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The ‘I’ that I once was!



The 'I' that I am is constantly defined by the I that I am wished to be; I am so much in flux that never ceases to abandon me, I am sought by a wish here and a wish there, I assume the wishes and become them, no sooner that I draft my conscientious wish, that I am sought by another ‘I’ and the ‘I’ that I once was, If I ever really was, evades me wholly, absolutely.

Just as a flowing river assumes the shape of canals, just as the river succumbs to the impending narrow channels by rushing through, so to possess a wanton, a momentum that the river endeavors to constantly maintain. Just as the river obeys thoughtlessly to the whims and wishes of the channels that grant the river with a shape and color; I sometimes am the ‘I’ that my friends would wish that I was, other times I am the I that my parents would wish that I would be, still other times I am the I that strangers that I meet on train to my native place would wish me to be, there are times when I paused to gather the ball tossed at me by a kid living next door, and I was the I that the kid would want me to be.

There comes a time, for a man in solitude to stop at once his living conscience and gather the spirit and courage to ask the question-have I been the I, the real I? To this I respond, or rather the ‘I’ that is a mirror to the bequests of the noblest of all men around responds, with a squirt and I tumble, where I should have trodden, where I should have beguilingly galloped and pranced, now I check myself.

The all encompassing I lacks in but one major ingredient; the’ I’ itself, I cannot see it, I cannot speculate the manifestations, I cannot envisage this major ingredient, for I do not recall being that I any time in the recent past.

in this lonely desolation and a wholly devastated state, I turn to my friends, they think it’s absurd and ridiculous to ask such animated and abstract questions, some even went as far as to suggest that they have been where I am right now, but that it will pass, which came across as oversimplification to me.

With some pushing, my parents took me into confidence and startlingly revealed my identity to me. But, it did not stick correctly, something was missing, I could not put my finger on it, but I felt it, with all my conscience. They revealed to me, what I wished I would hear from them, or they revealed to me what I wished that they had perceived of my portrayal, which I have come to recognize as the ‘I’ exuberance.

Finally, I turned to my mother, she took me into her arms, it must be the warmth of her love that is all pervasive, my state of denial eased itself and I at once jumped out of the twisted circumstance to observe for the first time in years, from outside, from my mother's perspective, that the ‘I’ that I had been searching for was the ‘I’ that was impulsive, not the I that hopelessly adapts perpetually every wish, so much so that the impulsiveness is pushed back further and further into the muddy waters of conscience.

I had saved myself a potential catharsis; for the constant adaptation of is that I never was, as I see it now, left me in a state of assumed or self assertive fulfillment. Now, it seems clear, the self assertion was adjudged by the ‘I’, that was an adaptive ‘I’, that was not the real or impulsive ‘I’. this fluctuating cycles of adaptation have left my impulsive ‘I’ exhausted, I no longer wish to adapt anymore, I no longer want to be a part of this adaptation. In this state of irrecoverable hopelessness, I turn to my mother.

“Throw down your umbilical noose, and I will climb right back in” -Kurt Cobain


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