Friendship: Being hardcore

Friendship: Being hardcore: Here's the thing about the view from top- It's breathtakingly awesome. That feeling that you get when you are gasping for every breath, w...

Being hardcore

Here's the thing about the view from top- It's breathtakingly awesome. That feeling that you get when you are gasping for every breath, when your blood seems to have turned to ice; ice that hurts so much that its almost fire, when you can't feel your limbs anymore, when you are in that transitional phase between life and death, when the only reason you know that you are alive is because of the pounding of your heartbeats in your ears- It's an addictive feeling!! Nothing in this world can match up to that feeling- The feeling of being alive in the face of everything that reeks of death. 

    Once you get there to the top all you want to do is get down and climb up again! For the rush, the high, the kick. Everything else blurs away. Only the mountain, the shoes, the bag, and the climb- that is all that matters- All that remains. And that is enough, that is all you ever desired, all you worked for on those lonely nights researching, all those days spent sweating it out at the gym, all those moments when you sat alone in your room dejected, depressed, head bent between your legs, tears in eyes; thinking of giving it all up, fighting that moment and making it to the other end - in answer to all those fervent prayers, all those empty coffee cups, all those torn crumpled pages-

That is all that matters, it feels- only that, isn’t.

   No matter how extraordinary the feat is, how huge the achievement feels , how successful the effort truly is - it feels empty if there's no one you can share the feeling with. If there's no one standing next to you when you reach the top, who you can turn to exclaim in astonishment, who can give you a slap in the back, offer you a hot cup of tea- f there's no one to turn to, the climb remains just that- a climb. Nothing more. Just a journey you took. A path you travelled, alone.

                 It doesn’t make sense any longer to have undertaken the trip. You know in your heart that it should feel more than this- it should feel like happiness, like bliss, only it doesn’t and you are clueless as to why it doesn’t. So you climb up again, again, again and again- in pursuit of that feeling... Each climb leaving you more exhausted than the previous one, wishing for more but getting less each time.

   And then... One day you climb up for the last time. By this time, you have almost memorized the view from top, knowing which block to avoid and which to cross, identifying all the rocks, taking all the correct stops, reaching on time- not a second late. You no longer gasp for breath- your lungs have acclimatized to the low oxygen, your heart doesn’t race- the climb doesn’t excite it now, your face remains pale- no blood gushes in, you just stand there and look down. Between the vast dreamy sleepy village downhill and the starlit morning sky, you stand alone. And then, the sun rises. For one last time.

  Immersed in the climb, in the struggle to get ahead, to succeed, to make it to the top, we often tend to not look back- thinking it is a weakness, that  it doesn't matter who is there and who isn’t. Forgetting responsibilities, neglecting family, leaving  friends and breaking promises, we think it makes us hardcore, overachievers and winners- only it doesn’t.

             Coz here's the thing- it’s not a weakness, it’s not strength even- it’s all you want to make of it- nothing less, nothing more!