A Conversation With The Soul I Am A Part Of - I

“I’m 22 years old. I will be turning 23 shortly. It is time I develop a way of life for myself without depending on others. It is time I develop a character for myself. I have been reading a book from almost the past 2 years. It is Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”. I couldn’t complete it for this long because it disturbed me a lot. It shattered all my beliefs, all the basics of so-called morality I learnt from my childhood. Having come from an orthodox and a conservative family, I found it very disturbing until one day, when I realized that every book has its own interpretation by each person. And I was trying to base my understanding on others’ interpretations and the way they changed/developed their ways of life. That was disturbing to me rather than the book itself. I started re-thinking about everything Ayn Rand said in her books and compared it to the scriptures and other books you have made me read from childhood. That is when I realized that we actually don’t follow what is said in the scriptures to the point. When we see someone who can be so ‘moral’ and so ‘correct’, we find fault in them. And the heroes of her books were always such someone. No wonder, Ayn Rand is more ill-read than well read.

I don’t call anyone a friend. Because I value that word so much that I do not want to use the word for anyone and I did not find anyone worth calling so. I should say the value of that word is lost when I see people calling everyone they meet as a friend. And I have seen people being influenced by the so-called friends and many a time, wrongly. There is one more reason for me not calling anyone a friend. The moment I call someone a friend, they take the liberty to think or say that they understood me well or know me very well. I don’t like it. I don’t want anyone to understand me. I only want them to understand what I say. (ardham chesukovataniki ‘manasu matalu kaaduga’). I don’t like anyone to say that they know me because that would be a lie. Give me the same situation twice and there is no guarantee that I would behave in the similar way. How can anyone take the liberty of saying that they know me when they haven’t come across the same situation the second time, yet??

I don’t have something called fear. I don’t fear to say proudly that I made a mistake if I really made one. I am always willing to make another mistake – but never the same one again. I learn from it, as do everyone else. What are the reasons for anyone to fear? Fear of not meeting some expectations – fear of some kind of loss – and the third and the most important one perhaps, fear of death. Firstly, I do not expect anything. Second, I do not care enough to care about any kind of loss. That answers the first two fears. Death is not something which someone can experience. You call something an experience when you come back to share it. But no one came back to share their experience of death. For all those who think death is painful, I disagree. Pain is an experience. You know pain only after you feel it. But, there is nothing after death to feel. So, there is no pain. I don’t fear death.

I stopped lying. I do not lie because I do not fear. People lie only because of fear. They lie mostly for small things. I do not have a reason to lie. I consciously made a decision to speak only the truth and moreover, only to live in reality. Because truth is true, reality is final. I demand what I deserve – not an ounce more and not a penny less.”