Onism

(n). the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time […] (Source: The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows)

By the time we enter primary school, we’ve heard all about the planets in our Solar System. As we grow older, we learn that the Solar System is just a speck in the Milky Way Galaxy, and that there are thousands of galaxies out there, peppering our universe with their glow and might. The celestial mysteries that beckon to us are countless, but we resign ourselves to the fact that they’re limited to computer screens and observatories. We accept the fact that the stars are too faraway to take seriously, that Jupiter has a turbulent red spot over twice the size of our planet, that the moon will always be a distant relative.

So instead, we look around… at how far the horizon is and how dauntingly it encircles us. That that circle is just a fleck of life, dotted on the surface of the earth. We think about the number of adventures we could be having, the divergent memories we could be creating, the new people we could be meeting—within the ring that encircles us. When I look out of my balcony, I see an amalgam of towering apartments, faded villas, huts with thatched roofs, green trees beside spires of concrete, people scuttling about from task to task. When I walk on the streets, I see the incredible number of markets, parlours, stalls, parks, and cinemas. Places I would love to visit, and whose ambience I would want to inhale… but there are only twenty-four hours in a day, and seven days in a week. I have only one body, although my mind wishes I had ten.

The world becomes even more intriguing once we extricate ourselves from that ring. For all around us, there are mountains and slopes waiting to be climbed, fields of snow waiting to be shaped into spheres and thrown, peaks that are craving to be mounted. There are oceans with shadowy depths, beautiful creatures, and fish that we still don’t know exist. There are villages waiting to be visited, whose culture is unlike anything we’ve ever witnessed. There are waterfalls, rainforests, and glaciers still unknown to the human mind, foreign sunshine that is waiting to infuse itself into our bloodstreams, caves that yawn adrenaline and excitement. There are airplanes, trains, cars, bicycles, and our own two feet. So what’s stopping us?

The limitations that confine us. The lack of time, money, and flexibility in our schedules. The fact that the seconds keep ticking by, that so much of our time goes in useless endeavours we’ll never remember. And the reality that we can’t be in two places at once. The fact that our two feet are rooted in the same place, that there are millions of places we could be in right now—but we’re always forced to choose one. That when we’re at an airport, we have only one destination to go to—while the other cities flicker like candlelight on a windy afternoon. When we’re driving in a car, there are thousands of alternate routes we could take. And yet, we don’t—because we believe that we’re not meant to deviate from our predetermined routine. In other words, we are unknowingly ensnared.

Onism. The frustration of knowing how little of the universe we’ll be able to appreciate; the impatience of seeing the stars twinkling at night, as if mocking our inability to escape the ground. But somehow, it only makes us dream more. Our inability to traverse the Solar System makes us imagine; it makes us envisage a universe that is probably more beautiful and romantic than what it really is. It’s what inspires us to make movies, to paint pictures, to write poetry and fictional tales. It forces us to create a vision of what the rest of the world is like—a world that then becomes unique and powerful in our eyes. And after all, given the turmoil that stalks a huge portion of the globe, what’s the harm in fashioning our own world? What’s the harm in dreaming?