I was surfing on the net today afternoon. Which, as you might have guessed, happens pretty much every single day. Today, though, I had a purpose in life, a call to arms and a tryst with destiny.
I was working on my thesis.
So five minutes into the research, I started searching for Calvin and Hobbes strips online. (There are two sets of people reading this blog. One set, who knows me in passing, as mere acquaintances, or not at all; who'll chuckle in quaint amusement thinking to themselves about how short an attention span I possess. And then there's this other set of people, who'll gasp, clutch their throats, come close to passing out, and generally fall out of their seats. "Five minutes?!" they'll think. "He lasted all that long?")
Well anyways, that honest assessment of the creeps who call themselves my friends aside, there's this quote by the most precocious six year old who ever lived, that I think epitomises all that is Gokhale:

"There never is enough time to do all the nothing you want to"

If, upon reading that, visions of the bench immediately outside the boy's hostel flashes on the minds inner eye, on balmy evenings at around four p.m. with lazy thoughts of chai, then you know what I'm talking about. Well, to be fair to you guys, it doesn't have to be the bench in particular. But you know what I' talking about.

A long time ago, in Greece, when all the guys in that country were hell bent on being Spartan and noble, and finding out that which was real and Good, and heavy duty philosophical stuff like that, there was this bunch of guys who locked themselves up in a society and dedicated themselves to living the good life.

"Balls!" , they said, bravely and in defiance "Great big balls!"

"We don't know the true meaning of life, and we don't care if change is permanent, or not. Pythagoras can keep his triangle to himself, thank you very much, and Socrates should have been fed that bowl of hemlock when he was a brat in nappies. As for Plato, he can put his Republic right where it deserves to be."

The other Greeks jeered at them, and sneered condescendingly. They thought that these decadent people were the very nadir of all that was wrong with their wonderul democracy. But that didn't deter our brave clan, who fought with tenacity, and passed their legacy on, so that future generations could carry the burning torch.

So long as they (the future generations, that is) had the time and energy to light the torch, and carry it.

We're all Epicureans, people. Make no mistake.