A couple of months ago, I was sitting by the Baspa River near the India-Tibet Border Police checkpost in Chitkul which is the last Indian village on the India-Tibet border in Himachal Pradesh. I had been travelling in the Kinnaur region laden with yet to ripe apples for the last few days and Chitkul was my last destination. With massive coniferous mountain slopes with snow capped peaks, rocky trails, a thunderous river gushing through the valley, forests where all you can hear is the wind rustling through the trees, a quiet hamlet with wooden Himachali homes and only two buses in a day, Chitkul is faraway from the cacophony of urban civilization. It is also quite clear that this pristine beauty won’t stay this way for long with more travelers following in the footsteps of enthusiastic bloggers and Instagrammers and the ever increasing number of hotels and homestays to meet the increasing footfalls. Already there are far too many camps operating here and finding an isolated clean spot by the river that is free of human shit would get more difficult with time. After an afternoon spent exploring the woods, capturing the scenery in my camera, I relaxed myself amidst dry fallen cones, soaking in the cool breeze heavy with misty rain drops, and listening to the river. I felt calm and at peace.

This calm is something I sorely miss in the 45°C heat of Delhi where I live and work. Taking the daily metro ride to work and back home, walking, sweating, I am rushing through life like millions of others. Others who would run up the stairs on an escalator to reach the platform where the train is yet to arrive; who are unable to keep their mind quiet and would spend their time on the train, bus, cab, browsing through vacuous videos, idiotic messages and jokes, all to escape their thoughts and the boredom in their mundane existence.

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.”………… Carl Jung

We all want to do work which can change the world and create a big impact on other people’s lives. As Simon Sinek points out, this search for impact at work is an epidemic among millennials who are constantly looking for quick results. I too am guilty at times of suffering from this epidemic. With the wisdom that comes with age, I have now reluctantly accepted that I won’t be going into space exploring distant galaxies as I had fantasized in my childhood and that I would not be winning the Chemistry Nobel prize in 2040 as I liked to imagine during my graduation days. I wonder however, without these or some other extraordinary achievements, is my life worth it or does it become meaningless? My mind is constantly on the edge as it struggles everyday to find meaning of my everyday actions. Will my life be defined by an unending series of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, minutes of meetings? How will I be different from the other seven billion on the planet? And is it even important to be different? Every day while meeting deadlines, drifting through meetings, I like to tell myself that I am not insignificant and unlike the millions others who are asking themselves the same questions, some day my work will be recognized and I will finally understand what my true purpose is.

Finding something that one loves doing is one of the most difficult searches that one can embark on. And finding love itself is probably the Everest of all of life’s searches. Love that transcends barriers of our mind, our deepest fears and anxieties, and elevates us to heights which we can’t otherwise reach alone. We all have that love within us but need the other person to feel it and then lose ourselves in it completely. I believe that it is when we lose our sense of self either through love or work or both, is when we can truly find a sense of meaning of our existence.

There by the Baspa, beneath those massive pine and cedar covered slopes, my anxieties, my search for meaning didn’t seem to matter. I felt insignificant and important at the same time.  The ‘I’ seemed to dissolve in the soft and velvety clouds enveloping me and the heaviness of my heart lifted. The border check post can’t stop the river flowing from Tibet into India as she knows no borders or boundaries. Flowing with life and vigor, she was asking me to break the boundaries of my mind and embrace life with much more openness. I felt love in that beautiful expanse, in the chirping of a solitary tiny bird perched atop a pine, in the innumerable flowers of different hues that dotted the green earth around me. In those moments I was the only one there. I was not a rock or a conifer or a flower or a bird. I was different. I was there to experience the enchanting artistry of nature and in the process I too had found my place on the canvas.