INTRICACY OF BEING: BOUNDARIES AND BEYOND

Eons ago this world came into being an apocalyptic evolution; later the human race ruled the planet changing and molding it into towns and creating boundaries; keeping others of the same kind out and binding themselves into a solitude of pride. Nationalism is the name given to these boundaries, differentiating people on the basis of land expanses and cultures and ways of living. Nationalism is the sense of oneness against that of the otherness that threatens change and encroachment; it is the sense of security, community and belonging. Humans by nature are social animals longing for companionship and a home and nationalism is the sense of knowing their home and an emphasis on their identity and duty towards their nation. A tree can survive only if it holds firm to its roots and origins. In a wider space of the world at large, nationalism is an individual’s grasp on their identity; it's the sense of knowing and belonging, it’s an individual’s hold on their own identity. The grasp that an individual holds on this sense of belonging can become consuming and caging, trapping them in an elaborate web of self-righteousness, spun by those in power. Nationalism takes the form of a rigid normative and oftentimes suffocating structure rather than being a subjective art form painted with the brushes of history with the colors of the present to represent the strokes of the future. A tree which holds only to its origins dies of self- suffocation like a sapling curled into its seed refusing to come out.