"Four Sixes later..." he wrote

When I was six year old, I always thought I would one day become a pilot. It was my dream as a kid. I wanted to be called Captain; I wanted to have the smart looking uniform and I wanted to fly high in the skies & see the world. I'd run in the field with my arms strength apart swinging left to right, looking up feeling the wind in my face, imagining the day I'd be up there one day literally soaring through the sky.

When I was twelve, I was starting to believe that maybe I'd end up becoming a lawyer instead. I had started wearing spectacles, which crushed my hopes of being a pilot. But I had a keen mind. Logic, reasoning & intellectual debates appealed to me. I watched debates, I started reading books & started developing an interest in philosophy.

When I was eighteen, physics & engineering was what appealed to me. I found out that lawyers were daylight carnations of blood sucking vampires (no offense), but I had also developed a love for physics & science. It explained the why and how of things. I knew why apples fell & balloons floated. I knew why a barrel full of liquid would fall the same speed as an empty one. I understood mass, heat, energy & the laws that governed the universe. It made sense to me. It made sense of this wide wide world I was just beginning to understand & it quenched my thirst of why.

But now, at twenty four....

An engineer I did become, but I no longer crave for detailed explanations on how things worked. I understood enough to appreciate it & learned to accept things as they are. Physics explained how things worked, but it didn't explain why. Why are we here? What's life all about? Books told me the magnetic fields of the earth made the world go round, but everyone else insist it's really love. Love? Really? And so I tried exploring it, trying to understand it. I fell in love. I experienced puppy love, electrifying first touches, magic first kisses & intense moments of passion but more than that, solemn moments of sacrifice, humility, forgiveness & grace. I found out love wasn't something you live to learn about but something your learn to live by.


I started writing six years ago, and have kept at it (somewhat) consistently. Hundreds of self absorbed & incoherent post later, I still find myself stuck in front of the monitor with half baked attempts at writing something meaningful or profound. For what? Nothing really. Self satisfaction perhaps. To who? Nobody actually. If you asked me to explain in a nutshell what this blog is about, and what is it I'm really writing about.... I'd have to say.. it's about life, and love through my eyes. Life and its idiosyncrasies; love and its physics-defying ability to make the world go round.


To tell you the truth, I am extremely shy about what I write. Some in-built self degrading mechanism constantly tells me that the things I write aren't good enough to be read, what more shared. Something I realize I need to work on. On the rare occasion that I do share what I write with people, I have received positive feedback. They urge me to submit articles for publication, which I usually dismiss as absurd. It's too wordy. Too many commas. Too 'grandfather'. It's not that good. It's not interesting enough. PLUS, there are so so many better writers out there. People who could string thoughts & words together like a master tailor, and even THEY don't get published... even they don't call themselves writers. Who am I to claim such a title then?

And yet, the idea has somehow stuck in my head. I allowed myself the indulgence of fancy thinking. An engineer turned writer musing about life & love & crane charts? Talk about off key. I'm just some guy who writes. I don't know if that qualified me as I writer. I disqualified myself from being a writer per se because as a rule, I did not write for readership, and I did not write for popularity. Who the hell would want to pay you if what you wrote did not attract readership? Someone said to me that be that as it may, if people enjoyed reading my thoughts, why not give it a shot? Why not pursue this more seriously? How do you know there aren't more people who would enjoy what you write? I don't... and I guess I'm kind of afraid to find out also.

But after four sixes of living life, I'm giving serious thought again to what I want in life again. Six a pilot, twelve a lawyer, eighteen an engineer, twenty four... a writer? Could it really happen?


I'll let you know in six years.