Relativity

Most of us go through our entire lives searching for perfection. No, not in ourselves. In everything around us - the perfect job, the perfect cellphone, the perfect car, the perfect home, and even the perfect soulmate. To me, perfection is a delusion that seems the most real. I believe the only perfection that anyone can ever hope to achieve is through coming across the perfect dead end for perfection itself is a state that cannot be improved upon. Anything that stays static too long stagnates, not much unlike still water.

Soulmate. I am not convinced there is such a thing. When even life does not come with a guarantee, how can a life partner? I believe like all things in life, relationships must be contractual - renew them once they expire if both parties are agreeable to it. Of course this excludes ties of blood. Not all ties though. I am not too concerned about extended family - the cousins, the aunts, the uncles, and all that jazz. Relatives have traditionally been a universal pain. I, for one, cannot stand mine one bit, and I have been grateful to the powers that be that the nearest of my relatives has been at least a thousand five hundred kilometres away. Unless someone decided to die there was no reason for me to go visit. Sometimes, not even then.

More than the relationships that are thrust upon me, I value those that I choose to make - aquaintances, friends, lovers, and some that cannot be classified. Oh, I have a few weird relationships and there is no explaining them. There is that mental connect that makes us click. No, they are not illicit, immoral or amoral. They are simply not conventional.

Phew! I am actually getting into relationship gyan! Perhaps it is the manifestation of all that makes Lagos what it is. I have been here for over a month now. Lagos has been good to me thus far. Yeah, there are times when I feel like running away from it all. But I felt that in India too. Every once in a while I had this super urge to go off to the Himalayas, spend time up in the mountains, walking the dirt tracks with the snow capped peaks in the distance. What can I say? I am just a mountain person. One of these days I am going to take a road trip through Ladakh, though I have not made my mind up about the transport - Royal Enfield 500cc (the best bike to come out of the Enfield stables!) or a 4x4 Tata Safari. Suggestions?

I digress. One of my friends finds that the most endearing trait in me. She believes firmly that I am at my most charming when I do that. It is when I harp on a point that I get annoying, and enough to warrant a plonk on the head. Sometimes I wonder if all the women I know would be more than happy to give me a whack. Then I marvel at the extreme futility of the question. Of course they would, which is why I am as much against violence as I am.

Aside: I have renewed my tryst with meditation. Why did I ever go off it?