A child in a man's body...

There will always be a point in a man's life when he begins to wonder at the very basic definitions, the very basic beliefs, the very basic constants on which he had defined and modeled the world, as he thought it to be, cease to exist. It is that moment when he suddenly realizes that the whole world that he thought, he saw, he heard, he smelt and felt was a delusion. It is that moment, when he feels, that the whole world is crumbling down. It is that moment when he feels like an alien feels on another alien planet. It is that moment, when he suddenly feels that all that he assumed, learnt, hypothesized and proved went gushing down like pieces of shit down a cesspool.

At this point, he has a few choices:

1) He could become completely bitter, and be cynical about the fact that the world is a cruel, monstrous place. For him, the world would become a desolate desert when it feels hot, a frigid tundra cap when he feels cold. All logic and reasoning would cease to exist, and he would thrive at the rare cold comfort of randomness or run about like a rabid dog and destroy everything in his sight.

2) He could just refuse to believe that such a point was reached by logically stating that it was an illusion or even if he accepts the so called reality, dismiss it as a rare exception to the world he had modeled. So he would continue to live in his inertial state of delusion, assuming it to be the reality, as he ignores "exceptions" or "illusions" that happen otherwise.

3) He would start thinking about his definition of the world and why such an exceptional case cannot be defined on the basis of his beliefs, definitions or constants. And like any diligent scientist, he would factor in the variables which he had priorly assumed as constant, challenge the basic assumptions he had made and arrive at a new hypothesis. With this, he would pick up few of the pieces of the world he had modeled earlier, those pieces he thought were right, discard the wrong pieces, and sit and painfully build up a new definition of the world. But this is a hard process because he has to challenge the entire belief system, which he had assumed to be true for a long time. Thus he would be moving form one state of delusion to another state of delusion which he believes would be closer to the reality.

4) But I think the best way to go about it is the poet's way or the child's way. He would go about life as if he were a child trapped in a man's body. He would continue to be amazed, incredibly happy, shockingly surprised, ragingly unhappy, whole heartedly sad, inquisitively curious and attentively focussed to even the smallest of experiences, which are dismissed by much of the "grown up" world as mundane and pedestrian. He would stand on the shore wondering at the beauty of the sea, awed by its power and energized by its sound. He would enjoy, picking up sea shells and building his own little brittle sand castle beside the marauding waves. He would continue to reach and pick up every tiny entity that the sea has deposited on his shore, not withstanding the fact that he was stung by that bright jellyfish, and then try to experience it with the same curiosity, interest and carefree joy while the whole world around him is learning to fly.