Came across an old Bollywood song on radio today. Well not thaaaat old :) but old as in from my school/ college days. “Badi Mushkil Hai” by Abhijeet from the movie “Anjaam”.
Whenever I think of my school/ college days I keep thinking they were much simpler and easier than now. I don’t want to sound like some old man reminiscing his past, nor am I a technology hater who wishes for the past when there were less technological advances etc; but those times just “feel” a lot better. Simpler music. Simpler movies/ stories. Even when I was watching 11.22.63 and Maigret last weekend I had the same feeling – life just feels more complicated now. Like we are somehow out of touch with reality.
I guess these thoughts are because of those two TV shows plus the fact that I am listening (audiobook) to a Raymond Chandler novel and before that to “Slaughter House 5” – all stuff from an older time, and especially two of them with lot of time travel references. Puts you in that frame of mind I think.
I guess the past feels simpler because we had less choices then. Either coz there were only less choices, or we were only given less choices. The number of choices you have in school or college are less. Similarly the number of choices 20 years ago in terms of career or place or even stuff you can buy were less – so it just feels simpler that way. Plus societal ways too were limited. Relationships were more straightforward and simpler. Now we have a choice in everything. You can choose how you want your life to be, what you want to be, what you want to do, who you want to be with (not just in terms of “a person from the opposite sex” but even which sex you want to be with). There’s choices everywhere. Gives you more freedom but also gives an impression that the past was simpler. That’s what I think at least.
“Anjaam” was a good movie by the way. Shah Rukh Khan had a lot of good movies in his initial days. I was a huge fan of this and his movies. I guess I am partial to the anti-hero sort of character. And nearly all these characters he portrayed had an intensity to them. His characters still have intensity – but back then (a) they weren’t just heroes like his characters now and (b) because they were quite negative the intensity gave them an edge. And many of his characters were the obsessive types. Flawed, one could say. I felt they were more in tune with reality. Real life does not have on screen hero characters. We are all flawed. Some just a lot more than others. Even the good characters he played (like in “Yes Boss”, a favorite) we different. You could relate to them. And they were flawed in their own way.
Do the increased choices we have now reflect an increased free will? I don’t think so. I have been thinking of this too past few days. I think ever since I read “Slaughter House 5”. I liked all that was expressed there about time. They have been constantly in my head since then. I used to think of the past and choices as something I make, something I have control over. Now I think less so. Like Kurt Vonnegut wrote I feel it’s just a limitation of us now being able to see in the time dimension. Everything has already happened and will happen. To us it seems like it’s unfolding and we are making choices, but what if the choices have already been made (or rather, there is no choice to be made really) and we are just exactly where we have to be. Such a line of thinking does not make life any less worth living or exciting. We still don’t know what is going to happen – so that curiosity factor is still there. We just stop deluding ourselves that there’s some actual choosing we are doing. Yes, we make choices. Yes, we decide to do this or that. All that happens and all that will happen will continue as it always had – and it will appear that it’s a conscious decision from our side due to x, y, z reasons. None of that changes. What changes is wishful thinking that we could have made different choices or that our present could be different/ better. We are exactly where we have to be. Every one of us. It has all already happened.
A cube is a cube to us because we can perceive three dimensions. If all we could perceive were two dimensions then it would be a square to us; and if all we could perceive were one dimension then it would be a line. But irrespective of what we can perceive the cube is always there. And it appears as a cube because three dimensions is all we can perceive. If we could perceive time too as a fourth dimension then the cube won’t appear like it does for us now. It would be something else altogether. And that object would be just as static as a cube does for us now. This structure will encapsulate the entirety of the choices the cube would have made in time – if it moved places for instance. That object is static. The cube’s journey is a tableau in that. From the cube’s point of view it made choices; but there really is nothing to choose. The 4D cube just exists and is there.
Yeah I am taking gibberish I know. :o) Most of it doesn’t make concrete sense to me either. But I am fascinated by the alternate point of view that it’s all fixed/ pre-determined. That there really are no choices. That whatever is happening, happened, and will happen has all already happened. I am just a passenger going with the motions and making my choices. Sometimes I choose good, sometimes I screw up. Sometimes I am good. Sometimes (most times haha!) I am a screw up. But it has all already happened.
Over and out!