This is something that is scientifically enriching as it gives validity to the Theory of Relativity of Einstein where he claimed that huge masses curve space through their gravity and hence also dilate time as we know it. Imagine a heavy ball placed at the center of a piece of cloth. The weight of the ball is going to warp the space around it and make the cloth curve towards its bottom center. If a light as wave was travelling parallel to the surface of the cloth as it would normally do, it would be now curved and travel a greater distance bypassing the ball. So an observant on the other side might receive the light ray later than he could have if the surface was not warped. So an increase in time or a dilation. Although I have very limited knowledge of the matter and I present it as I understand it, my aim for the article is not to delve into the pedantic of the phenomena but draw a parallel in our socio-political life.

         The fact that huge masses can warp space and black holes can capture light tells me that the absoluteness of things are only a reality in small and un-warped spaces. Something that gives precedence to post modernism and subjectivity found profoundly in the Abstract Expressionist art. A civilization by its sheer weight of existence has always warped the fabric of culture and society and given us understanding of how emotions are to be felt and understood. Degrees of freedom and expression are all the spaces warped by the cultural heavy-weight of a civilization. Emanuel Kant has consciously mentioned about our limitation to understand extra-terrestrial realities and has been carefully censured through the ideology that to know that we have a limit is to know that there is something beyond the limit. To know that I have travelled only halfway is to know that there is an equal distance left. But limitation of knowledge presumes an end point that is not in sight, again only present conspicuously by its absence.  How far we are from truth question presupposes that we know where the truth is, which is not always the case.

   Reality, truth and lies are those massive things which have and will distort time and space and we will get to know which is which only when the light has finally travelled to us. Distance is an important factor astronomically as the sky we see at night does not really exist in real time but is just a memory that has travelled millions of kilometer to give us the assumption that it does and we are not a bit hesitant in assuming that it is the reality. We are mostly looking at the thing that has ceases to exist before we realize. To draw a parallel in our private lives, in our love affairs, I would like to assume that a couple r a set of lovers are nothing but two stars hanging and revolving endlessly in a dark space of emotions, producing and reflecting warmth through affection. But as the universe is expanding, the space between the duo most often than not, expands and creates emotional distance. Some term it as comfort zone. A space where we know the intensity of heat the other star is capable of producing.

        This growing space creates an illusion of past emotional stability and if one of them is not observant enough, the light from the other might come as a memory of distance past while the upheaval in the star in real time will be an understanding of future. The other star might even have collapsed ages ago but the distance is so huge between the two stars now that the death of emotions are only perceived ages later when it is already too late. Very rarely it happens that the stars with time grow such healthy emotion positive-ness that they warp the expanding space and pulling each other closer and reducing the distance in real time. This is a proactive thing. It is not going to happen passively and probably this is what is termed in the relationship sphere as “Putting in efforts”.

   This analogy is not limited to an external affair alone. This can be extrapolated to internal affairs as well. Looking at yourself from a third person perspective we can see that the “we” that we see in real time and the “we” that we thought that we would be are also like two stars around in the space of time.

     We all have had a desire of how the future should unravel itself and how we would be in certain relation with self and society. This idea of self and the reality of self are those two massive stars. But the dynamics don’t remain the same as they were when we began. Either the self that I assumed is closer to the self that I am or I am not what I thought I am. This is not a standalone issue. Society, culture, civilization, self are quite obviously involved. Self, we can see, but the rest are only present conspicuously by their absence. This gap will grow with time unless I assert myself with the ideologies that I think are conducive for reducing the distance and stemming the expansion.

           Great personalities around the world have created this huge self-masses of their existence finding an equilibrium between what they think they are and what they actually are and this equilibrium is something that will let you know about your internal self in real time and not make you collapsed star which will get noticed ages later when all the light inside you will go missing in the huge black hole of emotions.   

Paintings: Google; (From the "Aaramb" show of Syed Haider Raza)

Content copyright @dabblerscribbles (Abhishek Kumar) 

Disclaimer: All views expressed are personal.