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The Making of a Dumb Datum

Imagine 10,000 years in the future. Two archaeologists are digging a site, and they find the remains of human bones. They take those remains to the lab, perform tests on them, and try to reconstruct the habits and lifestyle of that human. Say those bones belong to me. They are trying to find out my story, how I lived, what I ate, where I traveled, etc. Once they find all the info they need, they toss it into a museum where they store all other such ancient human remains they find. I was essentially one data point to them in trying to understand how humanity evolved over time. Or I can also call myself a “datum”, the singular form of data, literally one piece of information to solve a bigger puzzle. Honestly, I don’t need 10,000 years to become a datum. I am already a part of several datasets people use these days to study many things. So for that objective learner, I am already a datum. Now let me get to how I got the dumb part of it. I have had an interesting and eventful life so far...
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Beauty and Terror

 I have always been someone who is capable of experiencing life profoundly. That is what made me a writer in the first place, and it also enables me to connect with people at a deeper level. But this also has some side effects. For example, I always felt a roller coaster of intense emotions at a higher rate than other organized adults. This eternally running roller coaster taught me that the highs of life – love, laughter, safety and pleasure, can be fleeting and are immediately followed by crushing lows – heartbreak, tears, fears, and pain. So, I am fiercely protective of all the good and beautiful moments of life, and have difficulty letting them go easily.

Yet it is a great irony that the number of things I had to let go in the 28 years of my life so far is greater than the number of things I could hold on to. So, maybe life is not supposed to be this battle between the acts of holding on and letting go.

Then what exactly is life supposed to be? I am not sure. I am still young and ignorant to know the answer to that question. But there are some dead people, who tried to answer this question back when they were alive, and here’s one such answer from a certain wise Austrian Poet named Rainer Maria Rilke:

“God speaks to each of us as he makes us,

then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:


You, sent out beyond your recall,

go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

 

Flare up like flame

and make big shadows I can move in.

 

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Don’t let yourself lose me.

 

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

 

Give me your hand.”

 

So, for now, just let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.








 

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