Do you think we’re shaped more by our experiences or by who we are?
Have you had a moment of light? The moment of beginning to realize or understand the life you are living. I call it light because that is how I saw it, when I was small one day I woke up late in the morning, the balcony door was open and the sunlight poured in as the comfortable winter morning proceeded and at that moment, I felt something change in me and from that day onwards I saw things a little differently.
It definitely begins with us, who we are, what we understand in this world, what we don’t. There are things we associate with and there are things we don’t, what’s not acceptable or out of our understanding will continue to remain so unless a special effort is made to change it, perhaps an ‘experience’.
Sometimes we plan our experiences, sometimes they completely catch us by surprise. None the less they happen to further enhance our vision and understanding of things. Again, it is who we are, what we decide to absorb and what we decide to ignore. Two people can have completely different understanding of an experience.
A funny example, when I was in high school, I was in this small-town attending a wedding. It was late evening; I was sitting with my cousin alone at the far end of the lawn of the guesthouse, there were no people around. The reach of the light glowing out of the bulb was also limited. As usually happens in such an environment, one’s mind tends to move towards the horror elements. Someone disappearing, someone’s vengeful spirit still moving around, etc. Now electricity cuts were not so frequent but they did happen two-three times a day there and then someone would go and manually turn on the generator.
While we were talking, there was an electricity cut and everything turned dark. We both were scared of course, we were in that zone already. We decided to run for it, and I am highly imaginative, I actually believed there was something in the dark and that we needed to run away from it to save our lives, my cousin observing my expression and body language became really tense and the whole way we ran back to the guest house my cousin kept on screaming and crying.
I remember it as an entertaining memory now, two kids scared of what might be in the dark. But, a few years back when I met my cousin, he told me how that experience affected him, how he was not able to sleep alone for a long time and that his confidence still trembles briefly on seeing darkness.
Hence, it is definitely who we are but also that it is something molded and guided by the many experiences we have and how the person we are, perceives them.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 