So... I am all set for my flight to Mumbai in a few hours! I can't believe I have not been home - home as place - for 5 years. Not for lack of wanting to... who could have predicted covid and all the drama in between. The images of home seem so far away now that the idea of physically being there overwhelms me. As if it's too much for my imagination to cope... And what is even more exciting is I am going to what was literally home, Mumbai, and emotionally/spiritually/ancestrally home, Mangalore. I feel like my heart will burst... but more specifically, my stomach... hehehe! I am dying to have all the good stuff in good old Mangalore. Dosas, idlis, ambades, sajige bajils, gadbads... I could go on and on... but I won't. Because I will be there soon enough! ;)

My life is going to get very adventurous for the next few months. Not just because it is pretty routine otherwise, but by all measures I guess! My seatbelts are on, hehe.

These days when I have to make a decision, I ask myself a - what might seem like - a morbid question. What would I have done if I was going to die tomorrow? Seen from this perspective, there is a lot more clarity. Would I do what I do day in, day out, have breakfast, go through the motions, etc or would I for instance see a part of the world I have never seen? Or be with people I don't get to be with often? I have for some years now realised that an experience in itself is worth more than material possessions. Of course, not all experiences have value for me. I wouldn't care for, for instance, bungee jumping or sky diving. But each to their own. Maybe for some people these would be of value. Coming to my original point, by asking myself this stark question, I realised that ordinarily we just go on as if our lives (and others') are infinite. Our decisions are based on this assumption of longevity. In a way we do have to assume this if we are to have security into the future but it seems to me we are so caught up with that secure future that we are never making decisions for the present. If I knew I was going to die tomorrow, I would do the things that actually give me joy today. In the absence of this 'deadline', we make choices that are just sound and sensible from a future perspective. These are also choices that everyone else is generally making because everyone is looking to the future. Maybe why when people do things that are not the norm we wonder what's got into them but actually they might be doing what they want to do now or what brings them happiness, more conscious of their finitude than we are.

As someone said, the ships in the harbour are safe but that is not what ships are built for. What would be the use of a safe and secure future at the cost of always staying in the harbour... never finding out what we are built for?