Just an I

I imagined something yesterday, something disturbing and pleasing simultaneously. I imagined a market, a small market. Useless things were o...

Skip a few pages and I am out of the scene. Hello! I am Abhimanyu, a small, overlooked, minor character in the great Mahabharata. Let me tel...

is there that I’m immortal, that I won’t ever die that nothing can destroy me. My neighbour died (lucky she). I was alive. EARTHQUAKE.  Peo...

NOTE: This post has no intention to hurt anyone’s emotions. It is meant for people who are habitually and not genuinely sad. I faced a good...

Lacan insisted that I think this way or rather I do not think this way. To be more precise he insisted that I do not think at all because we think in words, in language, in linguistic roundness. So, I thought not to think and from there emerged the Lacanian thought that, “We are where we think not”. I did not want to encounter myself and thus began to think, what actually I am. (irony intended) And it is good to do away with time, with the time that does not pass…away. Anyway. So, Lacan persuaded me to think of the father, the symbolic father, which reminded me of my real father but ignoring that thought, I began to think of the symbolic father which makes me away from my mother (here symbolic mother), the mother who created me, the mother who defined me, who declared my existence, who is my real self, the “I” in me, the “not thought of” part of me. Fathers appeared before my eyes (the symbolic eyes). Arched eyebrows- my doubts, frowning nose- my anger, thin ears- to misbelieve, my blabbering mouth. Symbols spoke to me. I heard them with my eyes open (actually my symbolic eyes open and the real one closed). I saw those fathers in me and myself in others…same doubts, same anger, same misbelieve, same blabbering. I was perhaps in the MIRROR STAGE then (a unified being separate from the rest of the world)

Moulded with language, moulded in language, I did not like anyone, any of the symbolic fathers for separating me from my symbolic mother (the myself).

In the realm of symbols the reality is merging or rather demerging. Away from my real father, real mother, here I am with the symbols. My endeavour is to become the/a symbol…the no symbol…the no language…the no thought…the no pain…the no tears…the no something…the nothing, with no realization of separation or union. Here I am thinking of the “not thought of” part of myself in no language. Away from the reign of semiotics and semantics (none of which is convincing).

Here I am trying to get back to the Imaginary stage.

Thought less

Meaning less

Separation less

Emergence less

Sense less

A little less RICHA…

    

Lacan insisted that I think this way or rather I do not think this way. To be more precise he insisted that I do not think at all because...

I was asked to jump into a river. I said, "I cannot swim". I was told, "You can". I said again, " No, I cannot". I was told again, "of course you can." I was worried, "What if I die!" I was assured " Don't worry you won't die." I said, "I am scared!". I was consoled, "we are there.".
Worried, scared, and extremely panicked, I jumped into the the river. Truly speaking, I did not know how to swim. I could only remember the assurance "We are there", and I noticed the same. They were there- each one of them but only to laugh at my ignorance. Struggle. Breathlessness. Panic. I was drowning. I decided to give it a last try. I tried to swim. I tried to spread myself like wings and swim. First stroke was a failure. Second stroke was unsuccessful too. But steadily my body was trying to swim and finally at my utmost surprise I was swimming. I was alive UNEXPECTEDLY. I was extremely happy and wanted to thank everyone who had asked me to jump into the river. I went to thank them, remembering the voice, "You can... of course you can." I was shocked - they were there,  I was there. They could speak even now. I could swim now as they had spoken. Things were almost the same except some jumbling of words. Only that now, "You can" had become "How can you?" "How could you?"
Anyway, I was shattered but more confident than ever.
(You must have noticed  repeated use of the first person pronoun,'I' in my writing.)
A voice had once said, "Fools always talk in first person". That voice was not a fool for sure. I am thankfully a fool. I don't throw people in misery and laugh at them. So should not I be a little proud be a fool?        

I was asked to jump into a river. I said, "I cannot swim". I was told, "You can". I said again, " No, I cannot"...

There is an 'I' in all of us. We often overlook it, we often ignore. It is not exactly our fault. In this busy world we seldom get time to see within us, to talk to us, to know us. Let me explore that 'I' in me.

Something is lost in the race, something has gone, something I think I knew, something I think I had once possessed, something I had owned someday. How was it, I can't very well remember but a vague picture is visible. It is something I had recently seen in a glass. If I remember it right, I was there, the glass was there...and then the race began...and then that 'something' was lost. I still cannot remember what exactly was it? Let me try once again. Let me bring the glass...and I think I am here. Something is still missing! Oh! no the image is not there. Yes, that 'something' was like an image...oh no that 'something' was an I. It means I have lost myself. Then who is this standing against the glass? Who is arguing about the loss? I? But that is lost.
The race but continues, a race without an 'I' in it,a race without an eye, a blind race. I have to run somehow, for some reasons, to reach somewhere...someday...
HURRY UP!          

There is an 'I' in all of us. We often overlook it, we often ignore. It is not exactly our fault. In this busy world we seldom get t...