How progress happens

One: Someone is very different. Audacious. Shocking. We say, he is disgusting. Shameless. May be, nuts. We gossip about him. We pretend to hate him. 

Two: A few of them are different. We notice them, but we don’t pretend to hate them anymore. We think, they somehow can, but we cannot. Inside, we wish we could be like them. But we are still afraid. Just a bit. 

Three: We have taken the step forward. Many others have done the same. Now we too can. However, we don’t feel anything special about it. It's just normal. 

—— 

Are you stuck in stage two in any aspect of your life? 

Unreal

Of late, I am drawing this and that on my iPad. I am trying to express my thoughts.

She asked, “Why don’t you draw these on real paper?”

----

Fifteen years ago, my seniors in grad school were buying digital cameras. I didn’t know what those things were. They told me, such cameras would directly make digital images without any film. That was so cool.

They bought digital cameras. Next year, I also bought one. Then I learnt a lot about photography. Many photographers were still in favor of the film though. The 35mm film gave them more control, they said.

Two years later, Nikon stopped making film cameras. Canon must have followed pretty soon. Films were certainly more real, but 99.99% of even the professional photographers chose to go digital.

----

She writes. I asked her, “Do you write with a pen on paper, or do you mostly type?”

She types. On a digital device. Typing is convenient. She can insert, delete, cut and paste, move pieces of text around. She can keep multiple versions of her writings easily. Certainly, those are not as real as manuscripts. But convenient.

----

Everything changed this way. Dip pens to fountain pens to ball pens. Handwritten to printed books. Papers to white background on screens. From dialling on analog phones to touching the screens of smartphones. Natural vegetables and meat to cultivated and hybrid ones. Real eyes to glasses, or contact lenses. Pacemakers. Even transplanted organs. Cool, convenient, sometimes harmful, sometimes life saving. Less real. But inevitable.

Whatever we felt as real, became more artificial ever since we can recall history. It will keep happening into the future.

Thirty years later I will ask, “Why are you not drawing it on the screen?”

Someone will tell me, “What’s the need? I can map my idea from my brain to yours.”

Cool, huh!

Unreal?

As usual

The first of January will be just another day.

Business as usual. Life as usual. Happiness as usual. Pain as usual.

Progress as usual. Or, hopefully a bit more than usual.

Christmas

The end of the year always reminds me of that small town in Germany. Unlike many other places, the celebration was always homely and almost invisible. But it used to snow on Christmas eve.

Christmas

It isn't the same for everyone. Not everyone is celebrating, or can even celebrate. There are the ones left alone. 

Christmas II

And it's very happening in some parts of the world, for some people who need any reason to celebrate.

Christmas III

I celebrated Christmas drawing. Being creative, in any way, is happiness.

তুমি কার দলে?

তুমি কি আমাদের দলে? যদি আমাদের দলে হও তাহলে আমাদের সঙ্গে গলা হাঁকিয়ে ওদের খারাপ বলো।

কই? তুমি হাঁকছো না যে? তবে নিশ্চয়ই তুমি ওদের দলে। ভগবানও তোমাদের রক্ষা করতে পারবে না। 

কি বল্লে? তুমি কারো দলেই না? 

যাহ! তা আবার হয় নাকি? ভারি অদ্ভুত তুমি। এমন জীব দেখিনি বাপু।

মানুষ কোনো একটা দলে থাকতে চায়। দলের মধ্যে নিজেকে সমর্পণ করলে অনেক কিছু সহজ হয়ে যায়। একটা দলে থাকলে একা হয়ে পড়ার ভয় নেই। ঠিক ভুল বিচার করতে চিন্তা-ভাবনাও করতে হয় না। আমাদের সবকিছু ঠিক, ওদের সব কিছু ভুল। 

কিন্তু, কোনো একটা দলে থাকা নিতান্তুই জরুরি নয়। নিজের মতো চিন্তা করার এবং মত প্রকাশের স্বাধীনতা একমাত্র নিরপেক্ষই পায়। 

Multiple-choice

There are two approaches to solve a multiple-choice question. One approach is to figure out which of the choices are not right, and to choose the one remaining. The other approach is to forget that there are a limited set of choices given, and to determine the right answer indepedently. 

Both approaches work in the examination hall, with no difference in the result. 

The situation is subtly different outside the examination hall. We could surrender to the set of options given to us, eliminate the ones we dislike the most, and choose to do what we dislike the least. Or, we could find our own answer.  The one we like the most. If it is one of the available choices, bingo! If not, then something must have been wrong with the choices. We could add the answer to our list of choices.

Unlike the examination hall, the answer might prove to be right, or turn out to be wrong in the end. But what approach we take to make the choice would determine whether we would have a happy journey, or not.

সবাই

সবাই ছুটিতে বেড়াতে যাচ্ছে। রেস্টুরেন্টে খাচ্ছে। পূজোর সময় শহর ঘুরে ঠাকুর দেখছে। ঘটা করে বড়দিনে আর নতুন বছরে পার্টি করছে। জন্মদিন পালন করছে। ফেসবুকে সেগুলোর আপডেট দিচ্ছে। 

সবাই কোচিং সেন্টারে যাচ্ছে। বা পিএইচডি করছে। পেপার লিখছে।

ফ্ল্যাট কিনছে। 

সত্যি সত্যি ইচ্ছে করলে তুমিও করতেই পারো। 

কিন্তু সবাই কিছু করছে বলেই তোমাকেও তা করতে হবে এমন নয়। 

আশেপাশে সবাই কিছু করলে অদৃশ্য একটা সামাজিক চাপ মনের উপরে পড়ে। হয়তো বা অন্যরকম হয়ে ওঠার অজানা ভয়ও। কিন্তু খেয়াল করে দেখো, কোনো কিছুই সবাই করছে না। আর যদি করেও, তবু নিজের মতো হয়ে ওঠায় ক্ষতি কিছু নেই। 

যদি কোনো কিছু তোমার কাজে লাগবে না মনে হয়, তাহলে সেটা কোরো না। 

বরং -- যা যা তোমার কাজে লাগবে আর ভালো লাগে, সেগুলো করো। 

Resolutions

I made resolutions. On new year days, on my birthdays. Sometimes on my son’s birthdays, or on the first of some month, even on Bengali new year days.

Most of them did not work. 

Resolutions are the promises we make to ourselves. I made promises to myself that I would exercise everyday, won’t eat sweets, complete my todos methodically, won’t waste my time, blah blah … 

I did not keep most of them. 

I once read: if we break promises to others as many times as we do to ourselves, they’d never talk to us. 

I will always talk to myself. I could take myself for granted. 

But aren't promises meant to be broken anyway?

Promises are safeguards for things that someone may not do otherwise. In many cases, unlikely to do otherwise. Promises have “I may not” written all over them. If someone was going to do something anyway, you wouldn’t need him to make a promise about it. That’s why promises are doomed to be broken the moment they are made. Mostly, it is only a matter of time, depending on what is at stake. 

One time promises are easier to fulfil. My son made me promise that I would come home early that evening and play with him. Or, I would bring him his favorite toy. I would remember that, and I will take care to do that. But promises such as “I will always do it” or “I will never do it” are incredibly hard. 

The resolutions were promises on habits.  The always or never kind. They didn’t work. 

Perhaps, not making promises would work. Perhaps, knowing that resolutions don’t work would work. 

After all, if someone is likely to do something anyway, there is no need to make a promise about it. 

The last times

There will be that one last time when you will walk on this road which you take everyday. Then some day your path will change. May be you will never come back, and never walk on this road again. 

That old home where you once lived will cross your memories for years to come. But it will never happen for you to go back there and see who lives there now. 

There will be that one last time you will meet that friend. At times you will say, “Hi, we should catch up”. Years will pass by, you will have so many other things to do. And you will never end up meeting again. 

Many such last times will come much before you die. You wouldn’t even know when all of those were your last times.