Butterflies and Existentialism

Some things make you old.

People might say having a regular schedule makes you so. Waking up on time and going about the day’s business like clockwork, ticking away each passing moment with pinpoint accuracy, marking out portions being well organized and responsible. You know you're getting old when most of your conversations start with "Oh, those were the days..." or "I remember this used to cost so little back then...". You know you're old when you cannot stand dirty laundry any more, or are no longer too lazy to do the dishes. We’ve actually been alive for more years in the 21st century than the 20th.

Back when we were young, our years were ever so clearly marked out by the streaming torrent of competitive academic and scholarly pursuits. Every year had a clearly defined number of semesters with exams and we were lost in the race hopping from one milestone to the next. It was like an audition: a tutorial, for stuff that lay ahead. In its nascent stages, human brains tend to be most impressionable and stuff we grasp into ourselves usually tends to hold on for long amounts of time. In fact, the smallest of things: an idea, a preference, an idiosyncrasy, can actually affect something much more than itself as we grow up. The simplest of things and the smallest of habits sometimes cause manifestations which no one might believe to be possible otherwise.

A funny example comes to mind. In my childhood, I used to absolutely love sticking one end of a strand of Maggi noodles in my mouth leaving the other end hanging outside: a long thread of noodle hanging down from the mouth. Then, I used to suck on the strand quickly. Consequently, the hanging noodle's length would shorten rapidly and it would rush into my mouth dancing around as it went in. Now to ensure that such long strands survived in the final product, it was critical that the Maggi units remained unbroken while cooking them. So, I let then boil in water and unravel by themselves. While cooking Maggi the other day, I realized that this behavior has become so ingrained in me, that it is completely automatic for me not to break the units while cooking even today. This, even though I stopped playing with noodle strands long ago. Now imagine the collective entirety of such instances, such small preferences and idiosyncrasies. Every single person would have their own set of beliefs and choices that they made as children or the environment they grew in, which would shape them into the way they are today. We've read around and seen evidences of the often repeated "Man is but a product of his circumstances". But to grasp the full meaning of it requires opening up our mind to the tiny little things that metamorphose into huge portions of a person's character. Consider this definition of the word "sonder" from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows:

Sonder n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

This “inherited craziness” is something which the tutorial years affect in us. Unfortunately, our brains have not matured enough then and so, in a way, most of what we are today has been shaped by events and choices which have not been in our control. Now, to go back and take a different path is harder and harder, the more you try to backtrack. Instances of such choices are not hard to find.

The choice of career can be considered one such instance. Most normal people are utterly confused at the time of choosing what they want to do with their life, hell they’re confused even after getting a degree. Usually, their decisions tend to be influenced by peers and parents. The guy who was unsure – who compromised and made an arbitrary decision – does stand to regret it later if he realizes his true calling and sees that he can’t backtrack any more, at least not easily. It takes real courage to follow your heart once you’ve made a proper investment along a particular direction. Most won’t follow suit. I’ve had discussions with my parents to this effect. What they ended up doing – what people in general end up doing – has got a lot more to do with circumstance and environment than their own choice. To someone who is the sole family support, an existing career choice would pay off more than if they were to backtrack and start afresh – their investments have been expensive. On the other hand, to someone already well off, or to someone on whom pressures of family are not too great, it might pay just as well to discontinue walking along their existing path and backtrack to take a new one. In any case, it cannot be doubted that backtracking in general is difficult and there are few who actually manage it.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference^[1].

Is it good then, to take the road less travelled by? Or maybe better to stick to the beaten track? The choice is entirely personal.

Here is another such instance (which has recently been a rather heated ground for discussion): to believe or not to believe in a higher power which directly or indirectly affects life on earth in some way, or an entity which is responsible for the creation of mankind as a whole. Opinions on these subjects have been passed down to us from generations of ancestors, finally through our parents. At a very young age, we are taught to pray and worship and believe that our troubles have an end as there is He who works His magic from above and handles out an equal share of happiness for everyone. Would we have believed with so much ardent faith had we been as thoughtful and inquisitive then as we are now? In fact, a majority of non-believers across the world agree at least on this: had we been as mature then as we are now, or had this theory been proposed to us now instead of then, there would exist a significantly less number of believers indeed. Our ancestors would also have questioned this probably. There are so many people in the world that an idea is extremely likely to take root in more than one person at a time. Did they change their belief then, or did they stand silently and bend to conform? Popular (Indian) culture at least tends to provide evidence towards the latter. At least until the final years of the last century, we were continuously fed instances of reward from God in return for our good deeds and punishment for sins. Be it the return of the proverbial mother’s eyesight through dedicated prayers in “Amar, Akbar, Anthony” or the typical “Bhagwaan tumhe kabhi maaf nahi karega” (God will never forgive you). Oh and (by the way) these are also the movies which enforce the role of the woman as the home maker, which I have touched upon near the end of my previous point regarding career. For instance, in Hum Saath Saath Hain, we get this “Jahaan ghar ki ladies aur bacchiyaan hamein apne haathon se aur pyaar se khana khilaye, wahi ghar ghar hai” (True home is the place where ladies and daughters of the house feed us with their own hands with love)^[2]

Digging deeper, I’m sure we would obtain a lot more such instances to reiterate the original point about man being a product of circumstances and decisions taken early on, that tend to affect what he is today. Now, sometimes we get so lost in the little world we’ve created for ourselves that we take these things for granted and not question them any more. Although, it can be agreed that it would be much simpler to live in blissful ignorance, still these things are what make you grow as a person and knowing them will influence your thoughts, opinions and would probably shape the way you’ll turn out to be, say twenty more years from now.

One of the best subjects to illustrate this point is something which is omnipresent in the mind of every twenty-something’s parent out here: marriage. Unlike the last time we delegated our decisions to someone else, this time we are in conscious control. This is the kind of decision which would affect the next fifty odd years of our life. And our outlook and opinion today would be the seed for what we become fifty years from now, just as our childhood has influenced how we are today. Hence, there is a lot of pressure to fulfil our important decisions in the most responsible manner possible. I’ve come across a lot of discussions (on Quora and elsewhere) which bash arranged marriages in favour of love marriages. While both sides do have their pros and cons^[3], things get tricky for the arranged school of thought where unfamiliarity with the “better half” for such a long term commitment starts causing jitters. Considering how much our subsequent years depend on trust, mutual respect and cooperation (and of course, love) that come with marriage, making an informed decision seems imperative and to not simply rush into something just because “society” expects us to. The simplest form of an idea today, will be an integral part of our self in the future. The flap of a butterfly becoming an eventual hurricane^[4].

Meta: Measuring time used to be so much easier, when things were on tutorial mode and each tick was clearly marked out for us with love and care. Now we have to rely on other means to tick through time. What marks an year a year? Have we grown as persons in that time? Have we learnt something new? What is it? Watching a life changing movie, reading a brilliant book, being involved in an extraordinary project at work, some means of learning, some means of growth, or simply a trip around the sun? Everyone makes their measurement using their own tools. Whatever it is that marks our years today, we are surely here to stay, and we are not getting any younger.

The audition is done. The game is on!

Cover art by Nikolas Noonan