Control & Acceptance

There was a point in my childhood when I used to have this recurring nightmare.
One particular nightmare.

The stupidest thing is that I could never remember what the nightmare is, really. But I used to wake up crying because of these things when I was eleven or twelve.
All I remember about these dreams is that they involved some situation wherein I had been working at something for a while, putting a lot of effort and commitment into something, and then very near the end, it abruptly was taken from me. Leaving me with a lot of time wasted, or perhaps having spent something that could not be gained back.
It sounds rather stupid, even to me.
But take this thought and this feeling and put it in the worst situation imaginable, and that was perhaps what it was.

It was loss of control.
Loss of control over something you have really invested in.

I have sometimes had this nightmare in the recent past, perhaps two or three times in the last five years.

The reason for the decline in the occurrence of this dream is perhaps the realization and acceptance over time that I am not in control.

No one is.




Acceptance is a version of control.

You will surely disagree.

But.
Acceptance is the version of control we delude ourselves with, everyday.

Your body and it's many wonders and more numerous failings, you control.
Almost.
It's hard enough to control your head.
Your mind wanders.
Weird shit pops into your head at the most inappropriate time.
You say things that shock you later. In the heat.
Of the moment.

Control.
Other people?
Na, you think so? You're unpredictable enough for yourself most of the time.

Remember what you wanted to be?
Remember how good you thought you would be? The good boy, the good girl? The perfect man, or the perfect woman. A friend to everyone.
Angelic.
Incorruptible.

You say it turned out to be impractical, being that. Yes maybe.
But.
Acceptance is the version of control we delude ourselves with, everyday.

Control.

Over yourself, over people you love, over people you hate.
Never had it.
In the first place.
Take it as it comes, is the mantra. One day at a time, is the prayer.

You take chances. And you throw the dice. And when it goes in your favor, you are rewarded with the illusion of control.

When it doesn't...

I have friends who, a few years ago, were in love with each other, young love, stupid irresistible, mad love. And I was happy for them. And I actually thought to myself whenever I met them together that it would be wonderful to party at their wedding. You know, get all drunk, and be happy for them, and all that shit.

Hate.
Each other. Now.

I know the usual. Shit happens.

Yes it does, doesn't it?

You promise to be good. You promise to be true. In front of your God, you promise to be faithful. More than all of that, you promise yourself that you will.
And then you are you! All of your shortcomings.

People? They are inherently good.
People are inherently good.
Laughter track.

Your version of control is the belief that other people will behave in the way that you expect them to.

It works a lot of the time.

When it doesn't...

It doesn't.

I do not particularly believe in destiny. Or in fate. I am not advocating fatalism.
I believe in resignation.
I believe in acceptance.

Acceptance is the version of control we delude ourselves with, everyday.

A small town boy...

I've enjoyed my time in Mumbai till now, I really have. I might say I haven't at times, but now, looking back at it, yes I have.
It is really the first time I've been on my own. Starting afresh, no ties.

Free.
More than ever.

It has been hard, yes, and it still is, most of the times, remembering the comforts and the pleasures of home, and the people I've always known - my family, and my friends - the people I grew up with, and my hometown.

It's a wonderful place to live in, you know... Patiala. Indisputably magical.

Although I'm sure everyone has that to say for their hometown. But I've had this opinion confirmed by a lot of my friends who came from a whole lot of other places, to study in Thapar.
I have had a ton of batch-mates who miss Patiala more than they miss the places they grew up in.

This may be me being nostalgic, or home-sick...or whatever.
Veterans of living in hostels may scoff here. You're quite right to. But this is not me missing my home. This is me missing a city.
A greater home.
A place that is now a home for every generation of graduate that passes through Thapar every year.
However much they might hate it, or feel frustrated with it during their stay there.

When I was still in class 12, I had convinced myself that whatever happened, I would not attend engineering college at Thapar.
Because my father graduated from there.
How pathetically juvenile was that thought...
I would even go to some place less reputed, but I wouldn't stay for four years in Patiala, I could not!
It was unthinkable.
I needed to go to a fucking 'metro'!
I needed to see the world! There is so much more out there! I would get stuck in Patiala if I stayed there.

How passionately I hate that version of me now.
How pathetically...juvenile.



'A Metro'.
What an illusion.
Sure, I can go to a huge fucking mall whenever I want to, and shop!
When I want to go out with friends and go crazy, sure there are these supposedly 'hot' and amazing places we can go to, splurge on overpriced shit, hang out with a lot of fat-walleted and tiny-brained people. Where the topic of discussion is more often than not the latest iPad, or the new uber-expensive restaurant in *insert posh area reference here*.

But do you remember where we used to hang out?
The canal? That 'Khansama' truck outside of Columbia Asia?
I want a canal, man!
I want that serenity.

Whenever I go home, I make sure I spend at least one evening with friends at that unbelievably sacred place.
Ironically, it is where we once saw a bloated corpse floating along the way, and then panicked.
Ha! Where else?
It's weird I know, reminiscing about something like that, but every memory acquires a romantic feel to it, given time.

It had everything, man, it did, that city. It does.
Short of an airport.
I never had to think to myself, oh hey, I'll have to go to such and such place to buy that. Or to do that.
It has everything. It does.

I go back now, and I never want to leave.

It's been a while since I went into Thapar itself. A small town in its own right.
Remember the lawns?
There was a time, I think in the beginning of my second year, during the monsoon, when the chemistry lab gardens were flooded because of the rain.
Half a foot of water perhaps, engulfing the entire lawn.
A group of friends and I came up with a contest, with each of us putting in twenty rupees in a plastic bag, sealing it and then throwing it way into the lake that had become of the chemistry lab lawns.
Whoever got to the plastic bag first would win the 160 rupees in the plastic bag.
I got to be the guy who threw the plastic bag into the lawn, unwilling to jump into the lake myself.
I did it, and five guys wrestled through the water and mud to get to the plastic bag, shoving themselves into the water along the way, and in the end wrestling for the money. The winner found that I had secretly pocketed the cash before throwing it out, and a memorable controversy ensued.

...What am I even talking about?

Nostalgia is a drug.

“I felt a pang -- a strange and inexplicable pang that I had never felt before.

It was homesickness.

Now, even more than I had earlier when I'd first glimpsed it, I longed to be transported into that quiet little landscape, to walk up the path, to take a key from my pocket and open the cottage door, to sit down by the fireplace, to wrap my arms around myself, and to stay there forever and ever.”

― Alan Bradley, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

Go back...

Kings of Convenience - The Weight of My Words (Four Tet Remix) by BallgameTracks

You're light headed.
What a day!
She looked at you!

You met your friends afterwards.

You went back in time.

...

You talked back to that professor today.

You bunked that class, even though you know you're short on attendance.

...

Today, you worked at something you don't really like.
You feel like you don't want to work like this anymore.
You need a break.

But she looked at you!

You met your friends after work, though.

It was like you went back in time.

...

You're light headed.

You'll be more light headed soon!
You're looking forward to a good evening; the decadence of youth.

...

Time.
Machine.

You're going to think about those halls.
It will be like going back in time.

...

The laughter!

It's infectious.
So...much...hope!

...

Go...back.
Any...possible -
way.

That one time.
Five o' clock?
That one place.
Everyone.

The noise!
So much...fucking noise.

The momentary awkwardness when the girl you asked out that one stupid time walks past.

Did she just look at you?

Wait, did you just go back in time?
Wait, what?

Oh...
That round was on you.
You love the people you're around right now.
If only you could go back in time.
...
Get excited about juvenile things.
Fight! Fight! Fight!
So...much....love!

Oh and you know what?

She looked at you!

...

Or...

Schrödinger's Relationship

Pursuant to my earlier requests, or think of them as 'directions for use', please allow for the uninterrupted playback of the song below, and I suggest you put in your earphones.
Also, in the beginning the song may seem not all that good, believe me it gets so much better, and it enhances this reading experience.



Oh and this article is not about physics. The next two paragraphs are simply necessary in order to explain the title of this post.


Schrödinger was a physicist in the early 20th century. He is most famously known for his thought experiment, popularly known as 'Schrödinger's Cat'.
While a full explanation of this experiment, and it's underlying mechanics would take a much longer and a much more boring and more uninteresting post (however so much you might find this one to be).

At its most trivial, although do read this carefully carefully, think of it simply as follows -
There is a cat. It is kept in an opaque, steel chamber. In that chamber, in a setup that insulates it from any interference from the cat, is a tiny amount of radioactive material - so tiny that in the course of an hour, there is equal probability of the radioactive substance releasing a single atom because of decay as there is of it not releasing it. This radioactivity, if present, is to be detected by a Geiger counter (essentially a device which detects nuclear radiation). On detecting radiation, the geiger counter is to initiate a mechanism that releases deadly hydrocyanic gas in the chamber, which would kill the cat.
Now at any given moment, without observation, the living status of the cat, is a smeared function. Smeared as in, it is a superposition of the cat's states of being either living or dead because of the probabilistic nature of the atom's decay inside the chamber. It is a simultaneously decreasing and increasing function of the probability of the cat's being alive or dead, respectively.
In pure layman's terms, theoretically, at any given moment, Schrödinger's cat is both alive and dead, at the same time.
Again, purely theoretically.

Of course, on observation, the cat's status of being either dead or alive can be determined.
This is simply one of the many seeming absurdities and parodoxes in quantum mechanics.

Moving on, as part of my increasingly absurd insights into human relationships, I propose 'Schrödinger's Relationship'.

When I was very young, there were husbands and wives, and there were other, single men and women who were friends.
It was a purely deterministic environment. You were either married, or you were friends.
I wasn't mature enough then perhaps, to know too much about love, its infinite traps and its own fallacies; or aware of attraction - physical, sexual or otherwise.
But alas, I did become aware eventually and bam! Four states - friends, love interests, girl/boy friends and spouses.
Later, as I became older and lost some of that little boy innocence, the interests category was infused with the first real probabilistic uncertainty - degrees of attraction. Of course, around this time, I was beginning to see the signs that friendships sometimes turned into attraction, which sometimes turned into girl/boy friend relationships, which had the potential to turn into marriage.

Lines were starting to get blurred everywhere. You get the idea.

This is all of course, quite general, and not really the subject of my post. The subject of my post is 'Schrödinger's Relationship'. This special little bugger is a real bitch.

Now, remember 'Schrödinger's Cat' -

There is a boy and a girl. They are kept in relative proximity, say they spend a period of time together, perhaps school, perhaps college, or work...perhaps chance brings them together. In that proximity, there are lots of stimuli - there are biological stimuli, psychological, spatial, visual, fuck even olfactory stimuli. There is an equal probability that these stimuli, in the course of these two individuals' interaction will cause them to engage in a blatantly obvious sexual relationship, and please do not misunderstand me, by sexual I do not mean the physical aspect of it, I use the term merely to distinguish it from the platonic alternative. And by blatantly obvious, I mean that everyone is aware of it's existence, including the participants. There is an equal probability of this happening, and that of it not happening.
But here in lies the rub.
This is still a probabilistic setup, and the relationship status of these two damned souls is smeared.
In pure layman's terms, theoretically, these two people are both just friends and dating at the same time.
Again, purely theoretically, the poor bastards.
Of course, on observation -

Wait...
This here is the real bitch of the matter.
Observation.

What if these two people, unaware, blissfully unaware, unobservant and innocent, carry on like this - smeared. Neither here, nor there.

In...limbo...oh.

Observation.
Here is where you have to make a choice. Here is where the beauty of a probabilistic function is forced into becoming a draconian deterministic choice. Either here, or there.
When one of the two decides to observe their relationship, casts an observant but critical look over it, it cannot exist in that glorious smeared state any more. It has to choose to either exist in one state or the other.

But to observe it or not to observe it, that, there, is the god-damned question.

To make it blatantly obvious, or not to. That, there, wins you the million dollars.