Cassette 1: Life

By Aadya Gupta, B.A. Programme

Design by Nandana

Aren't there times when you want everything to stop? Specifically time. If anyone asks me what superpower I would like, it would probably be to stop time.

We are so lost in this "hustle culture" without realising the things that we have normalized. Apparently, it's "cool" to pack your day or life with so many consecutive tasks that you don't have the time to process things in your life. While agreeing that it can work to some extent in keeping you from falling into the rut of overthinking, don't you think being in a state of constant movement can be taxing?

Imagine your life as a cassette, the tape spinning in loops just like your story. But this time, you've got a pause-and-play button. What would you do—hit pause to savor the moments, or play to see where the track takes you next? If I were asked this question right now at this moment, I would probably say I would like to pause it. The ironic part is that either we want time to stop during our happiest moments or at the moment when we wish to be swallowed down by the earth.

I want it to stop. Not to finish some work I couldn't or for a deadline which keeps on getting delayed but to just sit and think like Descartes was doing for more than half of his life, the only difference between us now is that he became one of the most renowned philosophers, while I’m just a third-year college student, still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. A lot of us fall into this cycle of keeping our minds constantly busy, weighed down by the expectations others place on us—like we're supposed to have a detailed plan for the next 50 years of our lives. But even a record, when played too fast, starts to skip and glitch. Sometimes, we just need to slow down and breathe. So maybe it is just cowardly of me to use the pause switch, or maybe it's the weight of responsibilities weighing me down that led me to feel this way. What would you do? Would you pause it or just let it play?