Life, the Universe and Everything

{Apologies to the Late Douglas Adams for using the title from the third book of his five book "trilogy.")
I am supposed to be the most relieved man on earth today. I am like a death penalty convict, been granted special pardon by the President a day before the execution. (This is actually a truer analogy than it seems). After four and a half years of taking Minors and Majors I have finally passed out of the Indian Institute of Technology. And that is a big thing, to finally have a provisional B.Tech from one of the country's premier educational institutions. It was a tough ride all the way, and after having completed this slow and unsteady race (which by the way, I ended .finishing 37 in a class of 45 odd), I should be happy for the fact that I have at last done what I set out to do: get a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi. For sometime, in the past month or so, becoming an engineer was all that I cared for. Infact, I had even contemplated suicide if I didnt get a degree. (Now, again, dont pass judgements about me..plzz. I am a lot more psycho than you think. And moreover I believe that suicide requires much more courage than is attributed to it. It is the ultimate surrender, to life itself, and I believe only a courageous person can accept losing).It was a matter of life or death for me. So well, I thought that the day I finally got my degree would actually be the happiest day of my life. Except that, I am not happy. Infact, the realisation that I have finally become an engineer has left me sad. Sad is probably the wrong word, but now this doesnt seem to be affecting me as much as I thought it would. No, not as much as I thought it would, but it hasnt made any difference at all.
I remember reading once "Success is counted sweetest, by those who never succeed", and today the full meaning of these lines cannot escape me. Is it because of this that having finally got the degree I am unable to cherish it as I should have? Or is it something else, something even more philosophical?
Did I ever tell you that I also plan to open my own school of philosophy thought? I guess I have not, but I believe (my this belief, like all my other beliefs, is shared by me alone) that someday I will be able to write a book on philosophy. For that, I dont intend to read any other philosophy, as I want my thought to be original and pure. So well here is the first point of my pholosphical discourses.
Problems are broadly of two levels : 1) Minor and 2) Major. Not getting through a good company, or flunking a course or a semester, are types of minor problems. They hurt, but the wound heals pretty quickly. On the other hand, loving someone who does not love you, or (which I feel is even worse) not loving someone who loves you, are probably the two scenarios when you are hurt the most. In between, there are other things we are wary of: death of your dog, your cat and so on. But being the hopeless romantic that I am, I feel that the two of the above hurt much more than anything else. Also, the minor worries are the ones that seem to eat the majority of your time. Or we try to give our minor problems more time in order to forget our major problems. Time is a great healer, and that is what we rely the most on, in order to lessen the pain from the major problems.
So well, my point is, that when I had got my degree, all my minor problems were over (at that point of time atleast), and because man (I have a habit of generalising things; maybe I should use I) is pessemestic for the most part, he has to worry about his problems, which left me pondering over my major problems. And that made the world seem a much more problematic than it was before. Because you can't do anything about people not loving you, or even about you not loving people. There is only one thing : give it time. You try shutting yourself away from everything, but somehow her memory comes back to haunt you. Again and again. You try to keep it out, but the mere mention of her name is enough to remind you of those days. And make you sad.
So much for my philosophy, probably its because of this, that I felt sad after the degree. Or maybe, there was another reason. More of it in the next post. And sure enough, it will be called "So long, and thanks for all the fish."