Million Dollar Question

" I asked the zebra,

Are you black with white strips?

Or white with black strips?

And the zebra asked me,

Are you good with bad habits?

Or are you bad with good habits?

Are you noisy with quiet times?

Or are you quiet with noisy times?

Are you happy with sad days?

Or are you sad with happy days?

Are you neat with some sloppy ways?

Or are you sloppy with some neat ways?

And on and on and on and on

And on and on he went.

I'll never ask a zebra

About stripesAgain. "
-Shel Silverstein, Zebra Question

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Last night as I switched my lights off and made my peace with the waning day, I could not help but contemplate my struggle at dealing with uncertainty. So much of a love for structure. A need to find answers. All the time.

To find a way to rationalize with all the things that happened in my life. To make sense of all my feelings and desires. To better understand all my failures and challenges.

I've asked many questions to the cosmos..on this blog and otherwise. And yes, I have found twice as many answers. Some that have satisfied me for a few days and others for a few years and some only for fractions of a second. So the quest and the questioning continues.

Over the years I have heard many answers that have shattered me. Others that have scarred me and some that I have accepted after struggling with for many years.

But on rare occasion, I have heard an answer that has surprised me silly and made me feel immensely at peace with life. Just every other blue moon or so.

The truth is that not all of my questions have answers. And over the years I've realised that it is sometimes better to know clearly what my questions are - than have all of the answers.

Yet, at this precise moment in time, it hurts to not know.

It scares me and unsettles me to deal with the complexity and uncertainty of people, decisions and choices.

Some say that all this questioning is a waste of time. And then there are others that insist that its good to question the basic things every once in a while.

So which one of them is right ?

And that is also a question, amongst the many others than I have on this cloudless night.

Today is October 15, 2008

I'm 29 years old and my city is Mumbai