Lost in Translation

Probably it was born real, and perhaps it lived for the next twenty some years. But it was late when he realized that it was dying. It too has been the victim of the inevitable plague that has outspread to almost every grown adult on this living earth. It is developing the same symptoms, exhibiting the like behavior and transforming into something he once thought was fascinating; like a young boy eager to work that blade on his first facial hairs, not realizing that this would bring him to the point of no return.

When he was young, it was innocent. And it made him innocent. It made him curious and it kept him ignorant. It made him an artist. But as he grew, he made it numb; he disregarded its questions, reprimanded its creativity and defeated its ambitions. Eventually most of his kind choked it to death, while it tries to breathe in the rest. Some call “it” attitude, others originality, I see “it” as religion.

If only Darwin walked amongst us today, he may have considered replacing the word “Fittest” to something demeaning, as men never took the word a superlative for genetic evolution. As for “fittest” before him were barbaric, who showed no guilt while killing a fellow mortal. And the fittest now are callous, who are happy to kill themselves for the same financial transcendence.

Most of us have become the human batteries plugged in ‘The Matrix’; only important to this world as a dead energy source. Just the difference is that the matrix here is real, made by the big corporations which seem to have read the phrase right to left and thus believe in “Policy as their Honesty”. The moment you are plugged in, this matrix starts influencing your senses, and the longer you stay, more it desensitizes your abilities to think, question, challenge and act human. And eventually, there comes a time when you become one of the Agent Smiths, propagating it to the coming generations. And those inexperienced young minds, ignorant of alternative and imposed by the said rules of the matrix, never even realize the possibilities that could have been otherwise.

None of us were born to follow. It was us who chose to let rule body over mind. And in pursuit of earning our daily bread and all luxuries that follows, we ignored to question the written, challenge the convention, derive a justification and adopted the world and its system ‘as-is’ than thinking what it ‘could-be’

I guess Picasso shared the same sentiments when he quoted “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up”, but was soon overwhelmed by the world and phrased “Good artists copy, Great artist steal”.

They may call me young, they may mock my naivety and they may say I will grow with time, but I can still feel ‘it’ in my bones. I wish it could die in me, for I may turn into one of them and cross this great divide that has developed within. If only I could evade this turmoil, prove myself wrong and follow the sheep in front of me, will I be able to “rest in peace”. 

But then it must live, for it is he who is me, and it is who shall set me free..

-Sarthak