This particular feeling hits home to me quite often. We live in an ever changing world where progressing time is the only constant. We are often consumed in our fast moving life and before we know it, we have moved far ahead without appreciating the good things that we once had.
I have never lived in one place for more than 5 years at a stretch except the place where I grew up, Kolkata, where I stayed for 6 years. I used to be happy about it and I would find myself looking at the bright side of things by appreciating that I am getting to experience so many things in life that I would not have been able to had I stayed at the same place. I am not so happy with those feelings anymore. I find myself longing for that permanent place which I can call home.
Growing up in Kolkata, I used to live in an apartment in a building complex belonging to the bank that my father used to work at. I grew up with 2 siblings, both older than me. I remember having a busy fun time everyday going to school, returning home, playing badminton with my friends, having dinner, playing fighting with my brothers and doing my homework in the meantime.
Then one fine day, my elder brother left for higher studies to another city and the next year, my eldest brother left too. I was the only child at home. I was happy for a few months as it was tragically the only thing I had wanted since I was born to be the only centre of attention in my family and most importantly, not having to share my chips packets with them. But it soon all ended as I started to miss them. But not for long as within a year, I left for my higher studies too. And suddenly my house which was full of fights and loud noises all year long was left in silence that only had the voices of my parents.
When I left, I somehow knew that I will never be able to live with them again in the same carefree way as a student with no worries or responsibilities. Boy, was I right! My parents moved to another city, New Delhi, for my father’s work. I got to live with them for a few months before I moved to Japan to work at my first job. It was only a few months but that was it. That home where I grew up was never my home ever again.
Home does not exist anymore
When I was in my university, I got a chance to visit Kolkata for an internship. I used that chance to go visit my old apartment. It was different. Everyone I knew in the buildings had left. It was just the same place with different people in it whom I didn’t know. So, it was not home.
I never went for my convocation too. I knew it would soon be turned into the place that I used to know but with different people. I am sentimental that way. I am noticing it now that it might have had something to do with a lack of a permanent place. My parents live in a different city from where I was born or where I grew up. I don’t have any friends that I have known at my home city because I don’t have a home city. So, there is never a sense of going back for me.
I had gotten really attached to my home in Japan as it was the first house I had ever rented from the salary I earned at the first job of my life in the first new country I ever lived outside of India. It was the same house where my wife moved in with me and made it my first home. Sure, it was rented, but it was comfortable. When I was leaving Japan last year, the only thing that made me shed a tear was moving out of that house. I have looked at that house multiple times since then on Google Maps Street Views only to find some other people living in it which was certainly obvious but kinda painful at some level.
Universe is vast
What gives me comfort is looking at my problems from the lens of the giant cosmos. I have the picture The Pale Blue Dot, taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft from 6 billion kms away when it was crossing our Solar System taken on 14th Feb 1990, hung at my office near my chair. It is the only thing that gives me solace as it reminds me that all my feelings are miniscule in front of this giant canvas full every life form we have ever known or will know before us and long after we are gone.
Or sometimes, even the The Day when Earth Smiled picture that was taken from the Cassini spacecraft helps in lifting up my mood.
I am reminded of the quote by Carl Sagan in his book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
A phenomenal speech by him that puts all this in a little more perspective can be found in this video.
Time gives life meaning
All of this puts life in a different perspective. It suddenly feels like our emotions, successes, failures, celebrations, diseases, wars and everything is meaningless for the universe and they are these big massive things that exist only in our minds.
I mean, in 150 years, in 2173, no one we know right now will be alive unless medical science ever catches up. We can add a few more years onto it. But no one else will be alive. Will you want to be alive at that time? If you do, will you know anyone there? Will anyone know you? What will be the point of that life? Relationships give life meaning. Sure, you can make new relationships. But will that help in such an advanced age? I know I would be drowning in nostalgia which I can never go to. Relationships exist with time. After a lot of time has passed, those people do not exist anymore to have a relationship with.
I have thought and thought about all these things and I always circle back to the same point => We can never go back home because it does not exist anymore. Time gives life meaning. Without it, nothing is same. Our parents are graying faster than ever. We are getting older. Our siblings do not live with us in the same place and we do not have the same relationship that we used to have. There is no joy in any successes if our family isn’t there to share them with. We create new families but then our kids grow up and soon we are old. End of journeys of life. It all moves incredibly fast. So, my advice to myself and anyone else reading this is to cherish every moment like there is no tomorrow because there really will be nothing like this present that we have right now. It keeps moving away everyday. Enough with the souring competitions, rat race, jealousy, hard feelings and what not. Forgive and forget. Let’s make now the best time we can ever have before it is long lost.