Do you believe that you’re ‘normal’? Are these creatures around you ‘normal’? Have you ever wondered why your eyes are in that almond-like shape instead of a square? Why we all are made of curves and not straight lines? Why this huge populace of curved creatures is so obsessed with the straightness of every line that passes by them? Why everything is so ordinary?
In a world with infinite permutations and combinations, we are all looking for common ground with those around us, to hide among the many normalcies of life. That’s what makes that spark in your presently almond-shaped eye pop out when you meet someone with the same perspective as you. All of a sudden your window has a neighbour and its inhabitant is looking at the same view as you. What if there’s another window facing yours? Is it ‘normal’ or are you?
Everyone thinks differently, sees differently, and feels differently about everything. I can proudly call myself a flat-earther. That means if you annoy me a little too much I will drag you to the edge of my flat world at sword point and gladly push you off the plank while I laugh with an eye patch and a fake peg attached to one of my feet.My flat world isn’t constantly rotating trying to win over time, getting absorbed in whatever the next “big issue” is, not noticing the ant it just stepped on while running to work or the beautiful clouds that decided to decorate the sky today.
This round world chooses to look through the made-up windows that it holds in its palm’s grasp. If the world was reduced to a coin with only two sides to look at, then why are there seven colours hiding within a white beam of light? If there can be infinite hues and tones for each colour, why should each colour mean the same to everybody? Then, why should I believe that your blue is my blue?
“When you’re a kid, you colour with reckless abandon. You colour outside the lines. You colour however you feel. Blue elephants, purple trees, green oceans – it’s all good. As you get older, though, everyone tells you to stay inside the lines, to colour everything just like you see it. You end up painting by numbers – whether you actually paint or whether you write or sing or dance or act or create. I think you should create what you feel. Create outside the lines. I want to watch green oceans and red bears. I’d love to listen to purple trees. And I long to read blue elephants.”
-WRDSMTH
It’s been almost a year’s worth of Courtyard issues where we have stuck to the ordinary ways of viewing this newsletter. There have been small changes but the window has always remained the same. So we decided that it’s about time we changed the view and the colours that it showed us. But just one wouldn’t suffice for an issue that is this special to us. Hence, we’ve given you six of them. And honestly, I quite prefer square eyes; they’re much easier to draw. Does that make me ab-‘normal’?
-Adithi Srinivas
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