Stream of consciousness

A long time ago, when we were at college (now that's really a long time ago), our English professors hammered into us a style of writing called "Stream of consciousness" and recommended James Joyce as one of its exponents. I remember trying to pick up a book of his and browsing through it. I also remember thinking, "Does this qualify as serious writing? Why don't they rather call it 'stream of words'?" because that's how it seemed to me - a stream of words without any serious attempt at creating coherent sentences.

But then, I had missed the point, for "stream of consciousness" is just a way of imitating the seeming randomness of our thought process. One just writes as one thinks. There's no attempt to arrange thoughts as we normally do. In a twisted way, it's a challenge to the reader - he cannot hope to understand a "stream of consciousness" without focussing his energies on the printed stuff. Talk about strategies!

Anyway, all that background was just a means of apologising for what's to come now! :-D I am going to shoot out my thoughts at you, hapless reader, in the hopes of eliciting a comment or two :-p No, was just kidding. You know how it is sometimes with these thoughts - they just demand to be expressed and so it is with me now. Now that that's out, let me move on.

The topic of the day is human existence and its purpose. During one of my recent lows, I was wondering what it is I was meant to achieve in this lifetime (these thoughts hit you when you're down, if you know what I mean). Richard Bach, one of the authors I admire, says in his Illusions, "Here's a simple test to find out if your mission on earth is complete: if you are alive, it's not." So, my mission is not done yet. Hmm, all right! But what exactly is it? Somebody (who must have been famous, else I wouldn't have come across the quote) said, "Don't look for a purpose, create it." Yeah, right! If I had known how to do that, I wouldn't be pondering these questions, would I?

But that's not to say there's no merit in that quote. You see, most of the time, we, the people, attach value to things. We buy stuff, we build up a store of possessions that we value / treasure / cherish, etc. Intrinsically, those possessions do not have value. Most of the time anyway.

For example, gold gets its importance on our earth only by merit of its being rare as compared to a few other abundant materials like iron. Of course, its cause is also helped by the fact that it is a relatively difficult material to tarnish and doesn't require too much to effort to maintain its status quo vis-a-vis the elements, if status quo is the phrase I'm looking for. Which is why platinum looks all set to become to the next major metal. But that'll have to wait for a discussion on metallurgy and jewellery.

So, coming back to what we were discussing, it is us humans who attach importance to things. Ditto with people. A person who is not yet known to us does not mean much to us. But we'd be willing to go out of the way to help a friend whom we consider dear to us. And so it is that we grieve when we lose a friend, either because he passed away, or because we broke up with him.

When we look even more closely at this, we discover that we cultivate relationships with people for two reasons: a. to be happy b. to be happy

If I were PG Wodehouse, I would have said, "The discerning reader would see at once that reasons a and b are identical." Since I am not him (and he would probably be grateful for that), I will simply state the reason why I put down two identical reasons.

You see, originally, I intended to list the following two: a. to be happy b. to share happiness. But on what I would like to call maturer reflection (a phrase I borrow from one of the many stories I read during my school days), it occurred to me that we can't really share happiness. I mean, how can you "share" something that's so totally private, personal and subjective? You can only state the reason for your happiness and the other person, if he's your well-wisher, can choose to be happy about it. In other words, you can't really share your happiness; you can only hope that your enunciation of the reasons for your joy will induce in the other person a similar feeling. But again, why do we really want to say what makes us happy? Why can't we simply be and let go at that? I feel it's because we think that such an action would cause even more happiness. But you see, happiness is not something that is caused by events; rather, it is released by it. Looking at it another way, we can choose to be happy any time we want; we don't have to lay down conditions for our happiness.

Now, I acknowledge that can be a rather sobering thought. I mean, how would you explain the sheer feeling of exhilaration that you feel as you ride your mobike at the speed of 100 km an hour? Because we choose to be exhilarated? The answer, surprisingly, is yes. But this choice happens at a more subconscious level. IOW, feelings are automated thoughts!

With that rather intriguing line, dear reader, I exit. The stage is all set for you to shoot your questions / brickbats at me.