A Shared Delusion: A Prose that Clarifies Clarity

By Gaurav Chandra Tuli -

A prose that clarifies clarity in a society used to the muddle. 


Someone said the other day, “How does he have an explanation for everything?”

He smiled and kept quiet. The truth is known by everyone, at least partially, if not a nuanced understanding. But some push matters under the carpet and pretend nonchalance. Nothing happened worthy of attention. But that doesn’t make the truth any less true. It is hushed over for some time. Until the day it catches fire, and leaves pretense and falsity ablaze. 

Someone said the other day, “Why is she so argumentative? Why do her words cut sharp like scissors do?”

She stopped midway, while cutting through an untested but all-accepted aphoristic claim. She spoke no further. Not because her arguments were personal, emotional, constructed to win, or because she had no more to say, but because it would add no value. One can chop fruits to make them bite-sized and easy to eat. But one cannot cut boulders with scissors the same way. Those boulders can relish the wait until their final explosion dooms above; a fierce strike.  

Someone thought the other day, frowning a contemptuous look, “Don’t overtly reason what retains social comfort. Don’t clarify secretly understood misconceptions. You don’t know that we know. All of us do. But comfort and confirmation are deeply valuable. Pretense makes it possible. So keep quiet and watch the drama of injustice, cruelty, dangerous lies, unfold. Laugh, giggle, make it a point of humour, and later, spread the gossip. But comfort cannot be compromised for.”

Whether we like it or not, we inhabit a shared delusion. What makes it phenomenal is the pretense of ignorance. But behind this garb, we all know. Who wants to initiate action? Who wants to take responsibility? Who wants to see and bring change quietly? Few. But they bring murder. Murder of social comfort. Murder of themselves. So pull them off stage. Throw comments and shut them down. Come back to attend the staged programme where everything’s already known, much like dramatic irony. Precisely, society is structured dramatic irony. You, she, he, they, know it all. Not through foresight but because the very rules to survive the structure normalise knowing, at an unforgivable cost. Pretentious ignorance. A delusion that feels true because it's shared.

Gaurav Chandra Tuli


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