The cocoons we build in our everyday life!
Have we closed ourselves to a serendipitous living?
A woman knocked on my cars’ window today at a signal and asked for a lift to the next stop. Instinctively, I shook my head and stared deep into the phone while she impatiently knocked on my window again. Moments later a much friendlier stranger offered her a lift.
Cocooned in our confines we’ve forgotten how to feel vulnerable. My enquiry during graduation made every possible attempt at understanding why our social institutions, work places, education and ultimately ‘me’ are geared towards building a variation of cocoons around themselves and how certain technological interventions can help break these cocoons down. My attempts, safe to say, have been largely unsuccessful.
6 years after graduating I still struggle with the enquiry — cocoons. This article is a retrospective on how cocoons have reflected in my identity & personality. I do this with an attempt to navigate its confines, to ultimately understand what they are & how to break from them, if required.
I live in New Delhi. Infamously tagged as the rape capital, with experiences of eve-teasing, molestation running commonplace. Living here I’ve always felt an uncomfortable distance between what my society & peers expect from me, and who ‘I’ am. Over the years however I’ve developed a safe distance. I feel comfortable in my skin & have actively worked on defining the ‘I’.
Growing with safety as the concern of my parents & my rebellion against the type of restrictions it imposed, I ended up building a definition of a cocoon attune to my situation. This safe distance, the ‘just right’ distance is where I live & explore the world around me. Safe — home, drive to work-work all day. Unsafe — Party in clubs, drink on first dates. Over the years these definitions evolve. They call it growing up, I suppose.
Through the times of rebellion & playing with the boundaries I played thoroughly with my safe zones. I took to cycling to feel strong. The days I cycled more than 100kms I felt really REALLY strong! I tried to understand what this ‘strength’ meant and that reflected in what I wore— after all you always judge a person by their cover.
Well anyway, today, as the lady asked for the lift I encountered a new zone — a cocoon that I did not know I’d built! Or perhaps did it weave itself as once the cocoon starts building sometimes we can’t control the boundaries it builds. This is a strange boundary — I always thought of myself as a friendly face! When did I become the one who had boundaries on who they wanted to be ‘associated’ with, one where I didn’t want to connect to any stranger, unless they’ve been vetted. It’s a funny word — that one, vetted. Have we ‘vetted’ everyone in our lives? I live in a digital age with 100’s of twitter & Facebook friends — what if they were asking for the lift?
As I struggle to deconstruct this weave that the cocoon has through some sorcery left behind, for the lady - I was glad someone else was more ‘human’ than me.
Nishita is the founder of Treemouse. An advocate of design-driven outcomes, she’s on a mission to broaden the way design methods integrate into our current ways of working. She thinks the concept of work-life balance is a myth and can often be found living and working from the office. Follow Nishita and Treemouse’s journey at www.treemouse.com
