Looking for a reason

Why am I feeling so bad now? I have that constricted chest feeling you get when you've just heard bad news, when your breath is hard to find, and your arms and legs feel sapped of all willpower, and yet you feel like you could expend all your energy on just punching a bag to bits with all the force you can muster - so much more than what you thought you had. Just for that insensate oblivion you get when youre physically drained, so you cant think and cant see and cant feel, just to get away from it all. I have that feeling you get when you feel like breaking down and crying your heart out and scream full throated into the void of the night, against the injustice of the universe and your life in the midst of it all. When no music, no reading, no keeping your mind busy can stay the restlessness of your soul.
And yet I haven't heard any bad news, I haven't done anything that I shouldn't have, and I dont have a clue what's wrong.

Holding up a noose

Conversation at the annual family gathering has turned around to the subject of marriage again. Dodging bullets is the only term I can think of that covers what goes on here. Me and my cousins had a well - synchronized team which used to provide cover fire while those in extreme danger threw down their arms and made a run for safety - quite literally, in fact. Belive me, in familial surroundings, there is nothing quite as discomfiting as two members of the elder generation catch you in a pincer movement while you frantically look around for somebody to bail you out, so you can excuse yourself under the pretext of going to the loo while someone else draws the oppositions fire ( and ire, in most cases.)
Unfortunately our team doesn't work as well anymore, due to a lot of factors. The first, and possibly the most important, is that age has caught up with us. We are old (or at least on the marriageable-age scale, certain members of the team are), and the enemy senses this - actually, rather *knows* this and fights battles with ever increasing vigour. The fact that one of the members of our team is missing doesnt help, even though he is one of the older ones - at least he would be able to draw half the abuse away, and quite frankly he's pretty capable at handling himself.
Our team also doesn't have the same trust in each other anymore, due to a few political fallouts. Although I want to be a perfect professional while playing the Game, sometimes personal opinions tend to spill over which leads to you sometimes having sympathies with the other side. There also isnt much of a payoff for the younger ones on the team, such as me, for by the time we have to fight our own wars the older ones will already be married and we wont be able to get too much support from them, which particularly gets to me because I will need all the help I can get when I marry my girlfriend - the Family is very orthodox, and does not accept people not chosen by them. In fact, any of our girlfriends/boyfriends would be treated as though they had evolved from the apes barely a generation ago.
Still, we live to tell the tale another day, though each battle becomes harder- we have to resort to increasingly guerilla militant tactics. Well, whatever works - as the saying goes, when we fight and run away, we live to fight another day.

Cut down to size

Okay, this has ceased to funny - it goes under the title of "Officially embarassing" now. After coming back to this site once every couple of days for what feels like the past month, with ever fading hopes of finding a comment, I guess its time to give up the ghost on that last posting. Although this is a site for my own satisfaction, and all I want to do is have my own shout at the sky, I guess it would have been nice to see at least a couple of comments. Cant expect a full house on the first show, I guess, or at least not in the blogger world. Although I still cant put my finger on what went missing on that first post. It had all the elements - secrecy, comedy (albeit in a very Chaplinesque manner), pathos, and now, to add to the list, tragedy.
The past few days, I've come dangerously close to having to do work. Very close shaves, in fact. Finally had to settle for some cut and paste to appease the powers above and show some effort - does that count as work? I'm getting bossed over by somebody who's about as old as me and, I regret to say, just about as smart. Makes me wonder - has the Peter Principle already applied to me? (For those of you not in the know, the Peter Principle is an all-too familiar concept in organizations which states that individuals grow within the organization up to the level at which they become incompetent and stay there. I read this in the Economic Times some time ago, and I had to insert it in somewhere as a tribute to its creator - its such a beautiful idea.) Anyway, getting back to the my having reached my flood levels within the company - I sincerely doubt it, but it's a scary thought, isn't it? The very idea that you have to stagnate at some level and you are good for no more - we all have the innate belief that we will rise and grow forever till we retire - or pass on, whichever comes first - and I, for one, cannot accept what will probably turn out to be reality. What would it be like if evolution suddenly turned its back on us, because we are now Prime Examples of the Peter Principle?

Well, this is it. I finally bow to the powers that be and create the online blog. I haven't got away without losing my pound of flesh, though. After being informed politely by the browser that every username I chose is not available (as a direct consequence of being one of the slowest burning fuses to reach the blogging scene, I assume), with the added convenience of having to type and retype my password for each attempt, I finally reach the Holy Grail : this page. Before I pause to take a sip of its contents, however, I decide to write my username and sitename on some convenient slip of paper. As I lick the pencil in preparation, it dawns on me (as I'm sure you've already realized), that I dont have the slightest whit of an idea what my username is.
So - a little bit about myself. I'm kinda hoping someone out there, namely you, will recognize the characteristics as belonging to the reincarnation of some majordomo genius (hopefully of the species homo sapiens) and can help the self esteem. If not, what the hell, I've lived with it for all my twentysomething life anyway. As someone so aptly put it - not about me, but I'm sure it applies - I'm not one of the brightest lights in the harbour. What I do is schizophrenically called work (in the sense that it goes on in fits and seizures) for the general good of mankind, bringing down inflated American Rates for software - which could incidentally be written by a mouse with dysentry sitting on a keyboard (at least thats what I tell myself) - by sitting in a company in India. Using the term sitting in its most precise form. I'm waiting to take a few exams in the near future, so I can see what I'm really made of. On an aside, I've done my fair share of reading, watching TV, attempts at learning to play music (attempt being a slightly dignified word for what I did), and general lazing around on a warm Sunday afternoon. And a little more than my fair share of stupidity. A little prone to go overboard while putting my foot in my mouth sums me up nicely, I'd say.
Okay, so looking back over what I've written, dont really see any Einstinal characteristics anywhere. Still, it'll have to do, and it's all I have to work with anyway. Time to go back to what I'm sure everybody in the country is listening to now - Gorillaz' Feel Good Inc. Should help me...and also marks the end of my first post. Like the saying goes, lets see what this develops into.