“UNTITLED”
Munib Ahmad TYBSc
Batch of 2021-24
DISCLAIMER (IGNORE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
What you are about to read is a personal experience and not any kind of advice on how to do just about anything in life. In fact, it’s possible that what you’re about to read might be the opposite of how one should live. But, since I don’t know any better and/or I am too stubborn to prove myself and people who have doubted me wrong, I choose to do things in certain ways until I find that those ways are absolute mistakes and that I must scrap and replace them.
I’ll mostly be sticking to my experience, but I might tickle psychology’s feathers here and there and you may also find yourself feeling or thinking that the text is starting to sound kind of philosophical. Believe me that’s not by design and what you read is genuine, unless of course there’s some editing done to the text before it’s published, which is out of my powers, sorry.
Anyway, the point of this writing piece is to express myself and to give insight into the perspective of another person, someone with whom you may or may not have interacted much, to make you more aware of how perspectives can differ to an uttermost degree.
We live in a world of ‘echo chambers’ where we don’t hear or want to hear something outside of our comfort zones or outside of what we believe in. This article is a mere snippet of my vantage point and is mainly meant to be for people who want to listen/read something outside of their echo chambers/bubbles, but anyone can read and “enjoy” it. Have good read.
MAIN BODY:
Friendship and consequently friends, in my opinion, are some of the most alluring parts of any human being’s life. Though, I took it very casually in my school years. I wasn’t as wise and tolerable back then as I am now, but paradoxically enough, people kept up with me back then, when I was obnoxious, but not now, when I am not even close to such a thing.
I had this group of friends, some of the most exceptional individuals I have met, to the date. They became my friends long before they were “high achievers” (whatever achievements that feel significant for a school student). But I was just an average grader among this clique of remarkable students. I still don’t know why they kept up with me. I mean we had a few common interests, but still. Our paths separated when the school years ended (i.e., 12th; I was in school until my 12th/Plus 2). I opted for an economics degree far from home while they moved to other parts of the country in pursuit of an engineering or a medical degree.
Normally, or least it’s the normal for me, when friends get separated because of the education system and geography, it’s mostly the end of their “Close friendship”, as they move to different places both physically and in their field of study where they find other people, who are more relatable and end up forming stronger bonds with them, while the old bonds loosen up, if they don’t completely collapse.
Coming back to my perspective, which drastically changed when I left school and turned a new chapter in my life, the one they call “college life” …. My sincere apologies Asawa Sir, I meant my “life at the institute.” Anyway, my perspective change happened in the sense that I started seeing friendship as not something to be taken casually but something to seriously take into consideration, as to its consequences on one’s future. This was because of the real-life examples that I saw which made me understand that friendships are mutually beneficial, while friends and connections ultimately make our already complicated lives easier and more bearable.
I was also given some advice from a trustworthy individual to carry into my new chapter of life as a fresh start (so I don’t make the same mistakes I made in school). The advice was “to be more involved” contradicting my reserved and reticent nature. But a changed man, I wasn’t that stubborn anymore, so I obliged thinking my social life would change for the better. SPOILER ALERT: It didn’t.
In fact, it worsened because I took the words too literally and largely misinterpreted them. This led to, socially, an atrocious first year at the institute, for me (not literally ‘at the institute’ because it was online. To this day, I apologise to people for the sh*tshow I caused back then. I am certain not everyone has forgiven me for that, so if you’re reading this and you experienced that, trust me I hate that version of me 8.3 times more than you do. Also, I am profusely sorry.
Anyway, I digressed. Now, the second year was on the horizon, and I was finally going to move to Pune. So, I had a long summer trying to figure everything out, one of the things being, with what perspective do I begin this new subsection of my newest chapter in life, after such a disastrous ending of the last subsection. Well, this new perspective had at its core the psychological principle “You become what you surround yourself with” and a philosophical thought “Everyone is important.” Keeping that in mind, roughly, for the next one and half years, I tried to interact with all my batchmates and other people I came in touch with but have simply failed to establish that “connection,” not for the lack of trying. I don’t know the real reason. Maybe I failed to find relatability with other people, which kind of has been the story of my life- barely ever found someone I can truly relate to. But do friends always have to relate to each other? Can’t friendships and connections be based on diversity and distinguishability? I personally am all for being friends with people I share no interest with but who can be a positive influence on me (so we can discuss different things and learn that much more), but I don’t know if anyone else is interested in such a dynamic.
Another reason I feel why I failed to establish any solid connections could be because I was too late to the party (a year too late) and everybody was already taken (the little groups and cliques had already been formed and established with a proverbial NO ENTRY hanging up in the air). So, people had no purpose left for making more connections (they already had more friends than could effectively keep) and I wasn’t charming enough to make an exception for.
What did that leave me with? An option to maybe change myself to fit into the grand puzzle. I tried but it didn’t work. Why? Simple… Because I never fit into this puzzle, to begin with. I am a different piece altogether belonging to a different set (Oh Calculus, could you let me be for a moment). One day, I very well might find that set, which I did in the past but didn’t take friendships seriously at the time to realize what I had.
I guess with less than 6 months left for this chapter of my life to come an end, it’s not premature to draw conclusions now. Maybe my approach to make friends was not organic enough (I mean what really is in the world, today). But, if there’s one thing I have in an incessant quantity- Hope. Not a fool’s hope, just true hope.
If you have come this far, thank you so much for reading it and bearing with me. The point of writing all this wasn’t just because I wanted to ramble a little, but because I wanted to realize these thoughts which had been weighing on me for a while now. I wanted to put them somewhere people can see, so that people know that we all struggle at something or the other, even if we don’t show it. Not all that glitters is gold; not everything is perfect; not every life is the same and consequently, not every perspective is the same. It’s fascinating how we could spend so much time under the same roof, attending the same classes, sit in front of the same teachers, yet be so different.
Life teaches us lessons, but the syllabus isn’t fixed, the order of the lessons (the lesson plan) isn’t set in stone. We all grow up under different circumstances. Some learn the easier lessons first, then, the harder ones and vice-versa. You can’t put down one thing, one perspective, one view and call it LIFE or the way of living life. Life isn’t the same for all, it will never be.
Find YOUR way to the top of the mountain (mountain of life, where the top is fulfilment), and don’t fret if it’s the easy lessons you stumble on and find the hardest to learn (like me), you’ll get through it eventually.
Just wanted finish this writing piece with two pleasant words that are close to me
Love and Laughter!
(The author wanted his name to be published for the this edition of XYZ. You can publish it anonymously too!)