Luxury

Luxury is a word which ignites and induces the feelings of happiness, gratitude, pleasure and achievement. Humans from the recorded history have longed to indulge themselves in treats and experience lifestyle that can fuel the fire to experiencing exclusivity burning within their souls. 

My visits to my home village have grown less and less frequent. As a child, whenever that time of the year came when my mother along with her children was to visit the village it was like Christmas. Why? Because away from the city life and where we lived in a flat, the environment of that parish seemed heavenly. Open houses with courtyards, crop fields, cattle grazing and the best of all, time slowed down to almost a pause. Even as a child I could sense that there is not just the change in scenery between city and village, there is more to it but could never fully comprehend what.

As time passed and I stepped into the whirl of life, I started resenting that old place. As a child, there were many attractions for me to enjoy which were absent in my city life like watching the cattle grazing, picking fruits from the trees, playing in the whole settlement not just in the confines of our flat. The village lifestyle seemed attractive. But when I grew up, these attractions stopped being so attractive. Lack of internet and other facilities which we considered basic in our city homes, created a repellent feeling. The same visits then turned out to be my worst nightmare. I wanted to just get them over with. One of the most irritating aspects were time, it slowed down to almost a halt. Hours seem to pass like days.

What can I say? I was young and I dove headfirst into the sea of action we call life. I wanted to be a part of so much happening in the world. I felt happiness in being busy and audacious. There was so much to learn and experience in the city yet there was nothing to gain in that whistle-stop we called the village. I like many others of my age started considering it luxurious to be busy and being able to tell people that I don’t have time for this and that activity. In my mind, I was living in a lifestyle worthy of a modern man. I dreaded by even the thought of being there. There was nothing common left between us and our relatives there. We had nothing to talk about. They didn’t know anything about the latest talk of the town, I didn’t know, well anything to talk about with them. I stopped going there, first making excuses for one thing and then another. I stopped going for a good seven years.

A lot changed in those seven years. My grandmother passed away, I did attend her funeral but that was it. As life went on, I started becoming weary of my life. The constant excitement of so much happening drained my energy. The continuous pressure to perform your best, the never-ending requirement to be at your best started proving too much for me. I desired quite days, I wished for some time when I could not think of anything and someplace where nothing was required of me. Surprisingly, the good old village never came to my mind.

I took a trip with my family to a mountain station. The air was fresh, the scenery was green and serene, the environment was calm and life, well life was not so fast. Needless to say, I enjoyed immensely and deeply. My family enjoyed the scenic and natural views, for me the overall experience of doing nothing except eating, sleeping and just be as the ultimate luxury.

Opulence has never been a defined standard entity throughout history. It changes with region, tribe, location, wealth and so on. Even since the time, unknown different people coveted different amenities. I think the best example of today’s time. A Treat for rich is every day’s routine for the poor and a dream for needy is another Tuesday for the affluent. The meaning of happiness changes with the lifestyle.

Let me explain by an example, in today’s fast-paced world and modern lifestyle we long for some time away from hustle and bustle. We are so busy with our gadgets and appointments round the clock around the globe that we yearn to be at someplace quite. A place, devoid of cell phone reception, where our lives are not governed by artificial intelligence but our desires. We dream of a settlement where time slows down, where we don’t have so much to do and so much to accomplish, a place where we can be just happy without the anxiety and pressure of excelling. For many, all these wishes seem too good to be actualized but only in dreams. Well, guess what, in this world rather within us some people are living exactly like that.

Looking back at the turn of events, the mystery kind of unfolds in front of me. Not so long ago, I would say in the early 80’s and ’90s, people dreamt of being in big metro cities. Anyone who had the opportunity to leave town and be a part of globalization would take it on the drop of a hat. It was a luxury which everyone wanted to taste. If anyone had any money they would utilize to settle downtown rather than in towns, villages and even suburbs. City life was considered luxurious and still is don’t get me wrong. Being busy was considered fashionable. Happiness was talk of the town, people gained pleasure from being the centre of attention. It was and is considered boastful to have been associated with so many clubs and associations. It was a lifestyle which everyone wanted a taste of. The rise of social media proved to be a steroid for all that charade. Human civilization or rather I should say population reached its pinnacle of globalization. We started to experience and gather knowledge about so many things which were not even necessary for us. We like to experience happiness as a sharp pinch, not as a moderate dose.

Today an average person knows about the world more than he knows about how to relax and be happy. We have knitted our lives in such a way that we are entwined in the web of activities. Activities which were meant to take our free time and give us joy and cheer us up. Instead, we have become a slave to such conducts, our pastime shenanigans have become full-time obsessions and we are back to square one. Still wondering how to experience happiness and satisfaction.

I wanted a change of scenery. I was so worked up in my current state of affairs that I would sometimes even take an early day off from my work and sit in a park. It worked like talking to a psychiatrist. Chirping sound of birds has lately become so much of a luxury, I wondered while lying in grass one afternoon. I thought to myself, how once being free and being able to stroll in the parks and green fields were considered dull and mundane, yet here we are with all the achievements in science and culture, and only the affluent and selected few can manage to have a routine where they can relax every week, not if every day. The mundane lifestyle of yesterday has become a fashinable luxury of today.

I remembered how I once considered eating leafy green vegetables coming straight out of your own farm old-fashioned and grabbing lunch on the go was an accomplishment. Making lasagne was once a luxury while lentil soup and simple bread were considered the food of outback, the less privileged. How I thought to myself, it all changed to be the exact opposite.

I laughed at myself when I heard a conversation between my colleagues where one of them was boasting to have a village so far off from civilization that there was no cell phone reception. He was saying as if he had an access to a splendour which no one else had. “There is no internet and you can see cattle grazing, birds singing” he added with pride. And I am sure I heard a gasp from the rest when he finally said:

The time actually stops and there is nothing to do.