Thinking in Solitude
Slow down, relax, take a deep breath, a long pause…a hard look. All of these sound like condescending heckles rather than good advice. Although talking a deep breath is almost always good advice, except if you are in Delhi.
But there is no time. There is too much to do. Nothing is really an emergency but the phone just keeps beeping.
Reminders, alarms and notifications.
Videos, music and cats.
Honks, sirens and crackers.
Banter, small talk and screams.
Songs, announcements and noise.
None of it of any inherent value but not a moment to loose. Always logged in but never really connected. Always available but never really committed. Always alert but never really present.
The first casualty of city life is: Thinking in Solitude — that most underrated of past times and most noble of pursuits. As being busy becomes a virtue in itself, deep contemplation seems almost sinful. A vulgar luxury that can only be afforded by social outcasts like PhDs and art students. The biggest achievement of mass media has been to make intellectual sound like a bad word. As if thinking was a dark art practiced only by witches and communists and not a central condition of being human. Don’t think — Swipe — Just Do it!
We don’t think, we react. Even the most educated and sane among us. And if reacting is all that is left to do then motion sensors and GPS tracking are already doing a better job than us. Even the job market can only humor us for so log. The world is too complicated to understand anyway. We can just print more money yet every nation is in debt. We can grow food in a petri dish but millions still starve to death. We reached the moon fifty years ago but our ear phones still don’t last more than a month. The best response; then, is auto-play — both your play list and your routine. It is not the best but at least there will be no one to blame for the mediocrity.
Perhaps many people have tried and given up. Taken that proverbial deep breath and immediately panicked . The looming shadow of nihilism can only be kept at bay by constant and random stimulus from Insta stories to PubG. So we keep ourselves busy finding comfort in the idea that at least we are contributing — to the company, to the economy, to entropy at large and to global warming in general. We’ve turned the oceans red and made acid rain out of the sky. That is enough contribution for now. We need to look inwards a lot more before we can set sail Mars.
Tranquility is hard to achieve though. In many ways it is the most undervalued commodity; simply on the basis of its scarcity. The sheer distance one has to drive away from a city to be free of billboards and advertisements tells you how fucked the city is. The mind is similarly littered by prejudices, pop-culture references and Yahoo passwords. So it may take more than a few deep breaths but once you reach there the view is spectacular. And the best part is; you don’t even have to look busy.
- Punit Pania
