You know how they say that each person is different. How each one has a story worth telling to anyone who might listen. Stories, with all the amazing twists and turns and all the worthy embellishments placed at just the right places. And it might be right too, that all stories begin mundane, but slowly grow into something really out-of-this-world and there’s just no way to predict anything at all. 

But the world today, this damned way of our lives just takes away the curious aspect of everything, doesn’t it? They, or we, have tamed us, conformed us to this mundaneness we call the cost of living. Gone are the stories of beautiful gilded charms of people, replaced by a more-or-less same-ish routine. That routine which plays itself out every day inside of rough looking gray buildings. Gone are the flourishes of words, and the shimmer in the eyes of people speaking them. Gone are the golden sunsets people loved to look at sitting in plant-strewn verandahs, replaced by a tiny yard of tiled floor, looking out onto the busy streets a hundred feet below. Balconies, they call it. Balconies that extend from another boxy room that we’re supposed to call a living room. Oh, no, it’s living space now, what’s a room?

What I see all around today is not some world worth exploring but just a vestige of possibilities. These tall edifices, built of nothing but a blueprint repeating itself again, and again, and over again, aiming to reach the sky, one floor of boredom at a time. Structures that hold nothing but stacks of lives that may have had a charm but are now left to wither in a box, unaware even of what more there is above and below them. 

Stacks of lives and their never fulfilled thirst for stacks of numbers that are supposed to represent what? Some unanimously agreed upon concept of trade called currency? Stacks of lives, that have to constantly schedule and reschedule even the playtimes of little ones so as not to crowd the little lawn and sandbox that’s supposed to be an open playground for everyone. Considerate, yes. Generous, maybe. Happy? Well, that’s to be seen, isn’t it? 

When we were little, we were told to wait patiently for our turn while playing some board game for four on the floor of our homes. And the years did keep turning, and the world kept going around in circles and one day, our turn did come. Our turn, when we’re just telling another little human to wait for their own turn. 

Stacks of lives, backdropped sweetly by a pink and lavender sunset but shrouded away by an unbreachable darkness that keeps the golden dawn just out of reach. Stacks of lives, and their hidden beauty, turned worthless by the sameness of a society we call progressive. 

---

About the post, and the photo…

Lately, I’ve been wondering whether the time before our generation was somehow better, more interesting. I mean, even with all the excitement, and all the amazing stuff we’re now able to experience and whatnot, how much of that are we actually able to blend in with our lives? And how is my life different or unique than the next person living on the floor above mine? 

The photo was taken on a clear afternoon near where I live. The building is newly constructed. When I took the picture and edited it, the pattern formed by all the floors looked pretty interesting to me, perfectly organized. But then I thought about how people live in those houses. Houses that look like stacks of grocery boxes to be honest. 

What do you all think about the way we’re living in today’s day and age?