While simply helping my nephew revise a chapter on ‘Punctuations’ from his school grammar book, I just thought how my life would have been beyond “Full Stop” and other punctuation marks. It may sound whacky apparently. But get deeper into it and you would know what I’m talking about. It feels strange at times that life is a mere transcript full of familiar and unfamiliar metaphors and similes and we struggle to make it read like a perfect composition. Life would have been so very simple had we all come to this earth, just to live, work and die. But it’s not that simple actually…! That’s because we do not have the power to punctuate our lives wherever and whenever we wish to.
Can you add a comma or put a colon whenever you want to?
Can you add a comma or put a colon whenever you want to in life? Not really! Neither can we abridge every exclamation nor solve all the question marks in our lives, forget inserting a full stop wherever we want to.
But the irony remains that our lives naturally get punctuated! In fact, all our actions and thought processes are punctuated – by someone or something. And this is no nonsense. Think hard. Imagine the role speed breakers play in all our lives. Although several times we would have loved to move like a free flowing river, run like an untamed horse and go beyond our limits, how many of us could do that in reality? Very few – that something or someone stops us immediately!
You would find that after reaching certain age and starting to shoulder certain responsibilities (I realise it now being on the other side of ‘30s) these punctuations start to add a new dimension to your existence. There is a “check” in every aspects of life – be it in communicating our ideas, or in expressing our feelings and desire, and in the way we walk, talk and move – in other words, in our living itself.
And do we have the right to monitor these limits; rather can we break free from the societal norms? “No” or “rarely” is the answer for most of us. We simply leave it to fate or just do not give it a thought. But just think… every happening in life could have been so easily manipulated had there been no full stop.
Do I sound a little cynical? Not really. It is then that I started to think of the great change makers of this world. They do have the guts to punctuate their lives (in some ways or the other) to fight out their destiny and to be the change. They have the power to influence one’s surroundings and the confidence & perseverance to sustain with that change. It gives me enough courage to think of names like Michael Angelo, Rabindranath Tagore, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda and other great souls, who are remembered not just for their wondrous creations or deeds… but because they chose their lives by their own will. A life not directed by any power or force.
So I write this piece with an inspirational message attached to it: Search for the genius in you and make a choice to live your way! Punctuate it and make your life the best read verse on the earth. With this I realise I have to put a full stop now. Oops!
Pearls of Thoughts 