Monday, August 08, 2011

On Search!

A few days back something had upset me. One of my friends asked me what is bothering you. I said, i can't find something i am searching for. He casually replied "Life is a search". I didn't know the impact of this statement till i started wondering about it. At the outset, it is one of the casual statements all of us seem to have made or heard at some point in our lives. But somehow, this time around, when i heard it, it was having a far greater impact on me. Indeed, life is a search - a constant search, a desperate search, a hopeless meaningless search for something one knows not what. And then there is a deep state of our minds in which whatever we get is not going to give us any satisfaction. Frustration becomes a means to an end because whatever we search becomes meaningless after a few moments(i mean days/months or weeks) after we got we started to search for. Then another search continues.

The search continues, whether you have it not. The poor are searching, the rich are searching, the ill are searching, the well are searching, the powerless are searching, the stupid and the wise are also searching. Sometimes, we try to find our solutions in money, in power, in prestige, and sometimes, we seek it in god, bliss, love, meditation, prayer...but does the search stop?

One of my friends when i asked her what she wanted to do, she said, she wanted to become the richest women in the world. I actually have a problem with benchmarks, though i love perfectionists. Let me explain : when you say you want to become the "best", it essentially means you might need to outdo all the others in the field. Which means, you first need to search and find ways to outdoo them. And even when you do outdo them, you need to retain it. Not to forget, the rest of them will also find ways to outdo each other. So, on the battle of retaining oneself on the "best" bracket, one has to search and find ways to remain there. And the others, have to find ways to reach there. Hence, there is this constant battle happening on who is going to be the "best", thereby opening more doors to "search". This, indeed becomes an endless cycle, because each one of us in the field needs to constantly find(search) for ways to be the fore-runners in the field.

Money, power, prestige and all the others above only satisfy us with a feeling that we are searching for something. That "something" is still undefined. It still seems vauge in most cases. So richness, power, prestige, respectability is not going to help. Is it to do with man's greed to amass more out of life or amass more out of his search for search? Is man ill with search?

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