Dear Roh: Letter #18
By: Anupriy Kanti
Tags: Love, Letters, Reality, Procrastination, Fiction

Dear Roh: Letter #18

Makes me wonder: Does the price of our individuality has to come at the cost of our humanity? Aren’t we all just pebbles to each other lying along the cosmic shore waiting to be washed up by the tide of time?

(This letter is part of an epistolary series Speaking Our Souls and is a response to Letter #17. If you wish to start from the beginning, you can look at the list here)​

Wow. It fascinates me that fictionalizing a situation forges a sense of freedom for you-

Wait. Let me back it up a little bit here.

I guess it’s been so long that this letter might as well be considered a new season*. Right. So. I was going to start by explaining why there has been a hiatus (yes, can’t seem to let go fo the TV series metaphor. I have a problem). But no. As legitimate it may sound in my head, it will come out as an excuse. However, I think I will try being honest.

And yes, I can cite numerous circumstantial reasons — new environment and lifestyle rebirth being the primary one (being caught in the daily routine is another one). But the truth of the matter is I was irrationally put off.

I was surprised by your lack of address to anything from my previous letter. Don’t get me wrong. As much as I adored your last response in all its depths and dwellings, it was almost a new conversation started. Perhaps, naturally so because of the time gap between the two letters. But it was a sudden change of topic with any acknowledgment or reaction to what was being discussed.

I may be being a bit immature here. I had actually written the draft to this but never got around to publishing it because it never felt…finished. Yes, that’s what I conveyed during our non-digital dalliances. But expressiveness is entangled with emotions. Every iteration — whenever drafted — felt like an enforced encapturing of an ephemeral emotion I felt at a distant point of time. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to be etched online eternally, at least not when it didn’t feel authentic. I also wanted to know for sure how I felt about writing back to you without a hassle of fighting a fleeting temperament.

So, I did what I always do best: Patiently procrastinated waiting for the presence of mind to pen it all down perfectly. This delay became so apparent that it got even you to hold this against me as leverage.

Why am I telling you this now? Because recently I realized that I was missing the point of why we started this in the first place. We both had a different reason. Mine initially was to find the sanity that I am not sure I ever had.

Truth is, I miss and love talking to you all the time. Distance doesn’t make it easy. So for me, every form and format is just a way for me to indulge in doing just that. It wasn’t my intention to stop writing and I am sorry for the delay.

So – Anyway – back to what I was saying — in reference to the last letter — Yes, I am intrigued by you saying that “this world is not real and that this life is only a figment of my imagination”. Really? Not making it real means you having the power to have control it?

But that is the part boggles me. I think this is where I see reality — at least objective reality — in a more liberating light than any fiction conceived by us human. We, humans, have made it a poor substitute of dreams and our own subjectiveness. But for me, it’s always been those two that are so entrapping either by our subconsciousness or our biases.

It is great if the technique works for you — and I am more of a sucker for a story than next person — but I actually find the whole “everything is an illusion” more frightening than freeing.**

Maybe, it makes sense. Maybe, it is the “othering” of a presented reality from one’s own state of mind that makes it easier to combat it. But in my head, that just makes it more complicated.

I get it. It is this thinking that leads me to the appeal of not being bound by the expectation of “others” or the satisfaction of defying them. It’s feels liberating for me to defend the feminist ideals, even better to call “others” out on their misogynistic comment.

But how many time must I have been the reason for someone to believe that their dream isn’t worth pursuing? How many time must I had have my actions reaffirm a stereotype or a behavior trait been used as an example of deeply rooted sexism?

We keep hearing about “believing in oneself” and to “not listen to others” but what we are failing to see is how we always are “the others” to someone else.

Makes me wonder: Does the price of our individuality has to come at the cost of our humanity? Aren’t we all just pebbles to each other lying along the cosmic shore waiting to be washed up by the tide of time?

Maybe these are mere metaphysical musings that I am mentally meandering in search for meager meaning. Maybe, I am just trying to realizing something that “others” have already figured out or let it go.

I recently got a chance to star-gaze at an offsite a month ago, which I told you about. In the midst of celestial sighting, all I could think about was having you there with me. I guess in some ways, even these futile attempts to comprehend any aspect of reality – with all its quirks – along with you just make it something to root for and immerse myself in.

That is all from me now. I am not sure if this is what I had in my mind when I started off but I hope you liked where it ended.

Hope to hear from you. Sooner than what we both are going to aim for. But either way, it will always be worth it. In the meanwhile, I might be swallowing large morsels of time as an appetizer in efforts to bend reality and see you sooner.

Empirically Yours,

Regards,

*Picture a short recap montage of “Previously on, Speaking Our Souls…” ending with a cliffhanger to get back the right emotional pulse of this epistolary series.

**If you see Matrix, you will understand why. But subjective relativism in Hinduism had got me worked up about this long before that movie.