I’ve always loved beginnings. New years, new days, new notebooks – everything. In the constancy of life and living the same old, beginnings offer a chance for a change. If you think about it and want to give yourself an existential crisis, nothing really changes from one year to another, or one day to another. Time is a man-made concept, and is really just a bit of the old wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. However, the good thing is that we are men (women, non-binary humans, whatever you prefer) so we do get to believe in all man-made concepts. Even if nothing really changes from one year to another and you aren’t the kind to make new year resolutions, there will still be things you’ll do differently because of it; maybe just cutting out or writing over the last digit of the year while writing the date in the first few months. That is exciting for me. It’s like the universe is trying to point out that you’ve been inertial for a while and say, “Hey, look, something has changed! Do you want to do something about it?”
So the question is – do you want to do something about it? You don’t get offered do-overs in life but beginnings are almost as good. You can’t go back and correct things but beginnings offer you a chance to make peace with things that have happened and sort of draw a fresh starting line to have another go at it with whatever changes you want to make. That is also the reason why every beginning is better than the last – you are more conscious about where you went wrong and can correct yourself if you feel that you’re slipping into the same old pattern again.
Not only do I love beginnings, I also believe that they are important. The start of something new may not colour the entire narrative but a good start sure doesn’t hurt. That’s reason enough to be excited about beginnings. If you weren’t happy with how school life turned out, you get to turn over a new leaf and leave a considerable bit of that behind. I know I did. If last year didn’t work out for you in college, you get to change things – leave societies, join societies, talk to the people you want, get new notebooks which offer the promise of blank pages which you can fill however you want, even if you just doodle all over them. But, doodle better – that’s the point.
The point is also that another man-made idea of a beginning is upon us right now – a new college year. It’s as good a beginning as any other. Whether you want to do something about it or not is entirely your choice. But what a great time for starting something! The US might get a woman President, Pokemon fans are everywhere, and Delhi rains are not a sad excuse for a monsoon. So, there are, indeed, exciting times ahead!
Shubham Kaushik
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