Happiness is..... A Kindle

 

An event of earth shattering magnitude occurred yesterday, I felt crushed, it was as if the whole world came to a standstill....  

Well, you must be wondering what catastrophe befell me, did the sky fall down or Apocalypse happened??

Nothing of that gargantuan proportions happened, it is just that my Kindle refused to start( which to me was tantamount to a Shakespearean or Greek tragedy all rolled into one)  - I left it to charge , joyfully contemplating a few hours of blissful reading. My sea of tranquility was rocked by a fierce tempest- critical battery status on my kindle screen, no matter how hard I tried to revive it, my kindle refused to restart. In that moment, I felt like I was losing a much loved and cherished friend leaving behind a void which cannot be filled. The reminiscence of happy times filled with hours of enraptured reading on my kindle flashed before me. A treasured and loyal friend, my kindle has been my companion and kindred soul. 

And then, as I was trying to come to terms with my despondency and torment, I saw the screen flicker and like the mythical Phoenix, my Kindle resurrected itself from the ashes!

All order was restored and as Darth Vader famously said" This will be a day long remembered..."

Where do I see myself five years down the line?

The quintessential question found in the repertoire of  every interview's quiver of arrows to be aimed at potential candidates, a question done to death in every interview and worse, the score of unimaginative and run of the mill answers given in response!

Though I am not facing a hiring manager, I would still like to contemplate an answer, however there is no easy answer to this superficially profound question.

If I answer I do not know, you will think I am not ambitious or my life lacks direction. If I give a detailed itinerary of my life's journey as I envision 5 years ahead, you will think me over-confident and arrogant!

The world as we know it has undergone a dramatic and perhaps unimaginable change, a change none of us were prepared for! In this fragmented world, the shards of  our illusionary invincibility lie scattered, we are scrambling to find meaning and reconstruct the familiar wholeness. It feels like we are in the middle of a fast paced thriller with no clue to the ending. In this scenario how do I answer this question- it makes me pause and think. 

Five years ahead is a scenario I cannot fathom today, I wish to be a lot of things by then, just not sure if I will be able to achieve it all. So instead of wishing and wanting to be somewhere in an uncertain and  unsure future, I would live in the moment, savor each minute as it comes and not think of what lay ahead. The most constant thing in this world is change : " Resistance is futile" !

Beam me up Scotty! I am ready to live ! :)

" Teaching is a walk in the park..... but that park is Jurassic Park !"

A lazy afternoon well spent in mentoring and assisting my 12+ year old prodigal son in his English creative writing exercise. Being an English language educator, that would be my Utopian ideal , sadly, the ground reality is appallingly dystopian!!!

Picture the scenario: 

Summons from the Lord and Master of the house: "Son, you need to pick a suitable topic to work on your creative writing skills! "

Prodigal Son: " Yes papa" ( apparently all the teenage Sturm & Drang is directed against the mother and not the father). " Mom, I can't think, can you suggest a topic please?"

Oh the joy I feel at being asked!

Me: " Of course beta"( and being the ubiquitous teacher , I give him the topic that my 4th graders in school were given last week). "Why don't you try writing on - What I feel when I look out of the window....

Prodigal son-"MOM, what kind of a topic is this????  What will i write about when i look out of the window, what IS there to look out at?? and on top of that I am stuck here, in this lock down, with nothing happening in my life....

Me: " Ok, hold your horses, you are supposed to THINK about it and not rant at the unfairness of your life"

15 minutes goes by...

Me:" Son, are you done writing?"

Prodigal Son-" What? like now? SO soon???"

Me:"How long does it take to think and write?"

Prodigal Son- " Mom, just because you can write does not mean I can too, this is unfair...." ( and the raging and ranting goes on.)

Me: Ok! Ok!, take your time.

Another 15 minutes later..

Me: " SO , what have you finally  written?"

Prodigal Son passes his workbook to me.

My worst nightmare came true, the world as I know if does not exist anymore , the humongous effort and energy spent  by just trying to get him to start thinking on the given topic makes me cry tears of frustration and lament the gross malfeasance by the Almightly creator in giving me a son who cannot appreciate the nuances of English language! His piece is full of gaming and science fiction jargon, a picture of a desolate future due to human actions. Very creative indeed, but where is the  sentence structure, and punctuation, not to forget the use of imagery to make meaning clear?👿

Prodigal Son(looking at my inscrutable expression): " Mom, relax, It is not so bad, at least I used my imagination!"

Me: (in a daze)- "Yes dear! There is that.."😓

END to a  productive and fulfilling afternoon. (ahem!)