The Trajectory of Thought - 26/09/2004

The Trajectory of Thought

26th September 2004

Anupam Jain

As I write I often tend to question my own motives.
Maybe the need to critically analyse everything has
become embedded in me. Free writing, which is an
essential precursor to original writing, is hard
because I tend to analyse everything, myself included.
Even though spontaneity is required to make sure that
my writing reflects my true feelings so that my intent
is clear to the reader, thought and analysis is
required in order to write. I need to know my intent
when I write so that I don't waste time. I need to know
that I'm not over-reaching myself and I cannot say
things I don't understand or don't have the authority
or capacity to write about. Virtually nothing passes
unscathed through this fiery set of tests but even
those that finally do are then sacrificed at the altar
of Occam's razor, the final condition that proclaims -
"Remove the unnecessary". I need to make sure that
whatever I'm writing is important and new enough to be
written down and does not contribute to the ever
growing cess pool of ignored writing.

So I don't write much. I think a lot but don't write. I
consider my thoughts a bit arbitrary and lacking
coherence and hesitate to leave documentary evidence of
the same. Whatever little that I do write is done and
over in a moment. A moment of "inspiration". It's a
temporary period of insanity when I put aside
rationality and simply write in a flow. It's a head
rush and it's the only way I can get anything on paper.
It's hard and also very rare. I'll probably never be a
good writer. Or if I do, the number of books that I
write won't be enough to ensure a steady income. It's
not for the want of talent, mind you, but because my
mind refuses to follow the winning track.

So what drives me to over analyse things? There is no
one correct answer. Curiosity seems like a good
explanation in part. But as the whole explanation it's
inadequate. Curiosity always drives one to gather as
much information as possible. When I'm writing I tend
not to gather more information, rather, I analyse as
specific a strand of information as possible. The
process is to explore the depth rather than the breadth
of information. I start with a broad theme on which to
write upon. Think about it a little and filter out the
overall scheme on how to go about writing it. So far so
good. The trouble begins with the actual writing
process. Every thing that I write about seems to demand
elaboration, explanation. Sections require subsections,
subsections sub-subsections. Every line seems to pose a
new question and the quest for answers veer my thoughts
far away from my original itinerary of mental
checkpoints. Thus curiosity is only one facet of the answer.

The remaining explanation is best summed up as
anti-curiosity. These days there is no consistency and
everything is dynamic and temporal. Everyday I glance
at the newspaper to look up the "headlines of the day".
Whatever happened to the headlines of yesterday? Have
the issues raked up in them become less relevant?
Rarely anything commands the attention span of more
than a few minutes. With the media taking up the
already thin layer of "new" events and spreading them
even thinner across thirty pages of two bit research,
only to be forgotten tomorrow, our perception of
reality is never static. I am a strong believer in the
concept of one truth. I fantasize about the wearing the
one super-equation, governing all scientific laws, on
my tee-shirt. The Sanskrit doctrine "Tat tvam asi", "thou
art that", says that everything you think you are and
everything you perceive are undivided. By exploring all
possibilities without fully researching the existing
ones, science is not moving closer to the truth, it is
moving away from it. As curious as I am about the other
possibilities, my sub-conscience does not let me part
with the current thought without proper attention
because that is not the way to understand reality. I
need to have a handle on reality, I need to find the
one universal truth. Thus I need to follow the one
trajectory of thought.