Awkward and Uncomfortable

By Naieem Qureshi

Perhaps it isn’t rare to feel sometimes completely alienated, suffused with sloth and sullen hopes. To sorrow on the losses lost. And sometimes, without any reason, completely hopeless.

Photo by Aldo Vukaj on Unsplash

We baffle with the happenings happening around us and ply over the amorphous blank of life that dislodges its colours on and off. We adore our life when it admires us and begin to despise it the very moment its desirable delights disappear. Though human desires have no end, often new things, new places, new arenas do a lot to put the emotions in a state of overwhelming nostalgia.

On the urge of exploring different destinations, many a time we land on lands entirely unknown, which may be a rough pleasure but deeply mysterious. After having an ample notice on the vast array of things this world holds, inhabiting with nature, gazing at the deserving, staring at beautiful faces and then watching them walk away, we feel astonished. And yet a little tinge of desperation, from somewhere, just comes into existence. A feeling of awe and perplexity that tries to retard and prevent us from the bliss and joy of losing ourselves, pulling us out of our anxiety and burrows.

It is a sense of friction that reasons us wisely: “It is a place of strangers. And how can you so easily inhabit yourself among them?”

Often my mind accepts the reason and begins to act accordingly. But this time my mind goes on questioning its own self.

Is this whole world not also a stranger?

A stranger to the mound of cells who enter this world crying, just to deserve attention. A stranger to the people roaming along the streets, fed up with the weight of daily chores. A stranger to those with wet cheeks who say nothing, and to those crying hopelessly in a corner while the rest of the world walks past without a glance.

How strange it is, truly, to always live in the hope of a better version of life. Hope that things will soon get better. Hope that the ache will one day lift. Hope that tomorrow will carry something lighter in its hands.

To a stranger, in this strange life, this strange hub we all somehow share, perhaps that hope is the one familiar thing we all quietly carry inside us, without ever saying its name.