Adulthood.

I’m up on my water tank again (I wonder what gives me the right to use the possessive pronoun here. I don’t care. I still call it my water tank.) I've been up here whenever I’ve been low. Okay, not every time I’ve been low, but every time I've was low and no bored hot girl was online, willing to chat. This has been going on for three years. College made it a long distance relationship but it’s still strong. Also not when I’m low and it’s raining, other than that one time when I was so low that in spite of the rain I was up here. It was an error in judgment of course. Given the fact that I was so low, I could have drowned in the rain. Bad joke. I agree. I don’t joke well when I’m low. Actually I’m on the top of a water tank on the terrace of my apartment building, that’s pretty high. So I’m pretty high. Hope mom doesn't find out.

See, I told you I don’t joke well when I’m emotionally low.

Enough of the nervous, vulnerable blabbering, lets talk some sense here.
I named this post adulthood. I turned 18 320 days back. In another 45 days I’ll be 19. Finally I’ve figured out what being an adult is all about.

So here's the secret.

You remember how we used to dream when we were kids.
Till the age of 3 heaven knows what we dreamt of.
3-7 we dreamt of flying into a land of infinite candy floss and a huge sofa we can jump on all we want.
8-14 we dreamt of becoming pilots or sailors.
15-18 we dreamt of an awesome college and an awesomely hot girlfriend. We thought we'd learn how to play the guitar. We all though that we could somehow, suddenly become cool; that out of no where, we would be able to address public gatherings with confidence and grace. Basically we thought we would drip awesomeness.

Well, that didn't happen, did it?
Did you notice the difference in the way we dreamt as we grew older? The dreams become less outlandish. To put it in another way, more possible, more realistic. We forgot what dreams meant, we started setting goals. Gradually, goals that were difficult to achieve become our dreams. And we all know dreams don't come true. So we lost that one thing that keeps us going. No, I'm not talking about hope, I'm talking about ambition. We lost our ambition.

Sounds cynical? It's not. Think about it. The dreams we dreamt could be achieved with some work. Well most of them could. And it wasn't as if our goals occupied our minds so much that they became our dreams, no. The dreams we dreamt seemed so realistic that we thought they were our goals. But when things didn't work out the way you dreamt they would, you weren't that disappointed, were you?

Now, sometimes, we exaggerate our goals a little and dream of them.

Do you see what's happening here? You are growing up. We've progressed to or deteriorated into what is called 'adulthood'. Some might say you are becoming cynical or becoming a pessimist. What I'm saying is that you are learning to protect yourself.

We've all had our share of bad experiences. Some have seen worse than the others, but at this age, we'll all seen that life isn't fair.

"Life isn't fair, deal with it."

And that's what we are doing. The lack of ambition, the fear of change, the fear of commitment, the fear of being open, the fear of sharing, the fear of failure, all of these are an attempt made by us to save ourselves from what life mostly gives you: a rough deal.

We've worked hard, been a good person and done the right thing hoping for something good. And many a times all we get is a big pile shit, right between the eyes. Graphic? Deal with it.

You get pissed off when your old man says things that make you think to yourself, "Those were the days of Bhagat Singh! Grow up old man." That last statement seems ironic, eh? What you don't realize there is that he has grown up. He's learnt that if you do this, this might happen and make you feel this way but if you don't do this, this will never happen and you'll never feel that way again.

Which is better? To touch fire each time it looks funky red, get a blister and deal with it OR to not touch it and grow up?

I'm growing up. If that means I become less fun to be with, or too mature to hang out with people of my age, or become the oh-I-can-tell-him-about-the-guy-I-like-cause-he-is-way-too-serious-anyway guy, so be it. (Actually I do mind the last one a little.)

The point is, start being cynical. Start being pessimistic. Start being perennially pissed off. Start thinking that everyone around you is only trying to use you. Start thinking only money.

Stop being yourself. Start being (How should I put this mildly? Hmm... Fuck it..) an adult.

NOTE: I have stuck to my trademark melodramatic style. I like it.
NOTE: I didn't feel like writing this after the first three lines casue I didn't think it would be ay good. But today I found out that the laptop is being taken away from me for a week, so just to keep the blog active. It hasn't been updated in a long time. Sorry folks.