The Birth of Maturity: Introduction & Who am I?
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Yes, The second door to the left. And I shoot towards the direction, oscillating and stumbling. The door opens, and there is a bathtub, a sink, and I think I see dustbin full of tissues. Look into my eyes, imbued veins red, I ask myself, Who am I?
In the following few articles, If I can call these hedonistic letters of my masochism that, there are some questions. Questions that were raised in the insurgency, ignored for eternity, woken from the dead, came back and demanded to be answered. Fragile contemplation of our minds can not construe complex questions, but are the elementary ones, any easy to answer?
We might discuss the platonic, flat reasoning and to answer questions like: I should not piss in public, who do I think I am? a politician? Or statement likes, I don’t want my other half to evaluate my past, that’s not who I am anymore. Or in tirades like, I will get you arrested, do you know who I am? Because the root cardinal component of all these, coalesce into the standard composition of pronoun verb and noun. And so, we can’t articulate the answer in bland, my name is Batman (or Bruce Wayne for that matter), or I am an associate at a corporate (maybe for SpaceX, maybe). And not even in the merry garrulous smiles of, I am the kind and indebted son, of a proud father. Because as the ticking clock ticks away breadths from beings, it would be a lovely feeling, to have answered these. To accept these questions in their pristine context, and answer, Who am I? Why am I? Why do I do the things I do? Not in philosophies, not in behavioral contexts of organizations, not in omnipotent stereotypes and generalizations, but as an independent individual instance. Bounded by constraints and surrounded by opportunities, and in this life.
Romans, troubled or not, one must agree that they dictated their opinions. “I am human: I consider nothing human is alien to me”. Well, the thing is, I mean, like everything? Can we add a clause, an amendment, a tiny asterisk above it? The third century was a different time (I hope so), the author who penned this down, never would have dealt with egocentric narcissists that exist today. Even if they did, they would have been rusted in a rustic shed after herding their sheep, not on internet proclaiming their undefeated incongruent opinions. As equals, as apparently we believe the society is. Never did he read Immanuel Kant, nor did his thoughts derived reasoning from Sigmund Freud. His sense of morality in humans was uninformed, incomplete and nascent. How humanity was defeated when salves slept shivering in cold sordid seventeen hundred. And let’s not go to the early nineteen hundreds. Plausible or erroneous, the latter part of his statement will always be ambivalent, I am however intrigued by the former. I am human.
But that’s not all, is there? Rhetoric contemplation, anxious judgment, and extravagant self-esteem conclude the modified version as “I am a complex human being”. Under the umbrella of complex, are the thoughts of machoism and hypocrisy, the communist and the capitalist, the lazy dreamer and the hard worker. Everything in my mental and physical being as proliferated fractals of nodes and questions. All the ambivalence in me, Is because one is, each one of us is, in our very root, complex. And Being as of by Jordan Peterson (in 12 rules for life), as an unconcluded incomplete mosaic. As a deficient photocopy of god, unworthy and critical, parsimonious and kind, afraid and brave, evil and good. A human being, as an individual, I am flawed, and in my glistening smiles, I still carry the courage to carry on. As it is to be a human being to make mistakes, commensurate it is to overcome them and be proud of oneself.
Is it okay to circumcise reality if we ascribe it only to the noticeable, observable, non-quotidian things? Should one negotiate the physicality of us, only because we’ve experienced it since our birth? Our eyes and bones, the ears we hear from, this unyielding heart (the notorious cardiac pump), and all these parts that make this earthly experience possible, is all who I am too. As a human being, I am an individual of the species “homo sapiens” (Duh!), and in that, I experience physical joy and pain. Serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine are present in us all, as in a multitude of other species. I am more than my physical body because I am more than physical matter; But I am physical matter (too!).
The almost identical genetic image of the first man, evolved from Neanderthals, to wrap leaves around his waist to conceal his nakedness, vulnerability, and helplessness. In my actions of judging my vulnerabilities, questioning my hierarchy in the pack (society, if you may), and in asking myself to not judge others, because I know I am not perfect. Knitted psychologically with surroundings, with boundaries I am unaware of. The same way, my mental, physical and physiological complexities I am yet to discern and interpret. With replicated opinions, derivative actions and few singular differences in perception, and where I believe my freewill lies. The questions like, who am I to judge? and I don’t think that’s who I am? and I am better than that? are all rooted in this answer. I judge, I criticize, I thwart as a complex human being. I claim, I request, and I carry courage, as a human being. I fail, I succeed, and I try as a human being. As much as a freckle of dust in this world, subconsciously I limbo into lucid imaginations of my own. I am, as you, and as anyone else, in the end, just another complex human being.
-Manu Lahariya
