Author: Aayam Basnet

Universe

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Musings

The universe is an enigmatic beauty. Her infinite wisdom and seductive personality have kept me in an altered high since as far back as I can remember. I have always been stunned by the sublime beauty she possesses, I have been flabbergasted by her eternal pulchritude. That is why I have made it my life’s dream to get to know her, figure out her intimate details, deduce her mysterious ways, and then sigh eternally, as I finally get to know her.

The universe is a singular wonder. A three-dimensional quantized space, riddled different other physical quantities, all connected by the abstract parameter time (that’s kind-of the debated consensus right now). I look out of the window in wonder and try to put the universe into perspective. Immediately, sweat breaks out all over my body, and goosebumps riddle my skin: the inexplicable peculiarity, the seemingly random occurrences, the constant constants, the perfect amount of space, the ever-elusive and ever-illusive hand of time. Then I get even more aroused by my ability to feel such way. I wonder how this came to happen: how I came to happen, how my ability to feel such inexplicability came to happen, and I feel inexorably tied to the universe. I, my thoughts, my mechanisms are as much a mystery as hers. Life is just this free-spirited dance between the enigmatic universe and the inexplicable human, and that is the starting point of everything: every poem written, every story crafted, every painting composed, every musical piece thought-out.

It’s all incredibly vast and connected, a spider web originating from every human and going off into the unknown reaches of human knowledge. Every web depends upon the person to whom the web develops. Some webs might just juggle around the same person, and find pleasure in that, some webs may be spread over a huge area like a fibrous root. And some, which I find the most enticing are those that grow away from the person into the vast unknown. They reach where the senses cannot, they probe the dark mysterious things that surround us, and bright pulses of light come off from those outreaches into the brain of the beholder, and their eyes roll back as an epiphany of the highest degree hits them like a thunderbolt.

Thinking of all this, it makes me feel like I’m at home, it makes me feel full, satisfied, and simply happy: a non-exorbitant, non-ostentatious, non-pretentious kind of happiness; a simple human joy. And that is the true beauty of the universe, I mean the pictures are great eye-candy, but the true beauty lies in the way the universe can make us feel. And that feeling: that high is everything. It is the answer to the “why” for exploration, it is the answer to the “why” for living. It is the crux of human existence, it is one of the primary reasons that humans have come so far.

And all of that brings me back to the first paragraph. And now I see that my attraction to this universe doesn’t have a concrete reason. It is merely an abstract idea, abstract reasons. But that doesn’t imply its non-existence, and thus I am happy. The universe and the exploration of each of its crevasse is a part of who I am. 

26th March, 2020

Explore

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Musings

Knowledge is a wonderful thing: it is the lifeline of human existence and development, the use of which has separated us from any other species that we know of. But that doesn’t interest me. Knowledge is the holy grail, and it is fantastic, but it is for other more innovative people. For me, it is not the knowledge itself, but the pursuit of knowledge that is of the highest order: the exploration. I am, merely, an explorer.

The quest, the impossible dream of the explorer is thus: fly out to the great unknown and make it known. Then, fly out again to the greater unknown, and try to make sense of it all. This is quite aptly put down by Buzz Lightyear: “To Infinity and Beyond”. Infinity and then beyond it: what a beautiful, paradoxical assertion. In other words, explorers are those diseased with restlessness, those addicted to the beautiful satisfaction, the heavy delightful sigh after discovering something.

I think for the explorer, the ultimate contentment never exists; the mind and the body are never really at rest; each moment is a restless venture for more knowledge—an unquenchable thirst if you may, and that very fact makes the quest of the explorer a kind of melancholic beauty, there is so much to do, so much to know, so much to explore, but so little time. It is like there is a huge field out there, and something precious at one end of the field. The explorer starts at a random point in the field and runs around trying to find that precious thing (not really knowing what the thing is, but running all the same), but never really finds the precious. S/he maps all the places s/he’s been to, and makes deductions (logical or emotional) and tries to go on, and eventually, the body rots away, being another part of the ground, the work unfulfilled, the journey incomplete.

Quite the sad story. But, for the explorer, it is not quite a sad story. Sure, it is tinged with melancholy, a Beethoven-esque torture, but it is kind of a bittersweet kind of story, one that makes you fill up with contrasting emotions of frustration and happiness, primarily because the explorer takes the highest amount of joy in the journey. The destination may exist, it may not. For the explorer, until s/he can get down and measure that abstract destination, it is just another mirage. It is like the journey in a ship to the unexplored lands of the past: nobody knew the outcome; ah, but the adventures in the journey itself were the subject of legends.

And that, I guess, is the biggest part of me: the will to explore.

Scratch that: And that, I guess, is the biggest part of what I believe to be me: the (self-sustaining) will to explore.

26th March, 2020

Joys of Being Human

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Poetry, Works

The joy of being human,
Living on different worlds,
When ours falls and dies;
Escaping to temporary illusions,
When the reality falls to crumbles;
Basking on the fire far away,
While the very same fire destroys everything;
Fighting over petty things,
Things that are forgotten an instant later;
Coveting over stupid things,
Only to throw them away in solitude;
Sweating over choices,
Choices that, in the end, are insignificant.

22nd March, 2020

Mediocrity

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Poetry, Works

Small transient moments of joy,
Blanketed by the envelopes of sorrow,
With contempt on every crevasse, under every stone.

Live life as thus,
Soldiering ahead,
The Grand Delusion;
A mist of illusion,
Of a life well-lived.

Nothing “special”, nothing “unique”
Everything “special”, Everything “unique”,
The thick flaps of mediocrity overcomes us all,
All of us mere embers in a large fire: meaningless.

Ah, banality,
The joy of an observer,
The curse of a thinker,
The comfort of the subject.
Ah, staleness,
The friend of the mediocre.

I go on, soldier on, survive on, alive, breathing,
On this lonely torturous little place.
Anticipation for rays of joy keep me going,
Through this thick forest of deceptive moments,
And cruel sorrows.

1st March, 2020

Senses

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Poetry, Works

Taste, smell, sight,
The eternal gifts of the Gods,
Touch of the beauty,
Sound of the great,
All of them: our friends;
The lover of human beings.

The universe: open to us,
A cascade of colours,
A burst of the metaphysic,
Truisms of the cosmos,
The world in its purest sense.

But then, the thought awakens,
The absurdity, the façade reveals itself,
The world comes crashing down,
Reality as you know it: a lie.

All senses are but dull, colourless,
Just a beautiful glass,
Telling nothing but lies,
Sensing nothing but sweet fakes.

Just a beautiful glass,
That shatters and collapses,
At the first touch of scrutiny.

And thus is your life,
And thus is every life,
And hence, I will die,
All hope lost, all joys gone.

15th February, 2020

A Titleless Poem #001

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Poetry, Works

I taste reality,
The sour phases of existence,
The dour lives of people,
Bitter and unhappy souls, carrying corpses.

Frustration kills me,
As I go in and out of tune,
The taste was better yesterday,
It was sweet the day before,
And yet, today it is damning.

In and out of lucidity,
I understood the universe yester-year,
I don’t have a clue today,
Today is the day without color,
This is the year of sadness.

I detest existence,
I love life.
I’ve survived through everything,
I’ve had yet to live.

A thousand lives spent,
Mulling over things small and big,
Things of significance,
And those of utter insignificance,
Shallow and superficial,
Deep and profound.

The polar expressions constrict me,
Squeeze me and inject me with venomous deeds,
Apologies everyone!
I am just confused,
As my interests vanish,
My curiosities fade away,
My dear words abandon me.

10th February, 2020

Muted Beauty

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Musings

Tameness and monotony have seized humans like they never have. The society is a mass of unthinking brutes that blumber around in a way that can be modelled by simple random walks.  We don’t even seem to realize all the space the third dimension offers. We merely bump around in a two-dimensional world through simple predictable formulae. What has become of us?

Where are all the nuances and intonations that come with what constitutes a life? People have gotten so scared of heartbreak, tiredness, sorrow and other emotions normally related to pain that they have forgotten and are impervious to any emotions, even the ones relating to joy and growth and life.

A beautiful life is one where there is everything: sorrow, sadness, hunger, joy, success, failure and euphoria. Without these alternating periods of pain and pleasure; disgust and wonder; ugliness and beauty, life has no meaning. Why exist to merely survive? Why exist if you do not want to live?

A fall constitutes a rise, a shattering failure results in a stupendous success, and that’s life. When you fall, as you undoubtedly will, just remember that the fruit of the future will taste more wonderful, more golden, more juicy because of the hole you are in today. The sun will shine brighter, and the laughter of nature will be music just because of the “tests” you have gone through.

So live. Live to your fullest and go and explore everything. Do not be afraid to let go and experience things. Go through the terrifying realms of human connections and experience heartbreak; through the lands and stories of war and torture and experience raw terror and sorrow; through the beautiful lands of paradise and experience joy. Just remember that life is a blank canvas. To make it the masterpiece it should be, imbue it with terrifying yet soothing paints, dangerous yet euphoric adventures, bitter yet sweet memories, painful yet mutedly wonderful story arcs.

Friend

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Poetry, Works

The world will laugh at you,
The days will swallow you,
Hell will spit at you,
Society will abandon you.

The world will kill you,
The people will rip you apart,
Hell will torture you,
Nights will haunt you.

The very air will suffocate you,
The earth will murder you,
The water will drown you,
The fire will burn you,
The ice will break you.

You are flimsy, a nobody,
Nothing to do, no one to love,
Joyless, tortured,
Falling down an infinite pit.

But persevere,
For even if your time may never come,
For even if you may never succeed,
Even if the world may never know you,
You have a friend in me.

10th December, 2019

Dying Embers

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Poetry, Works

The fire coughs, and dies,
The cold wind whistles,
The last glow illuminates the horrors,
The untamed deadly wild,
The unknown beyond.

Everyone huddles up, afraid,
Darkness surrounds them,
Suffocating and killing their minds.

The dying embers are unassuming,
Are they the tools of light, joy?
Or are they the slow anger of the night?
Are they the solace, peaceful and content?
Are they the tools for mockery and hopelessness?

The embers slowly burn out,
And the remains are red ash,
Desperately hoping for life, for fire,
For anything.
But death, as always swallows them,
And the night reigns, free.

24th November 2019

 

Unchanging

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Poetry, Works

It stands tall, unchanging,
Never lost, never quite there.

The hope of spring,
Can never move its heart,
The heart of cold stone,
Of forgotten dreams.

The harsh words of summer,
Are nothing to its hard shield,
A shield that once shielded,
The madness within.

Autumn brings the cool death,
The façade of warmth kills and corrupts,
It knows, and yet nothing!
Silence in its eternal meditation.

The unending winds of winter,
They strike with fury and passion,
Not a budge, not a scratch,
Not a whimper, not a sigh.

Under a haze of the swirling clouds,
Or under the clear blue mystic sky,
Under the gray fogs of mystery,
Or under the sweltering rays of the sun,
It’s still there, and will always stand tall..

July 07, 2019