of literary-fiction. Let us put a new twist to the old Tendulkar story. He defined success as a batsman for Team India when he was thirteen years of age. You and me, man. At this point in our lives, thirty years .... right between the ages Tendulkar and Thayil defined their successes ..... we must define what above-mediocre and success mean for us. Then we can try to get there. By getting there, we will not be mediocre. There is no other solution.

ONE POSSIBLE WAY OUT: Consider our friends, good jobs, mostly high paying jobs, married, will have kids or already have one. In the coming 10-20 years they will consolidate their positions. Till 2033 or so they will do the following: keep the highest paying job, invest money, buy property, bring up kids, save money for their education, get them through college (whatever course is hot in 20 years), see them married off, after these the next 10-15 years will see a renewed interest in money and plans pertinent to retirement. The style with which they do each of these things will be their successes. Maybe one of our friends will raise the next cricketer, tennis player, chess prodigy, painter, novelist, etc. and that will be something to talk about. All of these are things I'd like to do. There is tremendous satisfaction in doing them. The other reason to do them is that I will have saved face in public and familial platforms. The bigger my house, the more expensive my car(s), the higher the fees for my child's education, etc. will gave me greater respect in my family. The distinct advantage is that every step of the rest of our lives is clearly defined here. Milestones are clear. We know exactly what is required of us. So we could define these as our success parameters and shoot for these. A few years ago I would have scoffed at such a life. Now I understand there is some difficulty in achieving all these goals. To know the difficulty we can consider the marriage in 'Kramer vs. Kramer', or the craze of the empty mid-forties in 'American Beauty', or, closer home, the comedic agonies of a middle-class family in 'Khosla ka Ghosla'. So I see the difficulties here and don't belittle this life so much any more. Therefore, this choice can still get us appreciation from our peers, family, etc., so is worth pursuing. This way among the people who chose this life, we can assess our mediocrity/success relative to them.

ONE IMPOSSIBLE WAY OUT: My problem with that life is the lack of ambition, a missing romance. It lacks a grand vision .... like Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' which starts from the Dawn of Man and culminates with the next evolution in humans. Terrence Mallick's 'The Tree of Life' is even larger in scale, it starts with The Big Bang apparently. One major reason for the success of these films is their ambition. What if we stretched our ambition too? What if we looked beyond what our friends have achieved and will achieve? Let's stretch time all the way back to Euclid, Plato and even the chap who wrote Mahabharata (yes I can't recall his name now). Euclid has left a solid imprint, we speak of him 2500 years after his demise. What if these guys were our competition? As a researcher, what if my work lasts 2000 years like Pythagoras Theorem. What if we wrote novels to rival Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' or Victor Hugo's 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' or if we wrote verses like in Milton's 'Paradise Lost'? Problem with this 'shooting for the stars' thing is that we believe we lack the ability. We think we can't do it. But logic really is the other way around. Only by doing the great thing is it proven that you had the ability in the first place. In other words, I don't much fancy the notion that 'Einstein always had potential'. All I know is that his proof challenges time as an invariant quantity, which wasn't done before, so he is above-mediocre. By doing something special, he proved himself superior to other beings. So let us do something, that makes the world stand up and take notice. Maybe I can write that one great research paper like other scientists in the past.

BONE OF CONTENTION: A major issue is that the two ways described don't seem to share common ground. It feels like we can't do the 'big things' like the Kubricks and Einsteins while making loads of money and maintaining happy families. Keeping a job takes an entire day, so where is the time to read a novel let alone write one? Focusing on the job comes with the feeling of neglecting the grander goal, this hurts egos. Yet, working towards the grander goal means you are falling behind on regular work, like washing dishes, clothes, cleaning homes, paying bills etc., this is a major inconvenience. Seems like we have to pick one because we can't do both. (This paragraph is inspired from Paul Murray's "Skippy Dies")

I see only one solution from the Bone of Contention. We have to choose. Live the regular life that everyone lives, or go for the gold. Some of us delay the choice so long, that the choice is automatically made for us. Everyone keeps working 9-5 in their 20s, enjoys the weekends and one day realize their shot at superior beings are not a possibility any more. This wasn't the case with me, I have a Ph.D. so there is a possibility of greatness through independent research. In your case, the twenties were about some of the worst possible personal tragedies I have known. If you put those events behind you, we can look to the future. Since shit happened to you in the past, it is highly likely that good times are coming up.

Despite our differences, I still feel a good friend-like connection with you. You mentioned a feeling of loneliness and that of making passes at chicks. I always like the latter, but I don't know too much about it. With regard to the former, write to me as often as you wish. I love email correspondence, as my long replies reveal. Perhaps sometimes I have been tough on you in the past but if we stick through a few years, our friendship will attain an optimum level of comfort.

Since we are on the issues of life, this documentary series (Link) comes to my mind. Do you know of it? When I heard of it this year, I couldn't believe the imagination of its creators. Cinema to answer the meaning of life? I mean not someone's idea of life, or some fictional account. This is the real deal. All seven lives followed reveal a common thread, friend. With passing years, most people are happy with their lives and satisfied with their accomplishments. There is some solace for us here. Even if we are dissatisfied with where we are today, maybe at 40, 50, 60 .... whenever we will look beyond successes, failures, mediocrity and reach a level of contentment. Let's at least get to those ages, man. Sometimes I tell my wife that we are watching the movie of our lives (inspired from the opening sentence of Ebert's memoir). The movie's present run-time is 30 years and we don't know how many zillion miles of film are mounted on how many billions of reels that still require projection. Let's enjoy the voyeurism of watching our own lives unfold, I mean purely as viewers, not as screenwriters. There is a fun in this out-of-body experience too.

You will read this on Sunday. Let's make some time and video chat immediately after. An email reply just won't do for this one. We will chat for 20 minutes only, i.e., if you have a time constraint. If you have time on your hands, we can chat forever.

Bye!