Live your youth to the fullest, but plant your memories with care!

There many who refer to me affectionately :) as ‘old’. The tag is a misnomer: a reference more to my frequent forays into the past, and the experiences picked up thereon, than to my age. I even got an offer once to write using the alias, ‘Buddhiman’, which I politely refused. I am far from wise, and I commit more mistakes than the average person. But being more of a ‘cup half full’ type of person, I have learnt valuable lessons from those mistakes and missteps. Two things that I have learnt in particular from my past are: life is the greatest teacher one can have, and memories can be the best of allies and the worst of foes.

Youth can be a fleeting moment or a lifetime. I have been a ‘Bob Dylan’ fanatic for long, but it is only now that I can safely say that I understand and feel, “Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now (<a href=”http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/backpages.html”>My Back Pages – Bob Dylan</a>).” Age has added on a lot many physical constraints, but I feel refreshingly young to be rid of the emotional and other baggage that piled on with the onset of adolescence and lasted till the wee days of my 20s. I watched mutely as my youth overtook me and left me behind, weighed down by attitude, mindset and expectations. I was honest with everyone save my self.

Youth is a miracle, and it has many wonders. We often take its biggest wonder for granted: friends. It is great if one can be a friend as well to one’s love, but it is sad when the latter rear its fangs on the former and contaminates the bond. A lucky few succeed in making love last for a lifetime, but for most folks, friends are forever while love may be momentary. Friends are forever says it all, but to be more explicit, we can add ‘through thick and thin’. And, friends cannot be bought: if you think you can, there always is someone offering a premium. There is no real insurance for the future, but it is wise to invest on good and loyal friends. People fall in love and out it but friendship carries on.

Another wonder of youth is the feeling of being in love and giving in. But don’t drown in it so deep that you surface only to realize that your best days have passed you by. Love at first sight does happen, but it can pass off as easily as it seeps in. Heartaches hurt more than toothaches, and the hurt lingers on, often for life. People may dispute this, but you fall in love many times and yet you fall in love only once – something hard to explain, easier felt. When marriages fail, love can be no exception, but there are some that last, so, ‘believe’ in that rare chance. Love hurts and is often hard, but it is bliss while it lasts.

As a line in Pink Floyd’s <a href=”http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/pink+floyd/free+four_20108669.html”> Free Four </a> goes, ‘The memories of a man in his old age, are the deeds of a man in his prime’, with every action in our youth, we sow a memory for the future. While it will be an utter waste not to live life to the fullest while we are young, it will be a nightmare to have our memories stalking us the remainder of our lives through out indiscretions.

<b>Live your youth to the fullest, but plant your memories with care!</b>