Apparition by MC
Caution: Random rumination.
Life is not a countermove that some strange force makes to your every move. In its raw form—as in immediately after one is born—it is a purposeless endeavor. When one is born, one is not handed a particular set of coordinates to arrive at. Nothing is discernibly charted out. Life is mostly about getting used to it unfolding in constantly changing contexts.
I do not accept the idea of the first man and woman from whom we all became. Since humans appeared on Earth some six millions years ago and we as modern humans, Homo sapiens, some 200,000 years ago, we were always born into a larger context. There was always more than just one original couple. I had to clarify that in order to make a point I am about to make.
Lately, I have tried a new approach; that of not actively doing anything about anything. I am tempted to call it enlightened inaction but it is not even that. It is mostly letting the social, cultural, financial, emotional and natural contexts you are surrounded by do what they want without any resistance from me. Imagine me as a lump of featureless clay. I suppose no feature is also some feature if I am a lump malleable clay. The sheer physics of existence ensures that we have some features.
One possible way to negotiate the existential absurdities that I find myself in everyday is to become consciously disjointed in my articulation/reaction. I used to know a man like that in the 1980s who of course had a mental condition that made him so. None of his two sentences had any identifiable link or logical progression. He was utterly disjointed in his mind as well as articulation. In small doses, I used to find that delightful because it offered a version of reality that I did not naturally see. For instance, he would say in Gujarati things like, “Sujata (his daughter) should get married now” in one sentence followed by the very next, “Why are they building a flyover here?” That would be followed immediately by, “My air-conditioner throws only hot air” and finally, “Would you have tea?” I found that quite entertaining in small doses but I could empathize with the difficulty that his family had to face while living with him. More important, it is impossible for me to gauge what he must have felt.
He was a kind man and in his earlier normal life a rather engaging conversationalist. I do not know what that condition is called medically but I presume it has a nomenclature. The reason I mention this is because I feel I might become like him except that in my case it would be a deliberate choice, a strategy, to cope with existential absurdities. I am tempted to try it today as a new week opens and inevitably brings with it its own assault on my personal peace and share of unpleasantness. If I do try that strategy, I would be happy to report the results.