DISENCHANTMENT

 DISENCHANTMENT

 Disenchantment is a term to express human mind/ feeling, especially losing faith or interest or hope on things that were once promising or causing delight or any other positive response to an item or activity or event.

 Intriguing it is, to recognize that mind keeps losing the ‘value’ for things as a function of time. Indeed, it stands peculiar by its shifting / progressive loss of value for reasons not easy to fix by mere ‘reading’ of the item. There is more to one’s own attitude to the same item probably under the influence of ‘taste’ or preference. A few things in life can be recalled to show the ‘play’ of disenchantment; for instance at the early phase of life, items like chocolates or candy or some specific eatables draw our attention and preference to them. The same item may / may not be holding our preference now. Some of these can be dismissed as age-related change in value. Despite advancing age, certain things stay firmly anchored in us and seem to get integrated to us emotionally. While food items may have swinging fortune for enchantment or otherwise, items like friends , adoration of some cine songs/ singers, great respect for  brilliant teachers may stay deeply etched for the rest of our life. We are now at a crucial juncture to unravel why enchantment or disenchantment comes about in human life.

 Enchantment obviously relates itself to delightful experience. Anything that keeps delighting us stays deep rooted for abiding interest. Should such an item or person cause some discomfort by interaction, slowly disenchantment begins; any further loss of sheen or glamour or delight from that item or person is bound to amplify the scale of disenchantment.

 Viewing the undercurrent behind both states of mind reveals one thing. Enchantment or otherwise is not a foregone decision; it can get altered. Such a state of ‘revision’ implies that the disposition is a subject of review; therefore it is a matter of subjective considerations. All subjective items are not items of universal appeal or disapproval.

 Items that have managed near permanent Enchantment are not ‘reviewed’. It shows that a final place has already been won by those items in our perception. We tend to sustain for them   the places of pride we had earlier fixed them at. Also, we do not deem it necessary to reconsider their values, as their ‘values’ are quite dear to us.  Human mind is a vibrant but, structure-less entity of unknown location.

Prof. K. Raman.