Joraaver Chahal

Thaumazein

I have long wrestled with the direction of my writing. Each time an idea sprouts in my mind, I am startled that I would dare write it. It’s not that the topic isn’t worth writing. For me, in that moment, there can be nothing of greater worth or greater import. No, it is because each topic demands more and more vulnerability from me, and because each demands it with an ever-growing fervor. And above all, that I would give in to those demands with increasing joy.

This is the writer I have always wanted to be. The human I’ve always wanted to become. But this is not a path that has been modeled for me. It is not a type of thinking that has been celebrated. As such, embracing each topic is embracing my fear again and again and again. I step in the direction that scares me. And every time I publish, I am liberated. The words I put to paper you will read, and you will know my inner thoughts. The act of publishing relinquishes my control, freeing me. Surprisingly, I am rewarded for seeking that freedom. I have already been told by many that my writing, and before that, my spoken word, has moved them. For some, a simple shift in perspective. Others stirred to action. With every essay I write, the journey I embark on becomes easier and more palatable.

Perhaps the scariest and most liberating moment of all will be when I meet a reader of my work who knows the whole me, yet I know nothing of them. But even that will be a lie. If you know it to be a lie because knowing the whole of someone is an impossible task, I’ll accept that. But I know it to be a lie because that person is a reader of my work, and therefore, in another universe, my words would be the product of their hand. My eyes, a witness to their work.

There exists a universe in each of us, all existing in a collective universe outside our own, and the wonder to explore it all is a thought that has knocked at the door of my mind for a long time. Now it demands the limelight. So here I go, in the fortuitous order that these thoughts integrated themselves into my view of the world.

In previous essays, I’ve made clear that questioning who you are is the most important task in our lives. It is through identity that we form habits. It is through identity that we enter relationships. It is through identity that we seek a meaningful existence, whatever “meaningful” may mean to you. However, you’ll notice that “knowing” who you are isn’t important. Questioning it is. Because inside you exists a universe, and you can’t know a universe. You can explore only as much as you can in the time that you have.

Exploration is daunting. When you know who you are, you can make proclamations with conviction. How can you say those statements if you are always questioning, always asking if this is who you are, or if there’s more to explore? That mode of thinking is a mistake. There’s always more to explore, because you can’t finish exploring a universe. The truth you say right now can be your truth while acknowledging there is more in store you aren’t able to comprehend.
Hold the nuance. Don’t create false dichotomies. If you can’t hold the tension of multiple truths coexisting, you will lose that balance. Then, you will project onto others that inability to see all truths simultaneously.

It is exhausting, this work. Unless you are a pondering philosopher who does this for fun, which doesn’t exist, the questioning doesn’t happen until it is forced. Life can be happy like that. Blissful ignorance is an insidious gift until its symptoms can no longer be ignored. But when your time comes, don’t stop asking. It is immature to me to think that someday, you’ll bask in the harmony of truths. The gift of the journey is not a lasting rest as you listen to the quiet symphony of your universe. It is the peace found in the cacophony of your universe. The ability to pick out the harmonies at play in the discordance. That doesn’t mean you won’t get moments of respite. As you dig, there will be extreme moments of clarity. The “click” of a door opened, a part of your universe being understood. The very nature of your questions will lead you to parts of your universe that simply “exist.” But often, you will move heaven and Earth before what you glimpse is “understood.” You’ll utter sentences you swore would never escape your lips. Act in ways you don’t consider “you.” These are impulsive thoughts you must ignore, for only the fool knows who they really are. Others will chime in, suggesting that “this isn’t who you are.” In this context, naïve and misguided advice. Aspects of who you are right now will sneak their way into your initial attempts at resolving the discrepancy before your eyes. The mind is such a wonderful creation that, when you finally get the chance, you will appreciate how well it helps you navigate discomfort by providing the straightforward answer. But before you can appreciate it, simple acknowledgment is enough, as you must continue on your way, deeper into the unknown. If those aspects of you always saved you in a trust fall, then now is the time to do more. You must trust the fall.

Universes have no beginning, and no end. They are directionless and expansive. So how can you fall if you cannot identify a point to fall from, or the direction in which you fall? What a menace I am, telling you to trust the fall, and then questioning how you can even call it falling! You are going from the known to the unknown. You could walk that distance, or you could sprint, jump, or even skip. Hell, you could fly. But yet, when you hear fall, it feels right. Why is it we cannot be present with the violent feelings that overwhelm us without also attaching a direction? These feelings, can they not just be?

The known is comfort, and the unknown is scary, is the simple answer, but I find it a facetious and pedantic description of why we feel like we are falling. Instead, this is my answer. It feels like falling because society conditions us to exist in this universe in a way that flies in the face of what exploring yourself requires. That is why, as you edge towards this line of questioning your universe, you draw further and further away from the observable universe as others see it. But only those who have crossed the line know where the line is. On the other side are people who jump towards the unknown and fall into the sky with such overwhelming conviction that you ask which universe they are from. But others that society labels as crazy, as broken, and as reclusive also exist. They have realized answers that work for them, in their universes, even though their answers are in such violent incongruence with the universe we share that they become enigmas.

None of this changes what you must do. Answers must be sought. Where you land is anyone’s guess. But in time, your universe will unfold before you, as will our collective universe, if you can strike the balance.

Our bodies bear the continuous burden of interacting with our collective universe every waking second. Your senses take in the voluminous noise all around us. It is you that gives meaning to the noise. And since you are a universe, you are also the collective universe. There is no threshold. Everything bleeds together.

You cannot see this at the beginning. Before you question your own universe, the illusion of a boundary will feel physical. What goes on inside you is irrelevant to the world you must make sense of. You will interpret every interactions with just as they present themselves to be. Why shouldn’t you? It is, after all, the simplest road to understanding. That of no thought. So this blind interpretation with the world becomes our default mode.

Perhaps this mode made sense before our species became a global sensation. I could speak of exploring foreign lands or nature, or consuming culture and witnessing all styles of living. But you can travel a thousand miles in that universe and never take a step inside your mind. I cannot bring myself to call that a mistake. After all, now that we live for so long, many never live at all. They simply endure or escape, waiting for the safety to make the choice to live, if it still exists within their grasp. Society celebrates people who make choices that are in line with perceived notions of functional, even as those individuals scream in solitude until their voices go hoarse. When people make choices that are not in line with society’s expectations, and they struggle to leave their bed or they lash out at everyone and everything, society labels them as dysfunctional. So I ask you, is it better to be labelled as “dysfunctional” and superficially witnessed but never understood, or labelled as “functional” and neither witnessed nor ever understood?

Like I have said before, we do not choose when we get to practice. If you try to question before you are ready, your answers will carry a variety of attributes: self-righteous, arrogant, disparaging, or superficial, to name a few. None will be true. But when you are ready, the illusion becomes self-evident. It is then that Θαυμάζειν, or thaumazein, Greek for “wonder,” takes you in a vice grip, and you will marvel at the universes before you. Before, you had an inkling of why you liked the music you listened to when you were young or why a quotation from a book or show made such an impression on you even though nobody else remembers it. Now you will ponder why you react in certain ways and how it relates to that music, or that quotation. Even more, you will find the space to wonder why the person before you has exhibited a certain behavior. You will remember others who have described their tastes, their choices. You will have witnessed their behaviors. It will dawn on you that aspects of their universe you felt you understood but could never voice were just unseen reflections of your own universe. The universes are blending together, and the collective universe in this moment is the unique interaction of all universes colliding. Everything exists simultaneously.

Can you hold it? That balance that sits on a razor’s edge? Or will you succumb to your baser instincts? Will you form false dichotomies to make it easier for you to live, despite the truths that you turn your back on? Will you let those universes crumble so you can continue to exist on a simpler plane of false peace?

Even then I would not fault you, for that simply means you were not ready. But under the right conditions, if you keep questioning, you will become ready. Then, the impossible will become possible, and you will walk with an unbridled sense of thaumazein. You will forgive from a place you previously couldn’t comprehend. When others speak, you will finally be able to listen. You will accept that you cannot understand others’ universes yet. The event horizons for you goes as far as the words that leave their mouths, the body language they adopt, and the energy with which they carry themselves. Because you acknowledge the existence of their universes, your interactions will grant a new kind of protected access, so that in this shared universe, your universe does not explode while theirs remain intact. But perhaps more, because you may witness a fraction more of their universe, furthering your understanding of it all. And that is reward enough to continue living this new way of life.

When you enter the rabbit hole, it will be agonizing. Pure torment. How can you function like this?

I understand. Before, I did not. I could not. And I apologize to those before who tried to open up to me. I lacked the capacity, the depth, to truly see you, for I had still not seen myself.

Now, I have crossed that line. Now, I understand.

Now, I wonder in awe. At this universe we partake in. At this universe inside me.

And I, can hold, the balance.