Conversations with strangers are what give rise to ideas with the absence of a filter. The unfamiliarity bares open your thoughts and even surprises you. It’s not suppression or the inability that plagues your thoughts, or holds them back but perhaps an understanding of the reactions of known vs. unknown surroundings.

Instead of caring for a response, the focus is on the outlet of thoughts and opinions.

While reading a book by Haruki Murakami, I came across a concept which defines subject vs. object. We are always our subjects, and everything else is an object(s) to fulfill our objectives. I know, this literally amounts to the objectification of everything. Even people. But for arguments’ sake, what if this is the key to achieving clarity of goals?

I’m searching what I really want to search and not just what I want. A constant ‘Should I?’ at the end of each of those searches gets added like a takia-kalam. How pathetically critical of me, some would say.

Pivoting back to the conversations with strangers, the moment of ‘you don’t have to look good in any story’ part, there’s so much truth to what flows out. The genuineness of thoughts, ably-helped by what you speak, is an unadulterated symphony which lightens you up.

And when you get that in return, the warmth is comforting and connecting. Ever so slightly, or momentarily you feel elated, of having got through. Or allowing others to get through a passage of opinion visible to you.

Sure, not all filters are bad. Few are critical and necessary for social life to prosper. But it’s always important to bring in conversations with the absence of these in the mix. Intentionally if not seamlessly. The hesitancy to add Question marks at the end of difficult sentences as well as to be able to take similar ones head-on. Not answer which we don’t know, and not ask questions to those who don’t know.

In a life where mortality is a question that looms large, living life should (sometimes) be about finding your path home and not always follow the printed map.