The Tangled Wire
It is late evening and I can sense that it is still raining. The news channel is showing regular headlines. Sipping the hot coffee in my big mug makes me feel adequate, and I sit down at my designated spot to work on my laptop. In an otherwise neat setting I notice the intertwined earphones, mobile charger cord and the laptop cord. It’s enough of a glorious mess to put me off and ponder on the convoluted human condition — why are things the way they are, why are people the way they are and why is the world going the way it is going. Having an inherent proclivity to visualize things in a much embellished form than what they look when they first meet the eye, I see the tangled mess almost taunting me, but I do not reach out to sort it just yet.
Comes to mind that there are many things that stay tangled within the deeper recesses of the subconscious — the hidden basement in that mind palace. Degeneration of our times. Terrorism. Misdirection. The divisiveness over religion. Arguments of the past. Moments of anger which stained many moments of joy. The multitude of these otherwise latent thoughts seem to find their space every once in a while to stare at us, directly from within. Tangled along with them through some synaptic nexus, is the unwavering hope and belief in the human spirit. It is never too late to do the right thing and it is okay to let go of things buried in the past — sometimes what we hold on to is what holds us back. Let go of the inhibiting thoughts that divide you from the next person. Camus famously said: “He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.” I am both the coward and the fool. After all, to err is human. Would order exist, had we no perception of randomness? It is up to us to find beauty in chaos and I like how someone has rightly summed it up: We are free to edit versions of ourselves frequently and ruthlessly, it is our masterpiece after all. The best future is one guided through the learnings of a rough past; ultimately what matters most is how well you walked through the fire. May we look back at this years from now as the rough past we were able to surpass… rather, escape from.
Think about it. We are all tangled pieces of wire and do not always need to get ‘sorted’ out. Don’t we work perfectly well in harmony the more entangled we are? Now more than ever, is the time to remain knitted as a people. Elevate your own mental plane and practice uninfluenced discretion, we are all imperfect and that is what humanizes us — revel in the glory of that. Nevertheless, practicing a little flexibility in that ideal, I carefully separate the wires and gleam at the rush of thoughts that just passed by because of this lack of order. The coffee is unfinished, and now cold, but I have warmth of another kind to carry me through now.
