Life in a hoodie

He smokes a cigar sitting in front of the only window to his house. He has an old vinyl player where he plays Jazz music and lofi hip-hop music records in it. He reads books, cooks on his own, writes with a pen and paper living a nontech life except his laptop where he pops in old foreign classics Ikiru or The breathless and his phone to talk to his closes friends infrequently.

For him, life is all about conversations. Talking to people, getting to know their stories is all he wants. He realizes that being in other people’s shoes and understanding things from their perspective is his sole purpose in life.

Does he get something out of it? Where does he use the information he has gathered? I mean what is the use of just listening to other people’s lives and not doing anything about it right? Why does everything have to lead to something? Why does every single thing you do in life should have monetary benefits? Sometimes you got to do something just for the sake of it just experiencing that moment, just breathing.

He is a vagabond. He was one of those who successfully escaped the labyrinth or to be honest ran away from it. He feels breathing and surviving is an achievement by itself. He wrapped himself in fantasy during his youthful years and was miserable when he realized there are more witches than fairies in the real world out there.

He consumed narcissism, self-importance, ego, fatty acids and glycerol, and negligible sleep. But he did not smoke, drink or take any drugs to consummate his paranoia. He was addicted to oily foods and sweets which was difficult to stop until a very significant turn of events took place which changed everything for him.

He was diagnosed with colon cancer at age 25. It added fire to the fuel, completely distressed that he has done nothing in his life that has been cathartic, made him happy, giving him inner peace, or a feeling of achievement.

Doctors told him that the cancer was in the initial stage and it can be easily cured and his parents could also afford the operation. Since everything happening to him at that point in life was all negative according to him he was highly pessimistic about the success of the surgery.

He took a job just to please his parents for some time and find something that he actually likes to do. But he never realized that keeping the job by itself required special efforts and he was not ready for it. He felt that he was bad at a job that can actually be performed by a high school graduate, he being an engineer. He was realized that he was a jack of all trades and master of none.

He had sessions of anxiety where he felt that whether he was actually good at writing when he could not even properly perform well at a relatively simple job. He was not able to be in a state of flow and fully focus on what is on the plate at the moment because his mind was wandering not in a positive space.

But all this succumbed to dust when he got cancer. Nothing mattered to him. He asked the doctor what is the chance of survival if the surgery goes unsuccessful and the chemotherapy does not work to the fullest.

Even though the doctor was pretty confident that he will be cured of cancer he did take the responsibility of responding giving him the number five. He got five years to live if the operation goes unsuccessful.

So he quits his job, rents a bag full of books from his nearest library and orders paperbacks of a lot of classics from Amazon, subscribes to the myriad of movie streaming platforms out there.

A month before his operation is scheduled his daily routine includes running for an hour, finishing a book a day in the morning by reading it for 4–5 hours. Writes for the rest of the day and he is elated.

He is completely devoid of the layers of angst and unnecessary traits that served no purpose and he was happy. He did not care whether what he writes will be accepted or not, he just writes. He reads what he likes and watches movies he has been wanting to watch for along time.

So he has accepted reality and is ready for death as according to him he is going to die in 5 years or even after the surgery who knows, so to him he goes like this to his parents saying “It is what it is, I have been a burden to you for the past 25 years and I have sold an endless number of dreams about myself so this is it I deserve it”

Against all his paranoia the operation becomes successful. For the first time after a long time since his high school, he has felt some sort of positivity about life. His face displays a ray of serenity with all the layers peeled off revealed by his cheekbones that are elated.

He realizes what is important in life. Good food, good conversation, travel, meeting people, doing what brings him joy, peace, serenity, and catharsis.

From then on he leaves his parent's house takes up a job that pays enough to live in a small studio apartment continues to read, write and photograph(camera borrowed from his friends).

He reads, writes, travels, photographs and he had good money because he listened to his friend who is a hedge fund analyst who asked him to invest in few companies shares that would earn him good fortune and it did.

He traveled to several places in India and around the world, worked several odd jobs. He was meditative, a self-learned monk who when he truly realized what life was about just kept doing whatever he loved and kept moving experiencing each and every moment.

Now at age 45 with having energy to go by each day but not enough to keep moving, he settles in a single room-kitchen apartment facing the beach with the money he invested in shares advised by his friends.

He is now smoking a cigar seated on a recliner by the window listening to a jazz record visualizing his entire life as he wants to now make his life story into a movie.

“It is not hard work or smart work, it is just work. Just keep moving and keep doing it. Consume good food, exercise well, don’t get caught up by the consumerism and the economy and just have what you really need, nothing more nothing less. Life is like a running race just focus on your track and don’t see how others are running and above all be in the moment” is what he would say when you meet him in his house cooled by the air-conditioner,with minimal lighting, he under a hoodie.