Life is Trouble

One of the common things most of the Cancer patients do is plan for their life. It is ironic how humans, when threatened with death, plan for life. You would not see an average person planning for life (OK.. perhaps a long term home loan.. or Marriage.. or Children.. all right in general activities that require long term involvement but NOT lifetime!). But threaten them, a la movie style, that they have only few months/years left, suddenly they do a deep dive in financial planning, retirement living and all sorts of things that they may never actually use.

I recently went through personal 'Vision 2010' planning exercise (hey if President of India can do Vision 2020, I can certainly see the first half!). Among other things I planned what car I would be having then, or more importantly what car my wife would be driving by then, what kind of property I would have by then and what kind of bank balance I would look forward to.
There was also a plan of proposing to Aishwarya Rai, hoping privately that she does not get married by then. My wife does not necessarily agree with all the planned items but long years of marriage have trained me well. I told her only half the story. She doesn't need to know about my late night visits to Aishwarya Rai's website.

So in my Vision 2010, I have a big house (or real house!), a big car, a big flat screen TV (most important for human life on this planet!), and a wife with small non-polluting car, and who squanders her own money. Man, this is life. Just 4 more years and I am there. This also fits in my health issues, by that time I would be under or over my cancer.

It felt real good while planning, but then my wife(!) pointed out that I was being tad selfish in the plan and I do not care much for the rest of the family. Ok, so I planned for some additional furniture in my big house so 'family' can sit and watch my big TV, also some additional beds for 'family' to sleep on. But she was not happy, well.. there is no pleasing some people, no matter what you do.

This being selfish tune is getting kind of repetetive. When I talk of my limited life, and how I want to enjoy it, out comes the 'selfish' part. It is demonstrated with examples, about how I do not care for the rest of the loved one's and how they would miss me. In my opinion this 'miss you' theme is absolutely rot. Once somebody is dead, burnt to ashes, it is done deal. You don't miss them, they are simply not there. It is just illusion of the brain. But then these illusions are the trouble in human life. We get consultants making living out of 'how to plan your financial future' or 'how to plan your home'. Just bunch of people helping you solve the troubles of life.

In a perspective my life is full of trouble. I have to plan for future without having one. I could never get a date with Aishwarya Rai and would not make to the top 10 young golf players in Pune circuit (..just few more years and Tiger Woods had tough competition; saved in nick of time, lucky guy!). But I would argue that the fun part is in troubles. Life is trouble, if there is no trouble there is no life.

Like Zorba the Greek said, 'Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble'. I am sure, if he would have been real, he would have never planned for early retirement.

PS: Recently many (OK..er 3) of my friends told me that they read my Blog regularly and complained that I do not post that frequently. I have enabled 'Site Feed' feature so you can use your favourite RSS Feed reader to check if the blog has been updated. I use Sage in Firefox. It uses default stylesheets which provide better readability and one click updates..