Indira Kesari

I am fully aware that (perhaps) almost no one is ever gonna read blogs again, let alone it’s owned by someone insignificant (re: me). But as much as I don’t care, it’s nice to be back.

Yeah, 2021 is coming to an end. There are only 2 months left. Now tell me how do you people feel about that? Mind sharing a bit of your thoughts in the comment section? (Again, a bit silly to expect any comments down below, hahaha).

But anyway, let’s talk about life, and how hard it is for me to actually live, at least as a normal person. Guess I find myself hiding from I don’t know yet what it is. Is it adulting? Is it a pile of responsibilities? Sometimes what I feel during the day is dominantly scary.

“Have you tried finding out what’s going on in your head?” 

Answer: Yes I have. Every single day.

Sometimes it feels like I know everything that’s going on with me. It’s just, I don’t know how to deal with them all. So if the question is have you done anything yet? Then the answer is I haven’t actually done much. All I did was hiding in a warm blanket or trying to lose consciousness by laying on my bed 24 hours a day, trying my best to sleep. I know it’s completely not okay, and I know if I keep going it may sound like a lame excuse for being lazy.

Okay I get my shit done. It’s just like… “Okay these are all done, what’s next? I don’t know, everything seems hard!” kind of feeling. 

Just a little trigger warning, some of the things that I’m going to talk about in this post are probably going to be a little disturbing, and unstructured. Yes, I’m just gonna ramble on whatever comes to my mind. Ready? Okay.

It’s funny that the only certainty in this world is, we’re all about to die.

Quoting ABBA in their song entitled Hasta Manana:

“Don’t know where, don’t know when.”

All add one more thing: Don’t know how.

Yes, we’re going to die someday, somehow. It’s nice to live with that consciousness once in a while. But it gets ugly when I get reminded about that every day by my own brain, at least these past few… weeks? Months? Quite unsure, I didn’t count. I’m too occupied dealing myself with that fact while at the same time constantly aware of how little I’ve pursued in life.

Hey, let’s listen to a song together, shall we? Just so you can relate to which song I’m gonna use as a reference!

It’s Vienna by Billy Joel.

Where’s the fire, what’s the hurry about?

You better cool it off before you burn it out.

You got so much to do, but only so many hours in a day.

But you know that when the truth is told, 

that you can get what you want or you can just get old.

You’re gonna kick off before you even get halfway through.

This song is so convenient to listen to. Imagine those times when you’re feeling like crap, hanging on the edge of the cliff wanting to end everything and there’s just no point to keep on existing at all, and then this fatherly figure of Joel comes at a speed of light giving you an instant warm hug and a hard-to-swallow pill about adulting and crisis in general.

Thanks, Joel. I definitely need that.

Back to the topic, I just watched this documentary series on Netflix, entitled Surviving Death. I watched the first, second, and straight to the last episode. The first two are about near death experience and medium. The last episode about reincarnation really gave me goosebumps. Imagine you’re a four or five year old kid of kind parents, living a completely normal life. Then one time, out of the blue, you remember exactly who you were in the past life, including how you died. That must be very terrifying.

(You know, I’m not gonna tell you much about this series, go check it out if you’re interested as well, and of course if you’re okay spending your time consuming this kind of content).

Yo don’t get me wrong, I still believe in science HAHAHA. Matter of fact, I’m a quite (self-proclaimed) skeptical person. But as much as I trust science, nature, and the physical world, I still can get amazed with how weird the supernatural world can be, and sometimes how surreal it can manifest itself.

My key to keep going on watching this series is: I have to put aside my stick-to-the-science self. Science clearly does not answer all the stranger things about, let’s say ghosts, paranormal experiences, or past life evidence, because these things belong outside of science’s boundary to explore. So, yeah, let’s just maybe have some fun (and get creeped out a bit!).

My religious belief has this concept of reincarnation. I’ve been taught about this since I began to make sense of the world. My teacher and old people around me would say something like, “when we die, we’ll be born again. Whether as a human or as an animal, it depends on how many good or bad things you’ve done in your life. [I took this one as a pun though] If you don’t wanna be born as a dog, be a nice person, alright?”

“Objection, ma’am. That’s an insult for dogs! Dogs are cute, delicate, and overall great, okay?!” - Wish I could say this back then.

Well, yup! That’s the thing. Some of them even claimed that they knew who I was in the past. They said it was my great grandfather (or great grandma, not quite remembering it clearly). And the cool thing is, based on this belief one spirit can reincarnate as more than one person manifested in their offspring. At least that’s what they told me as a kid back in the day. Mind you that this was a long time ago, my memories could likely decay or be distorted and some of my recalling process might be wrong.

Do I believe in them? I did, back then. But as I get older, I get more and more *annoyingly* skeptical until I finally am no longer accepting these ideas about being born over and over again until you’re decent enough to not be thrown into a physical world anymore. As a pay-off, your spirit is gonna be eternal in a sweet Nirvana up there. (P/S: I love calling it Nirvana more instead of heaven, or paradise. It’s such a beautiful word for me, hehe).

How come I no longer believe in this concept? Simply put: I don’t want it to happen.

I’m afraid to be born again. I’m afraid of being given a new body to take care of. I’m afraid of being born with a new name and a new family to make them proud of. I’m afraid of the likelihood of making them disappointed when I don’t achieve much in life. I’m afraid that in my next life, I will have this mind like mine again.

“Hey, relax. No one asks you to be born as a superstar, or as an activist, or a CEO or anything great you name it. You might be born as a mediocre [again], as a highly privileged person, or even as one of the members of a marginalized group. No one knows.”

That’s the point. No one can ever know and whatever it might be, I don’t want to repeat this journey of giving meaning to life and live to the fullest and then die. And then… being born again? And live again? And give it meaning again on the basis of our suffering? And work my a$$ off, contributing something to the world until I die and I’m eventually forgotten and then… being born again? And on, and on, and on (kinda reminds me of jeremybearimy in one of The Good Place’s episodes).

“What do you want, then?”