A Medley most Topsy-turvy

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I am yet to make up my mind about whether living a life of certainties is a good or bad thing.

You know the life I am talking about, the kind whose denizens know exactly what they want, when they want it and how to get there. These charmed savants can successfully navigate the tumultuous eddies of fate and free will and bring forth order on chaotic canvases, symmetry out of asymmetry, geometry out of amorphousness, logical effects from the right causes. Points A to B to C and so on and so forth; perfectly charted, not a hair out of place. A life of absolutes - favourite book, favourite writer, favourite movie, favourite actor, favourite music, favourite food, favourite colour, favourite Beatle etc etc etc; complete clarity of thought, no ambiguity and certainly no room for existentialist musings.

And here I am, scrolling through my Liked Songs list on Spotify and trying to figure out even one unifying theme in the 1,300+ songs currently here. To be clear, I am not flexing. In fact, this is the very opposite of a flex. I genuinely do not have an answer to the most basic of questions - what is your favourite music / artist / band? I used to say rock and that's still probably true on balance, but I can also see on this list healthy smatters of jazz, pop (including 90's Indian and K-pop), indie, dance, bollywood, rap (western and punjabi), classical, sufi, instrumental, anime theme songs... And all this even after making a conscious effort over the last several months to be more selective in hitting 'Like'. But this darned app seems to have my number, for I have already hit the button 3 times in the last hour and am at serious risk of reaching high single digits before the day is over. Which is what got me thinking hard enough to write this post. 

What does this largesse of Likes say about me - am I a person most distinguished with varied tastes and interests, or am I just a flighty dilettante without any depth or true appreciation? And this uncertainty extends to other spheres in my life as well; don't have one favourite book, band or food and certainly don't have the foggiest notion about what life holds even 2 months down the line, let alone 2 years. And this is the complete opposite of my starry-eyed youthful self, who knew with great conviction the answers to the above questions (Hitchhiker's Guide, Scorpions and pizza respectively) and also knew he wanted to become an author fast. But as I think about the years that have passed since then, I can so clearly see the changes that they brought about in that raw, immature youth. I have done a lot more, really experienced the big wide world around me outside the comforting shelter of home and just grown up and become (dare I say) wiser. I have learnt that absolutes are a figment of the imagination, entropy is an immutable force and that a sure-footed, stable path is not all what it is cracked up to be. It has worked for me somehow, this ceaseless uncertainty swirling about me like a coked-up Tasmanian Devil, even though it makes me scream and tear out my hair all too often.

Maybe there is a better in-between place still to be found, where the ground is solid beneath your feet and the winds gust about you just enough to keep things interesting. That should be something worth aiming for, methinks. Till then, I have playlists to sort and iCloud memory to free up to keep me gainfully occupied. And a 'Baby shark' song request from the daughter to honour ASAP!

5 Likes now for the day :)

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