Random musings

This is my first time living alone away from my family, although I had earlier stayed without parents whether it was during JEE preparation or while studying at IIT, but it never felt different like I was living alone. So, what exactly changed now? Is that I have to manage most of my stuff own my own? No since it used to be the case in college as well. So, what is it then? As I force myself to think I realise that both while preparing for JEE or while studying at IIT at the back of my mind i was always at home i always took my stay as a short stint which will over and I will be back to status quo.

Unfortunately, this is not the case any longer. There is this realisation that now I am a visitor in my own town (Saharanpur). I never appreciated what the city has to offer while I was staying there, Infact admittedly if you ask me for direction for some of the famous shop of my own town, I will be left embarrassed. Now each time I went back to Saharanpur or any of the place where I have spent my childhood, I see a different place not because of the nostalgia associated with that place but because my perspective has changed now. Things are as they were nothing changed it’s me who has changed, the way I look at things and hence, I have a different experience now each time when I went back.

There is an important lesson in this which i think is applicable to all of us. Now each time if you complain with someone/something that they have changed it might be the scenario that it’s you that have changed not vice-versa. And it’s okay if that’s the case it’s a part of growing, nothing in life is constant except change. Infact change is indeed required to push the world forward, right?

Enough of philosophy for this post, now on a lighter note I am very excited to share that i have finally taken the plunge and started learning to swim. From early childhood i despise any water activity due to my fear of drowning even if I have a life jacket on! Thats the level of mistrust i have for water. Anyways it was after the recent coracle ride on my Hampi trip, when upon seeing a minor leak at the bottom of the boat I realised that its finally time to learn to swim. Funnily enough this happened in the middle of Tungabhadra River with water level being far below its normal and practical chances of me being drown was very low and honestly. After few days into learning to swim I realise that I was wrong I am not scared of water instead I am scared of cold water xD.

I believe each of our fear is just a mental block and that essentially due to our belief systems which has been formed as result of process of growing up. It fits so nicely with the theory of evolution as all parents wants to make sure that their kids don’t repeat the same mistakes as them, but they somehow missed the point that each of us are unique in our understanding of the world owing to different experience and hence our reactions will also be different not necessarily the same as that of our parents and hence the it’s not necessary that we will make the same mistakes. But in the process, they set some defaults in us so that we can operate in the world safely. Challenging those defaults means chartering new territories and that’s inherently risky since we don’t know beforehand what to expect.

PS: If you find this crappy, please blame ChatGPT for it, since humans are also weird.