On Falling & Failing

2025-07-05

So much of our lives, nay, our heart-space, our mind-space, is about flying or falling, of binaries like coming ahead, being there first, being smarter than the other. We live and die in comparisons. And as always, when we wallow in shallow waters, we never ever get drenched fully. Without realising that this is the way of the world, that we can be the maximum of ourselves, but never more, and that comparisons are a zero sum game, anathema to coexistence. And actually, if we apply our mind enough, they are the interim stage to combine strengths, c...

So much of our lives, nay, our heart-space, our mind-space, is about flying or falling, of binaries like coming ahead, being there first, being smarter than the other.

We live and die in comparisons.

And as always, when we wallow in shallow waters, we never ever get drenched fully.

Without realising that this is the way of the world, that we can be the maximum of ourselves, but never more, and that comparisons are a zero sum game, anathema to coexistence. And actually, if we apply our mind enough, they are the interim stage to combine strengths, compensate weaknesses and come out sturdier, more resilient, a team.

But much more than that, falling is merely the stage before getting up.

And to realize that in life everything adds up. How that happens is a matter of staying the course, and later, much later, looking back and seeing how it all added up to get us where we did.

The universe collects the debris of our heartbreaks, the whisper of our tears, the pollen dust of our regrets, and keeps them in a cachet of remembrance, pushing them back into our lives as accretions, as milestones, for us to know them as growth in time.

In the immensity of our lives, we should fall gloriously, fail with panache, and never forget to be kind to others - and to ourselves.

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