The passage of time

"There is such a little time that your youth will last...The common hill flowers wither, but they blossom again. The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now... But we never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us at 20, becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions, of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to. Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the World but youth" - From Oscar Wilde's 'The picture of Dorian Gray'. 

As I turned 24, such an extract makes me think, isn't my youth too waning with every passing day, eluding my grasp like the loose sea sand? Or is it all just a matter of feeling 20 again? Well, sitting in my hostel room with assignments and projects waiting for my attention, I better make this post small. Coming back to college is akin to feeling young all over with a renewed vigor! You are suddenly given a port-key (Remember Harry Potter) and taken back to a place that you once thought you would never see again for the rest of your life.

Here, things are happening way too fast to make sense of, in a relaxed and laid back fashion. I used to do this...take a long walk, observe every little detail on the way, come back to my room, lie down and play the walk like a picture in my mind's eye...change a few characters here and there, add a few things here and there...I had time on my side like an obedient boy doing an errand. It afforded a certain luxury that I cherished. Now, there are too many characters, too many contexts, too many things happening at the same time that the recording mechanism in the mind is not able to keep pace and do justice. 

I get the feeling that life is becoming too racy and as a consequence a little too mechanical to draw any meaning. Meanwhile, Youth - that part of our lives -with rules of its own, is slipping past mockingly and with unabashed glee. Shouldn't we slow down the pace just a little? Just enough to pause and reflect, smile without any other thought fighting for space, admire the beauty all around us and get the courage to do what our heart exactly desires, what we always wanted to do but couldn't find the courage to...? Having said that, I still love the way things are panning out for, in optimism, lies hope and liberation. We are all young in our hearts and we can always make time obey our commands if only we get around to prioritizing what we want out of life. Everything boils down to that...