Madness is an absolute prerequisite to a happy and successful life. Don't ever treat your
little insanities as if they are aberrations that ought to be hidden from the rest of the
world. All the most beautiful people in the world, the most creative, the ones who led
revolutions, who discovered and invented things, did so because they embraced their own idiosyncrasies.
There's no such thing as 'normal'. ‘Normal’ is just another word for lifeless. No matter
how bad it gets, life is the miracle you are searching for.
There is no other one around the corner. Develop the faith in it to let it take its own course,
make all the efforts you can to abide by its beauty and it will not let you down. Use every
resource you have been given, your mental faculties, the ability of your heart to love
and feel for those around you, your health and good fortune: all of the thousands of
gifts life has given you to their maximum potential. Honour your life, please. Honour
each gift and each moment by not laying it to waste. There is no real measure of success
in this world except the ability to make good of life’s endowments to you. Sometimes life’s
gifts arrive wrapped in all the wrong damned wrapping, at which point we have to learn
to do two things with them: recognise them for what they are and gamble on our fear that
they might be disasters. So just do it. Don’t let your fears become boxes that enclose you.
Open them out, feel them and turn them into the greatest courage you are capable of. I
promise you, nothing will go wrong. But if you live by your fears, everything
that can possibly go wrong will go wrong. And while we’re talking about fears and
bravery, let me also add this that all the planning in the world won’t take you where
you want to go. And it’s fine not to know what you want to be twenty years from now.
It’s okay to be confused. Confusion is the route to all the clarity in the world. Don’t
worry about it too much and don’t ever take yourself seriously enough to be so clear about
your own ideas that you stop respecting other people’s.
Our values are our values, they don’t make us any better than anyone else, at best they
make us different. Always try to see the other person’s truth because like every movie
has a story, every human being has one too and you have no right to imagine that yours
is better than anyone else’s. When life hits you with all the force of its resplendent
rage, the Rolls isn’t going to give you comfort. A friend’s grace will, and if you
can’t find resolution as easily as you would like to, please don’t panic. Everything
evolves as you go along. Even disasters eventually resolve themselves. Give life the space to
move at its own pace, pushing it ahead only by way of being kind to yourself when you
are hurting or in despair. And you will be hurting and despairing a lot in this life
time. You don’t always have to figure things out
or find an explanation for the circumstances you are in. It’s more prudent to accept
that sometimes there just isn’t one. All the names you give yourself, or those that
others call you, are just labels. You are not defined by them no matter how flattering
or uncomplimentary they are. What defines you genuinely is your heart. But I genuinely
say this out of experience because if I was to go by what all I am called on Social Media
I would be an old desperate manipulative has been star who swings both ways making crap
movies, and these are just the good mentions. If you aren’t charged up about doing something,
if you don’t have what in Hindi we call the “Josh”, the fire in your belly for
it, then don’t do it. It’s a waste of your time and more importantly, of those who
pin their hopes on your endeavours too. Redefine yourself if you have to but do it on your
own terms and just get on with it. whatever it is that is pulling you back, it’s not
going away unless you stand up and start forging your own path with all your might in the opposite
direction. Stop whining and start moving, so to speak.
Sadness and happiness have the same quality of transience. Life is a balanced exchange
of one with the other. Don’t attach yourself to either, they’re both going to change
with the same certitude. Take them with the ephemeral spirit of their impermanence and
manage them with a healthy dose of good humour. Laugh at yourself when you are despairing,
shed a tear or two when one of my movie plots makes you hysterical with laughter. Love.
Love people, love the world around you, love animals and birds, and big cities and mountains,
love dreams, love life, love your work, your friends and your enemies.
Most importantly, my friends; love yourselves. Embrace all that this life has in store for
you, let your heart be as deep as the deepest ocean and as wide as the farthest horizon.
Know that it is limitless. Love is not an excuse to grab or to hold or to own or to
barter. It is the only excuse you will ever have to call yourself special.