There are some aspects of life, science even, that everyone experiments on everyday, and learns and knows and uses. For example, at the end of high-school, one often thinks that one has seen and known enough stereotypes and flavors of people to the point of being able to predict people by mere observation. Vehicular kinematics, cooking, animal psychology, plants, machines and even academic research get a lot more predictable with repeated exposure. Life occurs like a standing wave - it is quantized, and it has its nodes where you know you've finished one wavelength and you're going to start another with negligible amplitude running in the current moment.
This experimental procedure has its perks - you know more, sometimes more than people around you - thats a perk sometimes. You use it to make it to your cheese with minimal effort, thats a very constructive perk. You enjoy being in control of things - things come your way and you think you knew it all along and planned it, thats a perk. You become a person that everyone else thinks is the counselor; you're in demand - thats a great perk.
My favorite perk is where I find myself again.
The quanta of my life and their associated elements on the whole have been very nice to me. But contrary to its overall structure, in each one of them I have found a similar pattern that drives me to associate life with the shape of a standing wave.
I start a section and probe; the first steps are silent. But once I feel the floor under I start jogging, thumping hard and finally running. I leave my friends behind. It feels good, it feels like I am doing what I was meant to do. I stretch out. I look around. I see a lot more around me now; and it is beautiful. The medium that surrounds me has liked something in my exercise so for. It claps and cheers for more. I can now stay on at the same pace or evolve and sate the medium's request. I smile. And stretch out further; I evolve. I am safe. This is a good change it is. The medium watches. And then it happens.
Something limits the stretch. Something blocks it. I look around frantically. I see some distortion; it is not the perfection I had thought it to be. I do not want to believe it. I push myself harder. That that surrounds me must be good and perfect and true. I work and pant and sweat and strain and scream and then I faint. That that I had feared most has come to occur. I am done for. I am quenched. The medium watches.
But I am not dead. I am diminished but i retain my old form. I get up slowly and stand again. I start walking slowly. And then i trot. I remember how I used to love trotting in my previous segment. I look over my shoulder, and spot my friends. They have caught up with me. I smile back. And together we trot till we are close to the end. A couple of others join us. A good pace is now needed to jump through the wormhole into the next segment. We improve our speeds slowly and gracefully run though. The medium watches.
I, again, am at a similar point - the end of one wave and the start of yet another. But it is a lot more similar than just that. I ended it with the same people that i started it with. I ended it with the same pace that I started it with. I even ended it with the same mood that i started it with. Strangely I feel that I have run back to the last node and merged with what I was then. Or maybe reinvented my old form with more reason backing it this time. I trace my short trip - I started off well, lost myself somewhere, found myself again, ignored the medium and its bulk, found my friends and myself again.
It is a standing wave in many ways. In others, It is like a set of adventures of a comic-book hero - each segment ending with "happily ever after".
I am relieved, ecstatic, content and raring to go, all in one moment; not as much for passing the segment, as for the fact that I regained myself. I look at the medium from the corner of my eye again. It watches. It does its job. As I am meant to do mine.
I will start again. I will stretch out and be challenged and hurt and fall. I will be struck out. But that will not keep me from playing the game. I love being the element that is me.
This experimental procedure has its perks - you know more, sometimes more than people around you - thats a perk sometimes. You use it to make it to your cheese with minimal effort, thats a very constructive perk. You enjoy being in control of things - things come your way and you think you knew it all along and planned it, thats a perk. You become a person that everyone else thinks is the counselor; you're in demand - thats a great perk.
My favorite perk is where I find myself again.
The quanta of my life and their associated elements on the whole have been very nice to me. But contrary to its overall structure, in each one of them I have found a similar pattern that drives me to associate life with the shape of a standing wave.
I start a section and probe; the first steps are silent. But once I feel the floor under I start jogging, thumping hard and finally running. I leave my friends behind. It feels good, it feels like I am doing what I was meant to do. I stretch out. I look around. I see a lot more around me now; and it is beautiful. The medium that surrounds me has liked something in my exercise so for. It claps and cheers for more. I can now stay on at the same pace or evolve and sate the medium's request. I smile. And stretch out further; I evolve. I am safe. This is a good change it is. The medium watches. And then it happens.
Something limits the stretch. Something blocks it. I look around frantically. I see some distortion; it is not the perfection I had thought it to be. I do not want to believe it. I push myself harder. That that surrounds me must be good and perfect and true. I work and pant and sweat and strain and scream and then I faint. That that I had feared most has come to occur. I am done for. I am quenched. The medium watches.
But I am not dead. I am diminished but i retain my old form. I get up slowly and stand again. I start walking slowly. And then i trot. I remember how I used to love trotting in my previous segment. I look over my shoulder, and spot my friends. They have caught up with me. I smile back. And together we trot till we are close to the end. A couple of others join us. A good pace is now needed to jump through the wormhole into the next segment. We improve our speeds slowly and gracefully run though. The medium watches.
I, again, am at a similar point - the end of one wave and the start of yet another. But it is a lot more similar than just that. I ended it with the same people that i started it with. I ended it with the same pace that I started it with. I even ended it with the same mood that i started it with. Strangely I feel that I have run back to the last node and merged with what I was then. Or maybe reinvented my old form with more reason backing it this time. I trace my short trip - I started off well, lost myself somewhere, found myself again, ignored the medium and its bulk, found my friends and myself again.
It is a standing wave in many ways. In others, It is like a set of adventures of a comic-book hero - each segment ending with "happily ever after".
I am relieved, ecstatic, content and raring to go, all in one moment; not as much for passing the segment, as for the fact that I regained myself. I look at the medium from the corner of my eye again. It watches. It does its job. As I am meant to do mine.
I will start again. I will stretch out and be challenged and hurt and fall. I will be struck out. But that will not keep me from playing the game. I love being the element that is me.
3 comments:
brilliant comparison...its always interesting to compare science and subjective experience...good one bala...
blue-tiful.
Really beautiful piece of writing.. poetic :)
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