Got problems? Distract yourself!
Have you ever reached a stage in life where you knew instantly that the problem is nobody else but you? If yes, what did you do then? If not, why are you lying? There are many ways to find oneself but seldom do we seek a path that leads us to the truth. More often than not, we look for shortcuts, which invariably pulls us further away from ourselves. In the end, like our rishi-munis posited aeons ago, nothing matters.
I know this for sure because of the many instances during my time on this planet. Unbeknownst to myself, I am attracted to ridiculous situations which have very little to do with me. According to a Turkish proverb, if it’s not your monkey, it shouldn’t be your circus either. In my case, I am the monkey because I’ve created a circus for myself. Anything to keep myself distracted from bigger problems in life. And trust me, everybody has enough of those. Think of the most popular folks you can think of. Yes, Roger Federer has them. Warren Buffett, too. And so does Selena Gomez. All of them have bigger problems. Just because you’ve achieved a certain degree of success doesn’t mean you are exempt from the endless drama earnestly waiting for you to open your eyes in the morning.
Every individual’s pursuit of happiness differs mainly because nobody is chasing sadness. You know what you want but you know more dearly what you don’t want. The resulting chasm gives rise to moments where you are like “Ahem” before going “This is stupid but I need it!”. Adventure of the lowest order.
I won’t call myself adventurous but I seek what’s on the other side. By nature, I am not a fan of confrontations though. I’d rather sit back or lean on the wall to observe what’s going on. That’s my favourite thing in the world. To try to see what others tend to miss. And last week, I saw something that annoyed me. For beginners, we reside in an apartment that’s located on the second floor, with the terrace right above it. The building is quite old and you can notice its age catching up with the cracks in the walls and the paleolithic paintings under/around the water tanks. Thanks to the two storey structure, there are 3 parking lots in front of our building: one for each floor. None of us own a vehicle so our parking slot isn’t availed by us and for the longest time, I didn’t care who used it.
Until last weekend, that is.
Turns out our slot has been hijacked by the person who stays on the first floor of our neighbouring building. His little white car is always parked down there. This particular trivia escaped my attention because I was busy solving bigger problems in life. And thanks to a gathering of friends over the weekend, I understood why human history is imprinted on our collective urge for annexing pieces of land that don’t belong to us in the first place. Although we don’t use our parking space, our friends do. This time around, they couldn’t because of the milky abomination I mentioned earlier. George Mallory climbed Mt. Everest because it was there. My friends couldn’t park their vehicle for the same reason too: It was there.
So, search of quick distractions, I raised an issue with the security guards that night itself. They didn’t do shit. The following day, a hot Sunday, I called up the housing society office. They did exactly fuckall about my complaint. The fact that we don’t own a four-wheeler weighs heavily on their basic understanding of what trespassing means. On Monday night, I rang the bell of the white car owner’s apartment. Nothing — the sort of nothing that would make the stalwarts of Vedic Age proud — happened.
Since then, I’ve been wondering how to regain our parking slot which we really don’t need unless the guests are visiting us. One genius suggested that I should buy an old bicycle and park it there whenever they remove the goddamned car. We are not friends anymore. So I asked my second colleague-turned-friend and he told me to buy a toddler’s tricycle and park it there. Another raised the bar of bad ideas by saying that I should go with VLC’s logo. If your IQ is anywhere close to 50, you’ll figure this out. Another said I should spray-paint the handicap symbol on the spot whenever I get a chance. The only able-bodied person who deserved to park on it is already dead and he had something to do with Apple. One proper Jat friend confidently advised to me puncture all the four tyres at night, effectively making it impossible for the owner to vacate the lot even if he wants to someday. Among all these terrible ideas, I liked the tricycle one the most not because it’s a great idea but because it falls within my budget. However, after mulling over it for some nights now, I’ve got a better idea. I am going to request my wife to help us create a baby so that I can place the poor bugger on the parking lot and leave him there. Nobody will dare conquer that space again.
