Things should end on their own accord - Part I

There was an episode in Seinfeld where George's girlfriend suggests that they change the topic. George is discussing with Seinfeld later about the propriety of suggesting a change in topic during the course of a conversation. Both George and Seinfeld agree that it is against the spirit of conversation to explicitly suggest a change in the topic - it disturbs the natural course of the conversation.

I tried to find an exerpt of this on the web, but was not able to successfully google it. Odd.

In any case, I was thinking about past - a lot of people in general, mostly forgotten. For instance, my classmates in 10th grade. I am sure there were some with whom I shared lunch. There were those who I considered my friends back then. Yet, now, I have no memory whatsoever about them.

Since I practise extreme information-weeding and do not really let my brain process any details unless it is absolutely necessary, there are people from less than two years ago, who I knew and was friends with, but now, I have no recollection. The relationships were not very deep - at least not deep enough to warrant gargantuan efforts needed to maintain a long term relationship.

When I consider all the teachers and headmasters and deans - some who I liked, some who I didn't - I realized that now, I don't mean anything to them and they don't mean anything to me. Closer to the home, there were some cousins, some uncles and some aunts, who used to mean a lot when I was younger. Now they don't.

What happenned? How is it that someone who means a lot one day can mean nothing the other?

Take my Dada (my mom's dad) for example. I loved him. He was my most favorite person in the family. I loved him more than my mom, more than my dad, more than my sister. I loved him more than I loved anyone else in the world. Until I went to college. I had to go away to Guwahati - and visit family only once every six months. The people I interacted with daily, suddenly were different. It was no more to my home (or to distinguish all my various homes in this blog, my parent's home) that I returned every night but to my hostel. It was no more my mom's food that I ate but the Mess's. When there was a festival, it was not to my Dada's home I went, but nowhere.

The mere change of location was sufficient to upset the delicate balance of a relationship. Now we met each other after a long time, and it was more about giving each other an update about what has happenned rather than just talking. It was to talk as much as possible in the limited time. When such artificial pressure is introduced into a relationship where there was always a plentitude of time, relationship suffers. All you feel is a disappointment that things are not what they used to be. There is a sad acceptance of a change in reality, an acknowledgement of "growing up of kids" and the inevitable change of focus from this disappointment to something different that is happenning in life, because life continues to happen at its inexorable pace.

For instance my wife called. I will continue this one later.