Brushstrokes

I have one simple question to myself. What I did with my life on earth? Being an agnostic atheist, I do not believe in afterlife other than the recycling of the atoms and molecules of my body and brain. As a scientist, I know, through the recycling of the atoms and molecules of my physical body, the energy which I possessed for my earthly existence, that is also going to be transferred into something else, just like every other molecules of this universe. My molecular afterlife is indistinguishable from the green grasses, red flowers, blue birds, and yellow mango, this is where I feel connected to nature and absolutely happy for that. But every time I face the possibility of my death, I ask myself, what I did with my every days, hours, minutes and seconds other than breathing and aging. That is the question makes my heart heavy. My latest episode of physical uncertainty made me feel like desperately wishing to live long, because if I die now, I would be nothing but a random glitch in this random world, that is where I would be defeated to my promise. I promised to myself, I would do something, at-least I would make a scratch on this earth to say it, I lived here, in this space and in this time. I used to ask myself before sleeping every-night, did I worth living today? Did I make an effort to be meaningful? Am I satisfied with my space-time entity before falling asleep? The answer is not a straight yes or no. Last week, when I was terribly ill, lying on my bed, I felt a deep sadness, then I cheered myself by realizing, my turbulent life didn't stop me loving and being unconditionally loved by some rare people. For last five years, I have lived, mostly enjoyed my life with my own conditions and at-least I have never stopped trying to make my scratch. That is definitely not good enough to draw a complete sketch of my dreams, but I know I dreams. At the same time, I regretted for not expressing my existence for a long long time, I wanted another chance to express, sketch, paint and display my ephemeral soul. I want another chance to finish my unfinished jobs. I want another chance to live a lifetime of meaningful work.

When I got the message back in 2011 that I might live only 10 to 15 more years, I cried but I was determined to use whatever I get. My emotional breakdown to my effort of surviving, everything paid me off, I made my joys with my thin hands, I wiped out my tears and smiled at them. My changed life had given me a sense of contentedness, I began to feel that my positive light of life is not going to allow me to surrender to fate very soon, I am a fighter. I didn't believe anymore that my life expectancy is just 15 years more, I believed that it must be longer and I am going to enjoy every single minutes of it, I am going to live for my dreams.  In 2012 December, when I was about to drown in water, I was only able to raise my arms above the water and using all my breath to say, "Help!". Then one unknown British boy named Liam came to save me, I had nothing to do but thanking him for saving my life. I was traumatized but not unhappy at all. What can be a better death for me when I am working as hard as possible and dying while I am presenting my work to the world! And there is people who comes to help even after being completely stranger, most probably that is one face of empathy! We are wired to be empathetic, have trust on empathy. Same thing happened in 2015, got in the middle of a thunderstorm while kayaking in the Atlantic ocean, again in a conference venue to present my work. Actually I enjoyed to comeback alive both of the time after seeing the frightening beauty of the nature. But this time, July 2016, I was dead scared of not being able to finish what I have started. This time I have learned that I have no given next second. All I have just the very moment to breath and I have to live it meaningfully. Scare of Death visited me four times in last five years, most probably just to say me how important is tomorrow! How important is to live today with satisfaction, how important is to living a life what I dreams! I can smile and ignore anything and anyone now who threaten the expression of my entity though it hurts my heart. I can embrace who welcomes me with support and love, with those love, I bloom like a bright yellow Dandelion. I don't know how much time I have, there must be a limit how many times a Dandelion can come back after extreme circumstances. But I know, there is no time for delaying any brushstroke. Now I know, if I die now, I would regret nothing but dying before finishing the masterpiece I want to paint with the colors of my everyday.  I don't know whether I can make another mile, but I have steps to make at this moment. 

Emergence of a non-conformist

When I was a little kid, I had a small notebook. I used to write my emotions there. I used to write because I had no one to talk. So I found my solace in my notebook. I found myself as my companion. That was the beginning of my healthy intellectual growth or the beginning of being non-conformist.  

My whole life I have just wanted to be like myself. And surprisingly I have found wherever you live in this world, you would be encouraged to be anything but one thing, that’s being your own self. The society will do everything to stop you from being yourself. It is a fight between individual existence and society. Asking the question ‘who am I?’ is inappropriate in social codebook. Ask any random person walking in the street, who are they? They would come with their names, many of them would add their nationality, some people would add their religion before nationality. In a close friendship, you would get to know, they are someone's father, mother, wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, daughter, son and so on. After all these replies, if you are still curious to know who they are, most of the people would reply with a deep surprize in their eyes. We live in a world, where very few creates their identity, rather identity is created by the society.

‘Who am I?’, this is the first valid question I had asked myself when I was a 14 years old kid. I should say I dared to ask that to myself. Now I know, that single question made me a social outcast today. That single question cost me all of my intimate familial relationships. The moment my society learned about my question, I have become a unique victim of the society. My father who raised me as an individual, inspired my intellectual growth as an individual, he asked, do you question my relationship with you? "The moment you questioned the existence of my god,  I have become no one of you." He failed to see the father-daughter relationship between him and me while I rejected the imagination of God. I lost my first and foremost social relationship to that single question. Others denied me even earlier, even before knowing my question, at the very moment they knew I can ask question. I am just a no one in the social context of the world. But at the end, I am proud to be someone to myself. Someone who is good without god, being good without a god is so natural, I am happy that I can feel it.

And yet, some loved me just as a human being, loved me seeing that human does not need god to be naturally good. Empathy and goodness is in our DNA, we evolved over millions of years to be good.

University of Maryland, Mckeldin Library,

College Park, Maryland

4th March, 2016