In Quest of Happiness

Have I drunk of the hemlock? How else do I explain this numbness of the soul?  As part of his death sentence, Socrates was offered a cup full of hemlock, and ordered to keep walking after. I read this story in fourth standard history book and somehow remembered that last part- “You must keep walking.” Years later, a professor in college explained that the effect of hemlock begins from the legs and makes its way upward, till it reaches the heart and stops it. And the brain knows the gradual numbing of the toes, the feet, the legs, the thighs… it feels the slow but certain disconnect from everything that orients it in the world, and it knows the assured arrival of death.

Sometimes on the infinite cosmic stage, the trappings fall away, briefly, to reveal the utter nothingness of it all. Ennui, we term it.

Must I smother my soul daily thus wasting this one, singular chance that comes with an expiry date without an alarm bell? But what feeds a soul if the body dies? The soulless work of days might buy the little material joys that quietens the soul for an hour or two. But is that all that is there to it? Is that all?

A decade ago, I went to a musical night to hang out with my friends. But my friends came with bigger groups of friends of their own- cousins, boyfriends, friends of boyfriends- people I didn’t know, and I found myself standing alone in the crowd- the usual connections broken, the familiar wavelengths blocked as the faceless men on stage crooned of distances greater than lightyears. And I said goodbye to my friends and came home.

Sometimes we hide in solitude because if you can forget that you have limbs and skin and a heart then your soul does not need its flash of nihilistic epiphany when the connections break down. And you make stories inside your heads, and most of the time, they work, but one day you are weary and your imagination falters and you feel the insidious hemlock seeping in through the pores of your skin, and through the air as you breathe in. And you keep walking.

I couldn’t have explained on that evening ten years ago, that the soul seeks communion. I can’t explain it much better today, but as my stories fail more and more, with greater frequency, all I know is that the soul seeks its purpose, its joy, and that I must find it, for communion also lies in that search. And so I keep walking, despite the numbness, to find my lost connection back to the universe.

And at the turn of an unexpected corner, who knows what bliss might await? For happiness is the realizing, all of a sudden, that you can breathe and laugh and sing without failure, censure or judgement and to know that deep inside, you are connected to infinite beauty.

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