There’re just 17 days to go. Not that I’m worried anymore about the impending date. Or, unusually thrilled, for that matter. But because 27th November is going to be my 48th birthday, it’s not a date I’m likely to overlook in a hurry.
Good time, I reckon, to introspect. Balding old men in spectacles do that, I’m told. If nothing else, it helps keep the gray matter, well, gray. Not that I’m in a mood to meet Mr Alzheimer in a hurry—no sir, I prefer Michelle Pfeiffer and so what if she doesn’t know about my existence yet—I still think I have some good years left!
So what does the scene look like, when you’ve completed at least half your allotted home runs, huffing and puffing, but still think you’re fit enough to face the pitcher?
First realisation is, you can still play ball, if you can see the damn thing after all these years. Admittedly not all that big as before, but still sizeable, you have to admit. Now, everybody knows that ball-sizes matter, so don’t confuse this with anything else—not even the size of my ego. On the other hand, if you believe that egos have a way of adding on inches with age, don’t worry, my frequent trips to the gym have ensured that I simply keep expanding my chest to keep it in.
In either case, one can still hit a mean ball and that’s a fair point at this age. But this isn’t about being able to fend for oneself—that’s still eminently do-able: at this juncture one often tends to pontificate about the larger issues in life. Should one have candy-floss if one feels like, for instance, or walk about naked when there’s no one home?
To which an Existentialist must come up with Existentialist answers, I suppose, or better still, answer with more Existentialist questions. OK, so here goes: at 48, has one really achieved what one had to? What else is left? Has one secured the lives of his progeny? Has one found real happiness? And of course, the biggest one of them all—what next?
In case you haven’t caught on yet, I fancy Existentialism. Not because I necessarily believe in it that much, but because I like the way one pronounces ‘Sartre’ or ‘Kafka’. And what exactly is my Sartorial or Kafkaesque state on the eve of my 48th birthday?
In retrospect, it’s not really that different from when I was a child: except for some very minor points, which don’t really count in the Existentialist world. For earlier on, I believed I was born to make a difference to this world—now I believe this world was born to make a difference to me; earlier I thought older people were wiser—now I think younger people are; earlier only I thought I was good-looking—now the whole world disagrees with me; earlier I thought building a house and ensuring a good life for my kids was a major milestone—now my kids don’t think so. The list is endless, but like I said, if you take a bigger, Existentialist view of things, it hardly matters.
All of which proves just one thing—that one tends to come full-circle at this point in his life, an amplification in other words, of the tautology that the earth is round. And what makes me say that?
Very simply this—that whereas earlier I was anxious and always wondering how and whether one was important in the scheme of life, now I feel exactly the same way, except for a small detail: the anxiousness is gone, and there’s a happier acceptance of the fact that one doesn’t really matter at all. Life has gone on and will go on, whether I live another 50 years or 5, in much the same way.
So the questions can wait, as can the answers, I suppose. For another year, or another 100. Meanwhile why not enjoy the 48th year of Existence like none before: after all, nothing really matters, and of course, no one’s looking!
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