Internet meme’s have been a rage for a while now and not without reason. They tend to be outright stupid, yet hilarious. And for some reason… you relate to them. Remember those – ‘Am I the only one…’ memes?
All those embarrassing childhood thoughts, weird remembrances embodied in those anonymous ‘Am I the only one’s.
But then you see, I am not that general John Doe. I have been living alone for a little too long and the limited number of people close to me (who know me?) will testify to the fact that I am weird. Self-centered and in general, colossally moody.
Now that I am introspecting/ retrospecting, I realize that as part of becoming ‘me’ I have been a major copy-cat. I learn that American sitcoms are the new rage – I watch everything from Seinfeld to Burn Notice to the latest gamut of superhero line-ups. I see someone reading Salman Rushdie – how am I not reading him! I see someone playing Crysis – how am I not running that on my laptop! Someone is listening to Pink Floyd in the room next – why am I not listening to them. And why stop there! Read Salman Rushdie, read Charles Dickens, read Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Yes, I read Chetan Bhagat as well)! And then again, why just Crysis, buy the console and play all the PS3 classics – borderlands, unchartered, the last of us, GTA (Yes, I have played Zoo Tycoon as well). And why only Pink Floyd – listen to everything from Albert King to The Cardigans – I don’t want to be cornered when talking about music. Heck I have even heard Yo Yo Honey Singh – just so that I don’t get cornered about anything.
And in some ways that has panned out. I have spent more time on sitcoms than most you. I have read more books than most of you. I have played more video games than most of you. I have listened to more music than most of you. I probably have seen more movies than most of you (IMDB top 250? Please...) Heck I even joined a riding club – and not to be outshined – I rode to more destinations than most of you. The most popular of destinations and the most unknown of destinations (I recently saw a StoryPick clickbait claiming to tell 10 places that even the most seasoned travelers didn’t know about – I clicked the checkbox on 6 of them). I spent a ludicrous amount of time and money and fuel on these vagaries.
Now by this time you must be wondering that I truly am a pretentious prick, just showing off. In part that is true, I like doing that. But then who doesn’t. A study somewhere shows that Facebook users are true narcissists. But hear me out.
I think I have been a quiet boy, with a tendency to remain aloof – a person whom everyone knows but who knows no one; for far too long. The moulding forces of family and close knit circles of friends didn’t really act on me. But in order to hold your own, you need to be…well…you! So I started picking up pretty much everything and miraculously I found time for all of them. Though in hindsight I realize that I could have devoted that time towards family and close knit circle of friends as well.
Now that I am introspecting, at the edge of a big ‘life event’ – the big question rises. Am I a true person or just a collection of imitations? But then, I also believe that we are all, in the end, a sum of our individual experiences. I was a dull introvert up to the end of my college days. All my ‘experience’ was tantamount to being a loner who was forced by some good friends into socializing. Someone who ‘didn’t actually give a single f***’. I was even found taste with the shitty hostel food when no one else did (Sure I was lost sleep over my grade in Math-I once, and I did go all Romeo on, well someone not worth it, but…)
But when the realization finally sunk in that I am truly nobody, I started forcing experiences on myself.
And this is where it gets tricky. I tend get a bit high minded about stuff. I have become highly opinionated, much like Jeremy Clarkson (that didn’t turn out very well…did it?) Idealizing things to a fault. Realizing the practicalities of things yet idolizing the idealizations. Getting into arguments on subjects that I just learnt about and expressing my opinions - as if I my opinion is supreme. Something that most of the people knowing me will testify to J
What’s wrong with that? And coming back to the ‘Am I the only one’ meme – am I the only one who thinks he has been imitating all this time, or is it that everyone of us here is in the same boat.
Whatever the answer to that maybe, I don’t think that I mind how I shaped up. Sure I am a bit moody, quirky and self-centered but surely you won’t hold that against me anymore?!
Somewhere in the midst of all the imitations and perfecting the imitations, exceeding the imitations, I think I found my personality. Traits. I know the kind of books I like; I know the genres of music that work for me. The video games that get me worked up and the sitcoms that deserve my attention.
Which when I think about it....is not so bad. And I think I will continue this imitation game. Experiences forced on me, or experiences forced on me by myself – how does it matter. That’s how you find new things – avoid getting into a rut of routines.(See… I am idealizing things again!) Sure I have a few process chinks to crease out and I should start idolizing things a little lesser, but then hey, as I said a while back, it’s the journey, not the destination that matters J
*BTW all being said and written, I think I am only setting myself to be called a narcissist. I am proclaiming myself to be pretentious…. How self-centered is that!)
