BIRTHDAY IN W2T CYCLE (28-Aug-2020)

 "Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” – Mark Twain, author

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln, US president

Popular reference as ‘Born Day’ is in vogue.  Delve into the matters, and you will find people attach great significance for two dates in their life - the Birthday and the New Year’s Eve.  It is as if a Call-from-Above on these two days that people issue a manifesto, like a politician just before the elections, with a corpus of resolutions to discharge an enhanced and purposeful life; among other things, to eat healthy and exercise better that mandates a highly regimented life.  No great test to the grey matter to measure the validity and sustenance, as resolutions fade into oblivion very soon.

Age is just a number and it is all in the mind, is a strong belief of the Twain’s clan (mind the above quote).  Fair logic, there is no need to wait until a birthday to resolve for creation of a platform for life-changing decisions.  If Lincoln’s words reverberate, Right Now, is the time to initiate a change; when acted upon and followed-through conscientiously it transforms into a true-winning formula to perch one at the top, at-the-least align the person in a path towards it to expound the expressed area of interest.

Birthday is a significant day for most and celebrations start, at the crack of dawn or would it the previous night, when the clock struck twelve-midnight.  For a few others it is just another day with a journey embarked in this wonderful world on this picturesque planet!  A select group in the upper echelons of the society, specifically in the celluloid world celebrate with pompous revelry and stamp a freeze-in-time moment to ensure they don’t advance in age, beyond a fictitious magical number.  They stand a testament, an antithesis of sorts to the age-old proverb ‘time and tide wait for none.’

Friends shower sincere birthday wishes and remark “as long as you don’t don your birthday suit, we would like for you to accompany us for a party!”  The system in vogue here in India is for the birthday person to treat his friends to a party, which means (s)he alone picks up a hefty bill.  Whereas in the western world, it is common knowledge for friends to treat and the expense equally split amongst themselves.

On a more philosophical front, the Hindu Vedanta to be precise, recently I heard a discourse and it elucidates a few aspects of this life:

• Born day is only an official date to carry out worldly affairs
• When you go back in time, you were born when your parents processed a thought in their mind about a progeny to their parentage
• Rejoice in the fact that Mother Nature has bestowed the gift of birth on you; mourn at the fact that your quantum of Karma has reintroduced you in the birth-death cycle for you to navigate the trials and tribulations

Caught in the quagmire of the devil and the deep sea, between the Twain and the Lincoln -sque thoughts, as my mind swings to contemplate between the esoteric and the mundane, I compose myself to turn another page in my Lifebook called ‘Womb-2-Tomb’ - backward or forward only time will tell, quiet preparation and silent prayers to be a year….younger!