Pretense and/or the lack of it

Take a minute to picture a world which was painted in bright rosy colours.
Where the word pretense had been obliterated from the dictionary.
Where what you saw was what you got.
Where lame attempts at twisted jokes were a non-existent entity.
As were the sugary sweet smiles and the brutal faces of reality behind them.
Where your jaws didn't pain from smiling plastic smiles.
And your head didn't hurt from all those mindgames you played.
Where you didn't get hurt all those times that you had misjudged people.
Where every other day you wouldn't have to wonder about how two-faced people were.
Where you didn't have to work hard to keep friendships and relationships afloat.
Where your mind didn't have to work overtime to dictate your behaviour with certain people.
Heaven of freedom??
I beg to differ.
The refreshing change that a few frank, honest people bring to our lives would vanish.
How would a naive child grow up to face the world?
Why would he ever feel the need to grow up?
How would the most important relationships in our lives be any different from the rest.
The need to invest emotion, trust and all that hard work to make some of them work over and above others would be rendered null and void.
Movies, politics, television, books, the joie de vivres of life that run on pretense;
Can you even imagine a world without them?
How would you get a chance to indulge your wicked, darker side once in a while?
And people would call you ugly, fat, anorexic or weird, without any niceties masking it.
The process of bonding over a cup of coffee cribbing, complaining; unnecessary.
The pendulum between joy and despair would be such that joy in its unbriddled, unadulterated form would pass us by, and we wouldn't notice.
Life would be so dull a curve, that there would be no spikes in the graph of life to lift our minds, and to make our days.
The sun would shine no brighter on some days, the starry nights would all be the same.
The sheer high after a healthy debate, a fiesty argument or the lows after a bad fight;
No one and nothing to drive the blues away, for the blues themselves were non-existent.
To quote a certain Mr Wiseguy Shakespeare, all the world is indeed a stage.
You don't like it now?
Buy yourself a pair of rose-tinted glasses and put them on.
Life's a bitch and more than a tad unfair, but that's precisely why you have Pink Floyd.
Turn on the music and shine on you crazy diamond :)
And by the way, i couldn't stretch my imagination further for a more unimaginative title.

Random (good)Advice I got..

A blog a day keeps the doctor away. So prophesied a very wise guy.
All right then.
Even though its really tempting to stop right here cos a blog is a blog; be it a page or some haphazardly penned lines.
10 o clock in the morning, one class done, three more to go for the day.
Its been a wonderful two months since Spring Fest 2007 got over.
Even though the stuff going on around me has made me nauseous at times, I've consciously tried to look at it with disinterested eyes.
Sudden bursts of adrenalin sometimes do make me feel angry, hurt, amazed and more importantly enthused, but it has mostly been smooth sailing.
This is probably a direct consequence of a few things I learnt over the past few months.
Wonderful words of wisdom from some of my very wonderful friends.
Very succintly put words I must say.
You all deserve heartfelt thank yous :)
All one friend said was, look at everything from an outsider's perspective.
And then proceeded to explain.
If someone's teasing you, laugh along. Don't take it personally. Think of it like you are not the butt of jokes, but some other fictional person is. Trust me, a joke is always funnier when its on someone else.
Another wonderful piece of advice, be selfish.
The world may not like you as much, but life for you will be infinitely more peaceful.
And yes, break those selfish spells with bouts of generosity. Those breaks will seem such an aberration that you feel doubly better.
Another piece of advice I got from an absolute sweetheart, learn to say NO.
A two-letter word, and the power it holds.. staggerring by any means.
This has stood me in such good stead, and in hindsight I realize that even though sento words and filmi dialogues have swayed me sometimes, I've been better off than ever before.
The heady feeling of power that saying no gives can't be described adequately by mere words.
Plus, there's absolutely no way in hell that the whims, fancies and wishes of everyone around will be satisfied, however much you may try.
Yet another great tip from a dear cousin was to do stuff that interests you in the truest sense of the word. Very closely related to the "Say no" thing, this is more universal advice. While there is always the chance that you might lose interest later, its much better this way than to risk doing something because of popular perception, peer pressure and basically the herd mentality.
And as everyone knows, chasing your dreams is the most fulfiling experience.

I can't explain what they said in more lucid words. The fault is all mine if I haven't conveyed it well enough. And even though people would tend to think of me as a conceited moron after reading this, I'd probably shrug it off.
This is just an exercise in gratitude to the small but wonderful group of people i can truly call friends.That's all folks.