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| Reflecting at Dusk | | A Philosophical Outlook | | Sanjeev Sikri | 4/2/2022 11:44:43 PM |
| While sitting by myself, after an exciting yet tiring match of basketball, the Summer Sun was on
the verge to set. At a distance whence my team cooled down, I stared into the orange of the
greatest star in the sky and it occurred to me that dusk, is the time of reflection. Whether did we make the most of the day, or did we just let it pass by. Either ways, we’re somehow exhausted.
Somewhere between 5 and 7 in the evening, at least in the tropics where the zenith is rather stable. The working half of the day has gone by and one looks forward to relish their supper, some with family, some with friends coupled with drinks and some with themselves. The saying goes something like this “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper”.
Probably because dinners are a celebration of the day gone by, do we take our dinners like royalty and breakfasts like beggars.
During the cusp, just after the oranges vanish and the purples appear behind the sponged clouds.
The reflection of whether did one make the most of the day makes puddles in the stream of consciousness. The clothes have lost their ironed edges, the tie is a little crooked, the toes pinch between the shoes, the mascara isn’t as dark. The stomach longs a snack, the back a massage and the mind, idleness.
One need not even make time for reflecting, it is an autonomous function, of the Darwinian evolutionary mechanism I am much unaware of. But a part of me tells me that it has to do something with the children of our ancestral apes having returned safely to their designated branches before it got dark and the bread winning ape satisfied to have met the appetite of his family in full. The questions of safety and survival abound us at dusk.
The college going youth gets ready for the night, the busy merchant comes back home to his family, the bachelor working at a corporate wants time alone by himself away from the kafkaesque life he follows.
The setting Sun reminds us of the things we have lost too, for av moment every dusk we are filled with a sense of melancholy.
A moat of losses surrounding the tired mind. Some regret inactivity of the day, some the choice of wrong words, some wish how things could have been different and the most minacious of them all are the ones who think “what if ?”. For they rather choose to be in a world of what ifs than the world of what is.
There are the ones who hate the coming darkness and find themselves under the sheets sooner than usual. So they can choose not to confront the demons of their being, fast forwarding their lives to the rising Sun whence the day begins again. There are then who sleep early because the succeeding day demands of them their early presence. The worst kind are the ones who spend their nights tucked in their sheets yet awake to the screen of their mobile devices, half awake half asleep. Some speak of love at night, some of dread, some of angst of another day, some of dreams that will never come their way.
The dusk is the time of hopelessness, tiredness, longing of a fresh new start or for some even the end of everything. We look at the darkness overcome the shades of blues and oranges and remind ourselves to prepare to rest, the nigh comes by and we must close ourselves in the safety of our homes and wander off into the land of our dreams. A place where we get to choose the natural laws, where gravity does not exist where one can fly as high and take pleasure in the makings of their mind.
Though we reflect everyday at dusk unreflectively, we must once in a while stop and gaze into the colors fading into the sky being wholly aware. Before the twinkling of the constellations make their daily appearance. A thought to recollect the happenings of the day gone by not because it is important to lead a good life, but more importantly it makes us feel alive. As Heidegger a famous German philosopher, calls it Dasein, which means ‘being there’ or simply put ‘existing’.
Thats what I was doing at the basketball court at dusk, Dasein. |
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