People always ask me why I love science fiction. To them science fiction and fantasy (did I forget to mention that in the first sentence?) means kid's stuff. Child's play. Immature indulgences of a feeble mind which is entertained by incredulous concoctions of someone else's imaginations.
Science fiction and fantasy to me bring about the limits of human imagination. They of course are NOT the limits of human imagination. Nothing in the world today can be the limit of human imagination. The world today is not that...Utopian...for the lack of a better - and non debatable - word.
Why DO I love sci-fi and fantasy then? For one thing, I find reading about things that are real and have happenned already, only mildly amusing and that too for a certain amount of time. I mean, news is fine. It's what keeps you aware as to what's happenning to your world. But history and biographies and how things happenned a hundred years ago???...Well..ummmm..only sometimes. Most of the times, I hate reading biographies and the histories of things. People love reading about things that have happenned, and things that are and have been....and so on. I love reading about things that COULD be or could NEVER be...at least not now...at least not what those other people can imagine.
It has been a passion since I was very young and inspite of that the realization struck me late. Pretty late.
Why do I love fantastical stuff?? Why do I love things, things that people scoff at when I read them...or watch them...or hear about them or discuss them? Well, simply put, I love to see where the mind can take one person when he's imaginative enough. And, sadly (not to mention modestly) I'm nowhere near as imaginative as the worst of those.
People say it's kid's stuff...I say that is the best compliment people can give you. A child's mind is undoubtedly the most imaginative thing in the living world. And an imaginative mind is the most precious entity as human existence has shown us. A child can imagine things, for better or for worse, that adults can only laugh and snicker and scoff at.
As I said, and as people don't realize often, imagination is the gift existence gave us when humans evolved. I hate bringing God into this, because I am at a place in my life where I am stuck between wanting to believe in god and doubting his existence. But I know this much...whatever or whoever brought us to this place, we currently inhabit..wanted us to have imagination. Imagination was never phased out by evolution or by the (debatable) God.
Imagination is what gave birth to the greatest theories and inventions of human civilization, remember (by the way, talk about imagination...beat that!!! Civilization!!!) ??
Imagination is what brought us from four legged monkeys to two legged humans for all we know!!!
But I've digressed enough. Why do you think kid's shiyat like those fantasy and sci-fi books and stories have been around and flourishing?? Imagination is the key, isn't it? It's the imagination of a child. Only a child's imagination can bring you to these realms of wonder. And when an adult does it and writes it down, or narrates it or puts it forth to the rest of us..it stays on for ages.
I've seen adults engrossed in Harry Potter books in recent times (sometimes when looking in a mirror actually!!!). Does it make them snicker and snigger on every page? Does it make them feel proud that they can't stoop to that level of thinking?? Or is it something a bit more...umm simpler?? Maybe they see a world they have all but lost when their childhood waved a reluctant sad goodbye to them.
I'm not saying magic exists...but I'm saying why can't it!!!
I'm not saying people would be able to reach out to the galaxies in a spoon shaped starship to meet and fight other people (aliens?)..but I'm saying why not!!
Why do humans as a rule have to discount things that they can't fathom? It has happenned scores of times since the times of a supposedly flat earth, to date. And humans don't seem to embrace the concept of incredulous imagination and giving the unbelievable a chance.
There are limits as always. I am not suggesting that people abandon sanity and start living incredibly eccentric lives. I am merely suggesting people keep their minds open. I am suggesting people believe that the unbelievable can and sometimes WILL happen.
I am not suggesting people live Star Trek or Harry Potter, or any other "kiddy fodder"...I am saying people love the spirit behind them..(not the marketing but the spirit...big difference by the way...whole another blog for that one).
I am saying people learn to listen to the ever present, if often subdued, children in themselves...
Anyone can live the life someone else has already lived...very few people can even imagine a life no one has ever lived.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Friday, July 22, 2005
Life, or something like **it ...
Living in a one room studio is an experience requisite for bringing out that aura of richness and fullness in ones life. It is a deeply philosophical and adventurous situation, at various levels. The mind balks at the thought of comprehending and processing the plethora of information being thrown at you constantly. But things start to dawn upon you with regular flashes of “eurekas” every now and then.
Many of you, I realize, will never go through an experience like this all your life. I debate myself whether to be sorry for your cause or curse you for being a lucky SOB. I have been living through this curious ‘twilight zone’ of heaven and hell for the past 10 months now. And it teaches you things, and skills, and tricks. Things you would never have thought, or imagined, in a regular life.
Skills, my friends!!! Skills!!!
How to keep the smell of food out of your clothes when everything from cutting of stuff, to cooking of stuff, to spilling, eating, burning of stuff is happening in the same room is the most basic one. How to let your roommate watch television while you listen to music and try to read for that certification test is another big one. Oh, and another very important one is about having stuff that flies out of the pan while cooking (in the general area you have labeled as kitchen), and not have it touch the carpet (in the general area you decided to call living room, but you roommate calls the shoe rack). The carpet, with which your heels would make contact if you did not stand on your toes. Another good one is how to go to the restroom in an urgent pressure situation, with the room full of people, and try to ‘depressurize’. How to do this without making sounds heard by the crowd 2 feet away, separated by a door so thin that it would break if you pass gas in the general direction is the utterly elusive and …ahem…well, I guess I’ll move on. …How to arrange your kitchen, computer, television, bed, luggage, clothes, books, refrigerator and the junk of the whole universe in a fifteen by fifteen foot room is an art that Da Vinci would have been blessed to learn. Believe me there, that would have blown the wretched code of his out of significance. People would have rather been amazed at the skill of the person for an entirely different cause.
The problem really begins if you decide to downgrade. So, if you have lived in a one room hole forever, things might just be fine. If, however, you lived in a five room house with restrooms and closets in every corner, and all of a sudden you want to move into this enticing, empty looking, single room studio, you are screwed and you don’t know it. The reasons could range from financial to locale related to the general availability of good looking opposite sex organisms around you. The results are nearly always the same blend of buoyant desperation.
There are days believe me when it all seems worth it. Days when you see a beautiful girl pass by the steps looking at you in what seems like utter disgust (your heart knows its love at first sight). Days when you pay the rent and still have enough money left to eat all month (if you eat every alternate day of course). Days when your car splutters and splatters but you know your office is around the corner, and you could always miss the gym and jog over to your work instead.
But days like those are interspersed with days that would drive any sentient, civilized being insane. Days when you go to take a bath in an area so small and low that you have to almost squat to take a bath. Not to mention, holding the shower faucet in your hand and moving it over your body, trying to reach those creases that the hunkered down position has now created in your body. And then you step out of the shower and before reaching for the towel you find half your body is dry as if you never friggin’ took a bath. Although, to counter that, did you know you can just buy one toilet mat and have wall-to-wall carpeting in your restroom….if that excites you of course.
By the way, makeshift studios also tend to have weird things at weird places. We, for example, have a skylight, that’s right ladies and gentlemen, a skylight in our bathroom, right on top of my throne of thoughtful reading and epiphany (or as other people call it, the toilet seat). The problem with that being that, of course, it’s not watertight. Therefore, when you sit on the grand seat in the morning, and unbeknownst to you, it has snowed or rained the previous night, you would get a rude shock in half-slumber when a wet and cold drop of water drips off the fancy skylight to land on your back. And then all you can concentrate on is when the next drop will fall, hence nullifying any chance of you ‘completing the job’ that you came there to do.
And so our life unfolds, one enthralling moment followed by another deep, dark sense of doom. It is a life that teaches you many things as I said. It teaches you how to bitch about anything, anywhere…because everything is rotten and crappy. It also teaches you that when everything is rotten and crappy, there’s always the girl living below you with her brother (yeah, yeah it’s definitely a sibling and shut up), and you can always go see her. You’d have to sit on the steps downstairs for a while of course. 2-3 hours maybe…waiting until she comes down to get in her car and drive away. But hey, you did see her and of course the weather might good while you are out there!!!
Many of you, I realize, will never go through an experience like this all your life. I debate myself whether to be sorry for your cause or curse you for being a lucky SOB. I have been living through this curious ‘twilight zone’ of heaven and hell for the past 10 months now. And it teaches you things, and skills, and tricks. Things you would never have thought, or imagined, in a regular life.
Skills, my friends!!! Skills!!!
How to keep the smell of food out of your clothes when everything from cutting of stuff, to cooking of stuff, to spilling, eating, burning of stuff is happening in the same room is the most basic one. How to let your roommate watch television while you listen to music and try to read for that certification test is another big one. Oh, and another very important one is about having stuff that flies out of the pan while cooking (in the general area you have labeled as kitchen), and not have it touch the carpet (in the general area you decided to call living room, but you roommate calls the shoe rack). The carpet, with which your heels would make contact if you did not stand on your toes. Another good one is how to go to the restroom in an urgent pressure situation, with the room full of people, and try to ‘depressurize’. How to do this without making sounds heard by the crowd 2 feet away, separated by a door so thin that it would break if you pass gas in the general direction is the utterly elusive and …ahem…well, I guess I’ll move on. …How to arrange your kitchen, computer, television, bed, luggage, clothes, books, refrigerator and the junk of the whole universe in a fifteen by fifteen foot room is an art that Da Vinci would have been blessed to learn. Believe me there, that would have blown the wretched code of his out of significance. People would have rather been amazed at the skill of the person for an entirely different cause.
The problem really begins if you decide to downgrade. So, if you have lived in a one room hole forever, things might just be fine. If, however, you lived in a five room house with restrooms and closets in every corner, and all of a sudden you want to move into this enticing, empty looking, single room studio, you are screwed and you don’t know it. The reasons could range from financial to locale related to the general availability of good looking opposite sex organisms around you. The results are nearly always the same blend of buoyant desperation.
There are days believe me when it all seems worth it. Days when you see a beautiful girl pass by the steps looking at you in what seems like utter disgust (your heart knows its love at first sight). Days when you pay the rent and still have enough money left to eat all month (if you eat every alternate day of course). Days when your car splutters and splatters but you know your office is around the corner, and you could always miss the gym and jog over to your work instead.
But days like those are interspersed with days that would drive any sentient, civilized being insane. Days when you go to take a bath in an area so small and low that you have to almost squat to take a bath. Not to mention, holding the shower faucet in your hand and moving it over your body, trying to reach those creases that the hunkered down position has now created in your body. And then you step out of the shower and before reaching for the towel you find half your body is dry as if you never friggin’ took a bath. Although, to counter that, did you know you can just buy one toilet mat and have wall-to-wall carpeting in your restroom….if that excites you of course.
By the way, makeshift studios also tend to have weird things at weird places. We, for example, have a skylight, that’s right ladies and gentlemen, a skylight in our bathroom, right on top of my throne of thoughtful reading and epiphany (or as other people call it, the toilet seat). The problem with that being that, of course, it’s not watertight. Therefore, when you sit on the grand seat in the morning, and unbeknownst to you, it has snowed or rained the previous night, you would get a rude shock in half-slumber when a wet and cold drop of water drips off the fancy skylight to land on your back. And then all you can concentrate on is when the next drop will fall, hence nullifying any chance of you ‘completing the job’ that you came there to do.
And so our life unfolds, one enthralling moment followed by another deep, dark sense of doom. It is a life that teaches you many things as I said. It teaches you how to bitch about anything, anywhere…because everything is rotten and crappy. It also teaches you that when everything is rotten and crappy, there’s always the girl living below you with her brother (yeah, yeah it’s definitely a sibling and shut up), and you can always go see her. You’d have to sit on the steps downstairs for a while of course. 2-3 hours maybe…waiting until she comes down to get in her car and drive away. But hey, you did see her and of course the weather might good while you are out there!!!
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