On Despair

I feel infected with sadness. I think it stems from this thought - perhaps I am nothing more than I can ever be. All my dreams, hopes, aspirations - they are nothing more than the rich imagination I have delved into since I was a child.

I will never make it.

I will always disappoint, always let those I love down.

Radhika’s a fool, for being with me. If she has any brains, she should ditch the wagon the first chance she gets.

I will always be the poor one. Everyone will make me feel better about it, they will smile when they see me because they know I am always lesser than. Something to be pitied. The nice, sweet one, who cannot afford to speak his mind.

I will die alone, friendless, forgotten. I will exist in a perennial, hopeless struggle, raging always against the tides, trying to feel better about myself with my new ideas and dreams, picked up as soon as the old ones are proved senseless.

Those I love will pity me behind my back - if generous, they will call me a case of wasted potential. If realistic, they will say I tried my best, but I just lacked what it takes to make it in today’s world. They may try to blame other factors, but I will know - it is me that lacks. When they feel sadness they will think to themselves - at least I’m not Anant.

Every chance I get I will waste. I will try to claim that I did my best, but I will know. I will know I willingly wasted the chances given to me.

The universe itself will eventually give up. I am worth nothing, not even the air I breathe. It would have been that I had never existed.

And at the center of this, I will sit in desperation, dreaming of what I could be, if only the world around me were more compliant. Blaming others for my own failures, my own incapacity, my own lack. Trying to justify the meagerness of my accomplishments. Embellishing the little I have been an inadvertent part of. Pretending to be a swimmer in a torrid current, where the universe gifted me a sanguine lake.

So yes, I am infected with sadness today.