Freestyling | Freestyling | wavemag.com.np

There is a certain freedom in 'letting it all hang out'--not having to bother with sucking in your stomach, straightening your spine or keeping that stiff upper lip. This month's column is going to do just that. It'll also be the equivalent of sitting in bed with Paulo Coelho's new book, Eleven Minutes and not moving till you finish it in one sitting (three hours and something minutes). Unlike Coelho, this promises to be a less than lucid ramble. To make it fun, we'll count the clichés as we go—see, it's a column and a game all rolled into one.

The book spoke to me (Cliché 1) through a protagonist who chooses Adventure, doubts love, and mocks the notion of 'to have and to hold'. Oh yes, Maria is a prostitute, and a golden-hearted one at that (Cliché 2). At the end of the 400-odd pages, Eleven Minutes is about love, sex and faith. I think it's going to be a good book to meditate upon. Somewhere along the 12 months of 2004, I hope to find a few answers to my own murky questions and put my convictions to the test. After all, what's a life for, if all you'll ever do with it is sit by the sidelines and never participate (Cliché 3)?

Before I push on, did you know there is not a single original thought, idea or string of words in the entire world? We, who pride ourselves on being original individuals, merely recycle the past in the present context. It's all been seen and done before. Now don't bring up the temporal argument; we're talking The Bigger Picture here. If we accept that we've nothing fresh to express, then it's just as well that we rely on our artists, poets and musicians to say things for us. One of my favourites is this passage by Mark Twain.

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.

I almost have it by heart. Almost. It's a good way to live, especially if you're so wrapped up in presenting your better self to the world instead of just being. Explore potential. Physicists call it kinetic energy. It's that buzz that sparks through your veins when you make a choice, when you refuse to become a puppet on a string.

Remember that things add up. Bad karma has a way of biting you on the behind when you least expect it.

A few months ago, talk-show queen Oprah Winfrey asked her guest, "What do you know for sure?" It's been bothering me, that question, but I haven't exactly had time to seat myself under the nearest pipal tree to ponder. (My, I seem to have something going for alliterations.) What I do know for sure is some pessimistic twaddle that won't do you a whit of good, especially when you're feeling all shiny and new at the start of 2004. I hope in the next 365 days you'll take chances, go places (even though it's all in your head), give people the benefit of the doubt, rock your boat and occasionally, let it all hang out. It's going to be an Adventure.