Flying Solo
We live in a time of believing that life owes us something and that other people exist to give it to us. But life is full of unfathomable randomness. There really is no game plan. No such thing as an equation that balances out neatly. No certain reward for specific actions. No guarantees. And also, no you-targetted agenda. None of us matters that much. The universe is too large, too bountiful, too complex for it to revolve around us. Are we really that afraid of a solo journey? We all are.
And the things that hurt us, that impede us, that scare us, these are occurrences in our personal journeys. Some of us like the idea of this being part of a larger tapestry, a story and each occurrence being a plot point. The only trouble is forgetting that the story is of our making, a net we are trying to cast over the watery illusion that we get to have a say in how things go.
I don’t think anyone else truly has an answer to the questions burning foremost within me. What will happen next? How can I avoid pain? Where am I going? And most important of all – Who am I?
Faith is a useful tool in navigating this scary journey. I struggle with more traditional faiths, given how they’ve been turned into instruments of violence and politics today. But the fact remains that one needs to believe in something in order to live, to truly experience that thing called living.
I choose to place my faith in me, the best possible idea I can conceive of me. I choose to believe that what I build in my head is righter than what anyone outside me can imagine. I choose to invest my energy in what I build inside my head. I choose to keep it clean and safe and wholesome. I choose to prioritise it over external noise, over fashionable traits, over the majority opinion. I choose to commit to it feeling like home always.
I have to choose and keep choosing choice also. This means letting go of the luxury of blaming other people, luck and other things. This means no crutches but no cages either. I choose to believe in flight, to want it and to reach for it.
I choose to fly.