Other Journaling Days
“What preparations should one make for the last day on Earth?”
“What preparations should one make for the last day on the job?”
Both questions, I realize, are flawed.
1. The Futility of Final Acts
Legacy assumes an audience. But what if there’s no one to inherit it? Sadhana Jain, the woman I call mother, and I share a bond frayed by resentment. There are no children, no protégés, no one to whisper my name after I’m gone. Why polish a legacy for ghosts? The end was always inevitable—why perform for it?
The better question: “What would you do if today were your last?” Yet even this leaves me blank. I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t know what I like to do. I drift. Time passes, unmarked.
2. Work: A Wheel That Never Stops
The second question collapses under its own weight. Jobs are rivers—step out, and the current flows onward. Someone else will fill your chair, your spreadsheets, your Slack threads. Preparations? Save money, they say. But survival without work is a privilege, not a plan.
Then there’s Dikhya, who answers “kuch nhi” (“nothing”) when asked what she’s doing. Society scoffs, but she drifts, unhurried. Guddu, too—his life bankrolled by Moni—floats through days. Why is “doing nothing” a sin? Maybe stagnation is just another kind of peace.
3. The Sanctity of Unanswered Questions
This journaling session solved nothing. But it centered me.
I used to think clarity was the goal. Now I see the questions themselves are the anchor. Why must we do, achieve, leave? Why can’t we just be?
Dikhya and Guddu aren’t failures—they’re rebels in a world obsessed with milestones. Their “nothing” is a quiet protest against the cult of productivity.
The Gift of Drifting
We’re taught to fear the void. But what if the void is where we meet ourselves?
Today, I asked unanswerable questions. I judged my mother, envied Dikhya, pitied Guddu. I wrote this. It changed nothing—and yet, it did.
Epilogue:
Legacy is overrated. Work is ephemeral. But the act of asking, of staring into the abyss and whispering “What if?”—that’s where the magic hides.
Maybe the answer is there is no answer. Maybe that’s okay.
P.S. To the Dikhyas and Guddu Singhs of the world: Keep drifting. The rest of us are just pretending to know where we’re going.
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