Avatar: An Incarnation, Embodiment of a Character, or an Idea - Hindi
Shifting between different states of existence, ordinary people with extraordinary avatars
Etymology: The Sanskrit noun avatāra. Ava (down) + tr (to cross over)
When I think about our existence, I feel immersed in a complex mathematical universe.
I became who I am now as a result of a series of choices made in each second of measurable time. One of my father's millions of sperm reached one of my mother's egg cells, and fertilization took place. It might not have happened, that was also a possibility. After fertilization, on some level, it became clear what traits I would inherit. For example, what would be the color and shape of my hair? It was determined to be straight and auburn. My personality was decided. I ended up being calm, introverted, curious, ambitious, determined, stubborn, touchy, timid, a procrastinator, extremely bad at practical things but very good at theoretical ones, and a million other traits.
Even if we leave hereditary traits aside, the choices I made at every decision step after I was born, the choices I could have made if I had selected one of the ones I didn't choose—all of these open up millions of life possibilities. My mind cannot manage to cope with such an extemely complex picture. If we include hypotheses about the existence of our parallel lives in the quantum world, the picture widens as infinite; we won't even get there.
I could have been millions of other people, for better or for worse. I could have been a killer, a professor, a surfer, or a circus performer. The more I think about it, the more curiosity fills me. The vault of time is full of seconds; if only it were possible to experience all the possibilities of life for one second at a time. However, if you have a turbulent emotional structure like mine (turbulent in addition to being an INFJ according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), you have the opportunity of getting a taste of everything even in the present state. In this scenario, instead of whining about my volatility, I should be happy for it.
Avatar, in Hindi, means the physical bodies that our souls take on when they descend to the earth. It is actually a concept in Hinduism, thus it has religious roots, but avatar has already become a phenomenon that transcends religious boundaries. It is now a concept used in games, social media channels and even in cinema. While it is obvious who we are in the real world, the avatar is what allows us to be whatever we choose in virtual worlds. We can choose one of the millions of possible existences thanks to it, at least in a game; we can be someone else. It can be anything we want it to be. An incredible power.
To me, this is what makes the world a really interesting place: ordinary people with extraordinary avatars.
We shift between avatars as we exist in the world. Since we were born, our look has changed; our hair has grown shorter or longer, and we can wear any color we desire. With sunburned skin, we can darken. We get older. Our faces take on permanent attitudes depending on whether we are unhappy or happy, pessimistic or optimistic—deep wrinkles between the brows or laugh lines on either side of our lips. We can be either overweight or slim.
Our inner world changes even faster. Because, above all, we have various roles. Our role as a mother, our role as a sister, our role as a daughter, our role at work, and our role as a wife. Then, we have our interests; we are coffee addicts, art lovers, tennis players, rowers, writers, natural life enthusiasts, vegans, and travelers. Add to this our character traits, and we live in a world with avatars that change every day according to where we are and the role we play.
A man who works as a postman by day and a serial killer by night, or the fantastical private life of a housewife who is supposed to cook at home. Avatars who do the right things, who are consistent and reliable, and those who are secretive and dangerous, who are not afraid to go hunting in dark waters, are brothers and sisters side by side, like Cain and Abel. Don't think that they are far away; they are in our bodies, inside us. The good and the bad, the angel and the devil—we can see them all if we turn our heads a little; they can draw us to them at any moment. The murderer and the policeman, the thief and the honorable, the shameless and the innocent—they are all within us.
Our avatars, hand in hand, have been with us since birth, on the thin and long road to death. Some come close to us, and some move away, depending on the choices we make. Every day, they all change.
Notes & Reads:
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig is about a woman, Nora Seed, who is extremely unhappy of her present life and the choices she has made throughout her life. Nora has the opportunity to experience some of the possible lives she could have lived based on the changes of her decisions. I won’t reveal the story to the end, but I could say that it results in a natural and inevitable final.
Persona, the Emmy-winning series, is a fantastic example of an ordinary man who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and, knowing that he would lose his memory soon, decides to become a serial killer. The case of an average man with extraordinary character is an excellent example of this. It's a must-see.
I wish everyone a nice, with a higher awareness of your daily avatars, hopefully optimistic ones.
Till next week,
— Gulsun
Thank you for taking the time to accompany me in the story of a new word. Every word of the world’s languages is also ours, belonging to humanity while giving us an essence of the culture in which it was rooted.
We are made of stories—that is, of words.