Understanding "Stream of Consciousness" and why I have chosen to write this Blog

Simply put, stream of consciousness is one of the various narrative styles that captures the thoughts of the narrator (here me, the author) in as realistic a way as possible. It generally involves a lot of association of ideas that might go on inside the mind while dealing with the main line of thought, it might include repetition of thought processes at disjointed segments of the narration, and it might even include sensory observations put right in the middle of a sentence that the author might want to convey.

I particularly like stream of consciousness as a narrative style because of its unadulterated rawness. It brings thoughts and ideas unfiltered as they come across in the mind. It delivers the sense of urgency and emotion that the writer often wants to depict.

I concede that most of my posts might not come across as what stream of consciousness truly looks like in the works of authors like Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust or Toni Morrison (read more here - https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-stream-consciousness). But that is what my aim will be - to bring out the thoughts on this page as they came in my mind. In the interest of transparency, I would also like to make it clear that the posts here have not been directly published on this blog but have gone through at least one iteration in my mind. But I will keep trying to preserve the originality of these ideas as they came to me.

I have had a habit of coming back to conversations I've had with people and contemplating on them, what could have I added to make my point come across better, or what I could've said to make my point come across without putting the other person down (in the some cases that I did this). This has made me realise that almost always, people even with extreme views on polarising topics have a point. They usually have a significant reason for taking that stand. But I also have realised that many times what they stand for can be a figment of their imagination fueled by social media's filter bubbles and hatemongering, leading to them becoming self-styled custodians to solve problems both real and imagined.

Hence my aim is to promote civility in conversations, promote varied - and even opposing - views to preserve the journey towards attaining truth. And I am very well aware that that in itself might even be impossible in this postmodern world. "God is dead" said Nietzsche. Perhaps it is, or perhaps it isn't. All I want to convey is that that is not my place to decide. My focus will be on promoting pragmatic conversations (hence any feedback on my posts is very welcome) to enrich the public sphere and promote what democracy is all about - the journey towards the attainment of truth.

It's a worthy goal and I know that. Hence this is just my small attempt to fulfil what I see as my Dharma to work towards a righteous and just Indian (and perhaps even global) society. This is my Article 19(1)(a).