Punctuations of Life is a journey, which though has a proper beginning and an unexpected and untimely end, is a perfect labyrinth. A labyrinth of relationships, expression; a labyrinth of hard work, success; a labyrinth of cause, effect, logic, and at last a labyrinth of self-consciousness and love for the materialistic world. We strive to survive through words, sounds, languages, love, and affection. I will not forget to mention that the last one is rarely found today.
The punctuation of the English language can also be defined as a labyrinth of life, a quicksand in which we live from the day we adieu our childhood and sense the real world. It seems to be a humoristic approach to relate life with English punctuation, but where a common man stops thinking is the venue of a creative mind that starts his reception of imagination.
Let’s begin with an interesting punctuation of life, A Question mark?
Who are You?
What is the purpose of your birth?
Which religion will you get after five minutes of your birth?
You are a human child just for the counted minutes till you are sealed with a name, that magically transforms you into A Hindu, A Muslim, A Christian, or the other divisions that we created with all technical, spiritual, religious, and philosophical aspects.
Who is the Grand Master behind all these births and deaths?
What is soul? Where does it go after cremation?
What should I do?
What should I eat?
Whom to love?
How Much to Love? Yes, even love has a pre-defined quantity in this materialistic world.
Rather than living an artificial life with the burden of Religion, Relation, and Reality, we are stuck in the What? Where? Why? When? Who? Which? And How?
All with the same punctuation…A Question Mark?
The next in line is a Quotation Mark “ ”
Everyone makes his/her priorities. We set our priorities, we change our priorities, and sometimes we even do not know about our priorities. All the special garbage which we collect is accumulated in these two “ ” quotation marks. And for our comfort, they are two in number so that the things within, may not move away.
Though we change our priorities on the contrary, we also do not wish them to move away from the artificial grip of a quotation mark. We keep on adding items such as relations, people, friends, loved ones, and even those who are to be neglected. We fill this area of a quotation mark so much that one day it explodes and asks you “Do you know my meaning?” again with a quotation mark accompanied by a question mark.
Let’s talk about a Bracket ( )
The Brackets [ { ( ) } ]
Here starts the real work of our next punctuation, Yes a bracket, we are so used to hiding things that sometimes I think we got it in our genes from Adam and Eve.
All the “to be taken care of” things that exploded from a “ ” quotation mark are now fit into a bracket, it’s funny that we put things into a bracket and assume that a reader should not read it (that’s the purpose of a bracket). I believe in every path of our life we make brackets. For a job, taste, feelings, and sometimes even for love. We are forced to stop the unstoppable and we keep on adding brackets to life because English gave us more cousins of the same breed { [ ( ) ] } then we tap our backs in the world of our brackets announcing “Now where will you go ?”.
Tumbling towards Comma
We are the ones who create, we also can destroy, but man became so indulged in the activity of creation that he finally became… Creative and declared himself a synonym for God. The demand was less and the supply was more. Finally, we invented the word ‘Option’. We need options and substitutes in every nook and corner of life, whether it is earning money, filling your stomach, Marriage, or even worshipping a God. We then begin to use commas.
I have this, this, and this…
I need this, this, and this…
This suits me, this doesn’t, let’s try the other one.
Even the heartbeats in an ECG report are separated with commas; these are the healthy ones, and these are the weak ones.
Did you forget the Exclamatory
A very interesting punctuation is called exclamatory. We are always taught to expect the unexpected, not see the near profits but always calculate the future losses was a notion very first taught as we enter the supermarket of reality, But humans are so busy in the brackets, commas, and question marks. That the exclamatory comes up with its full intensity.
Ahh! I never expected it.
Oh! I am sorry for it.
What! is it real?
No! You cannot do this to me.
All, that is left after this expression either is followed by a comma or thrown back into the world in a bracket.
Here comes the complicated one, The Ellipsis …
We begin to work, to speak, to think, to love, but we never begin to accomplish, to fulfill, to satisfy. Many things are ended before they begin, many begin to end, and many end; for a new beginning. But those who leave and evaporate from the lake filled with the droplets of interest are the ones preceded to this punctuation ‘ellipses’ with the invisible tag “to be continued.”
Either we are not capable of finishing it or the supply of a comma and its options has replaced the things we began. It is mostly used while juggling the balls of life, where due to reason or season we put an ellipsis and leave it with an invisible question mark, May? Or May not? And crown it with the imagination of the next person.
Full Stop. The most meaningful one
Full, with the sense of completion, and stop with the sense of Finish.
We began our life with a question mark.
Made priorities with a quotation mark “ “
Stuffed our bags with a bracket ( )
Jumped to another boat through a comma,
Expressed ourselves with an exclamatory mark!
Left things in the pathway with an ellipsis …
And the entire story which began with the first cry of a baby, till the last tears dropped for you, ends with a full stop. Life may not give you a chance to use your favorite punctuation, we are addicted to the lust of using a full stop and end everything. Yes, there is a full stop waiting for all of us, and we are busy playing with comfortable and favorable punctuation.
The day we wisely use them, they will disguise into Ornaments of Dawn rather than Punctuation of the Dusk . . .
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