The Art of Missing - Prologue

This blog or rather the blog to be written originally for the purpose that this blog is supposed to serve was supposed to be written on the first of january in order to significance the beginning of the new year with a topic closest to my heart. But I had to do it earlier because who knows if I am going to be in the same emotional state when starting to write that blog on that day at some time. And I feel more prepared for it right now.

I have always said that blogs cant be written with specific purposes earlier.. The very first statement of this blog however defeats the purpose of not having one. And yet here I am trying my best not to have a purpose in order to serve a purpose.

Which is to dedicate this post to the one person about whom I have never written before but has been there in all my blogs. Directly or Indirectly. Without her knowing or my knowing. This post is for that person where finally all anger, all sadness, all desperation, all frustration and things wrong and black, stops, subsides and melts away....

I used the backspace key for the last 10 seconds to erase the last 30 seconds of typing because I realised it was getting too cheesy... and that... however romantic it may be isnt who I am. And isnt who we are ... right ?

So why is it that today I write this when I had promised this blog almost exactly a year ago. For starters I havent written many blogs this year anyways. I remember I reached home last year around the 29th.or 28th. and after writing a few lines about Asheem who had died on the 31st I had said that I will write a bigger obituary for him and also that I will write a blog on the art of missing. It was too obscure for many to understand but it was about this constant emptiness that one feels when one cant find what he/she is really missing and yet the emptiness wont go away. For its not as if u are not talking.. Its not as if you are not chatting. Its not as if you cant hear the voice... then really are there coefficients or constants with specific values for how much percentage of each senses of perception must we add up in order to fulfill the actual presence of a person around you... or for that matter in your mind ? It was with this idea that i had chosen the title the art of missing because the more i thought about it the more i realised it isnt a science.

it must be.. but it isnt. its an art. and while on some other post i might argue that how art is really a complex scientific phenomenon only too difficult for us to understand and too random and chaotic for a mathematical formula to contain, this post is going to be rigid about how missing someone is an art.. an art that you learn and practice .. quite unknowingly.
and sometimes its beautiful.
and sometimes its ugly.
but never is it methodical.. ...

when you miss someone .. is it really the presence you miss. i mean..lets say you spend 6 hrs everyday with that person. you can spend 6 hrs everyday talking or chatting or hearing each others voice.. if we imagine ourselves in the future where we dont have to sit in front of the laptop to video chat.. and if we really have giant screens showing his/her room(s) and vice versa 24/7 is it a possibility that we wont miss that person ? does smell or sense of touch really make up that much of the formulae.... if i keep taste out the equation for a little while..

i cant imagine it. i dont think it would be the same. it would be artificial in soem ways.. it might be better than talking on the phone or sitting in front of the laptop with the hands free ness. and the comfort level increased... but really is that because we can walk around freely or see him/her all the time.. or is it also because now...not only can we see him/her but also his/her surroundings.

then does it mean that its not just that person's presence is important. its the environment. Is it a two way process where in order to really feel comfortable in the presence or supposed presence of a person one needs to be comfortable with the surroundings of that person.. Does this very vague pseudopsychoanalytical observation ultimately boils down to the reason why we can easily call up our friends when they are not with their parents than when they are ??


nonetheless.. i am not sure, if like most of the other things, i can only talk about this matter and not do anything with it. I mean I am not sure if I really have learned the art of missing. For even if you do, does it mean that you have mastered it when you miss someone a lot or when you dont miss someone at all ?

Can you ever master it ? Can anyone teach you how to master it. Does the ability in the art of missing someone depend on someone else and not just you......

..... which brings us to yet another very important and controversial point.....

does it matter if the person whom you miss so much does not miss you back to the same extent ..
is there a relationship between the two intensities ?

tough questions eh ?

maybe. maybe not. because at the end of the day.. when times run out and the curtains are up, one realises that all the attempts to understand that feeling of missing someone, the attempts to really see the emptiness and the source of it, the attempts to bridge it by trying to get nearer notwithstanding the 13000 km (8000 miles for my friends in the dark world) distance .... has all paid of..... every 86400 secs * X number of days of it !!

so for all those who have similar observations in their own life ... and dont know how to come to terms with it... accept it as a gift.
as a talent.. the same way you accept the gift of playing a musical instrument or being able to paint..

it would make it easy. a lot easy.. for after all missing someone is an art...

and this is for you ...D...

for I miss you .... a lot.