Insomnia and Flights of Fancy

By Seikholen Thomsong

When you are deprived of sleep, so many things run through your mind.The restlessness in more ways than one drive the sleep away all the more. There was one of the many such occasions of severe insomnia. All I could do was observe my mind take some flights of fancy.

I was through with counting sheep for a lifetime. Even by the hundredth time I had indulged in the leisure of this pastime, sleep had not come. My arithmetic might have improved I am absolutely sure. When your imagination flies through sleepless dreams, you would consider yourself in your tales you weave as some kind of folk hero. Do not forget heroes die young.

Being a soldier I always hear people say, ”Old soldiers never die they just fade away”. Well they might have in the past but these days you find plenty of them living till their ripe old age unwilling to leave the scene. They grumble their remaining lives away speaking about the times the army was such a noble profession and how the standards have sunk. But who are we to judge them or dictate how they should be living their lives till one fine day the grim reaper come looking for them.

Funny how I learnt after having left my almamater and met some juniors and asked them how the school was in their time! All of them ventured to say, “It was okay while we were there but the standards have gone down”. None of us would like to be a part of some standard that has gone down. It usually happens after we left and never during our time.

Having gone through a lot in life I was struck by the way things remain all the more the same the more they changed. It is the same difference or whatever it means, with all human beings. I mean observe people, observe yourself and you would find that even without the difference in race, color, culture, language and other traits we all are the same with human frailties, shortcomings and of course prejudices.

Similarly the people who have passed through my life - some as traveler, some as guests and some as intruders - have certain aspects that remain the same in all of them. That is how we are! It drives me sick sometimes. One thing that irritates you is to run into someone who has the habit of playing you for a fool. When I do run into someone like that I make it a point to have fun at that person’s expense. You say crazy things, go on ranting nonstop about any nonsense and they would think you mean it never realizing that there are so many things between the lines. This is enough for one evening.

So next time grant people their dues. Each of us in our own little ways, are clever and smart. The only thing is that we might follow different yardsticks. What is stupid as per my yardstick and standard may not be so for some other. Thus respect each other!