I look around and find that I am not the only one. The Calvin loving Hobbes exploring generation, that I thought would outgrow its “childish” ways and matured into responsible individuals settled down into the respective places they have found for themselves as Cogs in the wheel of the society, is still all around me. Shifting in their chairs, kicking beneath their desks while typing away furiously and being productive without getting engaged /indulged in the work they do. They toss, twist and turn in their sleep every night for two thoughts keep pulling them in opposite directions. The need to satiate the child in them. And the laziness erupting from the thought of going back in the morning to the mundane routine of professional life. Every night when they sit on their bean bags with a scotch on rocks next to them and the PlayStation console in their hand they do recognize that these amenities for massaging the child ego in them come from the same jobs where they sit, kick, scream and “belong”. But how far would they go to belong is a question all these Calvins, riding the sleds of their childish egos, ask the Hobbes in them everyday.
I was reading an article recently, sent to me by a dear friend of mine and a fellow Calvinite, where Calvin has grown up and has “belonged” but Hobbes is nowhere to be seen. The author has written this article as Calvin in first person and is talking about how he helps his kid find his Hobbes and in turn rediscovers the connections he had with his Hobbes earlier. The article made me wonder if its better to stay on, hold on, Velcro stick on to your Hobbes all through your life or to let go of it to ensure you fit, belong, mature, acquire responsibilities and then rediscover the Hobbes in you. The questions that grapple me in the second possibility are about the health of the relationship between you and your Hobbes after a really long gap. Just like two good friends who lose touch for a really long time and get together only to become better acquaintances.
Would you be able to communicate your deepest innermost thoughts with your Hobbes or merely be able to find a comforting fur belly to lie on. Not someone who can say, “Boy! And that has been fairly easy task for you” with a sarcasm when you say “I have been a good boy... all this morning”. To me the dichotomy is not so dichotomous in a flexible individual based TTMM society but fairly uphill a task in a society where the tightness of it all renders you helpless. And you begin to “BELONG”.
