Dear Reader, 

Sometimes I feel like I’m locked in a room of fun-house mirrors and the only way I can stop dissecting myself is if I close my eyes. I loom out in front of myself in odd proportions and angles, and I psychoanalyze everything I see until I’ve descended into a rabbit hole of doubt, denial and existentialism. Nothing is safe from scrutiny; every expression, inflection and social interaction comes under the line of fire: Why did she say that? Why didn’t he reply? Did she sound angry?

I don’t think that my excessive analysis of everything that happens to me — often with an audience (thanks, Riya and Kavin!) — actually clarifies anything. It really only makes me feel momentarily better before the analysis resumes. Honestly, the only concrete answer to my questions that I can hold onto is “I don’t know.”

But I continue to analyze myself anyway — because it feels good. 

It’s exactly this “feel-good” phenomenon that I’m interested in breaking down. There are things around us — institutions, processes, words — in which we invest faith simply because the idea of them makes us feel good. Things that, beyond existing fully in our thoughts, I consider to be illusions. I think that so much of what we see, dear reader, is an illusion because we don’t try to do much more than that. 

In this column, I want to explore these illusions and their inherent irony — for no particular reason except that I think they’re cool. So if you think that I’m not overthinking everything (again), please join me in exposing the Irony. 

Next up: inclusivity marketing. 

Sincerely,

Sraavya