Touched 40!

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

Though I knew who's quote is this, by habit when I googled it, I was directed to popular website brainyquote.com. Interestingly, next to this famous George Bernard Shaw quote there, I found another interesting quote — one I had not heard before; by Sigmund Freud — "If youth knew; if age could".

Yesterday, I was struggling to fly a kite with my two daughters. They were rejoicing to their fullest, applauding to their loudest every time the kite was flying a little but deep inside, I was getting embarrassed with myself for never having learned to fly a kite or for that matter, understanding the nuances of kite-thread and air-flow dynamics. I thought, had I had flew one in the past, my daughters could have rejoiced louder today. The only solace for the day I had: "I tried"!

Is Freud relevant today? I am not sure! With a 10th of my hair turned gray as I embrace this midpoint of life — neither young nor old, should I be satisfied with the solace "I tried" or learn again "how to fly kite?"? This question is still intriguing me...!

Wish I could run a backtracking algorithm in my life, something like in the movie "Groundhog day"!

But Life seems to run more like a dynamic programming with a twist of destiny controlling with a very little memoization. In modern times, every situation is a new situation, less deja vus.

The learning is never stopping and so is trying!

But trying for what? A new kind of solace? Ok... I did "this" in my life! To achieve some success. But ever since I read Maria Sharapova saying "I don't know who is Sachin Tendulkar!", my idea of success has gone haywire! So far, I have discovered that "Success" is more of localized. One is successful for few "others". Like yesterday's incident, my daughters would count me as successful but I would count myself "unsuccessful"!

Therefore again, the question: whether to succeed for others or succeed for self?

Now I sound like a scoundrel! Didn't I?

I brought myself here...

TARS: Cooper, they didn't bring us here to change the past.

Cooper: Say that again.

TARS: They didn't bring us here to change the past.

Cooper: But they didn't bring us here at all. We brought ourselves.

Life starts at forty! Oldies will tell me today.

Oh... it never started before?! Or it never started like "life"?

~Swarup