The Journey: From question to answer and all things in between


I am afraid to say that, the internet is killing romance. The new age of mobile devices, which are so beautiful that their evolution can be considered to be a form of neo-romance, keep us connected or ‘plugged-in’ to such a degree to everything else happening in the world that, our mind is filled with questions and information which give rise to more questions, until the unquenchable thirst for knowledge turns us into the very machines which are supposed to aid us in our daily life.

Glorious as the invention might seem, it makes us go down an anguishing process of collecting and assimilating information which, when looking at the whole picture, makes no positively tangible difference to our lives.

We all love our near and dear ones and hope that they will remain in the pink of health and will never be inflicted by any debilitating diseases. We are always concerned about our own mental happiness, and interested in our wellbeing as a social creature. This makes us ask several question, such as, “What will happen if my little sister has a cold?” or “What will happen if I stay too long in my den, without looking at a human face or hearing a human voice?”

The questions we ask ourselves might vary more than the weather in Britain does in a day, and getting answers become paramount to achieving immediate mental peace. Then again, there might be such questions as, “I like that girl, but does she like me?” or “Are my buddies free for a get together tonight?” though these questions seem unimportant, and the mental turmoil of a love-stricken young man might not amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, yet we are constantly pushed to find out the answers.

Oh Answer, thou art a beggar for questions! Please stay away a while till the reverie doth end.

The idle mind has been named a devil’s workshop, but I ask the old and thoughtful gentlemen whether it might not have been a premature thing to say. In the human brain, between the seed of the question and the attainment of the answer, lies an amazing interlude of unbridled thought which can take any direction, and which makes the owner of the brain feel like trying to harness a wild beast, without the perils of getting eaten by it (which is perfectly exciting). Thought is a beast, and it has millions of acres of neural real estate to run around and bounce about like a ball in a pinball machine.

Thought is also hungry, like Pac-man, and it wants to eat everything in its path, while playing games with other bits of thought which try to eat it up.

It all sounds too complicated, doesn’t it? But that’s what goes on inside our head in that interlude of idleness, between the question and the answer, and it’s mighty exciting.

Imagine then being a tiger in a zoo. You are a beast of the wild, but now you are in a tiny garden, 4 inch diagonal, and for the lack of better activities, compulsively touch it to be fed up to the brim with information which should (under normal circumstances) make no difference at all in the outcome of your life, but which unfortunately will, and in the quest for being rational make you take seemingly right decisions, based purely on the euphoria of being able to weigh all the pros and cons of visibly wrong ones, much like choosing an apple that is least rotten out of a pack of rotten ones. There are no past experiences, and there are no future dreams, but only the excitement of learning something new about the world, which seem to tell us all there is to know not only about us and the rest of the world around us, but also about the rest of human civilization and inanimate universe. There is no running around in open spaces, or breathing in the clean, fragrant air of the trees. There is only the antiseptic bedding to lie on and hope that it doesn’t cause a rash soon.

The interlude between the question and the answer is like a journey on a train. Or at least, it used to be like that. Sitting in one place, looking out of the window at the changing landscape is much like how thoughts keep changing every minute during our reverie.

But with a heavy heart I sit alone with the discovery that there is instant and constant internet in our hands now, and the human neck is stuck in a downward position at a forty-five degree angle, while the beautiful pastures and grazing sheep pass by unnoticed. Would it take a lot to look up towards the un-rearranged nature, or is the human spirit dying, afraid already of the brave new synthetic world we are creating for future generations?

Dwaipayan Adhya

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