How personal are my Blogs?
With
the world of things around me, I would not have opted for a life to begin
with. What rightful a life is if my happiness is conditional upon some
others’ discomforts? Not only was I brought to this world without
my expressed permission, but each act of mine subsequently were determined
by existing norms of an (in)human society which has resulted in mutual
hatred among peoples, a society whose legitimacy I reject wholeheartedly.
This deep anguish of helplessness and implicit submission forms the core
of what I call my life. This is a life that’s ceased to be personal
for long. Since the time I violated the enforced norms purposively and
refused to surrender, I joined ranks with the social misfits—whose
life experiences have varied not in types, but in degrees. With that,
my personal journey has somewhere down the roads got mingled with the
social roads not often taken, but largely despised.
Hence when I use my active voice, I do not do so to celebrate the existence
of my self, but to scorn at the conditions in which I, a representative
of the misfits, have been relegated to live. I express self not because
I want to, but because I need to.
To begin with, why did I ever feel this need? How come my personal story
echoed the larger distress? How come I blogged my feelings on the paper
and the web only to rediscover the co-existence, not emphasize the so-called
unique self? How did the blogs come about to what they are now?
As I grew up, I imbibed some beliefs and knowledge that were inculcated,
followed some conventions pre-set, lived in some conditions of life pre-ordained.
Everything I have ever done or thought of doing were direct results of
my interaction with a world outside my personal zone (if there is any).
My philosophies of life, the economic, the politics, the culture and the
societal understanding, the dining table mannerisms, the construction
of language to describe my abstract thoughts—all were shaped by
elements and people. Nothing ever were at all designed or executed by
my own self. When I have chosen on my own and taken up responsibilities
for the tasks done, I have realized that I have exercised limited freedom
anyway. I do not assume I was ever amidst complete array of all the choices.
When every individual decision is socially influenced, how could my journey
in life, as portrayed through my little online diary be of my own making?
If I am a byproduct of social manifestations, how can the ‘others’
be left off from what I am feeling, for my self has to be either a celebratory
or a pathetic reflection of everyone else in this world. Not a mediocre
account of my own self, pretending myself to be the protagonist.
Ever since I started writing diaries at five, I had desired to put myself
on the wall for others to read, to see my portrayal of self vis-à-vis
them. With my blog four years ago, that wish came close to become a possibility.
The social connectedness with individual life became all the more pronounced.
No more could one talk of ‘privacy’, ‘copyrights’
and ‘secrecy’ to me. No more could one be prevented from organizing
folks who agreed (or disagreed), despite the geographical distances. With
my blog, I could go back to the society which created me, although only
to challenge its status quo.
Saswat
Pattanayak
blog@saswat.com