I have on occasion
described my life as a series of blunders. The mistakes taught me the
inevitable lessons too. Perhaps, what makes life really meaningful, if not
particularly charming, are the lessons we learn from our own mistakes. The
errors and the subsequent learnings indicate that we have been on a quest of
our own instead of blindly embracing given truths.
“The biggest mistake of
my life was joining St Edmund’s as a lecturer,” as I write in my forthcoming
memoirs, Autumn Shadows. “Shame was
the ultimate gift I received from St Edmund’s, the ultimate recompense of the
narcissist.” Narcissism is a grave sin unless you know how to piggyback on it
to conquer peaks of success. I was a born loser for whom success was a tantalising
mirage. The Principal, staff and students of Edmund’s caught hold of the shame
of the loser in me, shook it out and held it up for the whole world to see.
Then I became less than the shame.
The world will love
narcissists provided they know how to be winners. Otherwise they are doomed. In
one of the poems I wrote in those days, I described myself as a clown on the
trapeze. The first half of the poem went thus:
Each
faltering step, each fall of mine,
Makes you
burst out into laughter:
Because I
am the clown in the pack
Because the
motley is my birthmark.
Each swing
of leotards on trapezes
Sighs in
comic relief in the tail of my coat:
Because the
show must go on
Because the
Master is watching it.
The Master remained
beyond my visibility like the Orwellian Big Brother or the authority in Kafka’s
worlds. The Big Brother finally succeeded in decimating my narcissistic ego,
and me too in the process. I left the place in shame. I have never been able to
cleanse myself of that inheritance from St Edmund’s College, Shillong.
The lessons I learnt from
that shame have served me well in later life, however. It taught me modesty and
reticence [except in writing]. It taught me the importance of silence in many
places. I learnt to efface my soul so much so that the comic relief is my abiding
consolation now. That comic relief is one of the greatest lessons I learnt, the
best gift of my Edmundian blunder.
PS. Written for Indispire Edition 242:
Interesting poem.
ReplyDeleteGreat lessons. Glad that you exercised "reticence [except in writing]":)
Writing is a therapeutic process, so no reticence 😉
DeleteYou are a wise learner, sir.
ReplyDeleteI'm a perpetual learner striving toward wisdom.
Delete