by Aman Chougle
‘It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truth less ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded.’
– W. Somerset Maugham
Wonderland for me is a place where you’re never cynical about or resent anything, because there’s no reason to. It’s stable, but endless. Your child-like curiosity is given full reign to learn till you’re absolved by oblivion and your only focus is to improve at any and everything you’re fortunate enough to do. This may seem a fantastic world, where even cupcakes might make your day, trying to figure out how to make them. But the reality is, to be constantly moving forward in life is not easy, and that’s why most of us are happy just to survive.
However hard we strive, most of us never get to this fantasy wonderland. It eludes us to such a point that we give up our pursuit to attain it. Some of us may keep the spirit alive and even get there, but for the rest it just seems to be getting farther away.
Three years ago, I wrote a book “The Last Soul Children” about my childhood and youth. At that time, it was just an exercise to teach me how to write, which over the years culminated in a book. After I was done writing the final draft, though, I was amazed at how I could find meaning in a childhood which up till then had seemed very mundane.
In the process of writing the book, I dwelled on the people I grew up with, and my experiences with them. After writing about them, I realised that surprisingly, I was eager to meet most of them again, when, prior to this reflective process, such an inclination never crossed my mind. But only time could give me such a perspective. The fact that they were not there in front of me, made me eventually dwell on what I really liked about them; they didn’t seem like odd creeps anymore, as sometimes kids and teenagers do.
When I paused to study my past, I realised that it seemed to be a wonderful place to be in. Only that I didn’t realise it back then. But why does something seem sweeter when it’s past us? Why can we see its beauty only after it’s gone and not when it is actually in front of us? Maybe the wonderland I spoke about eludes us because we dwell on what we don’t have rather than what we do – the people around us, the opportunities – and then we get shoved into the future only to realise that what we had wasn’t that bad at all.
Writing the book helped me realise that your wonderland is what you make it to be. Reality is full of magic if you’ve the right kind of eyes to see it. The cynic in me still thinks this is a limited world, but then there are so many things about this world that I’m completely unaware of, and that’s enough of an incentive to seek opportunities and keep moving forward.
When we peel away what’s not important and get right to the heart of it, to make sense of what we’ve been given, we wouldn’t need some fantasy wonderland to escape to find happiness; rather, we would strive to make that world a reality.
There’s nothing else worthwhile to do, but improve, and find your wonderland.
