It was time for Ralph to take his 8th & last dose of Fluticasone for that day. It was 11:30 PM and like the other 29 years before him, this day – his 30th year since he turned 76 marked no exemplary memoir. He got back to his wooden chair constructed by him a decade ago – hardly aesthetic, but did its job – to make sure the back remained perfectly aligned to the leg rest. He began reading and by 2.30 AM finished his 669th book of his life. There was a fleeting desire to have reached a whole number on his 30th year eve of reading & writing but he digressed. He smiled & began to write his thoughts & learning on his blog from his now newly finished book as he had for all the previous books. A small creak led him to look around his little triangular room which had a chair for reading, a table where his computer and its chargers were kept, and of course, a bed amply crafty but comfy. Next to his chair was a modular training rack with 6 dumbbells and two barbells with four weight compositions and a pulley able to change arrangements for various body parts. On one of its ledges was a skipping rope. A small kitchen with some vegetables, fruits & gas remained dark just like his little bathroom next to it. Ralph was content. He hardly remembered his life before – memory betraying him a decade ago. His last 30 years were spent learning from all sources and components that he could find from books or the internet, writing about his life & thoughts, training his body & mind, eating three meals of grown bread and grown vegetables that he grew on a land that was ‘nobody’s’ for 60 years. It still remained so as he went to bed that night not to wake up the next morning. His daily routine involved walking every morning to the nearest dog shelter, spending some time speaking to its owner Gess (and a few early risers around there) and to Pratt – the newspaper guy who used to sell them around the few blocks from Ralph’s room – every morning at 8, after which he started taking his remaining 7 doses for his Asthma every 3 hours while he read & trained, cooked & ate. Lately it had become 8:10 as Ralph’s speed to walk had slowed. Ralph seemed to have been bothered by this occasionally. As Pratt came by seeking to understand Ralph’s non appearance from five mornings in a stretch, he found him sleeping forever. They all marvelled at his physical fitness by his age, and his book (a mix of all his blog posts) was taken up by Pratt and given to print. Its still at an editor’s desk and Pratt asks for an update every now and then. It is difficult to presume what went by in Ralph’s mind in his last 30 years which he spent doing a simple assortment of activities. Pratt spoke of him as the happiest person he ever met – a man with very little regrets and funnily enough becoming less regretful by the day. He never asked of Ralph’s life before or where he came from as Pratt cared none of a man’s past. PM reports suggested his reason of death was unclear; his systems were in ‘perfect’ shape given his age, although there were signs of ailments and damages from before. One would contemplate Ralph spent his last days doing some of the simplest activities he had always wanted to do and tried to live a life enriching all that he sought passionately after. It seemed according to Pratt, that he died happily – in a real sense of the word. 

The book once printed would be called, “The Man who Lived at the End”.

— x —

Ralph, is a fiction. 

But, in a way Ralph represents many of us. 

There might be a Ralph in the making or many – and maybe none. Can there be enough simplicity for us to start our passions at an age when all other “responsibilities” have given way? All may have an age in mind when the shackles of all that holds us aground falls away like the winter’s last snowflake. All may have one or none at all. We may end up living upto 70 or end up falling flat on the floor, gone forever, the next second; it could be a tumor gone unnoticed, could be that vehicle swerved too left, may be a small trickle in an artery, a bullet that misfired, a stress that acted weird, a trauma that came too soon, or our own souls dying the slow weathering of a paranoid age. We live our life doing something yet thinking of being someone else. Contemplating how some unsung moment can be our very own, owning an icicle of time that gives us a semblance of purpose, of hope, one little prick to a momentary meaning that leaves us satisfied of all that was in vain – or, not. 

Can we all, honestly, root for this “simplicity”? 

We have won the ultimate lottery – a trillion to one chance that we wouldn’t exist. Each breath is a win, and therefore, should we only just exist? A day will come when that annoyance of a project, co-worker, boss, relative or trouble will fade away leaving you realizing the sheer stupendousness it is to even bother another day into submission; leaving you fatigued with desperation to reach back and breathe with intent. 

Shall we then, may I say, diffuse the angels’ calls with the cacophony of safe surrender that trickle our way up to that artery, that tumor, that unseen vehicle, that exalted trauma, that meaning which disappeared, that dawn which became our last, the vision which asphyxiated slowly by the stealthy vines of illusion called “there is time”; watered by your very own safe hands, tamed by your wispy fearful soundless voice which insisted you to lie there unmoving, not fighting, not opening your eyes tight under your bed – afraid the Boogeyman is looking for you, unwilling hence, to raise your body, unable to roll the windows down and slide your head. Jammed stationary at the edge of a cliff knowing the water is deep but ignoring the knowledge deep within, that you can swim this current to the shore. 

Because there is no belief left. 

Years of slow stealthy weariness has rusted the hinges of the doors to your life until the memory of opening one becomes a distant fairytale where bounties of green & play once conjured the fleeting images you cackled wordlessly while you were a child. Is this the world you so tirelessly dreamed to weave while you sipped pop sickle and daydreamed away to infinity? Does the finite world looks & feels different – honestly, realistically – because of the realities you backpacked unaware, or is it all in your mind, conditioned through fear of trying, rather failing, falling down & hurting, eventually not getting up. But, all those who fall, realize, ironically, fear gives way to something deeper and meaningful and that which invokes fear is fear itself – a hollow customary object that we hold dear akin to our closest friend which like the night’s dreadful omen turns its gray fangs towards us the moment we realize its venomous courtship. And fear, through the fear of losing its invincible power, holds us stringent & static with a scepter of perception to its utmost need, grows fat & bold until it rules all of us on a whim. 

We have all been there. 

Rant asunder by the world’s deviance we cower and seek shelter among friends & some who are worse than foes. One cannot differentiate so easily which is whom; through instinct at times clearest images are reproduced. But there are no shortcuts to living life and surviving a repetitive phase of hours does not need vision. There is every possibility and opportunity this society provides you to be a Ralph, and there is every possibility and opportunity for you to return society that favor. Cemeteries lay proof to a human spirit goldmine now thoroughly forgotten, washed white under the knowledge of tales unwritten in the anguish of delaying the loss of breath, buried still under the weight of fear, doubt & limitedness; each life entombed forever under the scarcity of courage to let one fall yet remain alive to rise. 

So, is there a way? To ensure this fleeting image of a life can be our masterpiece of choices. 

Not all have all choices; many who do, seldom however, employ their will to control these potentials, often hesitate to incubate them into realities and with time they forget the location of that safe little space they stored their dreams.

So, is there a way? No. There isn’t one, or two or a million. 

There may be visions but there are no “paths” leading towards glory. Each of us paves their own. Each builds the light they shine, or the cover in which they starve it. Each builds the bridge to awareness and completion, or designs the bunker to shield themselves from truths. Each contains the power to become, or the strength to dissipate into nothingness. Each can act or decide to judge acts; and whichever space you feel you currently occupy, know the other is just around the corner. 

There may not be ways and roads but, there are approaches. And those are yours to decide. 

Would you want to look at life through the grand illusion of “tomorrow” or seize today – or even a small part of each day, knowing full well not all have the luxury to devote what they love to an entirety of their waking hours. Would you prefer to live in the fiction of Ralph and hoping happiness can be found in the very end miraculously – however farfetched the ending seems would you root for it because the fear that commands you is easier to comply with than raising your eyelids to the bright lights of clarity and consciousness of the now – and not root for the veiled neverlands of later? Would you prefer to take sanctuary yet more in the belief that all will be fine in the end if you follow the chart set by your forefathers, even at the loss of intellectual or emotional capital, getting those troubled hunches that these maps aren’t taking you where you’d really want to go. 

So, where do you want to go? Where is your treasure? (You may want to ask?)

Where is your adventure, or the sense of it? 

Where are those long lost desires to conquer the happiness of ourselves and redeem a meaning, a purpose and lay waste to the citadels of anxiety? 

Where are the knights of our spirit when we need them? 

Where once the high flag of becoming shimmered in the far white plains, now they seem frozen aghast amidst murkier wastelands – can we find those long lost lands again and ride to it? They lie within not far from reach – but distanced by the blindness of our ego. When can we again meet our true selves and realize we are still there holding a beacon of hope – exactly where we parted ways to race for existence, compliance and monotony.

When!? 

The time is now. The approaches will differ, the variables will differ and so will the challenges. But nonetheless, there will be opportunities, help and guidance to those who seek and deserve. Take control of the lives that is a gift to each of you. There is a difference between existing and living. If you haven’t yet made the jump, do it, take leap of informed faith or learn how to build the right kinds of bridges.

There are no ways, only your own way! 

If you can read and understand these lines, it means you are in the position to be one Who Lives Everyday – and Not In The End. 

Godspeed your conscious and mindful evolution towards your best self.