The years have passed by,
In the blink of an eye.
And as I stand here, living on my own,
A life of existence, white walls, lots unknown.
I wonder how this moment is creating
An endless construct of infinite loops.
How this day would have unfoldedIf
I had headed to Pete’s for a coffee instead of Starbucks.
How this day would have unfolded
If I had quit coffee 6 months ago.
How this day would have unfolded
If I had decided to move to California instead of New York a year ago.
How this day would have unfolded
Had I decided to pursue architecture instead of design.
How this day would have unfolded
If I had succumbed to all the bullying in school.
Or if,If I was never born at all
Or if,If my parents never even met.
Would I still be standing here…?
Amidst the towering skyline,
And be present in this bitter sweet summer.
Thats the thing about the clockwork of existence.
The cogwheels keep turning and turning,
And time keeps passing by.
Every next minute a complete question mark.
The beauty of unpredictability.
The beauty of the unique strangeness of uncertainty.
The story of our existence a complete mystery.
But who is even making this story?
I understand I am the protagonist,
But who is the narrator?
See thats the funny bit about life.
We pretty much play all the characters.
Protagonist, directors, producers,
And the narrator.
Have you ever noticed how we recount
Some of our life stories differently each time we say it.
Sometime with some details added,
While other times some details omitted?
Was I wearing a blue shirt or a green one?
Was he standing beside me or opposite me?
What did the background look like
While the camera was closing up on my face,
While I was talking to him?
Wait … this is weird.
How am I not able to replay the memory as it is each time?
Why do I try harder to remember some details each time.
Well its simple.
I am a human.
Memory is a not a trustworthy record.
We have been tied to construct stories in our heads.
We watch happy endings and crave for one but reality is far from it.
We build our own happy, unique versions of our lives in our heads.
But I do know the crux of the memory.
The first time I spoke to my overly crazy crush!
Trust me I might just say that it is a good thing I don’t remember some details.
Coz boooyyy I embarrassed myself.
So nervous I dint blink until I had creeped him out,
Swallowed half my words.
Sweating like a snowman in a sauna.
Well anyway thats a story for another day,
But getting back to what we were talking about.
So in conclusion this distance between the story itself
And the telling of the story makes us all
unreliable narrators of our lives.
This means that no story really has a reliable narrator.
Unless of course if the story was narrated as it unfolded,
Which we obviously know is impossible.
So technically the only reliable narrator is life itself.
But how can we trust life ?
When it has been creating a mockery of us, deceiving us,
Taking us on a journey where its is impossible to predict
Whats going to happen next.
The so called beauty of the unpredictability of life…
Remember we spoke about this earlier.
This makes life itself the biggest unreliable narrator.
So the big question is, if life is the biggest unreliable narrator,
And if at each instance, every cause has infinite possibilities,
You know how unpredictable life is…
And how every action has infinite probabilistic effects,
One can only question the cause of any outcome.
Which means how can you say that
One butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil is the
cause of a tornado in Japan.
Which opens up a whole new possibility
Of how every action is independent of any previous actions.
The heroes and villains, the happiness and sadness,
The success and failures of our lives
Are mere players, mere chapters, mere plot points,
In a much bigger movie where every action is independent
And there is no clear reason for an outcome of any action.
They are just filling the frames,
So that the real heroes can have bodies passing in the background,
The real happiness can stick around as memories to cherish,
The failures as just a day of bad luck when things didn’t work out.
Do you get it?
Life brings us to our knees and
Takes us on a joy ride not because of our actions.
But if we are the representation of a wonderful story,
The unreliable narrators of this ever changing story,
And the protagonist and the embodiment of
the many characters we will assume,
In this unique story called life,
Then what is the cause and what is the effect?
Who is the cause and who is the effect?
As life will always be an unreliable narrator.