It's been a long year already. Has it been many years that I've lived already? I feel kind of old all of a sudden. A lot of older people who I saw, who I knew as a kid are dead.
I would like to write these words here, of the thoughts that come to my mind; so perhaps, I will feel free of them. Perhaps I will understand these thoughts this way. Perhaps this way I will understand the feelings associated with these thoughts. Or are the thoughts born of emotion, that is, is it because I feel this way that I am thinking. You are the audience to which I have no reserve.
To see those you love to wither away. I'm thinking about my Grandfather. He is my father. He brought me up, my father was never there, neither was my mother. To this day I have virtually no relationship with my father and mother. As the years go by I feel he's less present than before, sometimes. He's approaching 90. He doesn’t come online anymore on MSN in the mornings when he wakes up. It's about 05:00 his time, and here it's earlier, but I always liked talking to him when he wakes up. Someitmes I have to repeat what I have said many times so he understands, he listens but sometimes he does not understand anymore.
I remember when I was teenager; I’d be gaming all night. In the morning about 05:00 I’d hear my Grandad walking upstairs to go sit on the balcony with his tea and look at the hills and the sunrise. And then I'd sit with him on the balcony, looking at the hills we'd sip Lapsang Souchong together and talk about the evolution of man, about the British empire, about love and women, about rationalism, about sincerity, about democracy, willpower, what makes us different from the other animals, why we are here, the meaning of our lives, the coming information age, warfare, poitics, economics, fiscal policies and many many other topics. We'd have our intellectual debates far before we begun our day.
I'm scared and sad, but for what reason. Am I so selfish that I am sad for myself? that one day he will not be there any more. That I will not be able to communicate with him anymore. I don’t understand why I feel sad, he has lived a great life, a life that 99.9% of people on this planet right now have never lived. He has represented the state, the military; he has achieved things in his life that most of humanity have not achieved in generations. Being the first person in India to translate the theory of relativity from German to English, being the 2nd Muslim ever to enter the British administration as a high ranking official, were among his achievements in his youth. To serve his country selflessly. He was so honest and hardworking they wrote about him in the newspapers. So what have I to be sad about? I don’t know.
Perhaps I'm sad that after his passing I will truly and finally and truly be alone.
I am sad that I will be alone, that I will lose my best friend, how selfish am I to feel only my loss. How despicable am I.
He always told me we are ultimately always alone. All this invokes a response in me, I feel extremely motivated. I'm not any high achiever, but this invokes in me, on a fundamental level, something I cannot describe. Here I am of foreign orgin in a country that I call my own, in a continent that I call my own. Yet my thoughts seem to be going back hundreds of years, when my ancestors settled in Asia, perhaps what they may have thought of as they entered this new land. I think only of my future, of my family, of my legacy of what I will leave behind. Will I ever have kids, and who will they be how will they remember me... how willl this society remember me, how will they remember my forefathers, my Grandfather, my ancestors and whence I came. Was I ever an adult before this day.
So many questions race through my mind to which I have no answers
I know only that I am male and I am strong, I know only that I will go on and I will strive that maybe generations form now others will remember us, these foreigners who came here and the achievements they left behind.
I hope that one day I will be remembered like him, to be a great man, who gave everything he had for everyone else. I hope one day my children will remember me as a man such as him, who loved them no matter what they did.
I hope that, every woman I have loved will remember me as a caring and kind man. For those women who cannot speak of me I hope that in their hearts and minds they will remember me, and they will always grow and feel nurtured from the kindness and love that I shared with them.
Thank you for listening.
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