Taking it as it comes
There was this period in my life when a friend and I were dissecting life-patterns in great detail. Given the time and circumstances, this dissection was time better spent. Better than some inane things others with the same time and lack of anything else to do indulged in.
We started off by first identifying patterns. For this, we had to look at our own lives. It was like a discovery. Wisdom gained. Then we began naming the patterns. Naming helped identify not just our patterns, but patterns in others. And this pattern identifying also helped see through people. Some folks shallow and cheap. Some deep and profound. Some shallow and simple. Some deep and complicated. As time passed by, pattern-identifying came easily to us. And it was saddening to know how limited in thought, character and action people got.
But then, man is a pattern seeking animal. Sometimes and for some people, it is too much to leave things to chance. The loss of control can severly hamper people’s judgments. It is safe to know. And to measure is to know. Thats why we have interviews, reviews, arranged marriages and all that.
Great many things have been achieved by intense planners. And great many things have been achieved by happy-go-lucky souls. Seldom do these two kind of people understand the other, and this has been the crux of many a marital discord (which I want to avoid talking about). And somewhere along the way, I soon lost track of what actually was happening - was I only coming across people whom I could put into boxes for which I aleady had labels, or was I only looking at people through the limits of my measurement.
To put it simply, just after gaining knowledge of patterns and people, I stopped meeting interesting ones. Interesting = someone who could blow away my yardsticks. Someone who came as fresh, genuine and with a story I had not heard before.
I am begining to accept that it is not a coincidence that this happened after I joined work. Joined the software industry, in particular. Hell, let me rewind back and say I am not suprised this happened after moving to Bangalore.
Smug in this wisdom, I was taken by suprise when I met an old friend recently. He not just smashed my pattern of trusting a known devil over an unknown angel, he also showed me that there are things as sorrowful as losing a friend to the emptiness of an escapist attitude. Our frequency mismatch was quite high. I was hardened by the daily routine of project deadlines, status updates and 9-5 mental stiffness. He hadn’t known home, and only hostels for 5+2 years. Oh yes, I easily found a pattern for him too. But he exposed mine big time. And that had not happened since college.
I don’t want to patternify living things around me. Modern life, dull and drab as it is, doesn’t need any more forceful discolouration. But then, how can I take it as it comes?
I rather pick up my camera and go looking for something nice to shoot.
Comment by Divya — April 4, 2006 at 5:29 pm
Cest-la-vie (I know this might be the most hackneyed phrase, but what the heck cliches always have truth in them)
While flagging off your views i would also like to reflect aloud that it ‘is’ these ‘patterned’ minds that keep the world ticking and offer impetus to the minds that like to pattern interrupt. In performance likes rebellion.
Btw thanks for the virtual stopover. You keep writing too
Comment by Divya — April 4, 2006 at 5:45 pm
Oh btw i liked what you said about boxes and lables. Sometimes when i see similar looking cartons all piled up at work (no i dont work for a cargo company!) i cant help but rave at the starking similarity our lives bear to those congruent boxes.
Most things such as sucess, accomplishment, decorum, looks, lifestyle are pre-defined and most of us try religiously to confrim to it through our lives and before we know we’re absorbed into a ‘rat race’ only to realise that such pursuits somewhere lack meaning.
Comment by anon. — April 5, 2006 at 12:27 pm
I went through this sometime back. Took someone with a heart of gold to make me see that there’s life beyond the boxes i so diligently created. I had to almost choke back tears when I thought of all that my cherished boxes made me miss. And just when I thought I’m stuck with these, my yardsticks, boxes, were all swept away. It didnt take a person to do that. It took a single moment of experiencing the “no expectations” mode. You’re just an instrument, dude. Let good happen through you. It doesn’t matter if whoever crosses your path matches up to your yardstick or xyz’s yardstick. Your own opinion of it doesn’t matter. You’re nobody to expect “meeting interesting people”. You’re nobody to expect, feel happy, feel sad, make yardsticks, analyze patterns, wait for good people, etc. Those are all sundry activities. It takes a single moment of FEELING the abovesaid. All those boxes still hold good, prolly. maybe, whatever. But they just don’t figure in your scheme of things anymore. It is the now that counts. Not those boxes and who fits into those and who doesn’t.
Comment by Pratap — April 5, 2006 at 2:21 pm
I need a heart of gold. I already have balls of steel.
Comment by Pratap — April 5, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Divya, thanks for stopping by!