How are we different from each other? Is it our
faces, the colour of our eyes, the tone of our voice, or simply the differences
in our thoughts suffice?
The answer plunges down like a gusty torrent and lies
splat on your feet. Some argue it is a scientific reason; we are an evolving
species after all and the process is far from completion. There may come a time
when every person, every man, woman and child on Earth will resemble each
other, in all biological aspects, just like zebras or lions – every other looks
the same. Humankind has been wondering this world for about 100,000 years now.
Society existed from time man had learnt to communicate. We also had alphas and
omegas, fights for supreme leadership of our clans, and even faced perpetual
exile on defeat, only to vow gory revenge. No I’m not talking signifying ‘The
Lion King’, but yes, that indeed is a story more human than we could ever be.
When we look around us, we find all sorts of
faces – many grinning, some straight, some pensive, others meek and a few
gloomy. Well expressions may hide what thoughts cannot, and humankind had
learnt the effective use of deception a long time back. Slaves deceived their
masters in ancient Sumeria by cloaking their sorrow with toiling labour, spice
lords of the east tricked European merchants into thinking cardamom was clover,
clover to cinnamon and cinnamon with dried grapes. The Popes concealed their
true desires when they asked all Catholic kings to wage bloody crusades, and
Hitler honestly and truthfully made the world believe that bearded men were goats,
waiting for sacrifice. What significantly distinguishes us isn’t the length of
our smiles, but the weight of our thoughts. We may be dreamers, far-fetched
thinkers, dead and buried in conversations but alive and kicking in reveries.
Day-dreaming is sorcery without wands, without magical cauldrons, without eyes.
We can just shut our eye-lids and imagine anything possible; scale the
mightiest peaks, swim the deepest trenches, jump to the moon and back or
visualise the galaxy as one of our many canvases.
This is where we can ‘classify’ people. Many of
those who I come across just blurt out that thoughts are for retards, and that
if you think too much, everyone tags you on Facebook as a social freak. But
just because someone has a higher intellectual capability, is that person
actually a freak? Few centuries ago, an aimless teenager began sketching his
backyard, and when his neighbours complained to his family about this freakish
habit, his well-wishers were grim. Those drawings didn’t make any sense. Humans
occupying the same entourage with God were unheard of back them. The matter was
all hushed up and the boy was shifted to a painting school to pursue his
desires, but shape his thoughts. It didn’t happen. He went on to paint ‘The
Creation of Adam’, sculpt ‘David’ and ‘Pieta’ and finally painted the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel. Dripping paint may have fogged his eyes but not once was
“Angel Michael’s” vision blurred. Michelangelo painted his thoughts and
immortalized himself on canvas, stone and history. Well, we all can’t be
painters let alone the great Italian, but whose holding us back in our minds?
Breaking free is not an option; it’s a choice, a choice we do not regret once
we commit into it.
Simba could have gone on to be as ruthless as
Scar or be weak and timid after assuming that he was responsible for his
father’s demise. Enter Timon and Pumba, and show his what life is all about.
They don’t have a care in the world, eat off rotten logs and spend drowsy
summers in a mystical oasis on soft ferns. These are not just animals, not just
figures enhanced through computer-graphics, but digital expressions of thoughts
generated from sparks on nerve endings in our brains. Sculptures and
oil-portraits, poems or lyrics, chimes or chords; these are all thoughts coming
alive.
I, too, am a dream, often lost in lush green
meadows of Wimbledon, sometimes making it to the finals only to fall graciously
in defeat to Roger Federer. Where do these thoughts get me, you ask? Well, they
take me to a world where creativity never ceases to exist. It is an on-going
saga of expression that enables me to make compositions and draft comic essays.
So let thoughts guide you on, but yes Mr Kipling wouldn’t like it if you made
them your aims. We should build a golden stairway with our dreams, which
sparkles and glimmers even in the faintest of lights, shimmering in the horizon
like a lighthouse to stranded buoys and storm-torn vessels, offering one sole
ray of hope in a hurricane.
Dream on. Hakuna matata.
