The constancy of disappointment

Pretty much everything ends in a disappointment. Happiness is a mirage for those who have figured out a way to set their expectations for everything at manageable levels. For themselves. For those who they surround themselves with. For things you do. For things you are supposed to do well.

No matter what you would like to tell yourself, the things that you end up doing and the things that you are supposed to do well is a mixed bag of things that you did not have much control over. You might be a lawyer or a painter. If you are lucky (read privileged), you might have been able to make this decision yourself without worrying about personal, monetary, and social security. I am sure you would like to think that you had a say in deciding that for yourself.

Sure, a lot of people (including me) had opportunities to make these decisions. But who is to say that these decisions are indeed independent.

What if I tell you that while making the seemingly independent decision to pursue a career, you were influenced by all the things that you have experienced until that decision-making point. And all of that is influenced by the place you grew up in, the people you shared your childhood with you, the stuff you read, the placed where you had your education, and shows you watched on TV, the songs you grew up dancing to, and so on.

For example, maybe if the six-year-old me had not accepted the invitation to play cricket with two grown men who lived in the house behind where I lived, I wouldn't have been a medical doctor or a musician. "How" is an interesting question. The house that I went to play in had kittens and cats and one of two grown men had a great music cassette/CD collection.

• Getting exposed to kittens and cats, handling them, getting used to animals, having pets, liking zoology and botany, studying these, giving the entrance test for medicine, enjoy handling/taking care of human beings.
• Getting exposed to music [being born in a family with musicians, getting lessons in Carnatic music], borrowing CDs of '70s/'80s/'90s music, listening to these on my hi-fi, meeting friends/neighbors who enjoyed similar music, wanting to emulate some of the music by playing drums on tabletops, picking up guitar after my sister forced me to, enjoying learning songs, feeling great about writing songs, recording/producing songs, moving to Mumbai and exploring a career as a musician, playing live music in Mumbai.

So many things had an influence. Now I am several decades past the decision-making stage. I am left with is a pervasive feeling of disappointment. At least, my life is something that I can see through the filter of disappointment.

I'm not disappointed with my decisions themselves. On the contrary, I'm proud of making these decisions. I'm even okay with the difficult decision of having to give up practice for pursuing music and editing. What I'm not okay with is the inability to help the people who seek guidance from me regarding their health problems. I can help them to a certain extent, but I don't have knowledge/skills and tools/resources to help them the way that I want.

For example, J wants a cure for the dozen or so ailments that he seems to have. I can't give him that. My sister wants a cure for the speech/learning disability that my niece has. I can't help her much other than reading up about some details that she shares. Even if I could have an opportunity to spend more time with my niece and may physically be around her to help my sister with whatever she needs to do for my niece, I can't because of my tendencies to need alone time.

On the other hand, with music, despite my feeling happy/proud of the stuff that I have achieved, I'm constantly disappointed with the improvements that I have not been able to make as a musician and the inability to release the tracks after professionally recording/producing them. When I try to write new stuff, I disappoint myself by not being able to come up with even better stuff that I can come up with.

A year or so back, I was absolutely excited about writing/publishing more music. I was also thrilled at the possibility of exploring higher studies abroad and settling somewhere nice. Around that time, I went out for drinks with a couple of friends. It was a farewell thing for one of the two moving abroad. Somewhere in the conversation, I had said that I thought I would be happier and contended if I were to move abroad and find a place where there are not so many things that annoy me like how Bombay does.

My friend had said, "No. You will find things to get annoyed by. You will find things to worry about. You will not be happy." I saw some truth in this at that time. Since then, I have done close to nothing to change my state of affairs.

Now, I am starting to realize that I'll never be happy. Whatever I do, I'll be dissatisfied with myself. Whatever, I get good at, I'll find ways to be more self-critical than I should be.

Situations could change but disappointment is a constant.