This topic always reminds me of the last line in Richard Bach’s book Illusions: “Everything in this book may be wrong.” Life is a stage, an experimental laboratory, and a place where you can achieve the most—or be content with the least. Yet, it still is a stage, a place where plays are enacted; and like all plays, it ends eventually. Sadly, only few of us constantly remember this. Forgetting helps while we play the character, but it hurts when we get affected by the environment.

An interesting aspect is that it’s an ever-changing play. The people who have realized that life is a play have reached the stage (or state) of near-realization. Thus, life is a pursuit through age and the various stages of life on a stage to achieve a state. It’s filled with experimentation, fun choices, bad decisions, and default consequences—in a word, “learning.”

We have experienced all three. We see the stages when we look at our parents, our grandparents, our children, and ourselves. Sometimes, it’s funny how we realize our age when we suddenly notice how our friends have aged!

The key is to change our perception and be an observer of the current situation, as if we are in the clouds, observing from above. I often say to myself that the things that concern me today, that are a big cause of worry, will not even be remembered in the next five years, five months, or even five days. Thinks about the times when you were so nervous before an exam. Do you really even think about that day, now that it’s all over?

If we are lucky, we get to meet people who have reached the “stage”—or at least read about them. Of course, for them, the struggle is to maintain the “state.” The fun never ends!

On this stage

I reminisce

The stage I was in

Ten years ago

Out of college—free and wild

Just starting a job

Living on my own

Experimenting and

Experiencing

“Maturity” and “life”

The play continues

In a new country

Stark differences

With abundance of money

But craving company

Enjoying and

Living

“Changes” and “life”

And

A little one joins

The play

Naughtiness and smiles

And stubbornness too

Teaching and

Learning

“Love” and “life”

The stages continue

On this stage of Life

And I work

Sometimes more

And sometimes less

Hoping, wishing, yearning for

That ‘State’