Maya · Featured guest essay
★ Featured guest essayMost of what you'll read in this notebook is my own writing. This piece is by my friend Shailesh Bhattarai, a great thinker, and it appears here in his words.— Rujjwal
It never occurred to me to ask my parents whether I was planned or not. Even if they had planned to have a child, I do not think they specifically asked for me. More importantly, I was not involved in that plan. I cannot say that my birth was "mine."
The body developed partly in my mother's womb and later from what it received from nature. So it is difficult to say that the body is mine. I could claim that the hunger is mine, but even that seems doubtful, because the body itself decides when it becomes hungry. The decision to build a stronger body could be considered mine, yet the desire to build a stronger body would likely not have arisen unless I had first seen other bodies around me.
When neither the birth nor the body is truly mine, bodily relationships cannot be confidently claimed as mine either. At a certain age, the body itself began longing for another body—or bodies—of a particular gender, largely due to the influence of hormones. With one person, the relationship deepened and turned into co-dependence to deal with the world, and has unsigned 'code of conduct', violating which it is subject to questioning or dismissal. So my partner cannot assertively be called mine. If even "my body" sounds like a false pretense, then claiming possession of another body feels even more misplaced.
With the body come the senses, and they interact with the environment in a particular way. I clearly have no control over which wavelengths of light I can perceive or which frequencies of sound I can hear. The eyes can be closed, substances can be taken until the body is rendered unconscious, and certain experiences can be subdued. Yet even these possibilities arise largely from how the machine is built, rather than from any independent decision of "mine."
My career choice, workplace, income, and possessions are all heavily dependent on my surroundings, chance occurrences, and bodily desires. I could say that I had many choices and selected one particular path. Yet that very choice was made in reference to external benchmarks and influences. The house I live in and pay for can easily outlast me, pass into other hands, or turn to dust through one of nature's innumerable events. To call it "my house" seems equally absurd.
This inquiry could continue indefinitely, both in writing and in thought. Yet I can say with some confidence that I have not found anything—or anybody—that I can truly claim as "mine."
A further question remains: Who is the subject, the "I," that has been searching for the "my" and the "mine" all this while?
As an afterthought, it is difficult to claim authorship even of the above stream of questions, for they have been shaped by thinkers and philosophers from different ages and places.
This essay was written by Shailesh Bhattarai and is shared on Rujjwal's Notebook as a featured guest piece. If it got you thinking, or you'd push back on any of it, I'd love to hear it and will pass it along: sharma.rujjwal [at] gmail [dot] com. Want a note when something new goes up? Say so in your email and I'll add you to the list.
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