It is really unbearable—this feeling of isolation. Don’t you think that behind our social or familial existence there is an untrodden territory of loneliness? Untrodden, because none but ourselves roam about that desolate place, knowing fully well that neither can we share, in the real sense of the term, the feeling or destiny of others nor can anyone else share that of ours. Does it really matter? What does it matter if we live in our capsules of consciousness? But humans love to socialise. They don’t relish the idea of being locked up in narrow prison-cells the walls of which are too thick to let any noise through.Yet, I cannot help sensing the impossibility of complete self-expression. How do I communicate my today’s melancholy to you?
In Bengali there is a peculiar expression—“Mon kemon korchey”—to portray such an inexpressible feeling of melancholy. Has anybody hurt me? No. Am I in some kind of trouble? No. Have I done something wrong? No. May be, it makes me melancholy to feel that I am wasting my time. Life is very precious in the sense that it is not going to last. So, I must make it really worthwhile. But, at present, I am doing something servile. Sisyphusing my time. I am wasting every precious minute of my life in drudgery. I must shake slavery off. Otherwise who is going to lend me an extra second of life when mine is over?
But, again, humans do not survive on enjoyment alone. I cannot be Maugham’s Wilson, the famous lotus-eater, who relinquished his drudgery for a life of supine sensations (and pathetic death). Even he was calculative, though his calculation was not foolproof. I dream of a life of blessed idleness, spiced with reading, writing (not answers for students this time) and listening to music. I am tolerating my drudgery only because it helps me store up for my arcadia that lies near the horizon. Sorry Mr. Kierkegaard, I will not ‘leap’ up to God.
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4 comments:
hehe sounds like a text for Theatre of the Absurd which I loved studying...I've been wanting to write something like this for a year now i guess..
...i've forestalled u!
Ho hum!
Sorry to be cut and dry about this, but what you are talking about is "byronic unhappiness."
And, no Shoma, it's not futility/absurdity of existence. Absurdity is not a realisation that you have occassionally. Rather, it's an all-pervading awareness — as if every breath you take is futile. I mean that's what I understood from the classical Absurdist texts.
On a different note: did the Absurdists, or whatsoever these guys called themselves, find eating futile? Or money useless? Or good clothes easy to discard? Just a thought. I feel that wordsmithing on Ontology is a rather easy passtime for a clueless generation. This I see coming for the Gen X/Y/Z or the Youngistaan brigade in India unless they escape to something meaningful like career, patriotism or cricket. Arts are not a serious meaning giver in India yet. Career is, and so are the Telly and Cricket. The supposedly desolate lane for the existential traveller is apparently lined with shopping malls and stadiums these days in India.
Melancholia is but the poison of teh lucky few, who are not seriously enthralled by these crass meaning givers. I'm sure you'll, and surely you do, "leap up" to Art regularly. The questions is: will a signoficant minority do the same? Or are we going to be a nation of prosperous and healthy rams, complacently bleating our way to a pointless death. Daag ki sotti rekhey jai? If yes, the occasional melancholia, born of leisure, is but a step to creativity. If no, the melancholia is a psychological malaise of a nation stuck at the penultimate stage of Maslowe's hierarchy.
God, sadly, is out of every serious public discussion these days. I miss Him!
dipuda, that's what i like about u. u give even our emotional/sentimental diarrhoea so much importance. at least i feel gratified that i could make u write so much for me. i especially liked that bit-'bleating our way to pointless death'. kya baat!!!!
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