Dec 31, 2023

what is it like to be present and observe?

a travelogue and observation.

a travelogue. #

I had been preparing for it since the night before. Bags, check. Clothes, check. Notebook and a pen, check. Enough audiobooks and podcasts, check.
I wake up early, and start getting ready. And off we go, packed up with 12 other people in a mini-bus.

This particular time of the year is called the Picnic Season. People can be seen overflowing in all the beautiful places: lakes, rivers, waterfalls. And I was going to be a part of it.
What happens here is that, multiple families (friends, acquaintances, etc.) make an arrangement to go to some place together. Now, I am not a person who likes to spend time in scenic places with people I don’t really know. But this time, I had to.

I stay silent for most of the journey. I am listening to Feynman’s Fun to Imagine interview^[1]. I am observing the journey with curiosity. I am in a dormant state.
We are almost there. It is a hilly area, the roadside looks unknown, isolated and lacking people. Something out of an apocalyptic video game.

The picnic spot is a riverbank full of people with loudspeakers all around; a stark difference. On the other side, there is a hill which is full of trees. We settle down in a secluded place. The water is greyish. I see people over there, dancing, playing, cooking. They have littered too much.

There was enough time for lunch, so my mother and I go to a beautiful part of the picnic spot. If I was to describe it in one word, it would be “serene”. I sit down on this boulder, and feel the current of the river in my hands.

Being away from phones, and just being present to the nature; that is peace. Maybe, I think, I can write about this (even though I am not a poet):

Here I sit on a stone,
Flow of the river,
Crashing aloud
And white foam in between
Stagnant boulders;

Adrift ashore,
With the person I adore,
Without a cloud in the sky
Yet I feel the bliss
And what I was looking for;

Near the smooth cold water, I write
A warm hope flows by.

We continue roaming around. I feel more alive and happy. This place has brought out something in me.

I see a group of drunkards dancing. My first instinct was to go and dance with them. But buried by my shyness, I didn’t. I think now, why do we care too much? Why do we think about consequences? What decides at what times you should be cautious or reckless?
We find the drunkards again. They are happy, carefree and hedonistic. This time, I go and dance. This feels awkward, but this is beyond the norm of what you should do, and what you shouldn’t.

Soon enough, we reach our group. I talk with an uncle, and he gives me some advice. “Be progressive”, he said. “Be yourself”, he said. And I couldn’t quite disagree. He turned out to be a college lecturer in the sciences field, but he had spent enough time with law, arts and commerce alike. Kind of a polymath. Quite relatable, I said to myself.

There’s so many people, yet I seem to find the most pleasure in solitude. I go to a corner and sit down. I recall how one of my friends wanted to be an omnipresent observer^[2]. I feel that way now. I want to learn what makes them tick, what drives them, and how do they go on about their lives. Is it necessity? Is it a ritual or a tradition? Why are they here? Seeing, I believe, is an art form in its own way.

I write. I feel that we are a speck of dust compared to this world and beyond. Yet, we take pride in our trivial problems. What a waste. We disgrace the collective soul by being too self-indulgent. I knew, while writing, that I maybe hypocritical. That made me frown.

A stranger sat down by me. Well, almost a stranger. He is our driver.
He struck up quite a conversation, and I realised that you learn more by talking to a stranger than by talking to someone you know quite well.
He talks about waterfalls, about his previous journeys, nature and rivers. I think, man, he knows his stuff. Turns out, he studied geography. He is also an artist, but he left doing art a while ago, because he realised that people don’t appreciate art enough; they think that it is easy. But I tell him that art is wonderful, obscure and grand. He agrees.
Unfamiliarity turned into likeability, just like Byung-Chul Han says in The Agony of Eros.

Soon thereafter, we had lunch, and it was time to go.
The whole group clicks a photo together, and I see myself smiling. I am quite happy on how it all turned out. I was skeptic of this notion of “picnic culture”, but this instant made me see the beauty of this world.
Others may have different definitions for picnics. But mine is that it gives you an opportunity to be present, observe and let the contentment flow into you.

It’s almost night. I am feeling tired, so I sleep for a while. I am listening to The Truth^[3] and a few chapters of an audiobook. Everybody’s tired, only a few are talking. I glance outside the window, into the sky. There, I see the Orion constellation. For the first time in my life, I have noticed a constellation. And I feel quite proud, as a profound feeling of happiness fills me.

On this day, I understood that, maybe, we ought to be more observant.
But this makes me think, what’s next?

This travelogue depicts the events of 30th Dec, 2023. It was a trip to the Mawkrang Picnic Spot. It is “outside” the themes that I usually write on. But I wanted to try writing a narrative and see where that takes me. I thought, “well, why not?”

Originally posted on Substack

Footnotes