ওরে আয় আমায় নিয়ে যাবি কে রে ...

দিনের আলো যার ফুরালো,
সাঁজের আলো জ্বলল না,
সেই বসেছে ঘাটের কিনারায়।
ওরে আয় আমায় নিয়ে যাবি কে রে
বেলাশেষের শেষ খেয়ায়।     

Mourning, Creativity, Art vs Habit!

" ... By now you must have read Proust, (ten years younger to Tagore, Gurudeb hereafter) who'd talked about these in volumes! He talked about our mourning, the creativity, and habit. The habits that are dressed on upon us throughout our growing years, so to say, obliterating our creative self yet it remains (creativity) cardinal to our shaping of us becoming the human persona (Psychologische Typen, Jung) throughout.  We are born to be simply creative and Art, as we may observe later, remains its manifestation till we get rebuked over jumping on our cots or all our sketches that we draw, rather try to draw papa, mama, the sun, the trees, birdies, the  puddles or the boa constrictor (The Little Prince, Santoine de Saint Exupery)  and so on. Look, when you’re asking  simple questions whose answers mostly  unanswered by the elders, you begin to get oriented to those Habits, ' i'll be not answered, so i'll not ask further' which gives rise to many a habit altogether. Thus, in course of time, our Creativity Channel  changes, gets ‘cultured’, 'colourful', it gets 'redefined', plumped with a kind of quasi-edification; and one day these further change to the norms, class identity grows, redefinition of self starts acting in a atypical normal way.

 

The little one wonders, wanders around, seeking for a ‘self'. ("এলেম আমি কোথা থেকে, কোন্‌খানে তুই কুড়িয়ে পেলি আমারে।'শিশু, জন্মকথা) And, slowly, one day a sort of 'decadence' comes onto our persona (no longer do we remain a child, who used to sleep if only mama touches the chin, croons a lullaby, something like why Proust always needed a kiss from his mother at bedtime. (Remembrance of Things Past, Combray). Inattention of Parental-peer-people, all around you, begins to ‘mend’ this creative self. You start living in a much baffled duality. Should I or should i not?  Alter-ego sprouts out sporadically -- at school, at home, at the playground, it starts whispering i be needed, (আমি তখন বাঁশির সুরে/ আকাশ বেয়ে ঘুরে ঘুরে / তোমার সাথে ফিরব সকল কাজে। ঐ,  বিদায়).  Personally, that very little boy who quickly learns to be extra cautious by the strict parental guidance, how to behave in the class, starts sharing many experiences, revelations of mind, stories, tales, and fantasies that are stored in the creative mind with his peer. If you try to fathom out, you’ll see this little one, still very creative, only 6-7 years old, and while still having all feelings of creativity, cherished by golden rules of 'being natural', he doesn’t know the meaning of mendacity or presence  yet. Thus, he often reacts to situations unwarranted, from the parental guidance, rulings, and coercion without any pretence, he doesn’t justify, doesn't check twice before uttering some of the slangs or jargons even, he learnt of.  By now, he loves to teach himself the Rules for driving and guiding 'self', at times to shout, and yes, guess what! He's sad. Here Creativity comes back as a hindrance, seems to be little disgusting; He's been looked down upon as a simpleton by the elders. He suddenly begins to shout, begins to howl or even cries  and starts documenting his 'other creativity' graphically in a language of dissent. Albeit, he never wished to; he needs a floodgate, doesn’t get anybody at home, as they remain busy to mend and not to nurture, not recognising the Creative him. So, as i told you, the next best place is the school. He begins to realise that this ‘him’ needs a sort of paradigm shift, yet tries hard to finding a place amongst the best of the rats through the residual creativity.  

That very ‘self’ also feels a sense of contention. By now, he’s afraid of a failure. This ‘self’, by this time has erased the good old days and recollects depravity from its past. By, now, he learns to sustain, only to obey an eerie obligatory paradigm.  Out of coercive power reference, he tries to correct himself and an utter state of baffling encompassing the minf becomes well-known to all; he only has assignments to complete, learns to live a life of an inevitable assembly line and finds somebody still weeping inside ( বলিস "খোকা সে কি হারায়,/ আছে আমার চোখের তারায়,/ মিলিয়ে আছে আমার বুকে কোলে।'ঐ, বিদায়)). He learns that feelings should be vaulted. He learns to demand the right and wins the ownership of the feelings, gradually, simplicity that remains dormant over years in a developmental process gets tormented, keeps on crying in vain; and one day all of us find it is vapourised and the societal melodrama, “HABIT” consolides!  At an early stage, it was only ‘Me and I’; at least till the first four-five years of the formative and developmental cognition. In other words, it’s the formative experience of our identity that leads to the concept of keeping ‘Secrets’ from parents, siblings, and family and aha, the teachers too.  This faces a radical change when he  grows older; till twelve years of your life this ‘Me’ extends to 'friendship’ norms i.e. a societal imposition begins to filling it’s canvas, the picture starts taking a meaning of secrecy;  commitment to keep secrets get absolute obligatory, no more ‘nice secrets’ do attract, he gets interested to more ‘forbidden secrets’ for getting out off from non-arbitrary functions under regimental powers later under the attractiveness towards many external pleasures. He used to share every thought, and all acquired knowledge with his parents; every impulse he passes on to 'my' parents, now at 'my' young age of pretence it started ruling 'me'.  He develops the very thoughts that 'my' parents are the prying eyes for things. Here, he wants to know more about something that nobody knows, to possess something alone, wants to become more powerful among friends. The inner–self is waking up very fast this time; He develops the HABITS to hide, to act, to justify, smirk and be amused to the innate discoveries of inwardness, privacy, inner invisibility.

He does not like his coercive maternal aunt, Phatik finally leaves the regimental asylum (ছুটি)

He grows an anti-established norm, towards autonomy, independence. He slowly gets separated (self) from the community norms (family & extended society).

 How is 'my' self concealed or revealed in secrecy?

 What are the consequences for the formation and shape of "I?

 Who is this ‘S/he’? What is this secrecy for and all about?

 Culture changes, so does custom. He changes, so does the guardian, communication changes, so does its impact (অম্বিকে মাস্টার আমার কাছে দুঃখ ক'রে গেল,/"শিশুপাঠে আপনার লেখা কবিতাগুলো / পড়তে ওর মন লাগে না কিছুতেই, /এমন নিরেট বুদ্ধি। পুনশ্চ, ছেলেটা)

Will tell you more about Proust, dear, but before that, let’s know little more about our mind, how it is read in academia.

 

contd...

 

 ii

Mind: Ideating through a soft knowledge of an ignorant. 

Dear, yesterday, we discoursed on the early parts of the Creative 'Self' which may or may not be the mind, as the guiding source of creativity. Dubious, indeed as epistemological ... even empirical academic queries and answers are still evolving. I can give you an example for this very 'creative time' may be termed as "Covidera (sic)".Why! Will elaborate later on. But for now, lets define what is Creativity acting upon Now! I mean amongst the babblers, the toddlers, amongst all children, the little boys and girls and the teens! What's happening to their "Minds" at this crossroad of experiencing, and building up with the concept called being creative? Are they seeing things differently than you and i! As we all know, The Mind may be referred as the manifestation of many facets: 

our thoughts, store house of all possible memories we want to keep, all our perceptions, our sensory and every possible image building, the space prescriptions, our will powers, The Logic and so on, what are the changes going on to formulate creativity of the future? 

A floodgate of civility norms comes off that we may also see it a legalised, socio-behavioural pattern of infused Habits through our charged neurons that understand and obey and sometimes ridicule non-arbitrary functions under different powers; and if not fit, it becomes lunatic, madness, aboriginal, or anti-humane yet so much mesmerising human, depending upon the geography of the owner i.e where this owner of this Mind is being placed:  all in a whole it may often be termed as Cognitive Consciousness (developed from its rudimentary state of salvation from basic instincts at the Bhimbetka rock shelters or in the Cave of Altamira or in the anthology of the spectacular human evolution).  The debate on mind resting in brain or heart had been seen as one of the precursors of the great findings in the history of medical nuances, dated back to grand fella, Aristotle who started finding it in livers. However the first documentation, rather a graphic representation was made by a German physician, Franz Joseph Gall who started the concept known as phrenology (1800?), later permitting mind is housed only in brain. 

contd...