Latokoshero Writes

Buwa

2021-09-27T14:40:00.006-07:00

Buwa

I have been thinking of you lately

your exuberance on those starry nights

cold summer breeze, open skies

my head on your chest

your hands on my hair

the joy you felt when you shared your tales

of turtles & rabbits, of madmen and saints,

i remember cucumbers and watermelons

its sweet taste under moons and constellations

i remember the spark on my eyes

when i saw yours amidst the darkness

i remember those nicknames you gave me

i had many

haku singh, kalu prasad, kaley tumbahamfe

i remember that voice

i remember the laugh

i remember the joy

i remember the five rupee note

my first salary from your hands

when i massaged your back

I remember the morning shakes

the hundred rupee you had saved for alcohol and cigarettes

on Jerry and swari tarkari

I remember the taste of that extra bite from your plate

I remember the ghosts you said you battled

with your shotgun from Germany

the day i peed my pants

when you invited me to see those ghosts

how scared i was, how you smiled and said you were there

only if you were there for you

I remember the 12 rupees you handed to me

muting your mic in front of thousands

i remember the pride

and the taste of samosas and pickles i bought

and shared with the street boy that day

I remember spider webs

the flies we used to stick there

to see monsters come out and suck life

only if you could see the real monsters

that consumed you inside out

i was about to write a different poem a few minutes back

about your dark sides and how things have changed

but my head didn't pause

nor did my pen

because i have been thinking of you lately

because sometimes i miss you

you touch, your breath, your presence

how things would have been different

if you hadn't raised that glass that night

how I would have turned out otherwise

i think about how proud you would be

to see me reaching places unimaginable

I wish i could tell you

hear you, see you, touch you

let you know about aama's undying love for you

how she cried every night after you left

even after all you had done to her

how you stay so closely in her memories

Even though I would have hated you

from every single drop of blood on my body

I still sometimes wish you were here

at least for a while

Memory

2021-09-27T14:38:00.007-07:00

Memory

Endless horizons

amorphous whites

auric auras of infinite sunsets

mellow lights

fading to black

into city charms

with infinite homes

infinite lives

infinite worlds

do you see what i see?

the summer breeze

whispering greens

rhythms of time

dancing in silhouettes

wrapped inside the songs of blackbirds

singing of the transcendence

do you hear what i hear?

droplets on leaves

like emeralds and ecstasy

the middle of nowhere

enriched with everything this world can offer

a smile, a tear, a sigh

a breath, a warmth, a chill

hands holding souls

lips merging worlds

of imagination and gloom

do you feel what i feel?

pomegranates and dirt

childhood bliss and spring calls

i belong to no nowhere

nowhere beyond sunflowers and cherry

beyond spring fields and buwa's arms

beyond busy streets and aama's palms

the fragrance of pomegranates and dirt

do you smell what i smell?

i hope you could

i hope i could

capture and embrace

moments into pictures, art, and poetry

alas, the world isn't very kind

to memories doomed to fade away

so let me mark a tear for you

the closest i can be to oblivion

Doggo and Existential Relief

2021-09-27T14:13:00.005-07:00

Isn't it just great to play with doggos? They are cute, fluffy, playful, and don't hold back to blissfully wag their tail when you pet them on their head or caress them below the chin.

It feels ecstatic to notice how the doggo closes its eyes in peace, enjoying the open and intimate communication of love between two entirely different species. I was at a local forest today, and while I was chilling with the trees, a doggo came and sat next to me. 'Aau aau eta aau, Come come Come here', I signaled him with my hands, smirking at him like a gullible young child. I started petting him, playing with his hair, and telling him he's a good good doggo. The doggo closed its eyes, seemingly in comfort, and started wiggling its tail with joy. I couldn't stop but feel the exuberance of those wags; they spoke something deep inside me today.

A unique emotion flabbergasted me. I was unsure of its origin, but it was a familiar emotion that I couldn't pinpoint. I stopped petting the dog and started navigating. I was unsure and felt the necessity to explore this peculiar emotion. Just right then, the doggo, with a low squeak, touched my arm with his nose, looked at me, and started wiggling its tail. I assumed he wanted more human attention, so I started petting him again. The more excited tail wag and closed eyes proved me correct.

This helped me gain a more defined clarity on what emotion bombarded me earlier. I noticed that I felt a strange feeling of belonging, not only with the doggo but with the universe at large. When the doggo craved my presence, I felt like I was someone, or something, in this world. He told me that I was worth someone's happiness; that in such a large pool of infinite probabilities, I was adding delight to an animal's life.

I looked back. A montage of self-reflection hit me. I went back through the thousands of moments when I was smiling with someone, sharing one another's joy, bringing happiness, and adding meaning. It made me realize that we are not isolated, that we naturally tend to add meaning in this complicated world by simply being us.

Often, we go excruciatingly tough on ourselves. We carry unrealistic burdens and smash any form of self-love in the process. We are too occupied with seeing glorified success stories, criticizing ourselves for not doing what successful people do. In the process, we consume ourselves with burdensome attempts to prove our worth in this world, whether it be by overworking, grinding 24/7, skipping breakfast for work, and whatnot.

A large proportion of the world's population has come to terms with the fact that life is full of struggles. It indeed is; Buddha discovered it centuries back when the world wasn't as complex as it is now. However, this form of self-acceptance comes with traits like burning out to your core to be more productive to reach a goal, to sabotage yourself and feel unworthy when you rest a little, to feel like you have to overwork to deserve the right to be a little happier in an unhappy world.

But when the doggo snuggled up to me, it proved to me that all of that was unnecessary. That by the very virtue of being us, we add meaning to the world around us. Spending an entire lifetime working for someone else's dreams might or might not give us a sense of importance in this world.

However, when we observe the little joy we can create, I believe it begs us to take a relook at ourselves and explore the infinite reasons to be kinder to ourselves. So that, in the process, we don't forget to enjoy the bliss of a good, fulfilling meal for the sake of 10 extra minutes you give to a work that is not you.

Moms, Unsung Heroes, and The hole of Capitalism

2021-08-14T01:01:00.001-07:00

My house was resonating loud with the speeches of Ravi Lamichhane as usual. My mom, a big stan, cannot help but nod her head with peace to his words while she cooks breakfast for us. This is a daily routine — my mom wakes up at 5 AM, listens to Ravi speak, and patiently waits till I wake up to tell me that I should be as great as the Majestic Ravi. But this morning, something different happened and it told a lot of hidden stories. I heard my mom whisper to herself, ‘Oh, I see people or should I say heroes of my age changing the world, and here I am, stuck and struggling’. Melancholy struck me like violent storms in an ecstasy rally.

I felt a sudden unfairness, similar to the feeling you get when you truly realize how unfair this world is, a similar feeling to the one you get when you see starving people sleeping on the cold roads outside the President’s bungalow. I hated it. I hated how the unsung songs of unsung heroes were barely heard. Tonight, I want to write about it.

Moms are simply amazing. If you observe a typical Nepali mom, most times under the shackles of patriarchy and typical dis support, she fights to save her children. My single mother has been working days and nights to make sure that I reach the place we aspire to reach. These are all the nights of hidden sacrifice, like the extra late hours she worked at our family store, the Lalmon piece she gives me from her portion knowing how much I love it, the early morning Jwano Pani when I get sick, the random jokes and love — all while her own existential path continues, she chooses to sacrifice that for what she values.

Such actions need sacrifices that are tougher than the worst of life. Why is this sacrifice any less than the sacrifices billionaires make? In the end, isn’t human life subjective? Aren’t the situations you are put through in life unique? Why is the worth of sacrifices based on external possessions and not the human spirit?

I share similar sentiments for the millions of unsung heroes society deems unworthy. Why isn’t a drug addict, trapped inside years of Heroin’s hope, trying their best to fight addiction a hero? Why isn’t a child whose small street shop has more cigarettes than chocolates to pay for her mother’s medicine heroic? Why isn’t someone with mental illness working tirelessly to not let disease ruin their life seen as struggle and effort? Why do we only glorify heroes on the basis of what is visible and socially acceptable?

I believe this is one of the deepest holes of capitalism that eats humans inside out. Success is socially pre-defined and is based on certain models contingent on external factors like fame, consumerism, and hierarchies. Work is work whether it be a CEO cramming for 10 hours a day or a potter spending sleepless nights to make the best flower vase. It’s just that some form of work is more appreciated than others. While it makes sense to glorify doctors on the basis of how much they help people, the same analogy and corresponding sentiment are often found missing for taxi drivers, sewage workers, and vegetable vendors.

Where it gets even worse is when the definition of satisfaction and a good life is contingent on these very external factors like status, prestige, material and experience-based consumerism, etc. It could be seen in presumptions like if X is a doctor, they probably have an amazing life as compared to a struggling artist. While financial security is crucial for a good quality of life, it isn’t the only factor that defines it. This could explain why a lot of millionaire singers sing about how they have all the money in the world but aren’t still happy. What it, therefore, leads to is the emptiness of the human soul — a life based on constants and comforts, the nullification of one’s desires and dreams. (more on this thought on a different blog)

Life and experiences are subjective. My mom is a bigger hero for me than any person at top of the world right now. Unsung heroes have always been there — we just have been too blinded to see it.

Yin and Yang and Carl Jung

2021-08-11T14:38:00.013-07:00

There are nights when just can’t sleep with the thought that life is a constant transformation of reality and thoughts. There are days when I am at my darkest stage from the evilest to the kindest to the happiest — all of them have happened, and when they did so, they felt like the only existing and non-ending reality. Then, what does this transformation mean and why is it there?

Well, maybe because life is an unending cycle of accidental ups and rejuvenating downs. We have those cycles within ourselves as well. This is what Psychologist Carl Jung explains in his concept The Shadow. It is the darkest unknown part of yourself. There’s a murderer, abuser, thief, cheater; a monster within you but these forms are repressed due to societal conventions of normal. To no surprise, this isn’t sustainable. Repressed energy often burst out, that’s why you have serial killers and psychopaths who are bold enough to challenge and rebel against the world.

We have that within us which I like to represent as the Yang — the dark corner that resembles the shadow, the evil, the monster. You have the ability to go deeper into your Yang. Some people do and they reach insanity. They are just normal people bold enough to go wild.

But the reason why we don’t go there is because there’s a Yin. Yin is the bright part of you; you when you decided to help that old lady on the street, you who felt bliss when the old lady looked at your face and smiled with you, you who then made a promise to do better in the world through your smallest effort. There’s a Yin within us along with the shadow and the science applies the same. You have the ability to go deeper into your Yin and the deeper you go, the more you lose the parts of yourself.

I have had both of my Yin and Yang phases. I remember those days in high school where I used to avoid lunch and stay to study philosophies in the library because I needed the money to follow my passion without hurting my family. I remember that sadness I felt when I let go of my romantic pursuits to focus on my academic future. I remember that fatigue when I woke up all night for people despite my own drained state. I have had the Yins of my life.

I have had my Yangs too which for privacy issues I won’t be disclosing here, but they have been as dynamic as they could be. These were the days where my sacrifices at Yin paid off. Those sleepless nights filled with coffee stains and paper riles make sense now. The days I worked on values I wanted to see myself, I saw the idol within me. My days were too good enough for me to become the Yang.

The deeper you go into these phases, the more it destroys you. But one keeps the other in check. That’s why there’s a black and white yin-yang at the center. It’s the mixture of one’s Yin and Yang. That you preserve the good parts of you all while coming to terms with your evil ones. This is to not ignore emotions like anger and find places, like the gym, to channel those emotions. The beauty lies in the balance of two destructive forces that creates harmony when synchronized with perfection. It’s to use these very negative Yangs to the pursuit of the Yin — to maybe when you failed last semester, use that melancholy to get on the Dean’s list next year. It’s that when you get to the top, you don’t forget the Yins of your life like being humble to that worker who is struggling to feed their family.

The beauty lies in the balance of two destructive forces that creates harmony when synchronized with perfection. This is where my pursuit stands -- I am an explorer, I will explore my darkest and brightest sides. I will see the world from the top and up from the bottom.

Mehendis and Stereotypes

2021-06-05T11:15:00.007-07:00

Aesthetic designs, rusty brown hue, and earthly fragrance you cannot stop sniffing every 10 seconds — decorating your hands with Mehendis(hennas) is one of the best traditions in South East Asia. However, it has been only traditionally exclusive to women.

Grade 2 Shrijan didn’t care much about it though when he let his three sisters experiment with Mehendi art on his chest. They made a small heart-shaped design with a few doodles on the borders. The next day in school, one of my male teachers somehow noticed it. He raged at me, stripped me naked, and embarrassed me in front of the class. In the shithole that I studied in for 11 years, this wasn’t anything strange.

I remember blaming myself for letting my sisters put Mehendi on me. But as I grew up, my concerns started to change.

I believe that the rage stemmed from how masculinity has been defined in our mindsets. I understand that putting on Mehendi is a culturally 'girly' thing. But whenever someone tries something different than the stereotype, they have to often bear the shame, rage, and disgust from the collective. For instance, men trying anything feminine is considered weak and belittling. Women trying anything masculine is seen as pretentious and unacceptable. All in all, the reason why you would reject this is because it goes against your core collective values and it hurts when the world doesn’t run as per your wish, right?

Therefore, last year when everyone in my house was putting on Mehendi in the living room, I said Fuck it and joined in. And I promise you, I hadn’t seen anything much prettier than my hands then. Aesthetic designs, rusty brown hue, earthly smells — I felt pretty.

A few days later, I was cycling around the city, stopping at the different railing of the streets to sit on and look at traffic. I reached Koteshwor and was just chilling when a kid selling water bottles approached me. I gave him 30 rupees and bought a bottle of water. He stayed for a while and we talked a little about bicycles, his home, and his favorite cartoon. Right as I was about to leave, he noticed my hands with Mehendi.

‘Why do you have Mehendi on your hands?’

I smiled, ‘Doesn’t it look good on my hands?’

The kid was confused for a while, but then he raised his head, looked at me, and said, ‘My friends say that it’s girly but I like Mehendi too. I tried it last year on my arms and pretended it was a tattoo’.

I was shaken to see this 10-year-old kid accepting something that took me years. We had a small conversation about how it’s okay to do things we live no matter what his friends say. I bought another water bottle, patted him on the shoulders, and left with a smile. The kid had more maturity than the teacher who stripped me naked.

Something similar happened in the orphanage where I used to volunteer. Right after I was done teaching the kids, I saw one of our co-volunteers putting nail polish on the kids’ hands. I sat beside her and one of the kids told me to try it too. The boys from the back laughed. I told them that it was nothing to laugh about and put on the nail polish.

Some of the boys were still laughing but some younger ones came on and tried it on their nails. Relentless at first but smiling at their pretty hands when they were done. The kids taught me how small actions can break these stereotypes.

I believe that toxic masculinity and our fear of non-conformity have confined us from expressing our true selves and doing the things we want to do, thus limiting our choices and avenues of happiness. Whether it be expectations of being 'machos' and 'stone-cold heartless alphas’ or ‘sweet and pretty’ and ‘gullible and innocent’, we often give unprecedented control to conforming authorities over our lives. However, the joy of the kid at Koteshwor didn’t care. The smiles at the kids in the orphanage didn’t care.

The same issue comes with queerphobia. The reason why people think it's unacceptable for queers to express themselves openly is that it attacks their entitled conception of what normal is. Therefore, if your sense of projecting your power comes with belittling people for who they are based on your rigid conception of being 'normal, I don't know how much better, after all these years, have you become as compared to that 10-year-old kid without internet access.

So, why do we let these artificial authorities define our actions? Why do we restrict our happiness because some actions seem illegal even though they are not? Why do societies have to place their eyes on everything we do? Well, the kids didn’t care and their faces defined how worth-it it was. So, why are you so concerned when they aren't? Why stop people from being themselves?

On Choices, Regrets, and Guilt : Some Key Realizations

2021-05-19T11:22:00.005-07:00

We have been there. It’s post-midnight. Your pitch-black room barely illuminates from a narrow beam of moonlight. Rolled up in the darkness, all you can see is a faint image of your ceiling and what seems like a shadow demon staring at you from the corner. But you care less for tonight. Your thoughts are much darker.

We have been there because all of us have made terrible choices in the past — whether it be a decision that would have put you in a better place or something that has hurt someone in unimaginable ways. And these choices hurt us. Most of the time, we cannot forgive ourselves for what we’ve done. Other times, we end up contemplating our present as things could have been different if we had taken some other choices.

I have been experiencing such nights for quite a long time now. Having a brain that likes to show me flashbacks of every deplorable and embarrassing moment of my past doesn’t do much justice to my sleepy eyes.

However, I have come up with some recent realizations that have helped me, at least a little, on such nights and I’d like to share them with you today.

I believe we are always bound to regret our actions. This stands true because any choice we make in our lives results in different realities in the future. These realities tempt us because we don't know what it looks like. For instance, one of my biggest choice-induced sadness comes from my college decision. I had the privilege to choose in between two prestigious colleges, each with its unique pros and cons. After a month of rigorous exploration, I finalized what I felt like a rational and personal decision.

Now, I often find myself contemplating my choice as I find myself pondering upon the lucrative opportunities of the other choice and how my life would have been much different. However, if I had taken the other choice, my guilt of not taking the present choice would have broken me even more. This shows we are always bound to regret our actions because our desire to get what we don’t have is always stronger than what we currently possess. A way of ending the chain of guilt for me comes with this very realization.

However, the regret does not end there. Because if I have a justification for my choice now, I would obviously have a justification for the other choice in an alternate reality. Our brain has weird ways of validating our present, one way or the another. So what if our choice was indeed dumb?

The answer to this, for me, then proceeds to stoic philosophy. If we are always bound to feel the guilt of missed opportunity, it’s certain that these emotions will grow stronger when are much weaker. So a way to avoid that state is by utilizing the pros of your choice to mitigate the cons. This means, if I chose X course instead of Y, I have to now divert my focus at X with all that I have got so that I excel so much that the guilt of not taking Y fades away and does not consume me at my worst. Negative emotions are helpful when they are diverted to improve yourself.

Furthermore, I believe that there isn’t such a thing as choosing a bad option when it comes to privileged choices. Life moves on and it moves for the better. I would still have been moving on with life if I had taken a much worse decision. The thing is, our future is so ambiguous we don’t know what choice leads us to what particular reality. We never know what is meant to be as life isn’t particularly algorithms under our control. I believe the thing about life is that it just moves on and choices are just small indicators of where we go. The majority of our thoughts are bounded to who we are and how we define ourselves despite the circumstances. We are not our circumstances.

Now comes the harder part — our choices that have hurt people and hurt us. Whether it be doing something stupid, choosing the wrong person to date, or sabotaging someone’s life, the guilt stabs us like a knife and guts us out empty.

I am not trying to justify those choices. Some choices are inherently deplorable and you should be responsible for them. However, a crucial thing to understand is that having the guilt, i.e. seeing that the choices you made were wrong, itself stands as the foundation that you are growing as a person and aren’t the person who made that choice.

A crucial thing to understand is that we are not our past. While they are a part of us, they are not entirely us. This is because as humans, we constantly change and evolve. Therefore, there’s always an option to move away from those choices to make a fresh start, even if you’re way too deep into heroin.

However, this does not mean we are free from our bad choices. A part of changing is also to fix the wrongs that we have done and be responsible. One of my biggest regrets was that while growing up, I was extremely racist. I used to constantly mock a friend for the color of his skin. After coming up with the realization of how unfair and unethical it was of me, the regret eat me dry. But one day, I took up the courage and talked with him, sincerely apologized for what had happened, and took responsibility for my actions. He took it rationally and we ended up having a really good time together.

That night, I could sleep much more peacefully than the previous nights. Since then, I have opened up to people about my guilt and taken responsibility for many of my actions. And this shows that I am not my past — not that racist, not that sexist, not that self-righteous egoist.

It’s similar to choices that hurt us, like for instance choosing the wrong person to date. While events like these traumatize us, I believe there’s always a learning opportunity in them. In this stance, dating the wrong person teaches you what not to seek the next time. We are always learning from our choices and that constantly helps us become a better version of ourselves.

I believe humans need redemption and they can always be better when given the opportunity and privilege to correct their wrongs. Therefore, the turn-bout takes place when you realize that you are not your past, that with every passing second and every single choice you are forming a new identity. The key is to just be a bit kinder to yourself and not run away from yourself.

A critique on the 'Not Caring About The World' trope

2021-05-16T13:38:00.004-07:00

The inception of COVID-19 blocked not only the borders around me but also my unfettered inquisitiveness to know about the world. As every news regarding the rise in infections and death toiled my brain, I started to find myself more overwhelmed with any tragedy or updates in the world. I stopped reading news, articles, and podcasts as I used to and I rarely cared about what was happening with anything.

My rationale was simple, and I believe it still holds true for me. At this point, the world was too huge for me to care about because I knew that I barely had any power to change it. Phrases like ‘Ignorance is Bliss’ resonated harder than ever and my conception of a better life became that as an owl(a latokosheko) — blissfully unaware of its unawareness. These thought-trains flowed to questioning the credibility of morality and losing hope after realizing how unfair, chaotic, and immoral the world was.

The availability of other sides provided me with much-needed perspectives of how a small contribution could help make a bigger impact in the larger world. For instance, I cannot change situations of poverty but can walk instead of riding a bus to give that money to someone who can buy food for that day and not sleep hungry. The goal was to invest my energy into things I can affect or get affected by.

However, I want to ponder upon whether seeing this rationale work out for me is a win.

My first disagreement comes with the foundations of why this thought holds important to me. I believe it is engrained with my prioritization of where I would like to invest my mental and physical energy instead of reading and knowing things. As a high school graduate, I felt the necessity to work on studying, preparing for colleges, and learning skills that would help my professional outreach and goals. However, it’s necessary to understand that these trade-offs of hyper-individualism over caring for the collective come from my vision of the world where I see that my personal incentive is to thrive and succeed under capitalism. Here, I can visibly see how a consumerist and materialistic culture consumes me into self-coercion for goals that are fundamentally selfish. While I don’t necessarily unsupport the culture, I think this incentive is curtailing us from our pursuit of truth and information

The cherry in the cake comes in when we understand that this decision isn’t merely out of personal incentives but more because we are puppets of the same systems we are forcing to be numb against. According to Karl Marx, cultural values are a reflection of the prevailing economic order. In a world where capitalism creates expectations and asymmetry over who gets them, I as the working class has to believe that I need to care for myself to survive and excel — i.e. my necessity to live becomes my incentive to work under capitalism, and while doing so, I need to sacrifice my curiosity of the world or stop ranting against the absurdity of unfairness that the world creates. The quintessential fusion of individual dignity and the imposed notion of material possession perniciously propagated by capitalistic structure, therefore, becomes ubiquitous and indistinguishable. And why not? I do get rewards set by these expectations when I work for them. This means, that the very systems that create these atrocities around us force us to not care about their atrocities because I have to work under the incentives that these very systems gaslighted me to accept as my own.

My second disagreement comes from the very gravity of the issue. What is a cynical and stoic perception of the world leading us to? I believe it is harming the natural tendencies that we have. I like to believe that humans have conditioned themselves to be social animals. We feel bad when we see something sad, and a part of us always wants to step in and help. But, when we think the world to be too huge to care about, we are denying multiple feelings. I think emotions like sadness, anger, guilt, sympathy, goodwill, etc are innate and necessary. When we see the misery of the world, we do feel these emotions, and I believe even if we can’t change them, feeling these emotions, in general, is necessary because they connect us to the world around us. The contrary otherwise transcends to hyper-individualism where the pursuit of materialistic and consumerist gain distance us from the social genes we inherit.

The implications are much beyond. With this as a narrative under a status-quo of hyper-competition, extreme isolation, and individual-pursuit, are we removing these emotions of sympathy, guilt, and anger from our systems collectively? Moreover, is this narrative of not owing to the misery of the world driving us into more isolation and extreme-individualism, and distancing us from the world?

The conclusion is, I don’t have a solution. I rather see it as a massive paradox. If I do want to get my life better, I need to care less about the world and focus on capitalism’s definition of success. But not caring leads to being manipulated and gaslighted on our incentives.

So, are we really winning by not learning to care and accepting that you can never be a good human even if you try? Is the Not Caring About the World trope a tool to censor discourse and numb us to the ever-growing tragedies around us?

Why risk your life as a journalist?

2021-05-16T12:30:00.017-07:00

CRASH. Blurry visions of dust, broken glasses, and what seems like a group of militants surround you. You just had an accident.

You open your eyes, walk out, and breathe in the air of being alive; the feel of avoiding death by a second. As your vision starts to become more vivid, you see a policeman looking at you. With dead eyes, he walks 3 steps forward and casually crouches with his gun. The last thing you see is a strong beam of yellow light with a loud bang. You just survived death to be killed again.

The incident I am describing happened in a video that popped up on my Twitter wall a few minutes ago. There wasn’t much context to the video except that it happened in Palestine and was a case of extreme police brutality in an ongoing conflict zone.

As an aspiring Journalist, this sent shivers down my spine. My future profession will most likely revolve around going to the most dangerous of places: at massive protests where I could be hit by a random stone, at terrorist sites where my home can be bombed at any time, at places with high crime rates where I can be stabbed. Journalists like Jagendra Singh have been beaten and burned alive by the police, many were buried alive during the Maoist Revolution in Nepal, journalists who have been mutilated, beheaded, and whatnot. The world isn't safe and most of us are too busy in our world of illusions to see it.

As an incoming freshman at a Journalism school, I am opting into a lifestyle full of chaos, risks, and uncertainty. I am trading off the comfort of a lavish office where I could have a nice home, stable relationships, and security. I am writing this because I fear that I am not strong enough for this i.e I feel that I am not willing enough to take a bullet for the greater good. I am not sure if I am the kind of person who can make large sacrifices.

We often see the world in numbers. 23 killed in an accident, 32342 people died in a war. When faced with the chaos and absurdities of the world, our entire existence gets squandered into numbers. I fear that I will be one of those numbers. I think so far I have been living a really meaningful life. I am been working hard on myself; building relationships, putting in the effort, always learning something new, breaking my comfort zones, etc. I have higher dreams in life. I want to travel, have a big home, party with my homies, get old, have kids and raise them, pursue music, and so on. I fear that all of this could die and I could just be a number to the world. A journalist who got killed in an event no one cares about.

So, why should I risk my life? Why did journalists who did so do it? Why do you pursue a job where you are constantly attacked, imprisoned, harassed, blackmailed, threatened, tortured, and killed? Why do you pursue a profession where you have one of the highest potentials to do good for the world and its people but are paid in nickels that barely meet the end? Why aren’t they given the benefits that CEOs of companies who often sabotage people’s life receive?

I think one possible answer to this that I can think of right now is that a fight is not easy. The best things in life come the hard way. In this context, finding the truth is not easy. The people who try to hide the truth do it so that they can benefit from it. These people who can curb reality for their personal benefits are unimaginably powerful. Therefore, they will interfere when someone tries to take away that power from them. It’s a fight and fighting is not easy. However, the harder a thing is to achieve, the better it gets when you achieve it. People risk their lives to tell a story because they know the story is worth it. They know it because what matters to them is that particular story — the change that they are bringing in this world. Risking your life merely becomes a small issue now.

Furthermore, I think the process as a whole carries with it an important element that makes all of this worth it: the rays of hope and good you can emit in the world. Yes, going to war zones and covering attacks is risky, but when you do so, you help the people that the world is ignoring. You bring their stories to the world and give them a tiny ray of hope when the world is covered with dark clouds. You try to save the lives of the children who are being bombed and gunned down at the corners of the world. You can bring smiles to the faces of the most victimized and vulnerable through your camera and papers. I think this is the trade-off; that at the end you can sleep with the belief that you haven't surrendered yourself to the chaos of the world. That you are constantly battling because you see the light and you can bring the light.

So, am I strong enough for this? No. But do I want a meaningful life? Yes. I don’t think I can get them inside the comfort of cubicle boxes. I have made a promise to myself to explore the world, and for it, I have to grow up. It’s not easy and that’s the point. I will not let the world do its trick on me. I will rebel.