And What Is Your Point?

Sitting today as I do, I find myself in a strange place within and without my surroundings. There is a palpable air of calm and yet I find myself unable to rest for the mind is in constant turmoil. The thoughts that race through my head are incessantly changing in colour and depth and they refuse to slow down to the point where I could endeavour to decipher, savour or even float within a single one.

Perhaps the closest that I got to coherent thought today was while writing my exam when I saw the question, “Justify: Interview situations inevitably create a conflict between truth and self-projection”. It is quite a strange question if you ask me. I do not question its veracity as it is quite evident. What makes it strange in my opinion is the fact that this is true not merely of interview situations but of each and every interaction we have whether with those around us or even with ourselves.

I have frequently dwelt on this fact and quite frankly upon seeing this question I was quite tempted to insert the line that even writing this answer could in a way become a conflict between what I truly believed and what the examiner wanted to know. When you speak to your parents it is a conflict between what you want to say or do and what you know they want you to say or do. Indeed it’s about who and what they want you to be.

It has been a strange sort of week for a variety of reasons and continues to stay weird. There are those write-ups that need to be sent to the committee that will publish the memoirs for the outgoing batch. While it seems like such a great idea on the surface, I see quite a few flaws in the entire thing that render the entire exercise quite meaningless in my opinion.

The write-ups are written for each person by another person whom the committee deems to be best placed to know the person in question. This to my mind is quite senseless. After all, shouldn’t the person be allowed to choose who knows him or her best? The committee obviously knows precious little about me, since I don’t even know who is in the committee and therefore of course, the person who has been allotted the task is my neighbour, who quite frankly, knows as little about me as the chaps who were last with me in kindergarten.

Then again, why should only person contribute? How much would this person be able to encapsulate and quite frankly, would it really matter? After all, for every single person on campus, I am somebody else. Ask 50 people what they think of me (or anyone else for that matter) and you are more than likely to have 50 different opinions. None of them is right and none is wrong, for quite simply, to quote Roger Waters, “I am you and what I see is me”.

Anyway, quite pointless to think about it, because frankly it does not make a difference to me and I could not really care less about the entire thing right now. There seem to be far better things to think about, if only I could identify just what my brain wants to do at this juncture. Quite frankly, it seems to have taken off on its own and that has left me a mere shell of a person who is seeing a complete blank all drawing more blanks when trying to come up with something or indeed trying to find my brain.

The entire exercise though has made me see things around me in a new light. All of a sudden there are now even more questions and proportionately fewer answers. When asked whether he was feeling bad about leaving this place, a person replied that he’d never felt worse and that he was leaving so many friends and stuff like that. It surprised me because the last time I felt such an emotion was when I was forced to change schools in my second grade! Evolution and change seem natural to me and more than being inevitable, to me they are essential!

It made me wonder how any person could ever mature if we were forever in the same company; if you were never made to move out and find your feet in a new environment. Mind you, I am of the type that is most averse to experiment and yet, I realise that unless I am faced with fresh views, situations, ideas and thoughts, I would never be able to grow in the truest sense of the word, as a person! Sentimentality is a sign of weakness and nothing more than that.

Yes, I do admit to having fond memories at times and there have been times when, even as I moved on, I knew that what I left behind was far better than most things I would come across later. Even today, I can identify those times and reaffirm that those were indeed great. However, that does not mean that I ever feel the urge to return to those times, nor do I regret where I am. They form beautiful memories that still make me smile and for that reason alone, I do not wish I could change what happened. That may perhaps just take the joy out of the entire situation.

Deep within each person knows the truth about change. Yet we’re almost always unwilling to let go and always attempting to hold on till the last possible moment. For some reason most people are loath to accept that parting is but a natural consequence of meeting and that nothing in the world is permanent except for a memory. Memories…why can’t we just aim at creating and retaining the best of them? Why hanker for living on in the same moment? Why not just live life as one collective memory where each scene is as beautiful as we choose to make it? I shall never know, because quite frankly, I too am human…

Sentimentality though is not restricted merely to people or places. What about thoughts? How many people are comfortable in stretching the boundaries of their imaginations? How many like to break free of the fetters of conventional thinking? Most of the time we can’t even bear to hear someone else speaking of something that goes against our thoughts. How could we tear ourselves free of our own thoughts all by ourselves? It is possible, but let’s face it, most of us will not do it, simply because we are too attached to what we already believe in. Questioning ourselves without any influence other than ourselves is not something that most of us can claim to be capable of.