WHY WE ARE HERE? Answers to 100 great questions
- Madhukar Dama
- 3 hours ago
- 6 min read
We are all here, because we are not there.
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1. You didn’t choose to be born. But you carry the burden of living.
2. Most of your daily actions are unconscious habits, not decisions.
3. What you believe is mostly what you were repeatedly told.
4. Freedom often just means picking between two cages.
5. You are shaped more by fear than by love.
6. Most of your thoughts are just responses to old pain.
7. Success is usually just survival made pretty.
8. You call things 'yours' that were given to you before you could think.
9. The world runs on people pretending they believe.
10. Comfort feels safer than truth. That’s why you avoid truth.
11. You are disposable in the places where you sacrifice the most.
12. The things you avoid often hold the key to your freedom.
13. You don’t outgrow wounds. You just hide them better.
14. Adulthood is managing damage without showing it.
15. No one really knows what they’re doing.
16. No savior is coming.
17. Love exists, but it’s not always clean or permanent.
18. You admire others based on your own longing.
19. You stay busy to avoid yourself.
20. Most people aren’t evil. Just conditioned and afraid.
21. Everything you own will become trash.
22. You will die. Most of what mattered to you won’t be remembered.
23. Personality is mostly defense.
24. The loudest people are often hiding the most fear.
25. You crave relief, not truth.
26. Your education trained obedience more than thinking.
27. Truth doesn’t require belief.
28. You’re lonelier than you admit.
29. Outer changes don’t fix inner chaos.
30. Everyone is acting. Some are just better at it.
31. Happiness is often just a break from pain.
32. Society values function over honesty.
33. You chase goals to avoid collapse.
34. You confuse spiritual talk with healing.
35. You want to be seen, but fear being known.
36. Validation feels better than truth.
37. You want healing without changing.
38. You act honest until honesty threatens your image.
39. Productivity hides feelings of worthlessness.
40. You judge others for your own hidden parts.
41. Even rebellion can be pre-approved.
42. Silence is scary because it reflects you back.
43. You eventually become what you pretend not to be.
44. Most friendships are circumstantial.
45. You revisit the past because it still controls you.
46. The system teaches craving, not peace.
47. You measure worth with invented numbers.
48. You say “I don’t care” when you care too much.
49. Your attention is more stolen than your money.
50. Fear drives many marriages more than love.
51. You stay loyal to what hurts you.
52. You use blame to avoid effort.
53. You think you’re different. But so does everyone else.
54. Changing your looks doesn’t fix your pain.
55. Most ambitions are copied, not created.
56. You treat truth like an option. It isn’t.
57. Freedom frightens you more than control.
58. You fear aging not for death, but for irrelevance.
59. You barely know yourself.
60. You overthink because you don’t trust life.
61. You seek stimulation because you can’t sit still.
62. You chase others to avoid being with yourself.
63. You’re tired not from life, but from pretending.
64. You need less, not more.
65. You confuse attention with affection.
66. You avoid boredom because you equate it with failure.
67. You’d rather be admired than be real.
68. You want control over reality, not acceptance of it.
69. You follow rules you never questioned.
70. You judge yourself through others’ eyes.
71. Most change only happens when pain becomes unbearable.
72. You plan every detail because you don’t trust life.
73. You beg for peace but choose chaos.
74. Stillness feels like emptiness to you.
75. You seek hope that doesn’t ask for effort.
76. You learn more than you apply.
77. You criticize systems but stay comfortable within them.
78. You want the truth — until it costs you something.
79. You fear being forgotten because you never fully lived.
80. You think you’re awake. But you’re reacting, not choosing.
81. Your greatest cage is your idea of who you must be.
82. You edit yourself constantly.
83. You crave discipline, but prefer fantasy.
84. You treat your phone better than your body.
85. You use healing words to mask avoidance.
86. You want love, but resist vulnerability.
87. You seek shortcuts to depth.
88. You want guarantees, not truth.
89. You hope someone else will give you the courage to change.
90. You confuse liking something with being free.
91. You chase spiritual highs to avoid practical change.
92. You fear discomfort more than ignorance.
93. You use knowledge as armor, not as doorway.
94. You say "life is short" but live like it's endless.
95. You punish yourself more than others ever do.
96. You consume inspiration and avoid transformation.
97. You worship confidence because you lack peace.
98. You avoid pain, and so repeat it.
99. You can lie to everyone. But never to your own silence.
100. You know all this. But you don’t live it.
WE ARE HERE, BECAUSE WE ARE NOT THERE
A timeless slow-burn poem
i didn’t ask to be born,
but they gave me a name,
a god,
a skin to wear,
a set of rules.
and then they said,
go live.
so i did,
awkwardly at first,
then more quietly,
then like everyone else—
pretending i knew what i was doing.
---
they said i was free,
but i was tied to the village,
to the land,
to the caste,
to the surname,
to the silences between elders.
---
most of who i became
was already waiting for me
before i could speak.
a way to sit,
a way to pray,
a way to speak to men,
a different way for women,
and always—
a way to hide.
---
freedom?
that was for songs and stories.
in real life,
there was duty,
reputation,
and what people will say.
---
i watched my father age
without ever becoming free.
i watched my mother serve
without once being asked
what she wanted.
---
i learned to be useful.
not true.
to be good.
not whole.
---
we all learned to smile
even when we didn’t know
who we were smiling for.
---
truth?
truth made people uncomfortable.
so we stopped speaking it
and called it “peace.”
---
we were taught to fear shame
more than ignorance,
to fear failure
more than regret.
---
you married when they said,
you studied what they picked,
you lived where duty demanded,
and still,
you felt hollow.
---
they said pray harder.
work harder.
keep quiet.
swallow it.
don't shame the family.
don't bring dishonor.
---
so you folded your spirit
like an old dhoti
and tucked it away
beneath obedience.
---
you were angry,
but had no name for it.
you were lonely,
but had no permission for it.
you wanted to scream,
but learned to cook instead.
---
you learned to suffer beautifully.
to smile through it.
to become smaller
in the name of grace.
---
you longed for love
but settled for arrangement.
you longed for rest
but called it laziness.
you longed for self
but feared being selfish.
---
the old men drank to forget.
the old women prayed to endure.
and the young?
the young watched
and repeated the same rituals
with slightly newer faces.
---
no one asked if you were alive
beneath your responsibilities.
only whether the harvest came,
whether the marriage worked,
whether the neighbors approved.
---
and you?
you kept moving.
because stopping meant
feeling everything
you weren’t allowed to say.
---
you went to temples
not to find god,
but to ask for relief.
you fasted
not for purity,
but to feel in control
of something
in a life not yours.
---
you wanted space.
but lived in houses
built by others,
for others,
with no corner for your own breath.
---
you looked at the sky once
and remembered being young.
before the roles,
before the posture,
before the words that crushed your mouth
into silence.
---
you never wanted much.
just a place to be
without needing to become.
but the world doesn’t reward that.
so you performed.
like everyone else.
---
you raised children
to follow the same paths
you secretly hoped they’d escape.
---
you asked for truth.
then flinched when it arrived.
you asked for peace.
but chose comfort.
you asked for freedom.
but kept wearing the same masks
because they fit better
in a crowd.
---
and now?
you’re here.
not because you chose it,
but because there
— that place of stillness, honesty,
and quiet rebellion —
was too far.
too lonely.
too uncertain.
---
we are here
because we are not there.
because there
means facing the life
beneath the one you were taught to live.
---
maybe,
one day,
we’ll stop calling survival
a virtue.
maybe,
one day,
we’ll unlearn enough
to finally arrive
where we’ve never been—
with ourselves.
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