I guess nobody ever knows

With ‘Yeh Tumahari meri batein’ playing in the background and with my work laptop waiting for me to dab some action into its keyboard, I am here wondering what the purpose of all our lives is. Nobody ever knows, do they?

All this philosophical banter is the result of me reading ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ by Stephen Chbosky. One deviation I made with this story is that I had first watched the movie quite sometime ago and then I had realized that this was actually based on a book. Incidentally, in one of a recent visits to my favorite bookstore, my eye caught the book and I had to buy it. I bought the book and it started gathering dirt on my bookshelf. However, unlike many other books that do the same, I finished reading this in under three months of its purchase. (I did not take three months to read just this book though!)

One day, while I was wasting time browsing stuff on my phone, I decided that I should watch the movie again as I had forgotten how the story was adapted into a movie and also I had gotten this story mixed up with some other series I had recently watched.

So, while I was engaging myself into this movie, a lot of emotions started brimming to the surface. Most of all, it was about creativity, music and friendship.

Throughout Charlie’s journey, who is the protagonist of the story, I realized that I have something or the other to relate to with his feelings.
Charlie had a trauma in his past because of which he starts facing problems in his present. He knows something bothers him but never understands how to manage this because he cannot get to the bottom of his problems. He has trouble making friends easily because of his difficulty in finding someone with his wavelength, until he meets Patrick and Sam (who have completely different personalities themselves). The group of friends that he makes through them are a weird bunch. Each peculiar than the other. But Charlie is not the one to judge; all he wants to do is be a part of their lives and invite them to be a part of his.

Slowly, the story develops into a gripping narration of what happened in Charlie’s past. The pace is faster in the movie than it is in the book, which is not quite a good thing in my opinion. I am going to spare the expense of disclosing the plot here for any of the readers who may not know the story either through the book or the movie.

My point here is how the protagonist’s character gets to every feeling that socially awkward people have bottled-up. There is a point when Charlie does not understand how he has to be around girls and blurts out things which he later admits to have misjudged on how good it had sounded in his head. I have had multiple scenarios like that. I spend hours contemplating how I should be and what I should say around people I consider cool. But in the actual scene, I come out terribly stupid. It somehow makes me feel like I am socially incompetent.

There also comes a situation when Charlie blocks out some incidents just because he finds it difficult to deal with the intensity that the situation brings in. At that very moment, as spectators, we don’t see the complexity that Charlie’s head puts him in. This is the biggest point of relevance I feel towards him. I find it very hard to access my problem and also communicate it. Even as I pen down these thoughts as easily as I breathe, it is really hard for me to make people understand what goes on in my mind. Because of this aberrant behavior, Charlie loses his friends (though only for a brief period). Because of the same behavior, I also have many, many difficult relationships. Sometimes, I feel that I have a very limited circle of people I count on and more importantly who count on me in turn, just because of this nature of mine.

On multiple occasions, I have found myself stepping into other people’s shoes, in the meantime, totally forgetting my own opinions and feelings. The worst part is that I would have somehow realized this too and the result of all this over-analyzing is my aforementioned aberrant behavior, ultimately digging my own grave because of the lack of people to dig it for me.

After all this, you might think now that I know what the problem is and the solution is here too, why am I still in the same pit.
I guess nobody ever knows??