bhaskar saikia

What fascinates me most is how few of us pause to ask the simplest, yet deepest of questions: What are we really doing on this planet?

Most people move through life in what I would like to call an “inherited rhythm of existence”—the work–consume–sleep cycle—because it provides security, structure, and predictability. Questioning it can be uncomfortable, even destabilizing. To wonder, “Why am I here?” or “What are we doing on this planet?” requires confronting uncertainty, and not everyone is ready for that.

Yet, history whispers that the greatest shifts in thought have always begun with wonder. The sages of the Upanishads, the probing of Socrates, the mystic verses of Rumi, the stillness of Zen—all arose because someone dared to stop, look around, and ask why. They were not satisfied with surviving the cycle; they yearned to understand the mystery within and beyond it.

Perhaps this is the hidden paradox of life: comfort draws us into repetition, while meaning emerges only when we step outside it. To live consciously is to allow ourselves to be unsettled, to sit with questions that may never be fully answered.

And maybe, just maybe, the rarest act of courage today is not in chasing success, but in pausing amid the noise to wonder: What am I doing here, really?