I've noticed every so often that some 'things' - seemingly insignificant, minor happenings - can have an unusual bearing on my mood. They never sneak up on me, these 'things'. They come gradually. They forewarn, they announce subtly their imminent arrival. But because I don't want to acknowledge their arrival (in sub conscious hope that feigning ignorance would make them go away altogether) or because I'm just careless enough not to notice, the warning is mostly futile, so that when it happens, I feel sprung upon. The apparent suddenness of the 'thing', then, alters my mood, leaving a bitter sense of un-calm. I like to think of these 'things' as the first stirrings of an imbalance. A feeling of lost inertia. They irk me. I seem to be aware of the triviality of the 'thing' but like a fly that buzzes around, drawing attention to itself, it lingers and I am unable to shake off the unease it causes.
I am aware that far too often, when I think, and also when I write (them being complimentary processes), I tend to get "carried away", so to say, winding deeper and deeper into the thought till it becomes incoherent. And for fear I may have alienated my first audiences with the above abstract, I'm going to clarify, with an example, what I mean. As a child, I once sat in Art class trying futilely to force my mind to perceive shapes and lines on a two dimensional paper in a manner that might be consistent with the three dimensional world around us (which is what I imagine most artists do intuitively). My Art teacher sat at he head of the class, working on her annual masterpiece - I remember it was a portrait of Shivaji Maharaj. This was how Art class was conducted. We were given a topic at the beginning of the class and then we were left to flounder around for the remaining hour and figure out all by ourselves how we might draw it. Draw and let draw, I suppose. Anyway, as I sat there feeling highly insufficient, the teacher called attention to us. She needed an errand doing. She asked, "Who here knows where the eighth standard classes are?" Mine is a big and complex school for a child. And I did not know where the eighth standard classes were. But inexplicably, I raised my hand and felt an eagerness rush through me. Several other hands went up around my own, but I wanted to be picked for the task. And surprisingly, I was. She handed me a note and asked me to deliver it to an eighth standard student. Feeling special, I clutched the note in my fist and ran out of the art class, in search of the unknown eighth standard classes. I roamed the school, searching all the floors, looking for a large Roman numeral VIII outside the class doors, but I never found it. I started growing weary and uneasy. I couldn't tell how much time had passed, would the Art teacher have been expecting me back by now? I gradually felt myself sink into a nervous, trapped sensation I have since come to associate with exams - when you know the answers and you have so much to write, but just cannot seem to write fast enough before the time runs out. I did finally find the eighth standard classes, that I had walked past earlier several times, thinking I saw a VII instead of VIII. But it took a lot of mental torture and definitely way too much time than if I had known beforehand the classes' location. I returned to my Art class, shame-faced, knowing I had been found out. The teacher, and the entire class would have guessed that I had never known where the classes were. My teacher did not comment upon my arrival and I returned to my desk, to stare dejectedly at the blank piece of paper before me. In hindsight, of course, I know my shame was unnecessary. It was silly. But at the time, I was lost in the misery of my situation. How trivial, how significant. And when I think about it, I had known, in some measure, from the instant I'd raised my hand that it was coming.
One might think this is nothing new. The shame I experienced may be classified as no different from the shame any liar might experience upon being found out publicly. But I think this incident was different. I raised my hand in lies, not to escape the tyranny of the Art class but to impress upon the teacher that I was a smart, diligent student who knew things. And in failing to do so I had, by my own hand, damaged that very impression. I was left with a slow, burning regret.
You see, I think we all picture a model of ourselves. The perfect "me". We'd all like to be that someone - that hero who glorifies our own self image in our inner minds. We want everyone else to perceive us as this being. We act, to the best of our abilities, in a manner that might exemplify that being. But like everything else in the universe, there are glitches. The portrayal is never perfect. We might mess up. And messing up disturbs the balance of that image. This imbalance disturbs me greatly. I feel unable to deal with it, almost instantaneously I seek redress. I cannot undo what is done and I seek distractions to avoid the coming unease.
That day of the Art class, though I didn't know it, what I was experiencing was the afore-mentioned "thing", the stirring of my life's first imbalance. There was an upset in my portrayal of my self image. I wanted to be smart and I really truly believed I was. I had good grades, my Principal knew me by name, I knew more science and maths than most of my peers. But maddeningly, I couldn't impress any of my smartness upon Mrs. Karle. My ticker started then - that was, I suppose count one or very nearly count one of the "thing" happening. And since then, there have been several ugly re-appearances.
I am aware that far too often, when I think, and also when I write (them being complimentary processes), I tend to get "carried away", so to say, winding deeper and deeper into the thought till it becomes incoherent. And for fear I may have alienated my first audiences with the above abstract, I'm going to clarify, with an example, what I mean. As a child, I once sat in Art class trying futilely to force my mind to perceive shapes and lines on a two dimensional paper in a manner that might be consistent with the three dimensional world around us (which is what I imagine most artists do intuitively). My Art teacher sat at he head of the class, working on her annual masterpiece - I remember it was a portrait of Shivaji Maharaj. This was how Art class was conducted. We were given a topic at the beginning of the class and then we were left to flounder around for the remaining hour and figure out all by ourselves how we might draw it. Draw and let draw, I suppose. Anyway, as I sat there feeling highly insufficient, the teacher called attention to us. She needed an errand doing. She asked, "Who here knows where the eighth standard classes are?" Mine is a big and complex school for a child. And I did not know where the eighth standard classes were. But inexplicably, I raised my hand and felt an eagerness rush through me. Several other hands went up around my own, but I wanted to be picked for the task. And surprisingly, I was. She handed me a note and asked me to deliver it to an eighth standard student. Feeling special, I clutched the note in my fist and ran out of the art class, in search of the unknown eighth standard classes. I roamed the school, searching all the floors, looking for a large Roman numeral VIII outside the class doors, but I never found it. I started growing weary and uneasy. I couldn't tell how much time had passed, would the Art teacher have been expecting me back by now? I gradually felt myself sink into a nervous, trapped sensation I have since come to associate with exams - when you know the answers and you have so much to write, but just cannot seem to write fast enough before the time runs out. I did finally find the eighth standard classes, that I had walked past earlier several times, thinking I saw a VII instead of VIII. But it took a lot of mental torture and definitely way too much time than if I had known beforehand the classes' location. I returned to my Art class, shame-faced, knowing I had been found out. The teacher, and the entire class would have guessed that I had never known where the classes were. My teacher did not comment upon my arrival and I returned to my desk, to stare dejectedly at the blank piece of paper before me. In hindsight, of course, I know my shame was unnecessary. It was silly. But at the time, I was lost in the misery of my situation. How trivial, how significant. And when I think about it, I had known, in some measure, from the instant I'd raised my hand that it was coming.
One might think this is nothing new. The shame I experienced may be classified as no different from the shame any liar might experience upon being found out publicly. But I think this incident was different. I raised my hand in lies, not to escape the tyranny of the Art class but to impress upon the teacher that I was a smart, diligent student who knew things. And in failing to do so I had, by my own hand, damaged that very impression. I was left with a slow, burning regret.
You see, I think we all picture a model of ourselves. The perfect "me". We'd all like to be that someone - that hero who glorifies our own self image in our inner minds. We want everyone else to perceive us as this being. We act, to the best of our abilities, in a manner that might exemplify that being. But like everything else in the universe, there are glitches. The portrayal is never perfect. We might mess up. And messing up disturbs the balance of that image. This imbalance disturbs me greatly. I feel unable to deal with it, almost instantaneously I seek redress. I cannot undo what is done and I seek distractions to avoid the coming unease.
That day of the Art class, though I didn't know it, what I was experiencing was the afore-mentioned "thing", the stirring of my life's first imbalance. There was an upset in my portrayal of my self image. I wanted to be smart and I really truly believed I was. I had good grades, my Principal knew me by name, I knew more science and maths than most of my peers. But maddeningly, I couldn't impress any of my smartness upon Mrs. Karle. My ticker started then - that was, I suppose count one or very nearly count one of the "thing" happening. And since then, there have been several ugly re-appearances.
No comments:
Post a Comment