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Saturday dawn….The alarm clock buzzes on and off -- disturbing his peaceful sleep. He wakes up with abusive chant and peeps out of the window. It’s raining cats and dogs out there. He prepares freshly brewed hot coffee and turns on his laptop to check his e-mail inbox. He was working late last night to meet the daunting project schedule and now, not surprised to notice dozens of new e-mails from overseas colleagues working from the another side of the world. Another weekend for the project has begun. He starts replying to each of them. A conference reminder buzzes in the middle. Conference for new work pack... sigh! He opens the notes and adds number of actions items for the weekend. He is getting sick of the crushing workload. It has been months of working like a workaholic with no break and no end in sight. He foresees that yet another weekend is going to be shot. It’s either ‘go to the office’ or ‘work from home,’ he supposes. His frustration is mounting…and he’s had about enough.
He thinks back to a time when he was the happiest; back to a time when he was content and a time he felt completely alive. When he thinks back, he thinks of his concept of ‘rider backpackers’. He thinks of the wonderfully warm sun upon his face. He thinks of the orange tint of the leaves and he thinks of being in the heart of nature itself with no worries.
Once again he peeps out of the window. The rain shower is reduced. He notices weeds along the roadside; inhales the cold breeze and feel the droplets on the face carried by the wind. His mind rewinds him back to the days of wilderness.
He makes another coffee, Pulls the map out of the sideboard to decide the destination for this weekend. He is unable to do so. He pushes it back and pulls out his favorite book - Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.
"Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open roads
Healthy, free, the world before me.
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune.
Henceforth I whimper no more,
Postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms.
Strong and content I travel the open road."
With unknown travel plans in mind, he slowly slips on a pair of Gore-Tex shoes, zips riding jacket and loads a backpack as he makes the journey to the wilderness. He keeps the watch and cell phone in the sideboard and listens to the house he is in; all is tranquil. He easily opens the door. It's just drizzling out there. Spanking washed surrounding gives him aspiration for the wilderness he is about to endure. This young man climbs on the saddle of his 2 wheeled powerful beauty that he calls 'Stallion'.
Several hours he has been riding and still he is unable to decide the destination. Roads and thoughts have no limits. Numerous diversions and endless junctions. From deep forests, plain green lands, hilly curvy roads, to river crossing bridges, he continues on and on.No destinations, no time track…… in the discovery of the happiness and pursuit of the wilderness.
“Is there a limited quantity of time in our universe?” He thinks and smiles. ‘It would cause a great debate for physicists around the world. But one can analyze the thought a little bit without having to be an Einstein. Humans developed the notion of time. Our universe goes forward, but humans decided to break up this progression into tiny segments called time. Someone a long time ago decided that days, hours, minutes, and seconds are good ways to categorize these segments. But it is our current society that decided to put the emphasis on minutes and seconds.’
He enters a small village and rests at nearby hut. He requests the hot water to children playing in the backyard. A young boy asks him to wait and lits the boiler for the same.
He walks nearby to have a glimpse around. He notices an old lady harvesting the Rice in muddy water farm nearby. Actually harvesting a specific crop itself is a big project. But she doesn’t need any schedules and plans to harvest it, doesn’t need any project management team to manage it. It’s all nature based & instantaneous. She is the self manager and she knows what the best time to do it is. He imagines the way he keeps notes, schedules and reminders in the outlook to track & act on the project activities. He laughs out loud at his project plans and notes.
A boy calls him & gives a vessel of hot boiled water and asks if he needs anything else. So kind of him. He gives the packs of cookies to young boy and asks him to distribute it evenly amongst his brothers playing around. He then uses boiled water to prepare instant tea and hot redimix soup.
As he finishes his hot liquid lunch, he looks around and notices that the shadows have just started migrating towards the east. Although he doesn’t need to know the exact time, he needs to find some shelter before dusk. He looks around. Half the skies are clear now and remaining clouds are resting on and around the surrounding mountain tops. His pupils widen as he notices a distant mountain range virtually lost in a thick blanket of clouds. There is ample time to reach them; he imagines himself sitting above the clouds capturing memories for a lifetime as the cloud curtain opens to reveal the ravines, villages and wonderful vistas stretching out for miles. Once again he rides on the saddle of his ‘Stallion’ and zooms towards the destination.
He parks his bike at the base of the mountain and starts climbing. Soon he finds himself on a huge plateau covered with lush green fauna and beautiful flowers. A small pond with sky blue sweet water completes the perfect picture of the wilderness that his mind has been trying to sketch for the past several months. He throws his tent aside and runs toward the edge of the plateau to have a look at the view on the other side, waiting for the curtain of clouds to open.
He rests at the edge. The clouds slowly disappear and mother earth peaks through. The sun migrates to the west, painting the terrain with a shiny golden red haze. He runs towards the sweet water pond. The tiny reflections from the post-drizzle beads on the grass in the meadow provide him with a view of the 'Thousand Splendid Suns.'
There is no one to ask him why he is there and how much time he is going to spend. There ain’t any schedules to follow or timetables to keep. No inbox to check and no conference calls to attend. He can spend extra hours to enjoy the sunset and even Thousand Splendid Sunsets. He can squander superfluous time in his warm sleeping bag right below the open sky. The mind soothes. The time blurs in the wilderness.
The happiness has been rediscovered, this is the time he is content, and the time he feels completely alive. It's what he thinks of when he thinks of the orange tint of the leaves and the wonderfully warm sun upon his face. It's what he thinks of when he thinks back to be in the heart of nature itself with no worries. It's the wilderness and it is empowering.
He thinks back to a time when he was the happiest; back to a time when he was content and a time he felt completely alive. When he thinks back, he thinks of his concept of ‘rider backpackers’. He thinks of the wonderfully warm sun upon his face. He thinks of the orange tint of the leaves and he thinks of being in the heart of nature itself with no worries.
Once again he peeps out of the window. The rain shower is reduced. He notices weeds along the roadside; inhales the cold breeze and feel the droplets on the face carried by the wind. His mind rewinds him back to the days of wilderness.
He makes another coffee, Pulls the map out of the sideboard to decide the destination for this weekend. He is unable to do so. He pushes it back and pulls out his favorite book - Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.
"Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open roads
Healthy, free, the world before me.
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune.
Henceforth I whimper no more,
Postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms.
Strong and content I travel the open road."
With unknown travel plans in mind, he slowly slips on a pair of Gore-Tex shoes, zips riding jacket and loads a backpack as he makes the journey to the wilderness. He keeps the watch and cell phone in the sideboard and listens to the house he is in; all is tranquil. He easily opens the door. It's just drizzling out there. Spanking washed surrounding gives him aspiration for the wilderness he is about to endure. This young man climbs on the saddle of his 2 wheeled powerful beauty that he calls 'Stallion'.
Several hours he has been riding and still he is unable to decide the destination. Roads and thoughts have no limits. Numerous diversions and endless junctions. From deep forests, plain green lands, hilly curvy roads, to river crossing bridges, he continues on and on.No destinations, no time track…… in the discovery of the happiness and pursuit of the wilderness.
“Is there a limited quantity of time in our universe?” He thinks and smiles. ‘It would cause a great debate for physicists around the world. But one can analyze the thought a little bit without having to be an Einstein. Humans developed the notion of time. Our universe goes forward, but humans decided to break up this progression into tiny segments called time. Someone a long time ago decided that days, hours, minutes, and seconds are good ways to categorize these segments. But it is our current society that decided to put the emphasis on minutes and seconds.’
He enters a small village and rests at nearby hut. He requests the hot water to children playing in the backyard. A young boy asks him to wait and lits the boiler for the same.
He walks nearby to have a glimpse around. He notices an old lady harvesting the Rice in muddy water farm nearby. Actually harvesting a specific crop itself is a big project. But she doesn’t need any schedules and plans to harvest it, doesn’t need any project management team to manage it. It’s all nature based & instantaneous. She is the self manager and she knows what the best time to do it is. He imagines the way he keeps notes, schedules and reminders in the outlook to track & act on the project activities. He laughs out loud at his project plans and notes.
A boy calls him & gives a vessel of hot boiled water and asks if he needs anything else. So kind of him. He gives the packs of cookies to young boy and asks him to distribute it evenly amongst his brothers playing around. He then uses boiled water to prepare instant tea and hot redimix soup.
As he finishes his hot liquid lunch, he looks around and notices that the shadows have just started migrating towards the east. Although he doesn’t need to know the exact time, he needs to find some shelter before dusk. He looks around. Half the skies are clear now and remaining clouds are resting on and around the surrounding mountain tops. His pupils widen as he notices a distant mountain range virtually lost in a thick blanket of clouds. There is ample time to reach them; he imagines himself sitting above the clouds capturing memories for a lifetime as the cloud curtain opens to reveal the ravines, villages and wonderful vistas stretching out for miles. Once again he rides on the saddle of his ‘Stallion’ and zooms towards the destination.
He parks his bike at the base of the mountain and starts climbing. Soon he finds himself on a huge plateau covered with lush green fauna and beautiful flowers. A small pond with sky blue sweet water completes the perfect picture of the wilderness that his mind has been trying to sketch for the past several months. He throws his tent aside and runs toward the edge of the plateau to have a look at the view on the other side, waiting for the curtain of clouds to open.
He rests at the edge. The clouds slowly disappear and mother earth peaks through. The sun migrates to the west, painting the terrain with a shiny golden red haze. He runs towards the sweet water pond. The tiny reflections from the post-drizzle beads on the grass in the meadow provide him with a view of the 'Thousand Splendid Suns.'
There is no one to ask him why he is there and how much time he is going to spend. There ain’t any schedules to follow or timetables to keep. No inbox to check and no conference calls to attend. He can spend extra hours to enjoy the sunset and even Thousand Splendid Sunsets. He can squander superfluous time in his warm sleeping bag right below the open sky. The mind soothes. The time blurs in the wilderness.
The happiness has been rediscovered, this is the time he is content, and the time he feels completely alive. It's what he thinks of when he thinks of the orange tint of the leaves and the wonderfully warm sun upon his face. It's what he thinks of when he thinks back to be in the heart of nature itself with no worries. It's the wilderness and it is empowering.
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