Jargogled Impressions.

When Beginnings End and Endings Begin

When we crave for a new beginning, what are we really hoping for? That the beginning will erase away the mistakes of our past? Or that you could go back in the past and start afresh with the new data in hand about what works and what doesn’t? The latter would be cool, but it’s the domain of science-fiction. The former tends to be a bit self-serving but not wise because our mistakes aren’t something to be shied away from – it’s something to embrace as it tells us more about ourselves than any successful outcome could. 

At the end of the day, I think what we are really seeking is some sort of control over the outcomes. And I propose that’s foolish because we can only control our inputs, not the outputs. The multivariate nature of outcomes leave us with only a probabilistic lever with which to lead our lives. The only thing we can control is this moment here – and our agency over it. We can’t know what will happen to us tomorrow. But we do know that this moment here that we are living is right in front of us. And being present to its moods and needs is an opportunity.  

It’s a bit more deterministic than what I am making it out to be because repeated patterns (habits) can dull away the uncertainty sometimes. Much as pre-training can turn a few hundred lines of code into a world model to be reckoned with. And therefore, the second best thing we can do outside of being present in every moment, is to build up a habit stack that lets us tame down the beast of uncertainty through repeated exposure. Habits, in this sense, are like tools we wield when we are hacking away at a big mountain. Our repeated actions bring a sense of calm action that has the potential to chisel down a mountain. Habits are such a honeysuckle for self-help gurus. 

What happens when you do get a new lease of life? Or a new beginning? In most cases, this means that you have crawled your way out of a tunnel and gathered fresh perspectives on the inner machinations of mortal life. This may or may not include an instilled fear deep in your veins about triggers that can drag you back into the tunnel. I suppose the ancient man needed these psychological gimmicks to fear for the rustle in the bush lest it be a lion and the most potent way was for him to be dragged away by a lion only to escape and burn the feeling deep into his veins. The fear that gets instilled is stuff of evolutionary psychology. Trouble is, our systems evolved to manage fears accordingly, even when the trauma itself isn’t remotely as tantalizing as being eaten alive by a predator. The more pedestrian variant of the stresses we endure in this modern, evolved, civilized, and ultimately banal world is better suited for the purgatory than inside us. But hey, who are we to shed off the thousands of years of evolution. 

Consider that you do start afresh, and get a new lien on life. What’s interesting is how quickly the habits that you formed immediately preceding this welcome change gets burnt into your consciousness as second nature. Many start believing in God and continue onwards their theistic journey. Others burnish superstitions that would have been laughable, even to them, before any of this transpired. Granted, there are a few privileged souls that are more like gamers than actors in this theater of life. For those scarce individuals, the happenings are but a module they need to cross, no matter how many tries it takes. It’s helpful to think of life as an infinite game, one that has no winners or losers because it continues to exist long after we don’t. When we approach our moves as an intricate strategy in this infinite game, we are playing to play, not to win. And that’s a mindset unlike any other. 

I don’t know anyone who has done so though. And that’s the paradox that I have to live with. Because even if I may have come across a few that indeed were able to master it, I’d not have recognized them as such. Because these games are so deeply internal, and played at such sub-atomic level that it’d be an effort in vain if we even tried to search through the detritus of human stories. The best we can aim for is to look for symptoms that can act as proxies. 

What would these proxies be? I don’t know and I’m hesitant to venture a guess but venture I must. And so here it goes. 

Their stories would be otherworldly in their objectives and implications. The elements of their stories would all point to a state of pause instead of entropy. The arc of their stories would not fit within the conventional Joseph Campbell myths. And the resolution in their stories would never come. The stories would carry with it an effortless wit and lightness that would beg to be concealed behind a shadow of known emotions, but would be hard to pinpoint which one. 

If you have encountered such stories of men, then you are in luck. Then, at the very least, you know what the state could feel like. You know that the phrase ‘a new lease of life’ does not mean anything to them, and to the stories they are in pursuit of. For you’d realize that the present has all the stories and outcomes that they need. The past and the future do not exist for them, because they are not real anyways. 

Our mind plays tricks with us. Technology (of our mind) has become too sophisticated for our own good. It seems to me as if we are just waiting, at this time, for a disruptor that can come in to take away the innovator’s (God? Evolution?) dilemma, by offering a simpler, gentler, and more contemporary version that works for the world we have created for ourselves.