Growing Up

 The great inconvenience of growing up is that as we grow older, our ailments too keep pace, growing larger alongside us. With advancing age comes advancing sickness of the mind.
 Once, a small ten-rupee toy car could make us happier than a ten-crore car can make us now, grown-up as we are—not even a fraction of that old joy. Those childhood games of playing teacher, doctor-engineer, or policeman brought such delight, yet when we actually enter these professions as adults, we somehow don't receive even a hundredth part of that boundless childhood bliss. It feels like, no, I must have wanted to become something else entirely. The more we acquire, the less joy we find in acquisition.
  
 In childhood, the intoxicating fragrance of a new shirt for Eid or Puja would keep me sleepless with excitement through the night, yet now, buying ten new shirts a month, I no longer lose sleep in that same yearning for a new shirt's coveted scent. I toss those monthly dozens into a corner of the wardrobe and sleep soundly on my side. As prosperity increases, small joys decrease. The less capable we become of finding happiness in little things, the more deprivation and sorrow multiply in life.
  
 Once, finding a torn two-rupee note would make us burst with joy, shouting in delight—yet now we slip crisp thousand-rupee notes into our wallets with calm indifference, or silently deposit bundles of lakhs in the bank. The relationship between affluence and contentment has always been inverse. The greater one's financial means, the lesser one's mental satisfaction. The days when we couldn't buy things at will—those were our most beautiful days.
  
 The more we grow, the smaller our happiness and joy become in proportion. Even when we hold the entire world in our fist, we feel: I've gained nothing in this life! In truth, there's no greater illness in this world than growing up. When small comforts lose to and vanish before great successes, that's when our melancholy begins. In childhood we live to be happy; in adulthood we live to be victorious. Living on, victory may eventually come, but life's joys slip away one by one. We want to be happy far less than we want to win. So all our thoughts and actions center around victory; happiness finds very little space in this world of triumph.
  
 What could be more precious than feeling itself! When that feeling grows numb, a person ceases to be human and becomes a living robot. Yet the more we grow, the more we lose this precious thing called feeling, day by day. Eventually, neither joy nor sorrow, neither elation nor melancholy, neither gain nor loss, neither success nor failure touches us anymore. As if we all live merely out of obligation. In this journey of growing up, we can clearly sense our beloved feelings gradually disappearing.
  
 Yes, we're compelled to live out of obligation. Some carry the burden of countless responsibilities and must live for that reason. Some shoulder the responsibility of parents, others are themselves parents; some are husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, or have dependents—for such various reasons, willingly or unwillingly, we're obligated to live. This living is a kind of habituation. We lived yesterday, we live today, we keep in mind the wish to live tomorrow. Having never ventured beyond this, our minds don't quite consent to going beyond it. People rarely step outside their habits. We curse life daily while continuing to live. We've learned to believe: life is like this.
  
 I suspect that without this burden of responsibility and the obligation to bear it, eighty percent of the world's people would voluntarily die. Most of us live precisely because we're compelled to; those who live entirely by their own choice, free from external pressure, can be counted on one hand. Those who can live that way are the most fortunate people in this world. Accepting everything and carrying all the unbearable shame of living becomes terribly painful. There aren't many who willingly take on such suffering. Making all arrangements for sorrow, people continue seeking happiness to console themselves. In this regard, all humanity is hypocritical.
  
 Inquiry would reveal that none of us truly want to live; we're compelled to live. That's why, with a life devoid of feeling, we walk and move like robots, laugh and cry, speak. Accepting our inability to live as we choose, we constantly shrivel in various kinds of hesitation and regret. Nearly every successful person is mentally a complete failure. We celebrate external victories loudly while internally bleeding from spiritual defeat. Sometimes, even while secretly wishing for our own death, we shout for others to hear: 'I want to live a thousand years in this world!' But really, who are we performing for? Others? Or ourselves? They've given this self-deception a fancy name: self-motivation or self-inspiration!