The Lost Love of Mine

I am 27 now and writing software, doing a job and I don’t want my life to be defined by job. I want to do something that is more fundamental than doing a job. Building a stable Indian Government is the thing that I think I can work on. As a kid, My main desire was to become a Martial-Artist, as I grew my desire became stronger and I started to use internet and watch Chinese movies and selected the arts I wanted to master: Jeet Kune Do, Mizong and Wing-Chun and I wanted to spend all of my day practicing with Muk Yang Jong but I can not do that as there are no teachers who can teach me those arts here in Hyderabad (India) and I need to earn money so that I can survive and when my Father will retire then support him with my money, thats what exactly my Father did all of his youth, supporting his family: his wife and kids.

Seems like the meaning of my life has just lost. All of the people around me think that I should earn money, lots of money then find a girl to marry and then start a family and then have children and then do what they do, do what a man with a family does. I don’t understand why they call this way of living, a life. As per my way of thinking, one must must master a skill in his life, he must become a master at some art, whether Martial-Arts or classical dance or making shoes or selling ice-creams or whatever, the point is he must gather an exceptional amount of skill which a normal person working in the same field from last 30 years, is never going to possess. As a kid, when I was 5 years old, I used to gather all of the kids from the street and start making a movie, both acting and directing in that movie and next morning when I wake up I used to go the shop and ask for posters of Bruce-Lee and start doing heeeee–haaaaa–hoooo like he did and stand like he poses in the poster but no one, not my teachers, not my relatives, not the colleagues of my father, not the parents of my friends, not even my own parents saw this skill, my permanent interests and the things I am born with. Instead I was told I need to get highest marks in my class and, may be, top the state education board too (I studied under PSEB, Punjab School Board of Education) and then one day I have to become an Engineer and make money and then marry and then the same shit I have been told all over these years and all over my youth. Everyone told me this:

you have to earn money because this is what you need to survive. You can’t survive without money.

Now there is something wrong with these 2 sentences, the 2nd sentences has no connection with the 1st one spoken. At the age of 25, I found that out. Of course, you can not survive without money and where does the money come from ? No one ever told me that You need to master a skill and when measurement of that skill will cross the normality then people will come to you and ask you and pay you to teach them that skill. This is what Bruce Lee did, he went to the college to study philosophy but there students of that college saw his mastery of martial arts and begin taking classes from him. Bruce Lee was never there to teach Martial-Arts, he went there to study but his exceptional mastery did not leave him alone. Later he started acting in TV, remember Kato ? , did you even remember Longstreet ? and he was hired primarily because of his skill. He did not need to earn money, He was master of an art and people wanted that art. You master something and I am darn sure people will ask you to teach them that something. And I was told, one needs to earn money. Why no one told me at the age of 5 or 10, that I need to master a skill and that specific skill is independent of money so you should better master what you love and then people will pay you because you, accidentally or intentionally, showed or told them what you love and then everyone will talk about how you do what you love and then you will be the grand master of what you love and everyone will ask you to tell him what you love. And I was told “you need to earn money, for that you need to do a job or business” , you see that sentence does not belong to the “mastering what you love, start from childhood”, that shitty sentence was created by 95% of the population and they are stupids who waste their precious human lives by just making them like everyone else’s, that sentence was injected into my brain since my childhood and had cost me my youth and my life. I meet a professional, 10th Degree Black-Belt holder in India, who, along with his some professional players, charges 3000/- INRs ( INdian Rupee) for teaching martial-arts. He told me that he and his friends teach mixed martial arts including Bruce Lee’s art and when I ask them that want to practice Jeet Kune Do, he stared at me like I have spoken “I want to go to Mars and have dinner there with them”. They are teaching/using Martial-Arts from last 18 years, they spent their entire youth in Martial-Arts and they don’t know what Jeet Kune Do is. Do you want to learn from them ?

If you look at the history of Tony Jaa, in his childhood he did things exactly like me (though he knew about Jackie Chan and Jet Li too when I only knew about Bruce Lee) and he did heeeee–haaaaa–hoooo like I did and he dreamed like me. The only difference was that his father was a Muay Thai fighter in his younger days. So he learned muay-thai and today I am sure he earns 100 times more than me because I was prepared to earn money while he was prepared for what he loved. Look at him in the fight scenes of The Protector, I was just shocked at his skill. That kind of mastery at Martial-Arts is just brilliant, I have never seen such kind of fighting after Bruce Lee.

And these days my heart tears down every moment I live, I am just living a shallow life, my relatives are looking for a girl to marry me, they say I am settled and should marry a girl in next 2 years. settled ? I have gone empty, I have lost my health and my freedom in this 8 AM to 8 PM job. I have lost the love of my life, Martial-Arts. I have decided I am not going to marry till I Master Jeet Kune Do, Mizongyi, Black Tiger Kung FU, Chin Na and Wing-Chun and if I never got a chance to learn these, I will not marry. May be I get a chance later in life to learn one of these Martial-Arts and If I marry next year then I have to spend that time with my wife and kids which could be spent very well on learning martial arts, not to mention the expanses a family brings. My life is going to settle only if I make my mind and body strong with Martial-Arts. Martial-Arts is not about fighting, it is about achieving a higher-level of awareness about yourself, its about controlling oneself and be a better human being and, Martial-Arts is about exploring the boundaries of human-thinking and the human-body, Martial-Arts is learning about one’s own existence. I never learned Martial-Arts but this is what I think it means, in the end, this is my love.

Copyright © 2008, Arnuld Uttre, #331/type-2/sector-1, Naya Nangal, Distt. – Ropar, Punjab (INDIA) – 140126

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