IN her book ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’, Harper Lee sprinkles her narrative with such profound yet simple expressions. There an epigrammatic wisdom encapsulated in such statements. This one defines the limit of the so-called spirit of inquiry of the people who live superficially. Not an easy statement to interpret, so to say: People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for. For, it shows how our ability to ‘see’ or ‘hear’ things is so strictly restricted by our thought -- known to us or not known to us. Our eyes fall easily and generally on whatever our mind has previously pondered over, again knowingly or unknowingly. Our ears also catch those sounds with which we have had a mental familiarity and kinship. Familiarity. Kinship. These two words suggest the limitations of our ability to see or sense life and its nuances -- visible or invisible. Clearly, that limitation is in our mind, in the thinking, in the ability to expand the frontiers of our mental and spiritual antennas.

 

So, we see or hear or sense mostly -- ‘generally’ as Harper Lee says -- the familiar. In other words, we sense things with which we have a stated or unstated kinship of sorts. Only the rare explorer or the rare researcher or the rare inquirer pierces through the thin membrane of the inner being and travels away from the caged bird the mind generally is. He -- or she -- then delves or dashes deeper and farther into the zone of the unknown to see and sense things that have never been part of his -- or her -- domain or never been touched by even a hint of the thought or idea or sight or sound ...! Beyond that rarified zone of exploration, most common people exist -- as Harper Lee rightly suggests. In this zone of ours, that is commoners that are apart from the exploring ones, what is seen or sensed is generally with which we are familiar or have a kinship of any sort. In other words, thus, the common human thought often keeps moving in circles of limited human experience -- that we talk of as something limitless. That actually may be a misnomer, so to say. True, human race has progressed tremendously -- far beyond the ordinary.

 

Despite this, however, we must recognise that the circle of common human thought and action keeps moving in a limited sphere and only rarely bumps into or onto something truly beyond the confines of normal experience. To many of us, this may be confusing. But thinking deeply about this part may lead us to recognise the strange disadvantage of the silent, secret familiarity within whose circle we move. Very rarely do we pick up courage to breach that circle of common experience -- or comfort zone, so to say! Thinking deeply about this limitation should actually make us feel rather uncomfortable with ourselves. Many of us sense that distant inner discomfort, too. Yet, only a rare breed among us has the courage to acknowledge that frailty that lords over our inner beings.