I was never one of those “spiritual” types, the ones floating around everywhere, talking about otherworldly things, they just discovered the cheat codes to life. I had better things to do, like being frustrated, angry, chasing after things I thought would fix the unbearable itch inside me. Money, success, respect, the usual menu, all nicely advertised by the world as “happiness”, if you could just grab fast enough. So I ran, really fast, without even asking where or why, because that’s what everyone else seemed to be doing, and you don’t question a stampede when you’re in the middle of it.
The funny part is, I thought I was smart. I thought I could outwit life (outsmart ego, prakriti), stack up all the right things and finally sit back and say, “Yes, this is it”. But every time I reached for something, it either slipped through my fingers or turned out to be less impressive than the advertisement. And every failure made me angrier, like a grumpy customer at restaurant, sending the food back again-n-again, never realizing he (I) was the idiot who ordered from the wrong menu.
I wasn’t much into the gurus either. I could smell the fake ones from far, selling peace like it’s somephysical stuff (like bottled water), selling enlightenment. I stayed cynical, but cynicism doesn’t cure frustration, it just makes you a bit more bitter while you keep losing at the same game. And frustration, real thick frustration, has a way of rotting you from the inside until you either snap or sit down and really start asking what the hell is going on.
Somewhere along the line, I stumbled onto someone who didn’t try to sell me anything. No promises, no smiling photos in 1200s attire, no “secrets of the universe” nonsense. Just a mirror, thrown in my face with brutal simplicity, saying, “You’re not broken. You’re just busy pretending you are”. It hit harder than all my failures combined because for the first time, it wasn’t life betraying me; it was me betraying myself. I realized how much I had been conned, not by fake gurus, but by my own mind, dangling carrots I never needed to chase.
Now, I’m still the same idiot in many ways, but at least I know the joke. I can laugh at the frustration when it comes, and I understand that I don’t need to take myself seriously anymore. And honestly, that feels more like finding myself than anything else ever did.
Maybe that’s not much to brag about. I’m still restless, still impatient, still stubborn in all the old familiar ways. But at least now I know I have no clue. At least now I’m not pretending the next shiny thing will fix it. And somehow, weirdly enough, admitting that feels more honest than anything I ever chased.
#Unself
Last updated: 2025-04-27T19:43:06+05:30